As the school manager I get deluged in new music, mainly recommendations from students. Also as part of my job I have to try and stay up to date with what our students are listening to! Here is a selection of albums I have found myself returning to again and again. It is rather frightening that some albums I tend to think of as "recent" are often 20 year old, so I have tried to keep it within the last 5-10 years or so. Mainly electronic music as frankly I find most rock or indie music these days a bore. However this list is by no means definitive, just personal picks, so please feel free to educate me to your favourite albums of recent times whatever the genre in the comments section.
2562 - Aerial
My all time favourite dubstep album. While a lot of Dubstep has aged rather badly, either intentionally raw to the point of unlistenability (Digital Mystikz, sorry I will get stick for this!) or so techy as it disappear in a cloud of automated reverb (Scuba), Aerial strikes the perfect balance between the icy modern digital sheen and the warm groove of bass heavy dub. While not losing the urban dread that made Dubstep so edgy it has a warm fuzzy glow that makes it enveloping rather than alienating. As a miserable old git who likes King Tubby and Lee Perry I found this album to be an excellent bridge into the new sounds of modern dub, a perfect blend of retro and modern. More importantly it keeps it simple, crisp and funky, unlike a lot of Dubstep this actually skanks!
Neosignal - Raum Und Zeit
I have always loved Phace and Misanthrop so I was excited to hear their latest project Neosignal. Looking to branch out from their dark Drum and Bass into both Dubstep and pop their debut album throws "Numbers" era Kraftwerk, Noisia style monster beats with dashes of Daft Punk in an industrial teutonic blender. Everything is over the top, from the mysterious title of the album (Space and Time in German) to the grinding fuzzy bass riffs that tear through every track. Each song could perfectly compliment Alan Partridge's infamous leather posing pouch lap dance in "I'm Alan Partridge". If you like balls out electro then this album is for you.
Barker and Baumecker - Transsektoral
Moody German techno is as distinctive in it's way as the pioneering sounds of Detroit. Over the years it has developed into a diamond hard music bringing together a peculiarly German love of Dub Reggae with a need to whir and clank like a Audi factory. Much like Audi's all conquering Le Mans sports cars everything here is clean, precise and beautifully propulsive.
Instra:mental - Resolution 653
Being a huge fan of original acid house and later abusers of the 303 such as Richie Hawtin and Luke Vibert I was turned onto this album as soon as I saw the song title "Aggro Acid"! I'm a sucker for squelching sounds so I was instantly sold. The whole album moves beyond drum and bass into the shadowy but accessible sounds of the Post Dubstep/Future Soul touted by labels such as Nonplus, Autonomic and Exit Records. After many of the revolutionary strides made in alternative ways to compose and produce music during the 80s and 90s, the 00s now seem to be an era where the basic ingredients have been set and music is now about recontextualizing and refining. This album is like all your favourite acid house records squashed into a glittering new robot body like the liquid metal, shapeshifting T-1000 from Terminator 2.
Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
I like this album because it is the musical equivalent of Bret Easton Ellis's books, specifically his nihilistic debut novel Less That Zero. Eschewing the usual Cristal and bling blather of much contemporary RnB, Ocean's lyrics give a bleak portrayal of bored stoned teens and end of their tether strippers and junkies and makes me think of some of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield's pained socially conscious funk of the 70's. Tied to weird spacey productions that combine 80's synth funk with the jazzy darkness of Sly Stone, Ocean spins sweet melodies that twist and turn in unexpected ways. It feels like a step on from the more street and rap influenced Neo Soul movement of D'Angelo and Erykah Badu, but while that movement consciously aped 70's instrumental sounds this takes the same hard messages and attaches them to sounds that are startlingly fresh and modern.
LV - Routes
A strange mixture of UK Garage, Funky and Dubstep this collaboration between LV and Joshua Idehen keeps things effortlessly foot taping while adding disorienting synth effects to produce a set of songs that sound like every 5AM post club night bus journey from hell you have ever experienced! Again it is hard to put a finger on what makes it work but Idehen's sometimes humorous sometimes pensive lyrics riding over beats that sound like a potted history of recent UK urban music just hits the mark. LV's next album on Hyperdub featuring three three South African rappers is equally good.
