[Hotflush Recordings]

Nearly a year has passed since Crooks & Lovers dropped. Where does the time go? High up on sleepy Mount Kimbie, it appears very little has changed. Carbonated, the latest bleary-eyed missive from the duo of Kai Campos and Dominic Maker, features the group’s first entirely new productions since Crooks, and every undersampled guitar strum, disembodied helium vocal, and cutely shaky drum pattern still sounds perfectly out of place. The new tracks, “Flux” and “Baves Chords,” can confidently go toe-to-toe with any album cut, admittedly without besting any of them. When you explore an extremely specific aesthetic as consistently as Mount Kimbie does, though, you’re not really seeking out highlights so much as further iterations. The former filters their inimitable sound through a curiously tense quasi-house beat, and the latter hits us with a damn pretty chord progression at a half-tempo throb. If you were hungry for new Mount Kimbie tracks your appetite will be sated, though admittedly you’d probably like nine or ten more bites.

Producers seem to take great pleasure in remixing Mount Kimbie: already shattered, their sound lends itself particularly well to being glued together however one sees fit. And Peter Van Hoesen has certainly sculpted something pretty unrecognizable out of “Carbonated.” The guy responsible for some of the best bass lines in techno melts down the track’s digitized sensitivity and coaxes us to dance through the steam. It is, in a word, heavy — dare I say heeeeaaaavy — even for Van Hoesen, though his keen shifting of the beat keeps the mood euphoric. Klaus, who takes on “Adriatic,” gives us a pretty good idea of what Ben Frost covering these guys would sound like, and it’s a damn awesome prospect: Mount Kimbie’s tentative acoustic guitars now sound like distant bomb blasts and pipe clangs, and their lighthearted ambience has been replaced with palpable dread. Airhead’s version of “Carbonated,” however, isn’t set on transforming the track so much as straightening it out. It’s not a bad look — dubstep DJs will surely appreciate having a mixable version of the track — but it’s maybe a slightly too-tidy one for these guys. As a whole, Carbonated will likely keep Mount Kimbie fresh in your mind and, through one remix or another, a mainstay on your decks. Hopefully we won’t have to wait a year for more.

01. Maxi Mill, “To The Next”
[Rush Hour Recordings] (buy)
Besides its well regarded reissue campaigns and tireless advocacy of U.S. house, Rush Hour Recordings pays close attention to up-and-coming talents internationally and in its own backyard as well. Their Direct Current and Direct Voyage sub-labels bear the fruits of this relentless A&Ring, with BNJMN, Cosmin TRG, Braille, (et al) all making notable appearances. Now you can add the young Dutch talent Maxi Mill to that list with his stunning debut single, To The Next. The first thing I noticed about the title track was its remarkable use of depth in the sound design; its punchy, bass line seems to dart towards you as it charges up the scale, contoured with whirling chords and orbited by live claps and anxious tom patterns. Maxi Mill’s arrangements are handled with an equally deft hand, stopping and starting the track on a dime, leaving you craving all the elements at once and eager to hear what comes in next. Even its pitch- and pulse-raising break seems to meltdown to glorious nothingness before the ravishing bass line returns to lead the charge. Major kudos to the Rush Hour crew for finding and releasing the work of this yet-unknown producer. If his future work is even half as good he’ll be firing up dance floors for years to come.

02. Morning Factory, “Fantasy Check”
[Royal Oak] (buy)
In the span of only three releases the Dutch duo Morning Factory has covered a fair amount of stylistic territory, keeping only a few elements — rolling hand percussion and a two-armed embrace of melody — as constants. But with their debut Royal Oak single (following their exciting reinvention of Reggie Dokes’ “Once Again” for the Clone sub-label), they’ve hit upon a sweet spot that combines the best of their instincts into one unforgetable track. Flickering to life like a long dormant film reel, “Fantasy Check” spins into focus with a bright, trembling vocal sample and grainy disco beat. It gives way to syncopated piano chords tucked into a nebulous low end that hovers around like a protective friend and eventually reunites the two halves in one spectacular moment. What’s really compelling about the tune is how it conjures that sense of reliving memories you never had by showing great respect to house music’s past without directly emulating any of it. And in doing so, this gracefully arranged track seems likely to find its place among house music’s many classics, at least on my shelves.

03. Rio Padice, “Woodland”
[Claque Musique] (buy)
The old adage has it that “timing is everything,” and it’s an enduring truth in a variety of ways. Looking past the obvious meanings, I’m thinking of timing with regards to when a producer places their elements in each measure. The bulk of dance music artists tend to follow familiar formulas when it comes to timing (backbeat hi-hats, 4×4 kicks on each beat, etc.), so when someone moves beyond the basics it’s instantly noticeable and often refreshing. That’s definitely the case with Rio Padice’s “Woodland,” the title track of his Claque Musique single. Its whispered melodies and agile bass line are an enjoyable starting point, but the tune kicks into gear when a plucked synth lead ascends and lingers into the next bar, only to drop its last note a whole five beats later. This is further accentuated by the off-beat jabs of a closed hi-hat, prodding listeners forward just as the intoxicating melodic movements beckon further down the road. It’s the kind of track you’d expect to hear coming from an old Prescription or Balance record — an inviting track that contains just enough weirdness to make its familiar components seem alluringly exotic. Admittedly this is the first time the Italian producer Padice has made it onto my radar; yet after playing “Woodland” on repeat for the past few months I’ll be paying much closer attention to his output.

04. Mount Kimbie, “Carbonated” (Peter Van Hoesen Remix) [Hotflush Recordings] (buy)
One of the reasons why Mount Kimbie’s songs make such great remix source material is the duo’s intense focus on the details. With all the space left in their composition each sound is open to intense scrutiny, and MK tend to craft sounds worthy of close examination. Many remixers retain this ethos when offering their own vision, as Peter Van Hoesen has while remixing “Carbonated.” This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who knows his background in sound design or his past originals, but it’s particularly striking in this context. Each twitch, pop, snap and crunch demands as much attention as the gargantuan bass line that strides to the forefront, almost as if it’s the distraction in a sleight of hand trick. The tune is just as stunning taken as a whole, from pads swelling intensely along the edges to the octave jump the main progression makes. It’s probably Van Hoesen’s most accessible work to date and certainly one of his best remixes. If nothing else it provides spectacular means for DJs to fit Mount Kimbie into their house or techno sets and will keep this record in demand for a wide swath of EDM admirers.

05. Roof Light, “On The Third”
[Phuture Shock Musik] (buy tk)
It’s an odd record that simultaneously evokes My My’s micro-house mosaics and the whimsy of turn of the century UK garage, but then Roof Light is an odd producer. Having released for an unusual but praise-worthy assortment of labels including Styrax Records, Millions Of Moments, Highpoint Lowlife, and a few smaller labels, there aren’t many obvious hints as to what kind of dance music the artist born as Gareth Munday makes. His latest record, On The Third for Phuture Shock Musik, offers cross sections of the mutant strains of UK house, with its title track being far and away the highlight. It comes on as if an amnesiac were trying to reassemble what had happened to house music over the last 10 years. Munday glues together percolating drum patterns girded by backhanded notes using an amorphous synth line that coats the track in a layer of lovable dust. Sudden string stabs provide bursts of urgency that’s ameliorated somewhat by distant female vocals and that gooey synth line still flowing throughout the percussive framework. It’s too familiar to deserve the somewhat absurd future garage tag, so I’ll settle on “UK house music I’d like to hear a lot more of, thanks.”

