MERRY CHRISTMAS ILX!
79. Creep ft. Nina Sky - You
Much of the charm of "You" is encapsulated by its video clip: the high contrast black and white that could signify stylisation, honesty or deadness, obscuring everything in shadows and bright light, the sudden rhythmic back and forth jump cuts blurring the identity of the narrators, the uncertainty of whether the girls in Nina Sky are singing to, with, or away from one another. Rather than all-out shock, "You" unsettles by its ambiguity. The heavily echoed handclaps and those startling snare breakdowns may be the most immediately noticeable aspects of the arrangement, but "You" ultimately is more of a melodic masterpiece than a rhythmic one, its gossamer web of reversed strings and tinkling piano keys both comforting and filled with a nameless dread. In this, "You" simply picks up and foregrounds intensities already present in R&B; the song is like a very slight gothic twist on Ashanti's "Rescue Me", millennial R&B at its most prettily and eerily bloodless, and wherein the music evoked both desire and fear not by deliberately juxtaposing them, but by finding a certain sonic and vocal space where one merged imperceptibly into the other. What strikes me as most remarkable about "You" is that it is exactly what you might hope for from its concept, neither mocking nor eviscerating the feel of the R&B it serenades, and yet somehow still setting its vantage point quite firmly on the other side of the mirror. To better understand how rare this vibe is, listen to Creep's new single "Animals", which despite having the same basic formula ends up sounding more like Lamb or something. A lot of this distinction has to do with the singer, admittedly, and it's difficult to imagine voices more perfect for "You" than those of Nina Sky, who don't need to switch up their sound for the occasion at all - always already understated and trembling with carefully veiled yearning or desire, they've perfected the art of seeming to think much more than they tell.
78. Dennis Ferrer - Hey Hey (Sabo Remix)
There were (a few) better moombahton tunes this year, but none exemplified the rhythmic possibilities of the style better than this remix. The original "Hey Hey" moves along two rhythmic axes: house's brisk pulse, and the stern, assaultive counter-rhythm that always struck me as sounding like hail on a tin roof. After dutifully slowing down the track, Sabo creates a third rhythmic axis by adding a reggaeton-style dem bow rhythm, around which he festoons whispering hi-hats, drum rolls and a myriad of echoes and rolling bongo patterns. The interaction of these various components within a groove that somehow manages to cohere is a joy to behold, seeming to require at least four hips and seven limbs in order to do its gentle beat-assault justice on the dancefloor. Apart from this, the remix basically abides by moombahton's unwritten rule of changing as little as possible once you've moombaht-ised the original tune, but in this case that is exactly what you want. Ultimately the magnetic rhythmic concept of moombahton is precisely this: slowing down the beat isn't just exciting for its own sake, but also for the way it creates space for the groove to move in so many different directions while still getting where it needs to go. This very sense of confusion can facilitate a kind of anthemism, the giddy pinnacles of a beat that is doing everything at once; when this remix explodes into its final climax about a minute from the end (in a very efficient four and a half minute or so tune), it makes me want to pump all three of my fists.
77. King Louie - Kush Too Strong
Deej got me onto King Louie in a fairly big way, and I had to think pretty hard about which of his tunes I wanted to write up, but "Kush Too Strong" was my first and greatest love, a hymn to kush that sounds half afraid of its subject matter. This sense of fear is less down to Louie - the songtitle is more of a boast than a complaint, though the ambiguity of the double meaning is surely deliberate - than the music, a thick bed of synth chords all engorged and expiring that floats and expands to fill the space like smoke, while the rhythm skips with severe, slowed-down formality in the background. It's simply gorgeous stuff, but it also sounds enervated and frail, spent by the excess it celebrates. It's this which turns Louie's chorus recital of attributes and events ("I take her home / she let me bone / my shoes are chrome") into something more like ritualistic invocation than bragging, a way of controlling and constraining and directing the dense vibe. I'm not a priori opposed to the "cloud rap" I've heard (and I don't hate Drake, though nor do I like him) but I find myself responding to its purported signature sonic impulses much more readily in the context of street rap and commercial R&B, where flotation tank wooziness is less of a raison d'être and more targeted in its deployment, and hence more emotionally affecting. The idea of subsiding into disorienting drift is much more enticing when it's in the context of characters and sounds that had a firm grasp on reality to begin with. After all, no one actually lives all the time like "Kush Too Strong" sounds, do they? Do they?
