14tracks.com - Selections

14 Tracks: 1980s Art Pop Infection

2010-07-27T16:21:20+01:00

This week's selection delves into that period right at the very end of the 70's and early 80's when post-punk nudged itself ever closer to the very heart of popular culture while holding onto its daring artistic ambitions. Its easy to join the dots between much of the material here and the New Romantic movement which essentially came out of the same musical nucleus, but the sense of creative adventure and sonic innovation provided by the newly affordable synths and drum machines of the day made for one of the most exciting periods for music in living memory. From Glenn Branca's minimalistic art-rock guitar shimmers to the intensely bittersweet political pop of the Gina X Experience, from Maurizio Bianchi's radical synth explorations through to Tuxedomoon's epic soundtrack movements - the music you'll find here mirrors the same sense of creative mongrelisation that has typified the music scene over the last couple of years and is a timely reminder of just how much good music is still out there waiting to be discovered...

14 Tracks: An Electronic Jazz Infusion

2010-07-20T17:07:03+01:00

Since sprouting from the fringes of dubstep, Mount Kimbie have defined a certain jazz-taught, post-everything aesthetic in electronic music. This 14 tracks selection is designed as an adjunct to their fantastic 'Crooks & Lovers' album, also out this week, scanning likely bedfellows for their brand of emotionally-charged IDM pillow talk. Whether they share an affectation for recontextualised pitching tricks (see Sepalcure and Falty DL), funk enhancing edit techniques (see Rekordah, Blackpocket), electro-acoustically aware arrangements (from Downliners Sekt, Space Dimension Controller), or emotive melodic thrills, these guys are all hunting the future through plugged in modes of modern jazz...

14 Tracks Tracing Psyche Dub

2010-07-13T16:33:35+01:00

Dub's rooted principles have been routinely plundered by indie, noise and avant-garde operators for the last 30 years. Nowadays those stone-set tenets of psychedelic head space and tactile, bass-heavy grooves are standardly assimilated into the furthest reaches of the sound sphere. From the sludgy noisescapes of Nate Young and Wolf Eyes to the spatially aware electronica of Mokira or Forest Sword's decaying rustic fusions, dub is the glue that binds their ideas, which fills in the gaps with ghostly fades and psychoacoustic ephemera. In this sense it can be used as a cloaking device for the textural mysteries of lo-fi 4-track experiments, as with the druggy avant-pop of LA Vampires/Zola Jesus's 'Searching', or equally as an intensifier of minimalist vibes, subtly suspending and blurring constituent parts within an artificially created edifice, as with King Midas Sounds' 'Blue' or Aufgehoben's 'Doxa Caveat'. This selection aims to extrapolate the psychedelic potential of dub from the peripheries and explore it in one fuggy-headed day trip.

14 Tracks For The Dejected Dancefloor

2010-07-06T16:55:25+01:00

The fallout of 70s punk and disco has irrevocably contaminated the musical food chain. The radiation of those cataclysmic few years split into a spectrum of styles, from EBM and Industrial to electro and goth pop, all tainted with a taste for the night and driving, darker sonics. Maybe it's the cold attitude, maybe it's the DIY efficiency, or maybe it just sounds f**king good, but either way, bands such as My Disco, Gold Blood and Factory Floor have absorbed that aesthetic to make addictively good music, regardless of time or place. This selection is inspired by that dark hinterzone of the early-mid '80s, tearing through Villa Nah's emotive discowave throb and the skinny guitars of Blank Dogs, utilising the potent post punk intentions of Joy Division, Suicide and TG in order to find some grain of darker pop truth. Along with vintage rarities from Chris & Cosey and Ike Yard, this is a collection tailor-made for the moody modern discogoth inside you.

14 Tracks: Mark Pritchard Productions

2010-06-29T15:53:45+01:00

Under a plethora of guises Mark Pritchard has been at the forefront of UK dance music for nearly two decades. He's not short on respect around these parts so we've asked him to compile 14 of his favourite personal productions for this weeks selection. The scope and coherence of his oeuvre is practically unparalleled, setting unique coordinates between lucid electronic symphonies and Afro-futurist rhythm construction within a sphere of technofied dub sound design. His 14tracks take us from the seminal Artificial Intelligence era techno of 'Amenity' produced in '92, via his 8-Bit booty deconstruction 'Wind It Up' featuring Sa-Ra's Om'Mas Keith to the twitchin' syncopations of his Africa Hitech collab with Steve Spacek, also finding space for eternal beatless classics such as 'Ob-Selon Mi-Nos' from his Global Communication days, and the enigmatic '?' to leave you dazed and dazzled. He's currently working on a Africa Hitech album due for release in early 2011, as well as the long awaited return of Reload besides work on the new Trim album and a hugely anticipated collusion with Wiley, proving that regardless of age, era or style a boundless musical vision is simply an invaluable and rare quality.