06. Ricardo Miranda, “Urbanism”
[Noble Square Recordings] (buy)
07. Legowelt, “Backwoods Fantasies”
[Long Island Electrical Systems] (buy)
08. Levon Vincent, “Man or Mistress”
[Novel Sound] (buy)
09. DJ Duke, “Summer Madness”
[Self Defence Records] (buy)
10. Juju & Jordash, “Chelm Is Burning”
[Golf Channel Recordings] (buy)

Staff Charts:

Per Bojsen-Moller
01. Analogue Solutions, “The Piano Experiment” [Analogue Solutions]
02. Taron Trekka, “R.Gelb” [Maria Colors]
03. Levon Vincent, “Man Or Mistress” [Novel Sound]
04. John Beltran, “Brilliant Flood (Kassem Mosse & Mix Mup Remix)” [Delsin]
05. FaltyDL, “Make It Difficult” [All City Records]
06. Recloose, “Parquet” [Rush Hour]
07. Cosmin TRG, “Fizic” [50 Weapons]
08. Eduardo De La Calle, “The Concept Sampler” [Analogue Solutions]
09. Vakula, “Mama Said Go Slow” [Shevchenko]
10. Move D, “Untitled A” [Workshop]

Steve Kerr
01. Moomin, “Watermelon (Marvin Dash Edit)” [Aim]
02. Jhene Aiko, “Do Better Blues Pt. 2 (Marvin’s Room)” [Self-Released]
03. Afrikan Sciences, “Entitlement” [Deepblak]
04. Ital, “Culture Clubs” [Lovers Rock]
05. Hype Williams, “Rise Up” [Hyperdub]
06. Laurel Halo, “Hour Logic” [Hippos In Tanks]
07. Vakula, “Mama Said Go Slow” [Shevchenko]
08. M5, “Celestial Highways” [Metroplex]
09. Legowelt, “Sark Island Acid” [L.I.E.S.]
10. George FitzGerald, “Silhouette (John Roberts Remix)” [Aus Music]

Anton Kipfel
01. Todd Terje, “Snooze 4 Love” [Running Back]
02. Machinedrum, “Now U Know The Deal 4 Real” [Planet Mu]
03. Recloose, “Tecumseh” [Rush Hour Recordings]
04. Lucky Paul ft. Mara TK, “Elephant Island” (Greg Paulus Remix) [Wolf+Lamb]
05. DJ Duke, “Summer Madness” [Self Defence]
06. Chicago Skyway & Dcook, “Lager” (Obsolete Music Technology Remix) [M>O>S Deep]
07. M.A.N.D.E.A.R., “Buddies” (Radio Slave Panorama Garage Remix) [Get Physical Music]
08. Maxi Mill, “Sun Rays” [Rush Hour Recordings]
09. Levon Vincent, “Man or Mistress” [Novel Sound]
10. Recast, “Consensual” [Third Ear Recordings]

Kuri Kondrak
01. Anthony Nicholson, “Suntek” [Neroli]
02. Alex Israel, “GAZ-13″ [W.T. Records]
03. Nebraska, “Characteristics” [Rush Hour]
04. Lerosa, “In My Mind” [Uzuri]
05. R-A-G, “Rage” [M>O>S]
06. Unit Moebius, “Dolfinarium” [Clone Classic Cuts]
07. Vakula, “Track 1″ [Unthank]
08. Esteban Adame, “I’ll Never Give Up” [Underground Quality]
09. Parris Mitchell, “Rubber Jazz Band” [Deep Moves]
10. Slowburn, “Medicusa” [Elektrosouls]

Chris Miller
01. Levon Vincent, “Man or Mistress” [Novel Sound]
02. Reagenz, “The Labyrinth” [Ostgut Ton]
03. Vladislav Delay, “Latoma” [Echocord]
04. Autechre, “Skin Up, You’re Already Dead” [N/A]
05. Miles, “Flawed” [Modern Love]
06. Speedy J, “De-Orbit” [NRK Sound Division]
07. Benjamin Brunn, “Queen Mary” [Smallville Records]
08. Move D, “Workshop 13 B2″ [Workshop]
09. Margaret Dygas, “Missing You Less” [Perlon]
10. Tshetsha Boys, “Anidyi Nyama” [Honest Jon's]

Andrew Ryce
01. Machinedrum, “U Don’t Survive” [Planet Mu]
02. Sam KDC, “Symbol #3.1″ [Auxiliary]
03. Modeselektor, “Shipwreck” [Monkeytown]
04. Shlohmo, “Seriously” [Friends of Friends]
05. Instra:mental, “Vicodin (Skudge Warehouse RMX)” [[Nakedlunch]]
06. Sully, “2Hearts” [Keysound]
07. araabMUZIK, “AT2″ [Duke]
08. Balam Acab, “Apart” [Tri Angle]
09. John Heckle, “The Voyager (Voyeur)” [Mathematics]
10. Cosmin TRG, “Amor Y Otros” [50 Weapons]

10. Darkstar, North
[Hyperdub] (buy)
Darkstar’s debut LP, North, represented a sizable stylistic shift from music they had released up to that point, but when put to the test, transpired to be one of the year’s triumphs. Having evolved from a production duo to a live trio, Darkstar were likely to find themselves trapped between identities, and this album finds comfort in curling up inside the space between old and new. In one sense stepping away from their more obvious dubstep inclinations, the album’s dark, intimate atmosphere simultaneously hearkens back to the early, moodier roots of the genre, huddling in the middle-ground between the electronic and organic as demonstrated on the fizzling beats and sorrowful overtones of “Deadness” and the title track’s machine-gun ballad. However this is a record of cohesion, not conflict; North presents such a introspective train of thought that the spark of brightness injected by earlier hit “Aidy’s Girl’s A Computer” almost seems out of place. However, this isn’t an album that seeks to depress. The mournful strains ebbing throughout are colored with a melancholic hopefulness rather than despondency; and while closing track “When It’s Gone” is just a few black-clad mourners short of a funeral march for the technological age, North christens the promising future in store for Darkstar’s fledgling sound. (Jack Scourfield)

09. Urban Tribe, Urban Tribe
[Mahogani Music] (buy)
Even though the main contributors (Kenny Dixon Jr, Anthony Shakir and Carl Craig) to Urban Tribe are well known, there is still an air of mystery that pervades this year’s Urban Tribe album. Combing through several interviews with founding member Sherard Ingram won’t make it any clearer who did what. In a way, not knowing only adds to the fantastical realm the album inhabits. The industrial dub landscape envisioned in the landmark 1998 debut, The Collapse Of Modern Culture, is expanded upon as the tracks here cover plenty of new ground. Morphing from strange yet wonderful excursions into future soul dubstep (“Program 2″) and claustrophobic hip-hop (“Program 7″) to more straight-ahead deep electro (“Program 5″) and melancholic deep house (“Program 12″), Urban Tribe is provocative in a way that haunts you long after the record stops.
(Kuri Kondrak)

08. Autechre, Oversteps
[Warp Records] (buy)
Autechre’s place in electronic music has often been slightly ahead of everyone else. From the gestational IDM of Tri Repetae to the proto-glitch of Envane and Draft 7.30 all the way through to Confield‘s controversial noise excursions, they’ve had a knack for sneaking up on emerging sounds. The post-dubstep bass textures coupled with beautiful melodies on Oversteps find Autechre with their ear to the ground in 2010 even while continuing their career trend of constantly looking a step beyond. Certainly, opener “R Ess” is rides the resurgence of deep and dark dubstep from artists like Kryptic Minds and Horsepower Productions, even while it sounds uniquely like their handiwork. Even on more standard experimental productions like “Illanders” and “Treale,” the steady thump and deep low-end easily makes these contenders for speaker-rattling choices in the club. In amongst the modern beats and bass are some of the boldest forays into melody Autechre have produced in years. “Known(1)” and “See On See” are both heavily focused on melody, with baroque sounds and structures weaving throughout seemingly abstract backgrounds. Yet here’s no doubt this is an Autechre album, as strange, bubbling music-scatters like “D-Sho Qub” and “St Epreo” clearly show the producers have not emerged from the rabbit hole to aim for dance floor stardom. In an exciting and varied years for electronic music, Sean Booth and Rob Brown prove that songs can be experimental, sound beautiful, and bump heavily all at the same time. (Keith Pishnery)

