Mark Zip Poop 09 | PoOPlist

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Major Lazer – Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do
A collaboration between Diplo and Switch and a whole bunch of others (Nina Sky, Ricky Blaze, Prince Zimboo). This was my favourite by far this year. A completely mad mix of Jamaican dancehall, techno, cheese, judiciously applied Auto-tune (yes, yes, I know, I know) and other assorted flotsam and jetsam of dance music from the last 5 years. Diplo has been at the top of the game for the last five years at least here he combines it all into something which is as much a statement of the times as it is a statement of the intent to have a good time.

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God Help The Girl – God Help The Girl
Stuart from Belle and Sebastian, Neil from Divine Comedy and a host of female singers make music for a musical film which has yet to be filmed. The characters come to life through melodies which would be as at home in the Music Hall as on CD.

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Duckworth Lewis Method – Duckworth Lewis Method
Neil Hannon (divine comedy) Thomas Walsh (Pugwash) make what must be the first cricket-pop album. One song Jiggery Pokery, even describes one single, particularly famous, ball. “The Duckworth Lewis Method is an album steeped in the love of cricket and pop. The resultant twelve songs are a cacophony of leather and willow turning through a cosmos of searing melodies and all round tunes” says Duckworth in his post match interview.

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Neko Case – Middle Cyclone

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Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career

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Florence & The Machine – Lungs

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XX – XX

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A Sunny Day In Glasgow – Ashes Grammar

Passion Pit - Manners Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Passion Pit – Manners (my fave of all the powerful falsetto singers this year)

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Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

Madness - The Liberty of Norton Folgate Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Madness – The Liberty of Norton Folgate

Micachu & The Shapes – Jewellery Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Micachu & The Shapes – Jewellery

Bat For Lashes – Two Suns Buy New or Used through amazon
Bat For Lashes – Two Suns

Gogol Bordelo – Live from Axis Mundi Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Gogol Bordelo – Live from Axis Mundi (CD + DVD)

Hudson Mohawke - Butter Buy New or Used through amazon
Hudson Mohawke – Butter
This might just be the strangest record I listened to this year. It has an R&B flavour, with a bunch of guest vocalists. And it has oddly retro synths. And then it has this weird abstract electronic shit all over it too. And I still can’t decide if it’s all the most pretentious bollocks or a profound new direction. Do I really have to decide? Really?

Humanizing the Robots section:

La Roux - La Roux Buy New or Used through amazon
La Roux – La Roux
Yes, it’s a throwback. And yes, if you lived through Yaz(oo) or BEF, you will hear echoes of synth pop all over the place. But check the Skream remix of “In for the Kill” and you’ll hear the whole CD differently the next time.

Little Boots Buy New or Used through amazon

Little Boots – Hands

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Pet Shop Boys – Very (Special Edition)

Armchair Traveler section:

Oumou Sangare – Seya Buy New or Used through amazon
Oumou Sangare – Seya

Various Artists - Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro Sounds & Ghanaian Blues 1968-91 Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Various Artists – Ghana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro Sounds & Ghanaian Blues 1968-91

Keletigui Et Ses Tambourinis - The Syliphone Years Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Keletigui Et Ses Tambourinis – The Syliphone Years

Blk Jks - After Robots Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Blk Jks – After Robots

Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa

V.A. - Marvellous Boy: Calypso from West Africa Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
V.A. – Marvellous Boy: Calypso from West Africa

Staff Benda Bilili - Tres Tres Fort Buy New or Used from amazon OR @ eMusic
Staff Benda Bilili – Tres Tres Fort

DJs and stuff section:

Rusko
He first came to our attention in 2004, but over the last 12 months this has been the single gnarliest producer on the dubstep scene (Skream is a close second). Some have accused him of being too obvious, not subtle enough and “a fratboy of the underground”. But when those enormous squelching sounds kick in I feel better. Much better. What’s next? Dunno, but it’s bound to be heavy.

Caspa – Everybody's Talking, Nobody's Listening Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Caspa – Everybody’s Talking, Nobody’s Listening
Rusko’s sometime spinning partner, Caspa plumbs similar depths. Sometimes, however, he lines the edge of the sub bass with just a touch of twisted prettiness. Heads explode.

BBC
Annie Mac – Radio 1 Swindon Big Weekend Essential Mix
Annie Mac played the first hour of this six hour Essential mix (which also included sets from 2 Many DJs, Pete Tong, Erol Alkan, Plump DJs) and blew the place up. In her regular radio shows (“The Official Start to the Weekend!!”) she often goes for more cheese than we might like, but on this one she went in for some very fierce dubstep too. Deadmau5, La Roux and Streets remixes were great. There’s a playlist on the pooplist site and You can hear all the tracks here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4A3B17DEC2F09759

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VA – Mary Anne Hobbs Presents Wild Angels (Planet Mu)
These days her Radio 1 show is pretty much the clearing house for underground electronic music from around the world. As the dubstep she championed a few years ago moves into the mainstream, her show seems to be moving towards the abstract. Some recent tracks and exclusives from the Planet Mu label are on here.

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Toddla T – Skanky Skanky
His CD had some fun tracks on it, mostly brash reggaefied big beat type stuff. As a DJ though, he goes further afield than that and has some guest mixers on his series. Oh, and he introduced me to Prince Zimboo’s “Love Diareha” (sic)

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Dizzy Rascal (w/ Armand van Helden) – Bonkers
This maddeningly effective slice of noise, beats and simple rhymes got to number one in the UK for god knows how many weeks. If you were to hear the noisy part of the song in isolation you might think that it came from Einsturzende Neubaten’s Habler Mensch

Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo
Strays a little too close to new age flim flammery at times, but there is something here…Something deep and propulsive and outside (also the best artist name of the year)

Chase & Status - More than Alot Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic
Chase & Status – More than Alot (2008)
This CD is mostly pretty regular (if noisy) drum & bass. But it yielded tunes which received remixes throughout this year (Saxon, Eastern Jam). The duo also contributed fine remixes to others’ projects in 2009. A new EP (presumably dubstep oriented) is due early 2010.

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VA – 5: Five Years of Hyperdub
2 discs and 32 tracks of dubstep evolution. Many of the big names are here (Kode9, Burial, The Bug, Flying Lotus), but there are a many, many lesser known gems here too. A good introduction to what is one of the fastest moving, most innovative music scenes on the planet.