Benny Bunter
Well-known member
saving my breath and some brain cells with some cut n paste Tim Finney science (general pertinent jackin points put in bold my me)
3. Nick Hannam & Tom Garnett ft. Tom Zanetti - You Want Me
The grace of simplicity: no tune in 2012 prowled so persuasively as "You Want Me", its tick-tock snare/hi-hat pattern, rustling percussive coughs and owl hoot synth hooks taking their own sweet time to get where they're going, which is basically nowhere. If there was one tune that could conceivably stretch on for hours and never seem to get tired it's this one (ironically, for much of the year I was stuck with an edit lasting less than three minutes). I can understand why many listeners find it difficult to see much to treasure in jackin's darkly humorous economy of expression, its deliberately exaggerated demonstrations of reserve always interspersed with displays of such gross lack of subtlety that even reserve's typical compensation (that sense of classiness that hangs like a pall over much of the most celebrated dance music in 2012) is forever denied. But really there's no excuse with "You Want Me", which applies this mixture to a pop template with remarkable aplomb and perfect execution: everything from the dead-eyed Shola Ama interpolation vocals (not even in the same galaxy as post-dubstep's glut of R&B cut-ups) to Tom Zanetti's springloaded MC verses ("Okay then / watch what I say then / if you like champagne swing my way then") filled with jackin's characteristic worldly joie de vivre, a celebration of a life in which nothing is ever at stake except the compulsive pursuit of gratification.
10. Donkie Punch & Lorenzo - Snapbacks N Tattoos
For some reason I class Driicky Graham's original "Snapbacks & Tattoos" with Kanye/2 Chainz/etc.'s "Mercy", and though perhaps no one else agrees I reckon it's a on a similar level of "pretty great", really what's not to like about its mutating production and constant lock on hooks, like if you try to tell me you don't nod your head to the slow-mo stutter snares and decaying isotope synths on "uh, show off your hats, show off your tatts..." I'm going to just ignore you for a minute. Still, to my mind it now largely exists as an adjunct to Donkie Punch and Lorenzo's amazing jackin' rework, perhaps the consummate display of Lorenzo's ongoing project of absorbing everything good about the last twenty years of music into his elastic jackin' framework (this may be giving Donkie Punch too short-shrift, but Lorenzo's magic fingers were all over so many amazing jackin' tracks this year that the conclusion he is the secret genius here is almost irresistible). Jackin' is really "endpoint" music, though not in the way that most people mean when they apply that term to dance music - it's not stentorian in its minimalism like Plastikman or replete with subtlety like whatever feted deep house you were listening to this year. Instead, jackin' offers up a kind of science of mainstream dance maneuvers, all those too-familiar riffs and tricks now wielded with an intensified awareness of their operation - combining an artisan's practiced ease with an almost naive reinvestment in the sound of these sounds. On "Snapbacks N Tattoos" you hear it in the tinny reticular snare patterns, the clipped drum roll samples, the gleefulness of the bass deployments, all pushed into super high-contrast such that every sound brims with purpose and portent. I suspect jackin's strong affinity for current rap - never more obvious than here - stems in part from it sharing a similar relation to the constant evolution of the house beat as rap does to its own endless reinvention of rhythm (mannie fresh to lil' jon to lex luger to mike will, and so on); it's an affinity of spirit rather than strict sound that makes jackin much more interesting and compulsive (from any perspective you care to name) than dance producers making "trap" ever could be. And so it's hardly surprising that when "Snapbacks N Tattoos" suddenly veers into its own pseudo-trap breakdown the result manages to surpass even the original's superlative production.
Original thread here http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=94835#unread
3. Nick Hannam & Tom Garnett ft. Tom Zanetti - You Want Me
The grace of simplicity: no tune in 2012 prowled so persuasively as "You Want Me", its tick-tock snare/hi-hat pattern, rustling percussive coughs and owl hoot synth hooks taking their own sweet time to get where they're going, which is basically nowhere. If there was one tune that could conceivably stretch on for hours and never seem to get tired it's this one (ironically, for much of the year I was stuck with an edit lasting less than three minutes). I can understand why many listeners find it difficult to see much to treasure in jackin's darkly humorous economy of expression, its deliberately exaggerated demonstrations of reserve always interspersed with displays of such gross lack of subtlety that even reserve's typical compensation (that sense of classiness that hangs like a pall over much of the most celebrated dance music in 2012) is forever denied. But really there's no excuse with "You Want Me", which applies this mixture to a pop template with remarkable aplomb and perfect execution: everything from the dead-eyed Shola Ama interpolation vocals (not even in the same galaxy as post-dubstep's glut of R&B cut-ups) to Tom Zanetti's springloaded MC verses ("Okay then / watch what I say then / if you like champagne swing my way then") filled with jackin's characteristic worldly joie de vivre, a celebration of a life in which nothing is ever at stake except the compulsive pursuit of gratification.
10. Donkie Punch & Lorenzo - Snapbacks N Tattoos
For some reason I class Driicky Graham's original "Snapbacks & Tattoos" with Kanye/2 Chainz/etc.'s "Mercy", and though perhaps no one else agrees I reckon it's a on a similar level of "pretty great", really what's not to like about its mutating production and constant lock on hooks, like if you try to tell me you don't nod your head to the slow-mo stutter snares and decaying isotope synths on "uh, show off your hats, show off your tatts..." I'm going to just ignore you for a minute. Still, to my mind it now largely exists as an adjunct to Donkie Punch and Lorenzo's amazing jackin' rework, perhaps the consummate display of Lorenzo's ongoing project of absorbing everything good about the last twenty years of music into his elastic jackin' framework (this may be giving Donkie Punch too short-shrift, but Lorenzo's magic fingers were all over so many amazing jackin' tracks this year that the conclusion he is the secret genius here is almost irresistible). Jackin' is really "endpoint" music, though not in the way that most people mean when they apply that term to dance music - it's not stentorian in its minimalism like Plastikman or replete with subtlety like whatever feted deep house you were listening to this year. Instead, jackin' offers up a kind of science of mainstream dance maneuvers, all those too-familiar riffs and tricks now wielded with an intensified awareness of their operation - combining an artisan's practiced ease with an almost naive reinvestment in the sound of these sounds. On "Snapbacks N Tattoos" you hear it in the tinny reticular snare patterns, the clipped drum roll samples, the gleefulness of the bass deployments, all pushed into super high-contrast such that every sound brims with purpose and portent. I suspect jackin's strong affinity for current rap - never more obvious than here - stems in part from it sharing a similar relation to the constant evolution of the house beat as rap does to its own endless reinvention of rhythm (mannie fresh to lil' jon to lex luger to mike will, and so on); it's an affinity of spirit rather than strict sound that makes jackin much more interesting and compulsive (from any perspective you care to name) than dance producers making "trap" ever could be. And so it's hardly surprising that when "Snapbacks N Tattoos" suddenly veers into its own pseudo-trap breakdown the result manages to surpass even the original's superlative production.
Original thread here http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=94835#unread
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