07. Peter van Hoesen, Entropic City
[Time To Express] (buy)
The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy (“disorder”) of the universe tends to increase. Peter van Hoesen was wise to choose this as the subject of his first techno full length — not only to capture the hearts of nerds like myself but also because his work seems to embody the concept. His tightly wound tunes, alive with texture and warmth, seem to break down and disintegrate or coalesce around a cloud of synth-born matter. We’re treated to plenty of sweaty 6 AM jams often associated with PVH, but Entropic City stands out as one of the years best because he tempers the tempo and energy with languid, atmospheric cuts. It’s on these slower tunes where van Hoesen’s attention to detail and trance-inducing powers are on full display, where the cliches of techno albums break down. Entropic City is hardly just a collection of tracks: it’s a living, breathing ensemble, with each part’s motion tied into the larger whole — not unlike a city. (Chris Miller)

06. Jon McMillion, Jon McMillion LP
[Nuearth Kitchen] (buy)
Jon McMillion’s debut album didn’t so much appear out of nowhere as it did slowly take shape amongst the fog of other long players this year; in fact for many it was heralded by the stellar collection of remixes that succeeded it. With little to no fanfare to the Seattle producer’s past efforts, he released his imperforate self titled album in September on CD and digital formats, unwittingly turning in the sleeper album of the year. Densely packed with intricate melodies that owe as much to progressive rock and free jazz as conventional house music, McMillion’s album seeps into your senses like a rising tide. The familiar emblems of house are present throughout the album, but it’s the free-form embellishments that tip this long player over the edge into rarely explored territories and mark its uniqueness. McMillion’s voice is a constant presence throughout, but as it coaxes the listener into aural hypnosis with heavy delays he also patches in to sampled elements, making for some of the most familiar-fresh sounds you’ve heard of late. With the digital release of the album clocking in at nearly two hours (and not a scrap of any filler), this is without a doubt one of the most rewarding start to finish albums you’re likely to hear in a long time. (Per Bojsen-Moller)

05. Mount Kimbie, Crooks & Lovers
[Hotflush Recordings] (buy)
On their early EPs, Mount Kimbie sounded like they’d shattered the vase of futuristic dubstep and were trying to figure out how to superglue it back together. By the sound of their debut album, however, the group decided to shatter the vase once again, this time just for fun. Crooks & Lovers exists on the opposite end of the spectrum from Mala’s Return II Space, another one of this year’s finest, albeit for very different reasons: where the DMZ opus restated dubstep’s purpose, Mount Kimbie’s record — a jangly, flawed-to-perfection set not much longer than a Villalobos single — corrupted seemingly without remorse. This year of all years, though we’ve learned that dubstep can sound awesome when it’s all out of whack, and on Crooks & Lovers, there’s truly an art to Mount Kimbie’s nonchalance. Across 11 tracks, each scraggly drum hit, guitar twang, and shred of diva vocal sits mismatched and in precisely the wrong place. But I’m sure anyone who cherished this album shudders to think of what Dominic Maker and Kai Campos would sound like if they’d followed the directions. Other records might have evoked the music of tomorrow as much as Crooks & Lovers, but it’s safe to say that no other album envisioned the year 2100 as a world dominated by an elite of Etsy barons. High tech and handcrafted? Mount Kimbie has proved no one else does it quite like they do. Let’s hope they keep doing it.
(Jordan Rothlein)

04. Scuba, Triangulation
[Hotflush Recordings] (buy)
Forget dubstep for a second, forget its fruitful crossover with techno that’s been going on for years now, forget everything. Scuba’s second album, Triangulation, is just a beautiful piece of spatial sound design: that it comes packed with fantastically inventive beats is a lovely bonus. Triangulation picked up all the loose ends that have been poking out of UK bass music and enveloped each one in Paul Rose’s particular array of moods and sounds. As sensually humid as it was coldly industrial, its sounds had a habit of diffusing in and out the mix like warm breath in a frozen warehouse. It was sufficiently sleek to fulfill even the most extreme futurist fetishes but approachable enough to satisfy listeners looking for something more soulful and affecting. Scuba adeptly played with techno (“Heavy Machinery”), dubstep (“Three Sided Shape”), garage (“On Deck”), and crawling halfstep drum-n-bass (twin standouts “Before” and “So You Think You’re Special”) without ever moving beyond his (vast) comfort zone. However, the album’s best quality is that it made context needless even in the presence of multiple genre exercises: in providing a comprehensive survey of current dance music, he demolished dance music itself and rebuilt it with his own set of rules. Triangulation was a collective epiphany, the sound of an accomplished artist discovering what he needed to do and then doing it right before your eyes. It doesn’t matter what you think about “dubstep,” anyone who was interested in electronic music in 2010 needs this record to witness one of its most daring and inspiring events. (Andrew Ryce)

03. John Roberts, Glass Eights
[Dial] (buy)
After a string of laudable 12-inches and a few scattered remixes and compilation cuts, John Roberts made good on his promise as Dial’s next great album producer with his debut long player, Glass Eights. The album finds him coalescing around a more uniform aesthetic, sounding a bit like you’d expect the producer’s headspace would during a succession of ten sunless winter days. Gone are the overt ghetto-house references, that former swagger now drenched in piano reverb and twinkling bells, those eternal signifiers of electronic melancholia. Deeper listens divulge an intensive attention to detail, compositions so nuanced and personal it feels shameful to worry about their efficacy in a club setting. Roberts notoriously composes in bed, and Glass Eights bears its influence, using house music as a bridge between the openness of his own space and the claustrophobic rest of the world. To sound purely like oneself, especially on one’s debut album, is a high achievement, and this is precisely what Roberts has done. (Steve Kerr)

02. Shed, The Traveller
[Ostgut Ton] (buy)
If Shedding The Past, René Pawlowitz’s first album as Shed, was a personal manifesto then his sophomore long-player, The Traveller, was closer to a collection of short stories. Its 48-minute run-time belied how many styles and ideas Pawlowitz was able to execute, containing 14 tracks wherein the revered artist flexed his production muscles in almost every imaginable direction. Despite flitting from euphoric ambience (“Stp2″) and chunky, Detroit-influenced techno (“Atmo-Action”) to face-melting techno (“Hdrtm”) and grandiose junglisms (“Leave Things”), the sustained complexity and quality of the arrangements bind the album together. Its diversity recalled the genre-spanning albums that were once common in electronic music (think early LFO, The Black Dog or B12 LPs) and Pawlowitz’s ravishing slate of melodies echoes the timeless sonorities of early Richard D. James productions. The Traveller feels like a product of its circumstances — having been created at the behest of Ostgut Ton in a mere two months — and its maker’s curt personality, taking only the time necessary to make its case and then moving on. Standing in contrast with his first full-length, Pawlowitz’s sophomore album was sure to disappoint those who anticipated another grand treatise. Expecting as much missed the point: The Traveller was a potent dispatch from where Pawlowitz stood in 2010, one that found him still far ahead of the pack with plenty of ammunition to spare. (Steve Mizek)

01. Actress, Splazsh
[Honest Jon's Records] (buy)
Discussing the quest for his own little corner of the electronic music spectrum with The Wire, unabashed techno enthusiast Darren Cunningham spoke candidly on the anxiety of influence. “When you’ve got the Detroit shadow looming over you… you need to come with something quite decent. I took time to find what my sound was.” Splazsh is the stunning realization of that effort, a richly introverted hour whose modulated drones, anxious stop-start rhythms and swung funk distinguishes itself from forebears and contemporaries through what are, by now, Actress’ calling-card idiosyncrasies: the raw rumble of blown-out bass, the overdone EQ-ing and, of course, the security-tape rendering of compression and distortion. These tricks coalesce hypnotically in a twinning of the ominous and euphoric, but it isn’t sound design that made Splazsh one of 2010′s major events. It’s that Cunningham just seems to be viewing music from a markedly different vantage point than the rest of us. This is a guy who originally fancied 2009′s “Ghosts Have A Heaven” a good fit for Underground Resistance, and who described “Hubble” as a study of “Erotic City.” And his sophomore LP is every bit as eccentric, abstract and playful as we hoped to hear. Hopscotching from spectral haze to glassy R&B to nightvision garage to aggro glitch, Splazsh sometimes manages to roll and swing and swagger and coo all at once. But it regularly puzzles and surprises us too, never quite fitting the hybridized genre tags we lob at it. We’ll surely be listening closely to this one long after 2010 ends, clamoring for a glimpse of whatever it is that Darren Cunningham sees through his prismatic window to the world of rhythm music. (Chris Burkhalter)

++
Staff Lists:

Per Bojsen-Moller

01. Actress, Splazsh [Honest Jon's Records]
02. Mount Kimbie, Crooks & Lovers [Hotflush Recordings]
03. John Roberts, Glass Eights [Dial]
04. Jon McMillion, Jon McMillion LP [Nuearth Kitchen]
05. Scuba, Triangulation [Hotflush Recordings]
06. Four Tet, There Is Love In You [Domino]
07. Christopher Rau, Asper Clouds [Smallville]
08. Conforce, Machine Conspiracy [Meanwhile]
09. Peter Van Hoesen, Entropic City [Time To Express]
10. Caribou, Swim [City Slang]

Chris Burkhalter

01. Actress, Splazsh [Honest Jon's Records]
02. Arp & Anthony Moore, Today’s Psalter [RVNG]
03. Autechre, Oversteps [Warp]
04. Peter Van Hoesen, Entropic City [Time To Express]
05. Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek, Bird, Lake, Objects [Faitiche]
06. Digital Mystikz, Return II Space [DMZ]
07. Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh [Motown]
08. John Roberts, Glass Eights [Dial]
09. Lerosa, Dual Nature [Further]
10. Donato Dozzy, K [Further]

Steve Kerr

01. Actress, Splazsh [Honest Jon’s]
02. John Roberts, Glass Eights [Dial]
03. Urban Tribe, Urban Tribe [Mahogani Music]
04. DJ Roc, The Crack Capone [Planet Mu]
05. Shed, The Traveller [Ostgut Tonträger]
06. Salem, King Night [IAMSOUND]
07. Autre Ne Veut, Autre Ne Veut [Olde English Spelling Bee]
08. Arp, The Soft Wave [Smalltown Supersound]
09. Lukid, Chord [Werk Discs]
10. Grimes, Halfaxa [Arbutus]

Anton Kipfel

01. John Roberts, Glass Eights [Dial]
02. Sandwell District, Feed-Forward [Sandwell District]
03. Shed, The Traveller [Ostgut Ton]
04. Brandt Brauer Frick, You Make Me Real [!K7]
05. Actress, Splazsh [Honest Jon's Records Records]
06. Scuba, Triangulation [Hotflush Recordings]
07. Jon McMillion, Jon McMillion LP [Nuearth Kitchen]
08. Mount Kimbie, Crooks & Lovers [Hotflush Recordings]
09. Ripperton, Niwa [Green]
10. Peter Van Hoesen, Entropic City [Time To Express]

Kuri Kondrak

01. A Guy Called Gerald, Tronic Jazz The Berlin Sessions [Laboratory Instinct]
02. Urban Tribe, Urban Tribe [Mahogani]
03. Lone, Emerald Fantasy Tracks [Magic Wire]
04. Red Rack’em, The Early Years [Bergerac]
05. Actress, Splaszh [Honest Jon's Records]
06. Jon McMillion, Jon McMillion LP [Nuearth Kitchen]
07. Fabrice Lig, Genesis Of The Deep [Fine Art Recordings]
08. Aybee, Ancient Tones [Further]
09. The Black Dog , Music For Real Airports [Soma]
10. Oneohtrix Point Never, Returnal [Editions Mego]

Chris Miller

01. Scuba, Triangulation [Hotflush Recordings]
02. John Roberts, Glass Eights [Dial]
03. Shed, The Traveller [Ostgut Ton]
04. Peter van Hoesen, Entropic City [Time To Express]
05. Actress, Splazsh [Honest Jon's Records]
06. Demdike Stare, Liberation Through Hearing [Modern Love]
07. Autechre, Oversteps [Warp]
08. Mount Kimbie, Crooks & Lovers [Hotflush Recordings]
09. Donnacha Costello, Before We Say Goodbye [Poker Flat]
10. Donato Dozzy, K [Further Records]

Steve Mizek

01. John Roberts, Glass Eights [Dial]
02. Actress, Splazsh [Honest Jon's Records Records]
03. Shed, The Traveller [Ostgut Ton]
04. Robyn, Body Talk [Konnichiwa]
05. Emeralds, Do You Think I’m Here? [Editions Mego]
06. Jon McMillion, Jon McMillion LP [Nuearth Kitchen]
07. Lindstrøm & Christabelle, Real Life Is No Cool
[Feedelity/Smalltown Supersound]
08. Tobacco, Manic Meat [Anticon]
09. Arto Mwambe, Live At Robert Johnson Vol. 4 [Live at Robert Johnson]
10. Brandt Brauer Frick, You Make Me Real [!K7]

Sarah Joy Murray

01. Reagenz, Playtime [Workshop]
02. Lerosa, Dual Nature [Further]
03. Shed, The Traveller [Ostgut Ton]
04. Space Dimension Controller, Temporary Thrillz [R&S Records]
05. Pantha du Prince, Black Noise [Rough Trade]
06. Redshape, Red Pack [Present]
07. Margaret Dygas, How Do You Do [Power Shovel Audio]
08. Peter Van Hoesen, Entropic City [Time to Express]
09. Virgo, Virgo (Reissue) [Rush Hour]
10. Aybee, Ancient Tones [Further]

Keith Pishnery

01. Rudi Zygadlo, Great Western Laymen [Planet Mu]
02. Ital Tek, Midnight Colour [Planet Mu]
03. Starkey, Ear Drums and Black Holes [Planet Mu]
04. Autechre, Oversteps [Warp]
05. Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma [Warp]
06. Terror Danjah, Undeniable [Hyperdub]
07. Four Tet, There Is Love In You [Domino]
08. Scuba, Triangulation [Hotflush Recordings]
09. Ikonika, Contact, Love, Want Have [Hyperdub]
10. Take, Only Mountain [Alpha Pup]

Jordan Rothlein

01. Mount Kimbie, Crooks & Lovers [Hotflush Recordings]
02. T++, Wireless [Honest Jon's Records]
03. Shed, The Traveller [Ostgut Tonträger]
04. Digital Mystikz, Return II Space [DMZ]
05. John Roberts, Glass Eights [Dial]
06. Tin Man, Scared [White Denim]
07. Scuba, Triangulation [Hotflush Recordings]
08. Sleigh Bells, Treats [Mom + Pop]
09. Actress, Splazsh [Honest Jon's Records Records]
10. Salem, King Night [IAMSOUND]

Andrew Ryce

01. Scuba, Triangulation [Hotflush Recordings]
02. Darkstar, North [Hyperdub]
03. Shed, The Traveller [Ostgut Ton]
04. Jack Sparrow, Circadian [Tectonic]
05. ASC, Nothing Is Certain [NonPlus+]
06. Sandwell District, Feed-Forward [Sandwell District]
07. Guido, Anidea [Punch Drunk]
08. Pantha Du Prince, Black Noise [Rough Trade]
09. Roof Light, Kirkwood Gaps [Highpoint Lowlife]
10. Terror Danjah, Undeniable [Hyperdub]

Jack Scourfield

01. Eleven Tigers, Clouds Are Mountains [Soul Motive]
02. Jimmy Edgar, XXX [Studio !K7]
03. Darkstar, North [Hyperdub]
04. Baths, Cerulean [Anticon]
05. Teebs, Ardour [Brainfeeder]
06. Four Tet, There Is Love In You [Domino]
07. Salem, King Night [IamSound]
08. Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma [Warp]
09. Terror Danjah, Undeniable [Hyperdub]
10. Dettmann, Dettmann [Ostgut Ton]