76. Damu - Breathless
Damu's Unity was basically dubstep's belated but welcome (unwitting) riposte to my perennial complaint that the rush to cut out 2-step garage's girliness in order to meditate on the bass weight had been way too hasty. Well really I guess the debut Joy Orbison single was the opening shot, but listening to Damu's material this year was one of the first times I connected with this kind of trebly, sugary endorphin rush nu-garage in a really strong way - finally, music that seemed to capture the ecstatic magic of prime 2-step rather than merely gesture towards clinically (c.f. most "future garage") - take a bow also Maya Jane Coles, whose thoroughly lovely "Can't Hide The Way I Feel" under the Nocturnal Sunshine moniker could easily have subbed in this spot. The histrionic, cavernous pseudo-grime of "Ridin" was Damu's (relative) "hit" this year, and is fabulous as well, but my favourite of his 2011 tunes was the charmingly frictionless "Breathless", a tune which vaguely and unexpectedly resembles Gang Gang Dance's "Glass Jar" in its swirl of endless promise, a constantly surging anticipation of joy, fulfillment, arrival. It was also (give or take the nearly as brilliant "L.O.V.E.") Damu's most unabashedly girly effort. What do I mean by "girly" in this context? Mainly, a sense of romance and uplift that cannot be contained within an emphasis on depth (or more specifically, "deepness"), but swells up to overtake the music's rootedness in the rigorously physical or spatial. All strobing "Mandarine Girl" trance riffs and chiming vocal chords and rippling faux-xylophone arpeggios, "Breathless" builds its syncopated house undercarriage less for the sake of groove than to provide a foundation from which to lift its climaxes higher, then higher again, then higher still.
75. Raphael Saadiq - Good Man
I like the OG rock moves of much of Raphael's Stone Rollin' well enough, but I have to admit to framing the album in my head as one long build-up to the voluptuous soul of "Good Man", a marvelous condensation of Isaac Hayes balladry into a neat and tidy sub -four minute pop stunner. Those strings! The female vocal refrain! Raphael's falsetto "Without YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!" as elegant horns let out a gradual exhalation of vanity and ego! Most of all - or rather, what all these things combine to create - I love the tune's brooding sensuality, which derives its force from its covalence, the female chorus repeating back to Raphael his self-justifications ("I'm a good man, food on the table, working two jobs, ready willing and able") in a manner which calls his protestations into question even though it's not clear whether they're sympathetic or mocking; the back and forth between these rehearsed recitals and Raphael's almost freeform sorrowing exposes the gulf between the good man's outward face to the world and his crumbling sense of self. Like "Walk On By", whose most slyly seductive moments it echoes, "Good Man" realises that soul, with its juxtapositions of velvet smooth surfaces and sudden eruptions of raw emotion, remains perhaps the best vehicle for capturing the tussle between pride and all that pride attempts to conceal.
74. Sneakbo - The Wave
"The Wave" started off life as Ill Blu's massive stupid bleep-house instrumental "Alright Mate", straighter and trancier than their usual fare, and so also the perfect foundation for a massive stupid pop-grime tune - I wonder if the duo always knew this or the realisation stole upon them slowly. Sneakbo is basically a glorified hype MC here ("jetski's gwan dagadagada!"), which is really all you need given this tune, like so many pop tunes in 2011, is in truth primarily about the dancefloor breakdowns when the ostensible star of the show exits stage left and allows the beat to do its thing. And the beat here is a monster, its inheritance from uk funky the absolutism of the rigid synth arpeggios, whose minor deviations from the stomping 4X4 kick create in themselves a kind of syncopation that utterly contradicts the tune's resemblance to pop-trance. This of course is the great secret of uk funky - the way in which syncopation forms a governing principle not tied down to any particular rhythmic manifestation - and what makes tunes like "The Wave" (and before it Dotstar's "Ransom") most exciting is how they imagine a way-out for the plodding tranciness (or alternatively deadening dubstep facsimiles) of uk urban pop - tunes single-minded and stompy enough for the charts (at least in theory) but captivating in their rhythmic restlessness.