14 Tracks: Dance Du Jour

2010-06-22T17:49:54+01:00

Welcome to the first of our Dance du Jour packages. Roughly every quarter we're gonna rack up 14 crucial 'floor joints which we've either slept on or haven't readily slipped into our other selections. We'll make a priority out of brand new tracks by artists who've not been included before, but we won't be forgetting better known heads either. Reppin' the new skool we've got Girl Unit's mammoth - yet strangely slept-on - remix of Marcus Price & Carli's 'Var E Näääken', Milyoo's slo-mo killer 'Multitude' for fans of Actress, a garage spiked swinger from Jackal Youth and James Blake's definitive future soul statement 'CMYK'. They're joined by Andy Stott's narcotic swingjacka 'Love Nothing', Dexter's heavyweight Chicago tribute '1992', a telling modern anthem in Ramadanman's 'Glut' and stone cold killers from Joe, Shed, Altered Natives and Production Unit. All dancing crew, your time!

14 Tracks: Hypnagogic Heat Haze

2010-06-15T18:14:16+01:00

In preparation for the four hours of sunshine we're due this summer, this soporific selection gathers a heap of our favourite hypnagogic and chill wave dreamscapes for lazy afternoons in the garden and long evenings in the park. These artists all share a certain yearning for pop and electronic music of the past, but via cloaking devices like over-saturated tape delay and heavy compression techniques they've opened a new portal to an alter-realm of mild MOR hallucinations, decamping from the extremities to find a strangely happy pitch on the edge of the middle. The American underground is responsible for a majority of the music here, filtering the last 30 years of pop, dub and dance into a myriad of bleached and psychedelically sensitive experimentalism. Through James Ferraro's inimitably smudged tropical drones, Bugskull's innately charming songs, Sun Araw's meditative heat haze or Ariel Pink's ferric gilded pop we can taste the collective unconscious from the comfort of a sun lounger, while sipping on a cold one and doing our best to ignore that game where blokes kick a ball for 90 minutes...

Dynamic Steppers: Next Level

2010-06-08T17:28:04+01:00

Following on from our Dynamic Steppers selection last year, we move further into the night with the moody robotic romance of the Autonomic posse and the advanced post-techno of Alva Noto, Oni Ayhun and Pan Sonic. Despite originating in vastly different scenes, these tracks are unified by an attention to swung rhythmic detail and a preference for sci-fi inspired atmospherics ideal for late night consumption. D-Bridge and Instra:mental's Autonomic sets have beautifully articulated this aesthetic with a blend of affective electro-pop, cyber-futurist rhythms and technoid awareness that coherently align the likes of Indigo with Arovane and Scuba. You'll find more dark physicality on Lorn's 'Tomorrow' or the hulking immersion of Kowton's 'Hunger', while the technical awareness of AQF, Oni Ayhun or the Gudrun Gut/AGF/Alva Noto alliance add a complementary 3rd dimension of electro-acoustic tactility. Finally, the skool of minimal D'n'B is represented by Rockwell, Sabre and Consequence, a bunch of like-minded operators who share a cinematic steppers vision that's revolutionised their scene. These are shadier shapes and spaces for connoisseurs of the steep sound, feel free to fall in head-first.

14 Tracks: Locked Onto Actress

2010-06-01T17:34:11+01:00

Darren Cunningham aka Actress is one of the UK's most forward thinking producers. Over the last few years he's been hard at work curating his influential Werk Discs and Thriller labels, besides running crucial dances in London and Glasgow with the likes of Kode 9 and the Numbers crew. You probably wouldn't know this because he's notoriously modest about his work, but with his new album 'Splazsh' creating considerable waves of interest from London to Germany to New York and beyond, it's about time dues were paid. These 14 tracks dip into his small but brilliantly crafted catalogue, touching on influences from Terrence Dixon to Autechre, Prince to Drexciya and much further beyond. Cunningham's music perfectly defines the mongrel aesthetic typical to the UK, soaking up styles and sub-genres with murkily fluid arrangements and a proper hi-tek soulboy's sense of finesse. And this is no doubt just the beginning...

14 Tracks: Deep House Diving

2010-05-25T17:00:08+01:00

The flame of Deep House has burnt steadily ever since Mr Fingers met Robert Owens back in the late 80s. Dance music has changed much since then, but its original features have been assimilated and worshipped by successive generations to this day. As another raft of refugees from techno and bass music seek sustenance beyond their yard, the rooted traditions of Chicago, New York and Detroit provide perennial soul alleviation for those in need of it. This week's selection includes a couple of young'uns from Detroit and London, Kyle Hall and Wbeeza respectively, through to venerated elders Kenny Dixon Jr aka Moodymann with his vintage remix of Rick Wilhite, and Marcellus Pittman's dazzling recent remix for Internasjonal. In between we visit the narcosexual sublimation of New York's Reade Truth and DJ Qu's 'Nite Ride' shuffler, while succumbing to the heady jazz influences of inspired European producers Juju & Jordash, Morphosis and Moritz Von Oswald. Too much blandbag background music is disguised as Deep House these days, we hope this selection illuminates the authentic, soul-enveloping dance music that we love and cherish.

