the 2006

January 9, 2007 at 22:40

so, here we are living up to January and it is just about time to look back at this 2006 we just we waved our goodbyes to… and by looking back i mean looking back musically this time; i’ve done “compilations of the year” and did a Soulsystems’ Top 20 last year… i guess i’m into statistics and reminiscence of the kind and all… so, here goes! this will be very different from the one i did last year (i’m over with last years site so no link-back here)… i listened to a lot of new music this year! i mean, i searched for it! i had this desire to know what is going on, what has been going on through all this time i’ve been living in the seventies and the sixties and in timeless music… and i guess i’m kind of relieved and surprised at that to know that it’s been getting better! we’ve lived through the thing called electro-clash which to mind was a bit of a misunderstanding and we are finally getting it on properly with the eighties! and it’s a good thing! i like it! brings back some kind of a kick, some kind of jump-up to the dance floor… it’s more synth and it’s more alive at the same time! i sincerely liked this year for it - for being chemically alive! acid-robot-rock-techno-jazz thing it was! and a punk year somehow! so, this is the list as conducted by disc (mp3) jockey Elvi the Soul System alias the Tech Sapien (a new one!)!

this is a review of the year! this is about the singles, the single songs or tracks as they call them nowadays… i’ve not managed to get the numbers - the positions - settled so instead i’ve just done a kind of a story…

we start off with a flashback of the year 1991 when…
i remember reading in some weblog about the legendary My Bloody Valentine’s legendary Loveless album how some people claim it to be the greatest piece of sound ever created by man (or machine?)… though the the author himself listed it as just one of the numerous great ones he clearly admitted that the drumroll on the opening of the opening track Only Shallow is the greatest piece of percussion ever to grace his ears! well, i think this year i found one that stands tightly beside the classic! it’s on a track called Video Challenge by New Yorkers Anamanaguchi released with the help of the mad 8bitpeoples.com! a wall of sound! actually, every song i’ve heard from the band is clearly an anthem but this one is obviously the one to carry out the Super Mario Anthem of the Year title!

i won’t be much of an originality here to say that the Gossip have indeed made a name for themselves this year! Standing in the Way of Control is a dangerous number! dangerous of becoming a Number One of the Year for a massive audience - as from the people who like to rock, people who like to disco dance, stylish people basically! no wonder it’s the hype here in Europe! also an anthem of the year surely! i can play this over and over and just jump up and down in praise… which leads us to an even greater anthem here! featuring also a favourite lyric it’s the massive Over and Over by one of the this year’s overall heroes - the unlikely British Hot Chip! this one’s a banger indeed! all over the radio, all over the streets, all over the dancefloor! they could easily be a hype as big as the Sugababes if the Top of the Pops audience could be just a little… well, funkier, i guess… this is indeed universal! i mean, who can resist the beat? the band have definitely made it wonderful this year! there’s also one that’s not on the brilliant Warning long player - the best Marvin cover in a long, long time - the Chip’s take on Sexual Healing, ofcourse! mind-blowing! the way the song starts off with bb-baby…

the definitive Number One of the 2006 is… the wonderful bridge between just about everything actually - the funk, the dunk, the hook, the sling, the rough, the sweet, the dancing, the jumping, the stomping, the clapping, the shouting, the yeah and the broken neck - Whoo! Alright - Yeah… Uh Huh alias People Don’t Dance No More by the super Rapture! yeah! alright? and to add a nice little cherry on top of the cream there is even a super-cool acid shmacid remake of the anthem by my Heroes of the Year - the new indie rave freaks Simian Mobile Disco! you could as well put up all their remixes on the Year’s list - take the heart and floor breaking version of the Fallout Trust’s Before the Light Goes for instance! and their own dirty, dirty Hustler with the one of the year’s dirtiest video’s attached! ofcourse, it’s not a video you’d call nice, but is definitely an idea worth praise for the originality and simplicity! could be the years hype on the video base! on the other hand though Simian Mobile Disco have a tight competition as the Remixers of the Year here - i simply cannot decide whether the work of Van She alias Van She Tech or Vanshe Technologic isn’t worth of praise even greater… especially for the epic rework of I Am Finn’s I Love You! and here also i have a bit of a confusion as to what Van She actually stands for and whether Van She and Van She Tech and the Van She that made a wonderful college party dancing theme called Kelly (also wonderfully remixed by Cut Copy) this year… i tried googling and MySpacing but my confusion continues to grow on this! help! another great one under teh Van She sign is the remix of another indie anthem of the year - Ice Cream by the super stylish gents and the oh so charming ladies of the New Young Pony Club! dancefloor anti-resistant, ha! another one Van She’s made it out with is a not as shining original single by the Klaxons which as i’ve heard have gained a lot of hype in Great Britain… well, they’ve gained hype with the help of Van She mixing up their Gravity’s Rainbow here!

