(the inevitable dumb) BEST OF '06 (thread)

[turtles]

Elegato, thanks! Sounds like a good start for my '07 listening habits

 

[nochexxx]

my top ten

albums
furze – trident autocrat (candle light
kool keith – commi$$ioner (unknown)
the caretaker - theoretically pure anterograde amnesia (v/vm
v/a the bombay connection vol 1 (bombay connection records)
v/a bombshell baby of bombay vol 2 (bombay connection records)
ariel pink – house arrest (paw tracks)
bruno spoerri – glucks kugel (finders keepers)
volt – rorhat (mainstream records)
va fuck radio vol 1 (unknown)
sleeparchive – hospital tracks (sleeparchive)

ep’s / singles
villalobos - fizheuer zieheuer (play house
young guns crew – countdown (unknown
rio baile funk – more favela booty beats (essay
UM – bumskipper 4 (unknown
wiley – wot do u call it? (xl)
sculpture – stop braverly at the surface (ultimatezon)
pan sonic – muuntaja / murtaja (sahko)
sleeparchive – elephant island ep (sleeparchive)
thomas melchior & luciano - solomon’s prayer (cadenza)
lady saw – bed noise (legends)

 

[bun-u]

This is mine – it’s basically a list, but I’ll try to group…no particular orders involved

Hauntology headz:

Albums
Bonnie Camplin -Heavy Epic
Brightblack Morning Light - s/t
Burial - s/t
Ariel Pink – House arrest
Colleen - Et Les Boites À Musique

Grime survivors:

Albums/mixtapes
Various - Logan Sama’s War Report
JME - Derkhead, Shh Hut Yuh Muh, Poomplex
Wiley – bits of 2nd Phase & Tunnel Vision Vols 1-4 (maybe 2 great albums in that lot)
Neckle Camp – Straight Necklin
Ruff Sqwad – Guns and Roises 2
Also bits of mixtapes by Scorcher, Frisco, Slix, Tinchy Stryder, Statik

Singles
Buss it up - Kano & Vybz Kartel
Chance us – Scorcher
Shangooli - Scratchy
Heard what i said - prez t and jme
Beef with T – Terminator
Spun a Web - P Jam f Big narstie, Solo & Demon
Never see me fall - Bashy
Good Old Days – Mercston
Kick off – Danny Weed
I’m from a place - Ruff Sqwad ft Maxwell D
Dead – Skepta
No base - Slix
You and I - Shola Ama feat Wiley
Clack Riddim - Virgo ft B Live & Flirta D
Duppy – Skepta


Rock, folk, post:

Albums
Alasdair Roberts - No Earthly Man
Camera Obscura - Let's get out of this Country
Joanna Newsom – Ys
Espers - espers II
Benoit Pioulard – Précis
Grizzly Bear – Yellow house
Hawk and Hacksaw – Delivery Room
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

Singles
Let's Call It Off - Peter Bjorn & John


Houston, hyphy, crunk & rap:

Albums
Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Da Backwudz - Wood Work
Dead End Alliance – Scewed for life
Trae – Restless
Pimp C – Pimpalation
OG Ron C - After Da Kappa 2k3
J Dilla - Donuts
E-40 - My Ghetto Report Card
Z-Ro - Still livin

Singles (may be older than 06)
Superhyphy - Keak Da Sneak
Chunk Up The Deuce (feat. Paul Wall And UGK) - Lil keke
Yeen Know - Lil Scrappy
Get Stupid - Mac Dre
New Oakland - Mistah Fab
Go Ignant - The Mossie ft. The Federation & E40
Grapes - Nump feat. Federation & E-40
Nuh Badda Mi – Perfect
Hell Yeah - San Quinn feat.E-A-Ski
Go dumb – The Federation
Northern Califoolya ft San Quin, Messy Marv, B-Legit, Ea-Ski, Keek Da Sneak & James "Stomp Down" Bailey
Money in the Bank - Young Buck Ft Lil'
Do Ya Bad - Yung Joc
Fuck Yo Couch Bailey
Hustlin – Rick Ross


No rave:

Albums
Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
Hot Chip – The Warning
Mapstation – Distance told me things to be said

Singles
Darko - Booka Shade
Pop The Glock - Uffie


One drop:

Singles
Ganja Farmer - Marlon Asher
Gash Dem Chuck Fender
Serious Times Gyptain
Jah Time Fantan Mojah


Scott:

Scott Walker – The Drift


Top of the pops:

Singles
Yeah yeah - Bodyrox feat Luciana
Put your hands up for Detroit - Fedde Grande
Me & You Cassie
Cure and the cause Fish Go Deep
Sexy back – Justin Timbalake


Old stuff:

Comus, C86, Diplomats, Le Orme, Franco Battiato, Jack Nitzsche, Fairport Convention, Neutral Mil Hotel, Blue Nile, Takagi Masakatsu, Moondog, Van Der Graaf Generator, Bill Fay, Bruce Haack, Beat Happening, Exuma, Fad Gadget, Germs, Kim Fowley, Klaus Shulze, Tones on Tail, The Motels, Venom, Wendy Carlos.

 

[zhao]

I saw the US premiere of Ikeda's multi-media piece C4i two years ago and it was one of the most compelling things that I've ever experienced, period, full-stop. In a small art gallery, audience sitting on bleachers in front of a huge screen stretched across a concrete floor, towers of speakers on both sides, I sat first row. Very, very loud. The video component was equally well done. What an excellent piece. Apologies for going off topic.

anyone else here experienced Dumb Type shows? not to be missed. I've seen 2 of their productions. jaw dropping.

 

[bun-u]

here hear - i've put some of my fave 06 tunes with some (very) incidental pictures of hackney and ting

 

[DJL]

Raptor - War Of The Speakers
Kode 9 Burial Breezeblock Mix
N-Type Exodus mix
Mark Archer Soul Electro Mix
Cassie - Me & You
Kode 9 FWD Podcast
various Garna sets
various Whistla sets on Sub FM
Rebound X - Rythmn & Gash
half of Tunnel Visions 1 & 2
most of Luciano's output
Skreamizm Vol2
Loco Dice - Seeing Through Shadows
Avus - Me & My Tapeworm
new Capdown single
Nomos proto-grime Podcast
2Stepfan's Dubstep mixes and Miles Davis dubstep tunes
Pinch - Qawwali
Justin ft T.I. - My Love
Bob Sinclar & Steve Edwards - World, Hold On
JME - Derkhead
JME - some of the Tropical stuff
JME - JME's IQ
Wiley going mental on Rinse ripping the shit out of everyone
Uffie - Pop The Glock
half of Matthew Johnson's output
Klaxon's Bouncer cover - none of their other stuff though
bodyrox - yeah yeah (d ramirez remix)
Hot Chip - Over & Over
Most of Digital Mystiks records
Sven Vath mix on an issue of Mixmag
oxia - domino
Skepta - Duppy

 

[tate]

anyone else here experienced Dumb Type shows? not to be missed. I've seen 2 of their productions. jaw dropping.

I've seen videotapes of their performances, and I always recommend them to people who are interested in multimedia. It's how I discovered Rjoyi Ikeda actually, listening to dumb type's memorandum, which I love. I used to hang around the MCA in chicago and a guy who works there recommended dumb type. This was about 2001, he said that they had played the museum and that the building had felt as if it were literally shaking. The video floored me, so I bought the disc. Wish I had bought the vid too. Years later tried to order it but didn't have any luck. What tours or productions did you see?

 

[Slothrop]

Okay, so I'm even later than Woebot. I could probably continue adding stuff to this for another year or so as I catch up with stuff that I've missed. Lots of people have been complaining about what a shit year it was, but I think I've heard more new music that I loved this year than I have for a while. This might just been down to finally listening to the right stuff, though.

Kode 9 and Spaceape - Memories of the Future. Yes, a lot of the best bits were from the early singles. But I've only got one of the early singles and they rule. So the album rules.
Paavoharju -- Yha Hamaraa. Only just got this, but I'm loving it.
Ricardo Villalobos - Fizheur Zieheur. Overlong? Maybe. I prefer "sprawling".
Burial - Burial - enough's been said about this really. Although I seem to be the only person who actually kind of preferred MotF...
Arctic Monkeys - WYSIATWIM. So sue me. It's not as good as Up the Bracket was, though.
Gnarls Barkley - Crazy, Lily Allen - Smile, Peter, Bjorn and John - Young Folks. Nu-indiepop? Maybe.
E40 and Keak Da Sneak - Tell Me When To Go. Must check out more hyphy, this was fucking awesome.
Anders Ilar - Nightwidth. Fluffy widescreen techno. Extremely nice, though.
Third Eye Foundation - Collected Works. Domino seem to be putting the fat stacks of cash they've made off the indie boom to good use, sticking out a bargainous 3CD collection of all three TEF albums. To almost negligable public reaction. Class.
Moving Shadow Reissues. Obviously.

It seems to have been a really good year for leftfield DnB. Maybe it's the year that the one step backward two steps forward / lets take it back to 97 and see if we can get it right this time scheme got into two steps forward phase. Maybe a bunch of producers suddenly hit their stride. Maybe I just started paying attention and picking up enough 12's to pick up on something that's been there for ages. Favorite records:
Macc - Be Like Water (Offshore)
Macc - So Far EP (Subtle Audio)
Fanu - The Lightless EP (12 Music)
Various - Subvert Central Volume 2 (Subvert Central)
Cloak and Dagger - Time Travelling (Subtle Audio)
Breakage - 9th Hand / Drowning (Planet Mu)
Breakage - This Too Shall Pass (Bassbin)

Dubstep tunes - erm, these are the ones I got that I liked, but what I've picked up has been kind of arbitrary based on what's appeared on Boomkat when I've been feeling fairly rich and there hasn't been loads of other stuff out that I wanted that week. I've been meaning to get stuff like Shackleton, Juju, Geiom and so on but haven't yet.
Digital Mystikz - Anti War Dub (got the repress) (DMZ)
Pinch - Qawwali (Planet Mu)
Skream - Tapped (Tempa)
Loefah - System (Tectonic)
Darqwan - Robe One 7 (Texture UK)
I think that's about it...

 

[tht]

thought it was shit year too (for albums anyway), though i've probably missed a few good things (as i always do, these lists tend to say more about good pr and echolalia than we like to admit)

else,

ariel pink (thinking house arrest was a rerelease but everyone else says 06 so)
the knife
uusitalo (vladislav delay +-)
animal collective (track 2 off hollindagain)
coh (two releases, intermittently good)
team doyobi
ghostface
arpanet
sonic youth (do they even care? just about good enough)
clipse


none of which i really care about, the knife being closest to me on account of having to like it in spite of all the things that should ensure it's awful (and do in so many eyes)

 

[tate]

These are the '06 full-lengths (mostly) that I listened to, enjoyed, and pondered the most during the past year. (I make no claim as to them being the best.) I'm sure that I've forgotten plenty, and I certainly didn't hear all that I wanted to . . . in any case, they are vaguely in order. A list of singles and 12"s would obviously be a different thing altogether. I enjoyed my year of listening very much.

J Dilla Donuts and The Shining
Clipse Hell Hath No Fury
E-40 My Ghetto Report Card
Ghostface Killah Fishscales
Burial s/t
Dj Clever Unsung Heroes (mix cd)
Joanna Newsom Ys
Bugz in the Attic Back in the Doghouse
Marc Mac It’s Right To Be Civil and Visioneers’ Dirty Old Hip-hop
Keak da Sneak Kunta Kinte
Triosk The Headlight Serenade
Balkan Beat Box s/t
Kode 9 and The Space Ape Memories of The Future
Breakage This Too Shall Pass
everything that Macc released
Mission of Burma The Obliterati
Scott Walker The Drift
The Knife Silent Shout
Sleeparchive Transmission EP
Villalobos Achso
Barbara Morgenstern The Grass Is Always Greener
Polska Skeptic
Nubian Mindz Typewriter EP
Junior Boys So This Is Goodbye
Luciano Sci.Fi.Hi.Fi vol 2
V.A. Noise Corrosion (Exegene)
V.A. On The Lam (Make:Shift)
Keith Rowe and Toshimaru Nakamura between
Ami Yoshida and Christof Kurzmann aso
Just a Fire Spanish Time
Uzeda Stella
Erase Errata Nightlife
The Blood Brothers Young Machetes
Cursive Happy Hollow
Sonic Youth Rather Ripped
Aloha Some Echoes
Liars Drum’s Not Dead
Nina Nastasia On Leaving
Brazilian Girls Talk to La Bomb
3/4 Had Been Eliminated A Year of the Aural Gauge Operation
Mehldau and Metheny Metheny Mehldau

 

[michael]

My turn to embarrass myself... I tried to be a good boy and write stuff about each release.

