This year was really difficult. Finally Plaid’s ‘Scintilli’ fascinated me the most. It was no love at first sight but ‘Scintilli’ grows with its rather dark but crazy tunes and tasty beats. See also my post from August 2011.
Here are the runners-up:
The Fear Ratio – Light Box
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
Zomby – Dedication
Modeselektor – Monkeytown
Many other excellent albums, just to name a few which I enjoyed very much as well: Roll The Dice, The Block Dog, Walls, Tropics etc.
A good year for electronic music, superb albums, EP’s, singles etc. with a lot of excellent tracks. Here are my ten favourite tracks of 2011:
Plaid – Sömnl (from Scintilli)
Modeselektor – Blue Clouds (from Monkeytown)
M83 – Another Wave From You (from Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming)
The Black Dog – Reverse Dorian Grey (bonus track from Liber Dogma)
Apparat – Ash Black Veil (from The Devil’s Walk)
Zomby – Mozaik (from Dedication)
Roll The Dice – Maelstrom (from In Dust)
The Fear Ratio – Morning Blues (Plaid Remix from Light Box)
Tropics – Figures (from Parodia Flare)
Solar Bears – Cub (Keep Shelly In Athens Remix from Campus Martius E.P.)
Two Planet Mu EP’s are my December recommendations. It’s ‘Keep Shelly In Athens’ with the wonderful ‘Campus Martius’ EP and one of my Planet Mu favourites ‘Ital Tek’ with ‘Gonga’.
Liber Dogma is a series of releases by The migty Black Dog containing a set of three superb EP’s, a full album release and a mix EP. The highlight of course is the Liber Dogma album, even though I like the EP tracks very much. ‘Heavy Industry’ from the Liber Temple EP and ‘Dissident Bleep’ from Liber Nox EP are awesome tracks of dark and dirty Techno.
The full lenght is a very decent and progressive Techno album with tracks like ‘The Black Maria’ or ‘Reverse Dorian Grey’ (bonus track on the digital release) to be listened loud, very loud on your headphones. It feels like back in the 90’s enjoying the beats in some underground techno clubs or illegal parties in caves or old factory buildings with cold smoke, strobe lights and camouflage nets.
The series ends with a remix EP and …oh my god… it contains a mix of Richard H.Kirk. Two of my all-time favorites in collaboration. Well, it just can’t get any better.
Ahhh…this is very nice mix. Though, I haven’t got the complete tracklist to tell you more about. The final track is ‘Out Of Phase’ by Proem (superb track – listen and watch the full track here). Any idea about the other tracks?
Available to stream or download in the next three weeks. Use the download arrow on the Soundcloud bar to save your copy. After that the mix will be available on various file sharing platforms I suppose.
Moderat, the +spatze.com record of the year 2009 was a collaborative work from Modeselektor and Sascha Ring, the guy behind Apparat. With the release of Apparat’s excellent DJ Kicks mix album I realised that I know the guy from the remarkable cover picture somehow. Well, my mate then told me that he is from our both beautiful but very small hometown Quedlinburg. I truly have seen him a few times at the KuZ Reichenstrasse – when he wasn’t famous. Sascha, your new album is real QL-Beat, you know what I mean.
‘The Devil’s Walk’ is full of wonderful moments and sounds which remind me a lot to Thom Yorke’s ‘Eraser’ – also from the voice. I am not saying this only because he’s from my hometown, this really is a nice piece of work and you will enjoy it. I will get the chance to see him performing live in Frankfurt on 02/11 at Mousonturm.
I hope this concert will be something like in this amazing session on Youtube when he plays Ash/Black Veil from the new album:
Much anticipated follow-up to 2008’s sensational ‘Saturdays=Youth’ which consequently became the +spatze.com record of the year. M83 aka Anthony Gonzalez is my favourite electronic shoegazer so expectations on ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’ were high.
Whilst ‘Midnight City’ and ‘Reunion’ are more-less continuations of ‘Saturday=Youth’ is ‘This Bright Flash’ a typical ‘Before The Dawn Heals Us’ track. And ‘Where The Boats Go’ and ‘Another Wave From You’ could have been part of ‘Digital Shades Vol.2′ (I hope it will be released some time).
Gonzalez’ high and rather thin voice is very present and disturbing at the beginning but then fitting to the concept and atmosphere of the album. The 80’s are everywhere. ‘Claudia Lewis’ and ‘Klaus I Love You’ have this 80’s bass lines and percussions sounding like the Miami Vice opening theme.
‘Raconte-Moi Une Historie’ has even reminiscencesto the wonderful Lemon Jelly. It’s a sophisticated pop album and definitely one of the best albums this year – highly recommended.
Tracklist:
CD1
01. Intro (feat. Zola Jesus)
02. Midnight City
03. Reunion
04. Where the Boats Go
05. Wait
06. Raconte-Moi Histoire
07. Train to Pluton
08. Claudia Lewis
09. This Bright Flash
10. When Will You Come Home?
11. Soon, My Friend
CD2
01. My Tears Are Becoming a Sea
02. New Map
03. OK Pal
04. Another Wave from You
05. Splendor
06. Year One, One UFO
07. Fountains
08. Steve McQueen
09. Echoes of Mine
10. Klaus I Love You
11. Outro
This is the reissue of the ‘Instrumental Mixtape’ self-release from Clams Casino. Released on deluxe vinyl through Type Records. After the fantastic Rainforest EP (reviewed in June) this is a must-have for vinyl lovers. If already sold-out listen here:
