12 of the best

1. Various – Sexual Life of Savages: Underground Post Punk from Sao Paolo, Brazil (Soul Jazz LP)
This dark rhythmic punk funk puts most of the white bread stuff currently exciting the NME to shame. Highlights for me are tracks by Fellini and As Mercenarias.

2. Six Vicious – Krunk’s Not Dead (Sixtoo 7″)
Heavy instrumental hip hop with a dark post punk mood, the sleeve’s cool too.
3. Vex’d – Gunman/Smart Bomb (Planet Mu 12”)
Heavy heavy dubstep . The A-side is all ravey synth stabs that build into a massive ragga dubstep. The B-side is more on the industrial tip. Both bombs.
4. Acetate Zero – Crestfallen (Arbouse CD)
Beautiful Mogwai-ish shoegazer soundscapes, lots of atmosphere, odd French vocals.
5. Jackie Mitoo – Ayatollah/Mash Up Babylon (Basic Replay 12″)
Low down dubbed out mixes of the ska-est rude bwoy.
6. Ark – Caliente (Perlon LP)
I loved Ark’s single a couple of years ago, so I’ve been looking forward to this album. It’s as good as I could have hoped. Off the wall electro, little bits of deep house, techno with a real punk do it your own way vibe.
7. Keith Tucker – Detroit Saved My Soul (Seventh Sign 12”)
The title track, It’s A Mood (Detroit Saved My Soul), is a deep groove that could easily cross over in a very big way. The B-sides are heavy Detroit electro funk, equally good.
8. Jay Haze – Love For A Strange World (Kitty Yo LP)
The label boss of Context and Context-terrior drops a solo album for Kitty Yo. The results are glitchy electro pop, reminiscent of Ken Cesar’s tracks for Cheap. Very cool.
9. Marco Passarini – Sullen Look (Peacefrog LP)
His cover of I House U last year was excellent and this one keeps the tone. It’s a bit more accessible: extremely funky electro with a sharp techno feel.
10. Various – Cooperation Sessions 1 (Goya LP)
I bought the second in the Co-op broken beat series last year from Picadilly Records. That was essential, this is even more so, I was thrilled to see it in a sale bin at Disk Union in Shibuya. A little more experimental and I guess a little rougher round the edges.
11. Mood II Swing – I Got Love (Bingo 12”)
I love Ciafone and Mood II Swing. I’m not totally excited about what they’ve done with this, instead of the heavy repetition and dub delay of the original, they’ve just thrown a big drum’n’bass break under it. Still it’s a killer break and sure to big for d’n’b heads.
12. Dynarec – Eiso X (Vapourwave 12”)
Former Delsin head drops the first track on, what I assume is, his own new label. Still a little of the broken vibe that colours most Delsin, but much harder. This is dark, hard, distorted electro techno like early New York Nugroove stuff from Joey Beltram and Lenny Dee.

I’ve also picked up old records by Freakwater, Durutti Column, Motherhood, Lisa Shaw, Monochrome Set, Orange Juice and BMX Bandits. The guys from Solo Action sent me their back-catalogue, which I’ll write about before too long (suffice to say it’s killer broken techno).
Category: Music