25. Oskar Offermann & Moomin, “Hardmood”
[Aim] (buy)
When considering “Hardmood” by Oskar Offermann & Moomin, my mind drifts to a derivation of its title — hard wood — to describe its sound. Much like wood grain, the subtle, undulating patterns give off an air of refinement and wonderment yet never come off as flashy. Opening on the tinkling sounds of a restaurant with slightly jazzy tones bleeding through, the muted strains coalesce with horn-led patterns bearing spectral features that provide a sublime, heard-through-the-wall vibe. By obscuring all but the biting percussion which locks the tune into reality, Offermann & Moomin manage to conjure the palette of yesteryear to score contemporary celebrations without fetishizing a retro sound. It’s a tricky balance they pull off with style to spare, as “Hardmood” sounds as enticing when purring through a home stereo on a candlelit night as growling from a PA surrounded by lighting rigs. (Anton Kipfel)

24. Mount Kimbie, “Maybes” (James Blake Remix)
[Hotflush Recordings] (buy)
Given that Mount Kimbie and James Blake both had banner years in 2010, it might be surprising that the best out of either of them came from a remix of a 2009 track. But Blake’s remix of “Maybes” — perhaps the signature Kimbie track, considering it was the first that most heard — combined the essences of both perfectly. The remix stopped Scuba’s Sub:Stance compilation dead in its tracks, but as a singular piece it had the same effect on listeners. Kimbie’s rustic atmospheres sublimated into Blake’s gaseous backdrops as the track’s vocal gasps were twisted into the monstrous incantations so characteristic of early Blake productions. The drop was more like a vertical tunnelling, but nothing could prepare you for that second drop, where hoover-esque synths swelled up in splendid colour so bright it turned pure white. When Blake reorganized the vocal refrain into a brand new melody that audibly glistened at the corners, it was one of the most staggeringly beautiful moments of the entire year. Everything comes together to completely knock you over in a wave of dumbfounded stupefaction, and that’s not a bad way to describe the entire piece.
(Andrew Ryce)

23. Hungry Ghost, “Illuminations” (Marcellus Pittman Remix) [International Feel Recordings] (buy)
3 Chairs alum Marcellus Pittman was on a tear this year, dropping veritable riddles of punchy drum programming and bent bass lines through Fit, Unirhythm, and Rush Hour. His remix of Ben Williams and Sam Weaver’s ethno-cosmic “Illuminations,” though, was on another plane entirely, sounding for all the world like it was recorded from within Pittman’s gut. If that description suggests the inner and earnest, that’s certainly appropriate, but I’m mostly referring to the squishes, sloshes, and groans that teeter through the track’s eight minutes. Its eerie wails, damp percussion effects, throbbing drones, errant rattles, and muffled bass-bin palpitations are rendered amorphous, primordial, and strange in this marvel of cavernous sound design. Really the only solid footing afforded is during the mad organ romp that makes up the track’s brooding emotional center. Up to and following that, we’re knee-deep in the muck of the wondrously unfamiliar. (Chris Burkhalter)

22. Ramadanman, “Glut”
[Hemlock Recordings] (buy)
The appearance of “Glut” in April frankly stunned me. After a sterling 2009 and a solid double 12″ on Hessle I thought I had a good handle on what David Kennedy was up to, but this track proved otherwise. “Glut”‘s mixture of electro, house, and juke (to name but a few sources) was like nothing I had ever heard but soon went on the form the base of Ramadanman’s incredible 2010 run. I was soon hopelessly addicted to its treated vocals and rhythmic flourishes which, at the hands of any other producer, would sound cluttered and messy, but here breathe freely. For all of the elements at work there’s a huge amount of space here, occasionally filled up by crushing low-end and that organ sound that lends Ramadanman productions their signature melodic touch. This sound, a defining feature of bass music in 2010, may have appeared on plenty of quality 12″s this year but none as essential and none reaching the perfection of “Glut”‘s taut and potent five minutes. A veritable anthem, and one that still blows my mind each and every time. (Chris Miller)

21. Girl Unit, “Wut”
[Night Slugs] (buy)
It’s safe to say the emergent Night Slugs label was already having a good year before their eighth released dropped; Londoner Girl Unit’s “Wut” was legendary while its release details were still uncertain. First surfacing in March, the track’s ubiquity rivaled that of Addison Groove’s “Footcrab” and tapped into the same vein of repetitive euphoria. “Wut” nicely embodies everything there is to embody about the distinctive label, funnily enough since it’s one of the few straightforward dubstep tracks the label has put out. In a year where chopped vocal samples quickly turned from novelty to bore, “Wut” did it differently, loosing a stampede of ecstatic voices that converged in a fearsome display of controlled destruction. But “Wut” was also about the hip-hop synths that coated the track’s frame in even more layers of melodic abandon, spreading like wildfire across its oil slick surface until the whole thing was alight in a glorious gaudy blaze.
(Andrew Ryce)

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With the markers of just what exactly constitutes dubstep in perpetual motion, Mount Kimbie have been doing their part to blur the lines even further. Since early 2009, their stuttering, crackling productions infused with everything from folky guitar lines, UK garage, R’n'B and ambient have pegged them as ones to keep a close eye on. After two highly collectible EP’s on Hotflush Recordings, they released their debut album, Crooks and Lovers, to critical acclaim in July. LWE sat down with Dominic Maker and Kai Campos to talk about influences, recording the album and the future of Mount Kimbie.

Where did you meet each other?

Kai: At university in South London, in Elephant & Castle. We both had moved up to London for uni. We didn’t really know anyone else at that time so we would go to school together and talk about music.

Where are you originally from?

Dom: I was born in Chichester in West Sussex and currently live in Brighton.

K: And I was born in Cornwall and lived there until I moved to London.

Where does the name Mount Kimbie come from?

D: It’s a combination of Nick Drake’s song “Kimbie” and the album Mount Eerie by the Microphones.

What were you listening to before you met each other and whilst growing up?

D: I listened to a lot of commercial indie stuff. I remember hearing Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm album and thinking that was wicked. Also Arcade Fire and TV On The Radio. I guess that was the stuff that was making me want to make music initially. But I guess I never listened to music that much. There were about six or seven albums that I listened to repeatedly and then maybe I’d hear a song here or there that I liked.

K: I played in bands and was more seduced by hip-hop and electronic music in my formative years. I was really in to Madlib and especially his Quasimoto stuff. Then I got more into ambient stuff like Phillip Jack and contemporary classical stuff like Steve Reich and Phillip Glass and John Adams.

What sort of music was bringing you together?

K: There wasn’t necessarily that much common ground. We were just talking about music in general. Dom made this incredible short film which had Pharoah Monch on it.

D: I was actually studying film and video at university and the project was to make a little five or ten minute video to introduce yourself to the group. At the time I was really into hip hop so I put on that track “Simon Says” with me just sitting there drinking milk.

K: But we talked a bit about TV On The Radio, which we were both into. But pretty soon after that we were both going on Boomkat and hearing people like Bassclef and Loefah and stuff and it was 2006 and we were like what the hell is this?

So was that kind of a result of going to university in South London?

D: Yeah I guess so. I remember hearing dubstep at Bestival and it must have been a good six months before I was in London, but I never followed it up. Where I was from there wasn’t a big resource for getting your hands on new music, but of course there’s so much going on in London and it’s really easy to hear new sounds and go to clubs. So finding out that there was the chance to listen to this sort of stuff regularly was really exciting and that’s how we came together really, just going out and trying to find new music. I remember one of the first things we saw was Bassclef at this old theatre and we thought it would just be this guy DJing, but he had this trombone and it was really inspiring.

Musically had you been doing anything before that?

K: Yeah we’d both been making stuff. I was making electronic music for a long time, so in my room at uni I had my little bedroom set up, so I had a half decent studio and I would show Dom how to use certain things on the computer. From there we just naturally started making stuff together.

Is that original set up basically what you use now?

K: It’s not too far off. I had a PC then, and was running Fruity Loops and had a little mixer, a guitar and some decent monitors. And I think if you have decent monitors then you’re set. I have a few new bits now but it’s essentially the same.

So you play the guitar on the tracks?

K: Yeah, although I’m not sure there is any on the first record, but yeah, pretty much any time there’s guitar I’m playing it.