Consequence - Live for Never
Another link in the Autonomic mafia's chain. This album just snuck up on me..in a dark alley with a chain! I wanted to hate it as the whole vibe is a bit portentous and twiddly. The name of the artist and song titles, everything seemed a bit arty for my tastes. However the whole album projects the attractive force of a dying star, it comes on your playlist and you grudgingly give it a listen and soon you are sucked into it's murky depths. A huge sense of space pervades it's turbid surfaces, once again it is hard to tie any of the songs to a specific genre. Elements of Photek's more housey tunes, a dash of Dubstep and elements of hardcore Moog prog rockers like Tangerine Dream and Jean Michel Jarre make up this unique meditative work.
Kryptic Minds and Leon Switch - Lost All Faith
Drum and Bass veterans who really kicked out the jams with this album. One of the few Drum and Bass albums that manages to be "intelligent" without boring the pants of you, it realises that "jazzy" does not mean just chucking a few Fender Rhodes 7th chords about and sampling Weather Report drum breaks. One of the few Drum and Bass albums that took up the challenge of Dubstep while still keeping all the things we loved about Drum and Bass in the first place. So much modern DnB (aka Hospital) has become rigid hands in the air neo soul music, this album keeps the darkness of Dub Reggae, the space of Dubstep, and the jagged synths of classic Neuro Funk and strings them out over rattling beats worthy of Paradox to create a classic album.
Karriem Riggins - Alone Together
Riggins is a well known beat maker and session museum for the likes of Common and Slum Village. While his debut album is certainly heavily influenced by J Dilla it has an off kilter jazzy flow to it that is all his own. I could also have gone for Damu the Fudgemunk's equally excellent "How it Should Sound" as one of the best beats albums of recent times, but while that LP stays firmly within the parameters of beat making established by golden age legends like Pete Rock, Riggins has a broader vision. Combining jazz, unusual sample sources and an odd ball but head bobbing sense of rhythm this 34 track album is a tapestry you can go back to again and again and hear something different.
Jam City - Classical Curves
A bit of a random one here, possibly just a flavour of the month that I will tire of soon. But for now this albums sounds like it could be the future, but a very 80's mullety future. A clattering fusion of old school rap beats, icy rave synths and a dash of Prince at his most synthetic. Many of the songs sound like music to a film that has yet to be made. However once it is made the film will almost certainly include high speed car chases through futuristic cities, lots of neon, mutant zombies, killer robots and swaggering through it all an eye patched anti hero in the mould of Snake Plissken from the sci-fi classic Escape from New York.
Juju and Jordash - Techno Primitivism
I got into this album recently. I was digging about for some good techno but only finding boring Detroit rip offs or rather hand baggy party tunes. This album came to the rescue with weird slightly frightening textures making me think of some of Surgeon's work. Fingers Inc hollow bass lines, creepy late night synths and mystical Augustus Pablo melodica flourishes meet more far reaching influences like industrial pioneers Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, all mashed into a heady bitches brew.
Kode9 and the Spaceape - Memories of the Future
The ultimate masterclass in the dark art of the infamous "brown sound" this dank dirty album positively quakes with malice and sub-bass frequencies. Kode9's excellent Hyperdub label has released some of the best dubstep music but also a lot of boring rubbish. This album however pretty much sums up what Dubstep was before it went overground. A mighty fusion of The Spaceape's Linton Kwesi Johnsonesque ramblings and Kode9's claustrophobic textures it is amazing how Spaceapes growling patios blends sonically with the bass lines. Through the despairing views on modern society a line can be drawn back to previous urban landmarks such as Massive Attack's Blue Lines and Ghost Town by the Specials, accept this is a hell of a lot more gloomy and less commercial, and all the better for it!
Samiyam - Sam Baker's Album
Former LSS tutor Ben Wood used to react like a dog at a fireworks show whenever he heard Samiyam's berserk unquantized beats! They would drive him insane but in the right mood there is simply no one like Samiyam! After a couple of excellent EPs he burst out with an instant classic debut album. Like a demon child of J Dilla and Dabrye his music completely refines what "rap" or "beats" means, let alone what is now considered pop music. If there is a better example of how avant garde ideas from the 50's and 60's have permeated mainstream (albeit niche) music I'd like to hear it. Fragmentary ideas fly by and listening to an individual track is rather like looking at an individual square of a mosaic. Soon all music will sound like this.
I hope you find something good in the list!
Maningrey
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