other remixes include an Ascii Disko remix of I Go Hard I Go Home by the Presets (which kind of don’t turn me on with their originals though the mix is floor crushing i must admit), Anders Ilar’s take on Dibaba‘s massive The Truth which has it’s strength in the distorted synth and not the vocal (the singing can actually mess the whole thing up on occasional play), Hot Chip’s catchy rework of the charming alcoholic drama Rehab by…. mmm… Amy Winehouse! then the noisy Pedro&Panama’s floor shocking version of Modern Times by the new French teenage idol Adam Kesher! the rocks! Perdo&Panama, this new (?) thing Goose (which have a pretty mediocre long player Bring It On out with a massive title track single which also has been remixed by P&P), an Parisian electric blaster datA with an only track i’ve heard called Master Level, a mystique crazy guy called Breakbot of which i must thank the funky weblog Fluokids for having heard of him and copped his two bangers off - bagdad gangbang and chelsea_iNN - which both rock as hell, especially the last one - the break to sweat your guts out! yes, these three have kind of got me back into the dirty, into the pseudo-hard kind of grooving! overdrive is the thing this year again! then there’s also two other heroes of mine - MSTRKRFT and Acid Jacks which both have their composite catarsis on the electric rocker Awake Since 78 having the last as the original and the first as the remix artistes! the repeat of the cut-out phrase (which sounds like) “disco” is just thrillingly neck breaking! a lovable dancefloor shaker is also MSTRKRFT’s She’s Good for Business! Shake-shak-shak-shakit!

a standout in the remix sphere - partly because i guess it’s more of a mash-up and partly because mostly people don’t take MTV rotation tracks seriously - is the fantastic eighties reggae of Kyaal‘s version of Irreplaceable by the one kid of destiny Beyonce!

a nice surprise is the comeback of rapping on electric breaks! my personal favorite is the hit Bump by Spank Rock with all it’s fine mixes, also the mad Fox’n'Wolf with their dirty anthem In Yr Underwear, the rocking Don’ Be Afraid to Sweat shouted out by MissOddKidd! and then there’s the surprisingly underground comeback of last year’s “dancehall queen” M.I.A. with the weird at first listen, grooving at the 10th called XR2! the nice thing is that this is not just grime which turned out to be a pretty boring venture with a very poor role of music in it and lyrical virtue only understandable to the ones who have somehow managed to achieve the same speed of talking themselves… girme fans, don’t take this personal! it could indeed be the new, the real, the everything, but not for old school punks like me, i guess… it’s somehow similar to the drum’n'bass movement which i also have failed to understand!

there’s also this funny thing which i just can’t get off the List of Year… even though this french-italian combo Exchpoptrue kind of don’t make a good impression on me at all their Afraid track has been playing a lot even in my head!