Were the first two EP’s written around the same time?

K: No, they were written very much around the times they were released, even in the order the tracks run. The first four tracks we finished became the first EP and the next four were the second EP. It kind of seemed very easy at that point.

D: I think the EPs were a year apart.

K: Yeah, it seemed like a much longer time between the records, but it wasn’t, it was quite a productive stage at that point.

But there must have been quite a few things that you’d almost finished or had been working on before Maybes came out.

D: There were some things, but they didn’t feel very serious to us. I remember the first mix we ever did was a for a radio show in Lancaster and we just put in anything that we’d made. It was a terrible mix.

Everything you’ve released has been on Hotflush. Were they the first people you contacted?

K: They were the only ones we heard back from. We sent them some tracks, they liked it and asked us if we wanted to do a record. So everything we said they were happy with and we decided on the track order, the artwork and everything.

D: It was much easier in those days. [laughs]

K: Yeah, I was thinking they’d come back at some point and ask us to change something, but they never did, it was so simple with them.

Is that why you chose to release your album on Hotflush too?

K: Yeah I mean they’ve been really helpful and really open minded and just left us to get on with it I suppose, and hopefully it’s worked for everybody.

Has the album attracted attention from bigger labels?

D: We don’t really know. Our managers soak up all of that stuff so we have no idea. I think when the album came out it was like a big shock wave for us so we’re still recovering from that. We just want to play live and that’s really all we’ve been able to think about since the album came out really.

K: We are looking forward to doing another record but we’ve got a lot of shows to play and a lot of stuff to take and then we can sit down, hopefully the start of next year and think about how we want to do it.

When you first started making music together did you talk about what exactly you wanted your sound to be?

D: We never really had a chat like that, we just naturally progressed into what we’re making now from the original stuff. I think the only conversation we had about our music was that we wanted to make dubstep and we decided we weren’t good at that so we set out to do something a bit more creative.

K: It’s hard to put it into words really and if you could there probably wouldn’t be a point in making the music. So the reason I think it works between us is that we’re both aiming towards the same thing that we can’t quite put into words and there were a couple of moments where things just clicked. On “Taps” from the first record, for example, which is not necessarily the best thing we’ve done, but there was just something about the production that Dom was doing on that, that we both knew that was the sound we were looking for. But we’re always looking to change things too.

Picture by Phil Sharp

I was wondering that, that after two incredibly successful EP’s and now the album, do you feel a pressure that the next thing that you do needs to show a marked difference?

K: Well I think we want to anyway. I mean, we don’t really feel the pressure from other people to reinvent it all over again, but the best kind of feeling that you can get is when you surprise yourself with what you’re doing. When you listen back to something and wonder how the hell you came up with it, that’s the feeling you look for and it does happen every now and then. That’s when you get excited and when you want to do more. I’m sure whatever we do will sound very different, we just don’t know how yet.

How much planning went in to the album?

D: Well, it’s about a year’s work of not much work really. The intense part came about three weeks before we had to hand it in and a good percentage of the album was finished then. We didn’t over-think it though. Well, initially we did but nothing good came of that so we just relaxed and stepped back a bit and relieved ourselves of the pressure you naturally put on yourself in a situation like that; and we started to write things we wanted to go on there and at the start it was just ideas and loops, then a few months later we’d come back and add to them and just keep building up. One of the hardest parts was working out the order of the tracks, because there are so many different sides to the album. If we had thought too much about the concept of the album then the running order would have come easily, but it was good in the way that it made us really have to think about that side of things.

K: You can think about the order of things too much while you’re making the album and maybe think after finishing three songs, well, we need something to take it in a different direction so I’ll write a song like this. That becomes quite troublesome, so I think it’s best to just get in and write the songs and try and figure out the narrative of it afterwards. It was definitely a much harder process than the EPs, though, and I didn’t think it would be, but I just felt very differently about it. But I think it’s very hard within electronic music to make something that is cohesive and feels like it fits together. It’s much easier to just make a bunch of singles. So it was very important to us that it worked as a whole.

Do you agree that bass music in the UK seems to be in a very exciting place right now?

K: Yeah it does and I think that it has quite a bit to do with the Internet and those people who are now making music. Compared to say, the drum & bass scene in the mid-90′s which was a very exciting place to be, but perhaps the people who started making it were all coming from a very similar background. Now the people who are making music that is getting put under the same umbrella are coming from lots of different places and you don’t need to be in a certain place to hear a certain type of music any more. And certainly the breadth of influences that you hear I think is quite exciting too.

Who are some of the producers that you guys get inspired by?

D: We’ve always worked very closely with James Blake and listened to a lot of his stuff. Especially lately, we’re listening to a lot of his unreleased stuff, which has very tough keys and basic percussion, just real songs you know.

K: He’s really seen as one of the most exciting electronic producers around; he’s basically an incarnation of Joni Mitchell deep down. There aren’t too many electronic producers out there who sound like Joni Mitchell and write songs like he does. We listen to a lot of Actress as well. We were talking before about making a cohesive record, well this guy has made two records that just feel like works of art. If I was feeling kind of stuck for ideas I’d just listen to Hazyville from start to end and it would give me plenty to think about.

James Blake often gets talked about like he’s involved with Mount Kimbie. How does he fit in?

K: It’s basically because he has played with us live. We were already friends and when we started doing live shows we asked him to come help out. We thought three people would be good, it would be more fun, plus he’s really good at playing keyboards and he has a MacBook as well. [laughs]

D: To be honest, at the time it was because he had the MacBook and then as soon as he played with us it was because he played amazingly and his voice was incredible. We knew it was going to be good.

K: This was before he’d released any records and our schedule started getting very busy and his was too with school. We started playing Europe a few times a week and he had essays to hand in so we had to go ahead with just the two of us and wanted to figure out some way we could make it work. Now his career has taken off as well, so we’re going to do gigs together in the future because it’s a lot of fun. But when we took it back to the two of us playing we had to approach it in a different way and it was really interesting. We have never recorded anything with him, though there was one track that we have played live that we all did together. So I guess that’s why we always get lumped in together with him.

So we can set the record straight with that then.

K: Yeah, that fucker didn’t write anything. [laughs]

D: I wish they said that about his tunes, that we had a hand in them.

Speaking of singers, I was listening to your remix of Andreya Triana. It seems that a lot of your remix work centres around working with bands and that your style goes very well with vocalists. Has there ever been any thought of using vocalists for your own productions?

K: Yeah we’ve definitely had to think about it. It’s a completely different element that you can bring to music, but with the album it was too soon because it would have been too rushed and we didn’t really want to have an album that had about four or five guest vocalists. Not that we have anything against people who do that. We just wanted it to be a singular vision and if we were going to have a vocalist on it they’d have to be a big part of it rather than just coming to the studio and laying down a couple of tracks.

D: It would to really mean something and feel right.

K: Yeah, we’d want the music to be as much there’s as ours. It’s just about finding the right person really. So it definitely is something to think about for the future.

In terms of remixing your contemporaries, there’s only been the LV/Untold remix. Have you been approached by anyone else?

D: No, just a lot of indie bands.

K: I remember hearing Untold’s track and really loved it. Then I saw him at Fabric about seven months later and he asked if we wanted to remix it. So he said he’d send over the stems and ended up sending about 4GB of stuff through, all these weird animal noises and effects and all sorts. So there’s probably a bit of Untold on the album, too. [laughs]

Any samples you’ve used that you can let us know the secret to?

D: We’ve definitely used a bit of James. Lot’s of him talking.

K: We didn’t use so many for the album, but definitely on the singles. The samples for “Maybes” are a well guarded secret but they are from a copyright free source. “William” is obvious if you’re in to minimalist neo-classical composers and know about a guy in New York called William [Basinski]. For the album there was a night where I was bored with what I was listening to and so I had an evening with techno, like Basic Channel style stuff. Every day I would log on to Last.fm and start with Basic Channel and skip forward ten or fifteen tracks and press record at certain points, and at the end I just had this ridiculous amount of files of about fifteen seconds of stuff. I organized them all by date and called them all things like “1″, “2″, “3″ and things like that so I don’t know where half of it came from. But low quality Last.fm streaming, that’s helped make the album.