Albums / EPs / mixes:

Daniel Maze - How's The Serenity? (free)
"Electronic" producer working with tape decks. It's not so different from other soundscapey stuff, but I really enjoy it and like the moments where a big wave of lushness will be abruptly stopped when he hits a pause on the tape. Lends a bit of grubbiness in there.

J Dilla - Donuts
Lots of short hip-hop instrumentals, mashed together, messy as hell. Heaps of edited soul tunes, often changing pitch and/or tempo mid-track. Individual bits and pieces are very sketchy, as a whole it works really well. Unpredictable, which is not something I could say for a lot of music I enjoyed this year.

James Holden At The Controls mix CD
This mix is basically tweaky house-tempo techno business but mixes in a lot of other bits and bobs including kraut-rock (Kluster), SKAM-style electronica (AFX, Christ, Slag Van Loom), and even a Fennesz track. I find the variety refreshing, and the focus on texture is right up my alley. Not sure I'd want to hear it in a club, but I recommend it as an album to listen to.

Junior Boys - Is This Goodbye?
Don't think I need to say anything much about this given the number of times it's come up.

Mapstation - Distance Told Me Things To Be Said
Beatless, instrumental music largely based on gentle, repeating synth arpeggios. No added gloss or date-able glitchy action. Reminds me most of things like Cluster circa Zuckerzeit or even the pared back bits of Zeit-era Tangerine Dream, but it also takes in various African influences and instrumentation (tuned percussion) ... sorta exploring trance music from two continents? Didn't really expect a new ambient record to impress me so much.

Soundslike1981's Blogariddims 6 / Collide+Coalesce mix MP3 (free)
I guess you can just listen to it. I love the blurred boundaries of this music - the really lengthy layering of different pieces of music in a way that really creates something new.


Single tracks / songs:

Cassie - Me & U
Clipse - Mr Me Too
I know, I know, Mr Me Too...

Holden - Lump
Techno mixed with Windowlicker-ish inhuman choirs and Fennesz-ish noisy melodic bits... beautiful harmonies throughout, actually made more palletable because of the strange arrangement.

James Figurine - Apologies
I've been following the label Plug Research since its inception and was kinda amazed when one of its roster (Dntel) completely blew up with his Postal Service project. His next solo album was basically an indie-loving electronica producer trying to synthesize a new found love for Kompakt into his style. Probably unsurprisingly, most of the album is shit - beyond taste differences, he can't really sing or write good songs - but I did really like this one song and its Doom's Night bass, to the point where I don't regret buying the album.

Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks (free)
Boring indie band luck out (in NZ and Australia that means "have good luck", btw) with this super catchy tune. The bored-sounding female vocalist reminds me of the disinterested manner of Hope Sandoval.. and I like Hope Sandoval.

Plump DJs - Electric Disco (D Ramirez Mix)
Stupid, bulging house party. Got the pitch-bend action to make my brain go funny. Honourable mention to Mason's Exceeder and bleep (Dissensian, not site) for pimping this shit so hard.

Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill
Haha, I've tried, but I can't write anything here without getting too defensive, so I'll leave it be.


... I really think I've mostly been listening to older music this year, though, because this doesn't feel like an accurate picture of (most of) what I've been buzzing about.

This is why I won't do a Best of 10. Nah, I still listen to Holden stuff heaps and Junior Boys still seem great even if I don't listen to them any more... but some of my fave '06 releases I definitely hadn't heard when I wrote the above.

 

[hucks]

Album - yoyoyoyoyoyo by spank rock. if you can get beyond the ludicrous sexism it's pretty solid quality, plus the singles and remixes were all awesome. saw them live and they were pretty good fun, too.

burial as well, and actually more so over time. plus i liked the remix of blackdown, and that track on the mary anne hobbs thing might be my track of the year.

biggest disappointment - the dr octagon album. i feel cheated.

So I think this was my first post on this forum. And I don't think I've listened to Spank Rock since 2006. So ignore whatever I write on the Best of 2010 thread, would be my advice.

 

[john eden]

Click here to see it on Mixcloud