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Yeah, maturity is also the first word that came to my mind after listening to it. I've been following The Flashbulb for quite some time, and it was interesting to observe how he developed from a guy who was clearly too much influenced by Squarepusher and Aphex Twin at the beginning of his career to an accomplished musician in the truest sense of that word that he is today. His latest album Soundtrack To A Vacant Life is another proof of that, and I highly recommend it even though you won't be able to put it to this list (since it's not breakcore).
By the way if you want to know where are his roots (and Venetian Snares' too) definitely check out already mentioned Squarepusher. He was a great influence to the whole this breakcore and jazzy IDM scene. Ultravisitor, Hello Everything and Hard Normal Daddy are especially good, although everything he had released is pretty awesome (with the exception of Just A Souvenir and some parts of Go Plastic).
Arguing about what genre this track should have been put under completely misses the point M83 tried to make with it, and it doesn't really matter if it's house or trance, what matters is the mood, feelings and images you experience while listening to it. How people will label this track was probably the last thing on producer's mind, and I bet he'd laugh pretty hard if he sees this pointless discussions. I labeled it just because I label all the tracks on my annual lists (I'm definitely stopping with this practice from now on), and I labeled it prog. trance because... well it's trancey but not in that cheesy modern trance way. So, the bottom line is go ahead, call it progressive house, I'll just call it great music.
If you liked Rossz, be sure to also check out its follow up called My Downfall (Original Soundtrack). It's even more oriented on classical music. Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding could be my favourite "true breakcore" album by him, though.
Another fine artist that combines breakcore and classical music (and more often jazz) very well is The Flashbulb. He's also ultra prolific, just like VSnares, and it's a bit hard to choose his essential releases, but I'd say you can't go wrong with Red Extensions Of Me, Kirlian Selections and Reunion.
Yeah, it's my favourite video ever. I can't even listen to Gantz Graf these days without thinking about that video and synchronizing every bit of music to effects from it.
How would you call it then?
Thanks. It'll sure be hard to order the top 10, although the ranking is certainly not the most important thing here. The main goal of this article is to list 100 really good albums of the last decade, which deserve to be mentioned and listened to at least once.
For me it's the opposite. If I really like a certain album, I can write about it forever. While listening to something, I think a lot about why I like some elements, transitions, sounds used, layers added, how it makes me feel, how it could be compared to some other works by the same author or other authors, and basically all of that thoughts can later be thrown into some kind of review. I remember writing a little essay about I'm Free by Morgan King (which is my favourite feel good track ever) on some forum once, while I probably couldn't write even 3 sentences about The Essence by Sten (which is a senseless collection of 9 faceless pseudo minimal techno tracks).
And you're really lucky if you're seeing them live. I don't know if they're doing a limited number of shows after the reunion, but either way their show should be something really special. I'd like to see them too, but it seems like they're playing just in UK and West Europe.
Oh, this is gonna be interesting. I'm especially interested in your review of In Sides, since I consider it one of the finer, if not the finest album of the 90's.
I'm surprised, however, that you write so favorable about Satan. I mean it's a good track, certainly not that typical rave tune from the early 90's, but it uses a lot of rave cliches and I'd say it's kinda outdated. Belfast on the other hand is a pure bliss, probably the highlight of their early career and the track that will never get old. It sounds so carefree and futuristic at the same time, which is really rare. Just like with Speedy J - De-Orbit, which was released around the same time, you can almost hear all those early ambient/IDM records like Autechre - Incunabula and Beaumont Hannant - Texturology in it.
Funny you mention Xerrox, since I was just yesterday listening to Vol.1 (proof: see my last.fm page). I was kinda left disappointed, and I didn't really wanted to hear Vol.2 (at least not right away). So thanks for the recommendation and a nudge, because the album is absolutely wonderful. His dosage of noise is much clever on this one, and the tracks itself develop in a more creative way. I'll have to take a couple of more listens to judge it properly, but I'm definitely adding it to the list.
Hehe, another addict here, although I can't say I'm as obsessed with it as you are. But yeah, dubstep is extremely fresh these days (although I can see how hyper production could kill that soon) and has a huge potential, because it's not limited as some other styles such as minimal techno or electro house. Basically dubstep can sound however it wants - it can be slow and atmospheric, fast, almost drum&bass-ey, IDM-ish, techno-ish, wonky, funky, jazzy... options are unlimited. I wouldn't be surprised if some more popular variant of it in a couple of years replaces mainstream hip hop in clubs or on TV.
Here's what's on my playlist lately (among others things):
Reso - Engram
L.D. - Traumatic Times
Martyn - Yet
Bar 9 - The Gun Slinger
Instra:mental - Futurist
Skream - Rimz
Sines - Mala Suerte
Breakage - Together
I believe all of them are from this year and they all sound fantastic. And you really want to check out Pinch - Teleport when it comes out (it should be soon). That is one monster of a tune, very futuristic and progressive, I've heard Mary Anne Hobbs play it both in her show and when I saw her live back in December. It was still called Teleportation back then.
There are also a couple of really cool albums out right now, you should check out these three:
Kromestar - My Sound - these guy really has its own sound, very serious and atmospheric, even jazzy at times. No vocals and really interesting beats on some tracks. What's even more interesting, every track sounds completely different from each other. That's an amazing accomplishment, considering some producers can't even release a 3 track EP without tracks sounding way too similar.
Caspa - Everybody's Talking, Nobody's Listening! - this is completely different, danceable and pretty heavy on vocals. Still amazing though.
El-B - The Roots Of El-B - pretty interesting compilation of early productions and remixes by EL-B which perfectly shows from where exactly dubstep emerged.
BTW, Moderat (Modeselektor+Apparat) have just released an awesome album which flirts with dubstep (among other styles) and I highly recommend it. You'll at least love the track called Seamonkey from it.
Hope you'll find something interesting from this!
An Imaginary Country is really an excellent album, reminds me a bit of Biosphere's Substrata (which is one of the masterpieces of the genre), but whereas Substrata is ice cold and sometimes quite spooky, AIC remains pretty warm even in its dark and moody aberrations (Her Black Horizon). Overall, one of my favourites of 2009 so far too...
Can't really see what you're trying to accomplish by stuffing a 25 year old, huge and outspread genre such as techno into a couple of sentence definition. If you think that will help you to understand the music better, you're wrong. Only, and I really mean the only way to understand the music is to listen to it. Forget about reading and discussing, the only thing that matters is how that music makes you feel and what ideas, images and concepts of sound you're getting from it.
Some definitions of course do exist, such as "techno is mostly instrumental, 4/4 music originated in Detroit which employs futuristic themes and is oriented on percussion and rhythm more than on anything else", but pretty much every one of them is very questionable and liable to various interpretations. The bottom line is: you can't perfectly describe a music with words. You can to some degree but more often that description will be inaccurate, ridiculous and completely useless to someone else.
Thanks. And just download whatever you can (it's all pretty good), as long as you actually buy at least one album you find interesting.
And yeah, Quari is awesome. I'm currently around 15th listen and it's still improving and growing on me with every new listen (which can't be said for a lot of other albums released in 2008).
Me too. Great work so far and I agree with pretty much everything you said. Haven't got too much time atm, but I will include myself in discussion later.
Yeah, Katang really is one of the better tracks from that album, although I'd still say Frosch is more elegant and beautiful overall.
Tromatic Reflexxions, although I still haven't heard it, is probably more on the rockish and dancey side (since it features Mark Smith), and I reckon it's the most similar to Radical Connector.