73. Lady Saw - Matrimoney
Some riddim names are quite totalitarian in their determination of the groove's associations. I thought of this twinkly riddim as a kind of wedding procession even before I heard Tifa's "Wedding Chapel" and Lady Saw's title track effort: that said, a tune as jaunty and mischievous really could only soundtrack a shotgun wedding or drunken elopement. It'd be a fun little riddim by itself, but it's Lady Saw who really raises it to the next level with some of the best lyrics of the year: "Matrimoney / ceremoney / testimoney / alimoney / take a hint, it's all about the money / for you and I to live in peace and har-money." The brutal reduction of romance to economic realities is hardly a new subject matter in pop, but it's hard to think of an example quite this blunt and mercantile, not to mention filled with so many puns. Something about Lady Saw's thick-voiced, full-frontal sexuality makes the exchange still sound enticing, a shower of funds just another example of the worship you'd gladly provide for the pleasure of her presence - here, as always, female dancehall stars distinguish themselves from (or, at least, within) the Lil' Kim mode by never even thinking of sounding defensive or defiant; absolute power is simply taken for granted (for more of this check my other favourite Lady Saw tune of 2011, "Wife A Wife").
72. Kelley Polar - I'm Not What You Want
I quite like the idea of Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan as some kind of jobbing studio vocalist working with only the most luxuriant of electronic revivalists. There's an occasional glimpse of glittering superficiality in Junior Boys' own work but it seems to really flower when Jeremy works with other people; in such moments he sounds like Martin Gore if Martin Gore spent all his time singing while staring into the mirror (rather than at pornographic snuff films, or whatever it is Gore actually watches), voluptuously sighing and vamping like a body builder flexing his biceps. "I'm Not What You Want" is the best effort in this vein yet, musically taking Kelley Polar closer to the finger snapping electro-pop precision of Scritti Politti circa Cupid & Psyche '85 (though still featuring dizzily gorgeous live strings) while emotionally poised between that tradition on the one hand and the beautifully empty wounded sighs of David Cassidy's "Romance" and Bryan Ferry's "Slave To Love" on the other - songs that gesture towards impossible feelings but also smile knowingly at the arrogant futility of their gestures. I think the last time this vibe was reached for so precisely was on the first Future Bible Heroes album, and there's a startling and pleasurable sense of familiarity about rediscovering it in a different time, place and context: the elevation of an appealing (because) fantastical notion of eighties plasticity to absolute artform.
71. Teedra Moses - Another Luvr
There are few artists I feel as emotional about as Teedra - some of girl's songs are as close to the center of my heart as it's possible for anything to get - but I didn't end up listening to her 2011 mixtape Luxurious Undergrind an awful lot. Teedra's idea of "champagne soul" is great, of course, but for the most part it seemed to translate as smooth and goes-down-easy rather than flushed and headspinning. Teedra, of course, is almost without equal when it comes to holding back and delicately outlining what others would draw in crude strokes, but just because you can do subtle doesn't mean that subtle is always the correct approach. In truth Teedra's finest past moments - "Complex Simplicity", "Backstroke", "For A Lifetime" - are those which take her smoothness out to the precipice, poised delicately over endless chasms of deep feeling. Not becalmed at all, but terrified, delirious, intoxicated, overwhelmed. That all said, "Another Luvr" is as fine a piece of "champagne soul" as you could imagine, so utterly suave and casual and just so, its misspelt name an attempt to capture the faux-careless insouciance of Teedra's pose here, her sinuous vocals curling around the mysteriously bubbly groove (vaguely latin disco-boogie? I love the sanded-back and submerged glower of the bass riff) with a dismissive unconcern that is half totally sincere and half totally a put on, a perfectly executed reverse-psychology seduction; it's a mark of Teedra's peerless mastery of ambiguity that she can simultaneously inhabit both states so utterly. Typical Teedra, then: a kiss-off that sounds like a rain of kisses.