14 Tracks: A Giallo Thriller

2010-05-18T17:11:07+01:00

This shady bunch of cuts share common roots in the film scores of John Carpenter and Vangelis, the Italian "Giallo" aesthetic and urgent missions on European highways, eyes narrowed and twilight sinking into a dark night ahead. Kompakt's new Fright label has defined this mood with cinematic releases from Chicago's incredible Gatekeeper and the dramatic Finn, Anton Maiovvi, who're both included here, while the obscure Suicide-meets-Pan Sonic collusion 'Black Crucifix' outlines vice-filled vibes ripe for the darkest of minds. In Alden Tyrell and DJ Overdose's "The Hasbeens" project, Italo disco is rerouted via Den Haag to pick up an unspecified cargo, before we're delivered at a Klaus Nomi-esque dark cabaret in Berlin hosted by Vindicatrix with 'Dein Schwert'. Finally night turns to bleached morning with Tinman's sophisticated cool wave pop and we climax with the frightening scene stealer 'Mankind Failed' from Motiivi:Tuntematon. Briefcase on the passenger seat, bimmer purring, let's go.

14 Tracks Of Hot Buttered Boogie

2010-05-11T17:44:50+01:00

From Dâm-Funk to Funkineven, the allure of boogie magik is thick in the air. Whether taking inspiration from the elasticated funk of Zapp, the electro-shimmy of Mantronix or the mustachioed soft-rock-and-sleeve-roll of Hall & Oates, these cats have all mastered black belt shoulder/ass control. Cutting across the scene in a drop-top bimmer, reflector shades shining and jheri curl bobbing, we smoke a blunt with Onra & Oliver DaySoul, catch some rays with Mandré and drink a 40 with Linkwood before cruising to the club with Toro Y Moi and the Thriller boys, chasing the lazers into a glossy black vortex of future funk. With summer in the northern hemisphere threatening to cut loose, we're anticipating barbecues in the back yard, late evenings on the porch and beers on the balcony with these buttered bombs. Just let your soul glow...

14 Tracks Dubbing With Joe Gibbs

2010-05-04T16:06:26+01:00

Joe Gibbs was responsible for over 100 Jamaican number one records and was credited with creating one of the earliest instrumental dub albums on 1972s 'Dub Serial'. During the early to mid sixties he trained as an electrical engineer in the USA before opening up a repairs shop in Kingston. Not long after, he started supplementing his trade with record sales, eventually opening a studio in the back room with a two track tape recorder and some help from a young engineer, Lee Perry. Perry eventually dissolved their relationship, but in association with Bunny Lee, Gibbs set up his Amalgamated label, achieving major success with an early rocksteady classic, Roy Shirley's 'Hold Them'. His most successful period started in 1972 at a new studio working alongside Errol Thompson under the 'Mighty Two' handle and fuelled by deadly rhythms from in-house band The Professionals (including the riddim twins Sly & Robbie). Here the Mighty Two created a hit factory, producing hundreds of singles for everyone from Black Uhuru to Big Youth. This selection is by no means definitive but does traverse a massive cross section of Gibbs oeuvre, from dread roots dub to flying steppers and heavyweight disco mixes, the depth and breadth of the material is quite staggering...

14 Tracks: Global Ghetto House

2010-04-27T16:50:26+01:00

From Dalston to Durban a prominent Afro-Latin accent is dominating dancefloors. In the kinky riddims of new producers like Julio Bashmore, Greena and Douster, tribalist percussion is gleaned from Kwaito, Soca and Cumbia and raved up with explicit House references to Masters At Work and a plethora of underground dance styles absorbed via youtube. Depending on their own generic roots, a load of international producers, new and old, are mixing these memes with their own riddmic DNA to create fresh and fascinating forms. We love tracking these developments and this weeks 14 tracks is devoted to those heads who're creating a new mongrel sound, using tracky NY & Chi-town templates with elements of European party tracks to nice up your area...

14 Tracks: The Inner Lounge

2010-04-20T17:58:40+01:00

Spread between vast libraries of music for film and TV, we hone in on the spirit of the inner lounge! Embodied by the likes of Can's Irmin Schmidt, the Radiophonic Workshop's John Baker, or Steven Brown of Tuxedomoon, these pastoral experiments fuse mellow jazz kitsch with early electronics, musique concréte and otherworldly psychedelics that subconsciously soundtracked our earliest televisual and cinematic experiences with a kind of irreversible synaethesia. Would 'Life On Earth' evoke such vivid memories without Edward Williams' magical soundtrack? Would the future still sound the same without Tristram Cary and Raymond Scott's kooky laboratory scores? How would To Rococo Rot or Daedelus sound without the work of The Metropole Orchestra or Pierre Bastien? As you ponder these questions, crack open a fresh packet of custard creams and make a pot for the journey as we turn your living room into a déjà entendu dreamspace, in slippers...