Many of your peers are also playing around with techno and 4/4 club tracks. Is there another side to you that you want to explore too?

D: We have done some pretty apocalyptic remixes with some sick acapellas.

K: For me, as a teenager, 4/4 was something I really struggled with and got quite angry about but I guess it’s like a lot of things in life, you come back to it later and think, ‘Why was I such an angry little bitch about it?’ There is a certain beauty in the simplicity of it and in the undeniable animalistic side of a 4/4 beat. I’m not sure we’ve done anything in that format that is good enough, but we are definitely influenced by it. A bunch of guys like Ramadanman and Joy Orbison seem to be looking for more subtle and different ways to make their point and I think house and techno is something that rewards you if you give it enough time.

Finally, what can we expect from Mount Kimbie in the next year?

D: A total overkill of live shows and probably not hearing much from us, maybe a few remixes. But then hopefully by next year, something totally fresh and new and something that we’ve enjoyed doing.

K: The plan is to run ourselves into the ground until February, then take six months off to look at the awful people that we’ve become and make a record and edge ever closer to the mainstream to find that elusive fame that we’ve been searching for.

[Hotflush Recordings]

Journeying through Brooklyn from southern Bed-Stuy to the oil-spill end of Greenpoint, the B48 bus shuttles me often from my apartment in Clinton Hill to my best dude-friends’ flat off Lorimer Street in Williamsburg. The richness of the scenery makes up for whatever obvious beauty this route lacks. Ancient brownstones give way to mid-century housing projects. It skims the jammed BQE briefly before penetrating South Williamsburg, where hipsters and Hasidim squabble over the former’s existential right to bike lanes, and Satmar kids chase each other up fortress-like blocks and whisper on stoops. I pass car repair shops with signs mostly in Spanish, un-wrenched fire hydrants serving alternately as ad-hoc car washes and water parks, failed luxury condo schemes dressed in plywood and street art and mere vandalism. By the time I pull the cord to request my stop, I’ve cut about as jarring and complicated and weirdly beautiful a slice of urban life as one’s likely to find anywhere.

I mention the B48 because without it, I’m not sure I would have fully understood Mount Kimbie. I’d found the duo’s two Hotflush EPs oddly underwhelming for the praise practically everyone else heaped upon them, and of the five remixes that appeared this spring, only Instra:mental’s take on “At Least” had really held my attention. Even on the ass-graced cover for Crooks & Lovers, their debut full-length, it didn’t look like Kai Campos and Dominic Maker were putting their best foot forward, exactly. I do a lot of my music-listening on earbuds while in transit — hardly ideal, but New York commutes are long, days here marvels of time management — and I’ve gotten pretty used to having my head on the dance floor while my body waits in a crumbling G-train station. But as Crooks & Lovers began soundtracking my trips up to Williamsburg, first as a professional obligation but soon as a pleasure, everything about these guys started falling into place.

Crooks & Lovers isn’t pitched at 4 a.m. bassbins; it’s the sound of watching a complicated world pass by your bus window on a drizzly Wednesday afternoon, mediated by a couple of creative minds not too self-serious to giggle about big butts. Like the labyrinthine neighborhoods the B48 diligently circumnavigates thrice hourly, it follows its own messy logic. The tracks are generally short, existing for maybe a block or two before dead-ending or merging into another. The same could be said for the album itself, which clocks in at a scant 35 minutes. But after a listen or two, they cease to feel unfinished, instead joining the broader fabric of the neighborhood. Tracks like “Before I Move Off” and “Field” cram as many ideas and colors into three or four minutes as Hotflush honcho Scuba might into six or seven, yet you hardly feel them rushing from point A to point B. Mount Kimbie don’t concern themselves much with genres or tempos: they sound as content to trudge along well below house tempos (“Adriatic,” “Ode to Bear”) as they do in dubstep territory (“Would Know”). This casualness also extends to their sound design, probably a big part of my early hesitancy about these guys. In the context of an album with little interest in dance floor movement, Mount Kimbie’s preference for tiny sounds — spindly drum programming, steely guitars straight off a Books album, cheap digital reverb (a major feature of “Before I Move Off”) — makes them feel that much more tangible. If you’re going to make music in your dingy apartment, Crooks & Lovers seems to be saying, why not make music for other kids living in dingy little apartments?

This isn’t to say that this music isn’t deliberately and elegantly composed, or that it couldn’t make one hell of a smash. In the wake of this album, the buzz surrounding Mount Kimbie has become something of a din, even in circles Hotflush’s mystique might usually be lost on. It just doesn’t sound like it’s bending over backwards to impress us. Crooks & Lovers is a quirky little electronic album from a group whose beauty sneaks up on you, and whose poetry maybe isn’t readily apparent on your first bus ride. Like the bowels of Brooklyn, it might never make perfect sense, but that never stops you from looking on intently and curiously from your window seat.

[Hotflush Recordings]

Clearly cognizant of Mount Kimbie’s cross-border appeal to techno/house heads, Hotflush wisely spends the second remix EP on the 4×4 axis with mixes from its head honcho, Paul Rose, and Panorama Bar residents Prosumer and Tama Sumo. Rose’s effort on “Vertical,” under his SCB guise, is the only track labeled as an edit, and fittingly it exploits the richness of the original without imposing too much Scuba. Basically re-imagining the moody original for the jacking techno crowd, its restless clink figures prominently, offset by a throbbing kick-and-woodblock rhythm section. Several breakdowns are employed alongside noisy washes, and with each the track grows more monstrous. It’s linear, as an edit should be, but not monotonous; SCB magnifies everything for peak-of-the-night intensity.

“William” found Mount Kimbie at their most seasick, a somber little number that develops into a distant, obscured future-shanty before its unexpected immersion in heavy, drunken bass. Tama Sumo & Prosumer’s mix retains many of the original’s qualities, extending them for dance floor consumption. They harness the power of its bass line for a driving rather than disorienting effect by chopping it up and placing it throughout the energetic structure. Midway through, dramatic strings emerge, setting the tone for the vocal, now slightly more intelligible. It’s not so far from the indie-house crossovers of Pantha du Prince or the Dial label, a streamlined take on sentimentalism. In summation, Mount Kimbie could not have selected a more formidable group of artists to rework their catalog. The results are split equally between exploiting their rhythmic and emotional capabilities, somewhere between the dance floor and the anxious rest-of-the-world. This is the split at the heart of Mount Kimbie as well.

[Hotflush Recordings]

Last year, at the tail end of a decade that churned out increasingly dull waves of electronic pop, Mount Kimbie released two arresting, futuristic four-track EPs on the Hotflush label, Maybes and Sketch on Glass. Both are absolutely flooring listens, the plonky beats and thick bass of the au courant post-dubstep youth movement melded with drastic mid-song moodswings and glimpses of mumbly, whimsical UK pop in the Robert Wyatt/Hot Chip lineage. As befits two records firmly entrenched in the avant garde, the contributions to these two follow-up remix EPs are pure class, with some of their closest contemporaries on the first and a few Berlin mainstays on the second (to be reviewed soon).

Having first whetted appetites on Scuba’s Sub:stance mix, sometime Mount Kimbie live vocalist James Blake’s mix of “Maybes” is undoubtedly the best known remix here. The hype proves wholly warranted; for those put off by his prior and perhaps overly woozy LFO experiments, it ought to be a revelation. Sparse claps snowball into a slow-motion mixture of doubletime hi-hats, clipped samples and sonorous bass drops you can feel throughout your being, the title stretched into an inquisitive, twisted and pitched-up, “May-beeeeeee?” Blake prolongs the pitched up R&B that peeks, all too briefly, through the overcast guitar haze of the original. It’s one of several moments in Mount Kimbie’s catalog where dense fog gives way to perfect pop, a heart-melting slur of information overload and cautious hope. “Maybe” can mean so many, too many things.