70. Ronny & Renzo - Heartbreak Theme (C2 CinermxMix)
I think Ronny & Renzo hit their creative zenith with 2009's "Me, Myself & Good", which was their biggest and also final torpid darkside disco groove, a steady descent into an endless maelstrom of machine loops and apocalyptic horns. Since then, as if aware that they probably can't top that, they've been drifting in more of a steely grey house/techno direction, and while the results are still unimpeachable, the one drawback is this is a much more crowded field. "Heartbreak Theme" is as reliably epic and widescreen as ever, spending its near eleven minutes gradually shifting from misty dub-house through to eerie Blade Runner synth work, absolutely enveloping and not a little unnerving, and featuring a very very melancholy rave arpeggio breakdown that itself gets swallowed up in a bottomless well of robot hums. It's fine stuff, but this is Carl Craig's home turf, and like a master craftsman coming in to lay the finishing touches - a bruised bassline here, percussive effects so tactile you could almost touch them there - with a minimum of fuss he raises "Heartbreak Theme" to the level of world-beater, its aching synths spiraling out with an intergalactic sense of yearning, the lonely cry of an entire solar system of people about to be lost forever. Rather than ever quite turn into all-out banger, "Heartbreak Theme" broods with ominous disquiet, preferring to fill your head with visions of the destruction it could mete out rather than put on a demonstration - a weapon more scary for never having been used. When that ghostly arpeggio finally arrives again the sense of accumulated dread is near overwhelming, a climax as only Craig knows how to do them.
― Tim F, Sunday, 25 December 2011 12:20 (twelve years ago) link
69. Richelle - Mascotte
Nominally post-dubstep or "global bass" or whatever, "Mascotte" resembles nothing so much as a megamix of Jammer instrumentals circa 2002, a dizzying mutational melange of reedy pipe synths, urgent strings, lugubrious tuna horn bass and chattering beats somewhere between juke, "Grindin" and "Countdown". That chatter effect is very 2010-2011, but rather than merely deploy it as a nod to the sound design du jour, Richelle seems interested in how giant bassdrum stomp and ceaseless electro snap can interrelate with one another to create rhythms that work topographically, impacting different parts of your body almost violently, while tickling your ears with their intricacy (the b-side "Bendin" betrays an indebtedness to funk carioca, which makes sense in this context - the best Brazilian funk being that which simultaneously explores ideas of rhythm as absolutely rigid and absolutely loose); as with early grime, Richelle gets so caught up in the internal conflict of the groove that the fact of the production sounding a bit cheap and rickety is strictly a secondary concern (that, or "Mascotte" is deliberately fetishising grime's cheap adventurism; I'm not sure which explanation is correct). Beyond the basic sonic architecture, Richelle steals from grime its short attention span in a mix context, with a new motif or idea or sound intruding every ten seconds or so to send "Mascotte" careening in a new direction, in a game of ante-upping that presumably only ends due to sheer exhaustion. I was actually very surprised when I discovered it was all one track.
68. Mr Vegas ft. Teairra Mari & Gyptian - Pum Pum Shorts (Remix)
Tracks which blur the line between dancehall and US rap or R&B aren't merely fun for how they familiarise the former while spicing up the latter; the best efforts create a third space of stylistic ambiguity where the switch back and forth between the different components itself generates a kind of friction, heightening the drama and raising the stakes. "Pum Pum Shorts" (or "Boy Shorts") was already a fine Mr Vegas track from 2010 - topical (sorta), boasting a fantastic sing-song melody from Mr Vegas, and possessing one of those ridiculously sexed-up beats mainly comprising of luridly quivering radioactive synth-bass, the sound of booty actually shaking (does anyone remember Sizzla's "Love & Affection"? Just like that). The remix simply and straightforwardly ups the ante: it would be enough that Gyptian faux-morosely interpolates the Lambada (probably a nod to J Lo rather than Kaoma or the like), but the real star of the show is Teairra, who after several vamps offers a stunning guest verse of her own, sung, but too swaggering to really code as R&B (I'm reminded of Beyonce's version of "In The Club"). In a succession of great bits my favourite is her high-pitched delivery of "Baby make me scream and sho-ou-out / throw me a pillow if I get too lo-ou-oud / but I gotta protect my clou-out / so you better not run your mo-ou-outh". I only noticed several repeat listens in that everyone on "Pum Pum Shorts" is walking a different singjay tightrope, which is maybe one reason why its culture-clash sounds particularly definitive: everyone here is too lust-struck to sing and too lust-struck not to. Some gratuitous extra recommendations: Mr Vegas' stripped down, booming "Certain Law" with Harry Toddler, and Teairra's simply wonderful, massive "Body", a 2010 track too but I think it only got a video clip this year.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 28 December 2011 12:44 (twelve years ago) link