London duo Instra:mental are frequently discussed in terms of drum n’ bass, but during their tenderest moments the distinction doesn’t matter much. From the start they instill an underlying smooth and peaceful desolation in “At Least,” kinetic melancholia for solitary late-night elevated train rides, sleek and solemn. Spritely and in 4/4 where the original was low-key woodblock garage, its rich bass intact and interspersed throughoute. Behind these rhythms, crisp and upfront as always, are a blurry mass of melodics and warbley tones, liquid flowing through the track’s veins. Antsy and thick with organ echo and fleeting samples, “Serged” was the perfect track for Falty DL to have remixed. His rhythms scurry all over the place, sometimes breaky, sometimes with a 2-step, never staying locked in one pattern for too long. It’s caked, like everything he does, in a very New York clash between expansiveness and claustrophobia. The track has an exhausted sort of attention-deficit, especially for Falty DL; near the track’s conclusion, a pitched-down sample laments, “That was so long ago that I/thought we could make a new staaart.” Its miserableness is heightened by the sluggish pitch, sounding positively tired of the search. Of all the efforts here, his version maintains the closest allegiance to the vibe of the original mix.

For our third year-end report, LWE’s assistant editor, Chris Miller, draws attention to five excellent EPs from 2009

When we make our year end lists we divide our favorite music into two categories: albums and singles. But the definition of an album is constantly shifting as evinced when Shackleton declared Three EPs was not an album but rather, well, three EPs. While many will still slot the release into their albums list, it got me thinking. Between singles and albums lists we miss a crucial group, especially for electronic music: the 12″ EP. More than a single but not quite an LP, the 12″ allows producers to execute their vision over the course of around 20 minutes. For me, these records contained some 2009′s best music.

My criteria for this list dictated the releases must be released on 12″ vinyl, the work of a single artist and contain no remixes. I chose five EPs whose contents may go overlooked in year end charts because of their format. Some were tough calls: I left off STL’s “Silent State” because of the recognition the A-side will surely receive (though it should be noted that all three tracks are essential). Plenty of other deserving EPs were left off the list, such as Hauntologists’ EP2, Donato Dozzy and Nuel’s Aquaplano1111, Ancient Methods’ Fourth Method, the first Cheap and Deep 12″, and countless others which caused this writer sleepless nights over which would make the list. After finally narrowing it down, I believe these five EPs capture exactly what was right about 2009, each stubbornly disregarding trends and standing as a testament to the producer’s vision and originality.

05. A Made Up Sound, Archive
[Clone Basement Series] (buy)
Dave Huismans made his impact felt across dance music across many different subcultures in 2009, but Archive, the second release from Clone’s Basement Series stands out from his peers regardless of genre. Unabashedly techno with nary a broken beat in sight, Archive kicks off with the storm of “Wire,” a twisted, irresistible experiment in, as Levon Vincent would say, “ass-shakery”, before plunging into deeper house landscapes with “Bounce.” “Disconnect” shreds through early, raw house territory, and the EP finishes strong with the skittering stomp of “On and On.” Those needing to get bodies moving on the dance floor would have to be ignorant of the record to not find a propellant gear on Archive, providing further reasons for even those disinterested in bass music to follow Dave Huismans.

04. Floating Points, Vacuum [Eglo] (buy)
For an artist in his first year of releasing tunes, Floating Points managed to tower over many of his peers in 2009. After a string of quality 12″s for Planet Mu and R2 Records he released the Vacuum EP on his own Eglo imprint, keeping fans and critics alike on their toes by shifting to a new crop of deep house sounds which highlighted the producer’s knack for beautifully restrained melodies. “Vacuum Boogie” stunned me the first time I heard it on a big system and keeps on impressing, while “Truly” is more laid back and packs just as much punch. Sometimes, though, I think that “Argonaute II” is the standout of the EP, taking everything down a notch and placing more focus on the constantly twisting, modulating synth lines Sam Shepard coaxes from his machines. When I flip the record over for another go, however, I sense it’s impossible to pick a favorite when every track is a stand out. Whereas “unabashedly melodic” often precedes a “cheesiness” warning, the strains here are so smartly deployed, they result in one of the year’s most stunning EPs.

03. John Roberts, Mirror [Dial] (buy)
John Roberts likely needs no introduction around these parts, being quite the breakout star in 2009. Last year’s Hesitate hinted at greatness, but nothing prepared us for the one-two punch of Mirror and Blame. While the latter offers prime dance floor magic, Mirror hits all the right notes when oozing from a home stereo. After the casual organs and militaristic stomp of the title cut — which might draw a few DJs’ styluses — Roberts plunges into the humid, obscured depths of “Maroon”‘s off-kilter metronome and exhausted keys. The stunner, however, is “Pruned,” whose slow-motion whistles, overwhelmed, raspy piano lines and yearning strings evoke cinematic visuals. LWE’s Chris Burkhalter described the tune as “only incidentally dance music,” which can truly be extended to the EP as a whole. While as a DJ one might be inclined to reach for the also-impressive Blame, it’s Mirror that keeps me listening the longest, and best defines one of the most distinctive young producers in house music.

02. Mount Kimbie, Maybes
[Hotflush Recordings] (buy)
Maybes‘ inclusion here should be no surprise. More than many artists this year, Mount Kimbie bent genres and from their studio emerged some of 2009′s most original tracks. Just as Mirror was only incidentally house, Mount Kimbie’s records were only incidentally dubstep. At times their tunes have dancers reaching for a 2-step, but more often than not featured no steady beat whatsoever. While Sketch on Glass is a fabulous follow up and features one of my favorite tunes of the year (“Fifty Mile View”), Maybes remains the better EP. From the soaring, pitched up voices of “Maybes” to the melancholy, rain-drenched “William,” Mount Kimbie conjures the melancholy of windswept plains and snow-capped mountains. Their delay unit gets a workout on “Vertical” with clanging percussion and detuned organs and the EP ends with the playful, somewhat clumsy “Taps.” Mount Kimbie made quite the opening statement with Maybes and seem poised to continuing to warp minds as they mine their own form of hybrid “-step” music.

01. Kassem Mosse, Workshop 08 [Workshop] (buy)
It would be almost foolish not to give top billing to Workshop, and what better release to represent them than their milestone-sized eighth. The dense Workshop 08 operates on so many levels, but doesn’t beat you over the head with its complexities. Whether people argued over the proper speeds at which to play this EP or which was its best track, few disputed it was among the year’s strongest 12″s. From the slow-burning aquatic movements of the A side, the stretched out, atypical rhythms on the Dettmann-sampling B1 or the wistful, pre-dawn crawl home of B2, Workshop 08 is, quite simply, a record no good music lover should be without. Kassem’s analog productions keep one eye on the past but both feet planted firmly in the future, which is, in so many words, what 2009 was all about.

Sketch On Glass is the highly anticipated second release by Mount Kimbie, following their highly rated Maybes EP from earlier this year, also on Scuba’s Hotflush Recordings. These guys are in the zone! Pioneering a catchy brand of light-as-air, deep-as-the-ocean, feel-good dubstep, here they offer us four more superb tracks. The title track comes out swinging and only gets better as it goes along. Serious shuffle, fits of portamento, and comping organ triplets all contribute to a short but sweet piece of blissful music. If that wasn’t enough, it switches to double-time and back before bringing in a chipmunk recorded singing in the shower.

“Serged” changes gears, taking a noisy minute to find the beat, and slowing things down to 82 BPM for more of a dystopian vibe. “50 Mile View” feels like two songs in one:first wistfully cinematic and full of breathing room, then crystallizing into a synthesized vocal snippet which had me straining to decipher the lyrics. Finally, “At Least” employs a similar duplicitous tactic, with an acoustic bass and real-sounding kit giving way to glitchy staccato synths, sine bass, and quirky sort of surprising outro. I only wish these songs were longer. Three of the four here are only about three and a half minutes each, but this brevity certainly contributes to their can’t-get-enough appeal. In other words, set your preferred audio playback device or application to repeat: Mount Kimbie’s got that crack.