one of my albums of the year is definitely Pimp of the Year by the cool Japanese rockers Soil & “Pimp” Sessions… it features a standout single with a standout video called Crush! - this is also one of the surprises of the year - a great trip to the funky side of life! so fresh and unspoiled for this age! also on the funky side we have a new New York girl Niko with her funky thumper You’re My Favourite Music (off a little too mediocre long runner Life on Earth though)… then there’s Funky Dudley - one of the grooviest things offered by Stones Throw yet! it’s off the Dudley Perkins‘ and Madlib’s latest Expressions (2012 A.U.); also from Stones Throw comes a favourite fine rhyme joint by Oh No called Smile a Lil’ Bit featuring the legendary of the legendary three - Posdnuos of the Plugs! i could go on and on about Stones Throw, ofcourse, but i’ll try to keep it short here… there’s Leroy by the one of the most original new names around Georgia Anne Muldrow and i’ll stop here… but you still need to get as much of the S.T. catalogue as you can! always! there’s some heart melting, breaking fine poetry featured on a Black Spade track called Things Change featuring Stoney Rock… it’s hard to dig up things from cats like these but when you do you’re caught desperate to hear more! but i guess my favourite rap banger of the 2006 is The Champ off the critically (possibly a little over) acclaimed Fishscale by Ghostface Killah! takes you back! This Guy!

another best-kept-secret of 2006 is the musical sex duo J*DaVeY with all their work of fine artistry in the genre (musical sex it’s an Elvi invented genre though!) and especially the banger Mr. Mister (with a nice video while you’re there!); talking musical sex i’m also mentioning a girl who’s mentioned just about everywhere this year - Gwen it is and my fave is an album track called Yummy! Yummy! then there’s this guy T.I. with that catchy Why U Wanna but i think the story is more about the sample and the original house anthem… i’m mentioning this just to be sincere - it’s still been in the playlist a lot!

new punk! with just drums and keys! i got another favourite duo now! Matt and Kim are totally rocking the spot for me! i’d be very excited to get to see them live! this definitely conquers White Stripes for me now! a standout is Yea Yeah!

don’t know ’bout the rest of his and i’m sure the real deal is still to come but i fell in love with Jamie T’s If You Got the Money instantly! i was in a shop watching my girl try shoes on and there it was on the TV - the sunshine side of the Police! whatever! just so human and moving!

my african hero of the year is undoubtlessly Toumani Diabaté - both for his work with the Symmetric Orchestra on the revolutionary Boulevard de l’Indépendance and the last from the late great Ali Farka Touré on In the Heart of the Moon… i first heard Tapha Niang from the Symmetric album and i froze… the beauty of the music is mesmerizing!

if it wasn’t for the Rapture’s anthem the Number One of the year would definitely be Toop Toop (weird and funny lyrics but the way Zdar does the singing is just cool - the breaths and the accent, ofcourse!) by the definitive heroes of the year - Cassius! with their exceptionally excellent work on 15 Again and especially a track they just have to release on wax (and allow people ot mix it up!) called Jack Rock they’ve saved the day for acid techno and electronics and everything!

it turned out i’m not immune to the so called dark stuff after all… i got back into the thing they love to call “deep techno”… a genre name once also stuck to some works of yours sincerely! a fresh one for me was a stunning piece of distorted minimalism of Zen-Kei - The Punisher (talking ’bout classic techno track names! ha!), also a great thing by the greatly acclaimed remixer Digitalism called Zdarlight, the beautiful ten-minute tchik-tchik journey of Loco Dice named A Chico A Rhytmico, the dark pop (can there be such?) acid of Alexkid on Nightshade featuring the voice of Liset Alea - sexually tender and intense at the same time; the electronics of Alexis Tyrel on the piece of wax in the name of Rebecca Loos deserve to gain a status of a classic especially in combination with the elegant rework of the composition by Gui Boratto on the flipside… and for complete immersion into the unknown depths the 2006 brings us a long player called The Eraser by a little blond madman called Thom which is followed by an E.P. called Spitting Feathers which features an Extended Version of a standout track of the year passed - Horrowdown Hill… i don’t know, i’ve been a fan since the Bends came out and i actually still don’t know what to think - either they’re (he’s) genius or morbid or just kiddig (a nice joke then, eh?)… anyway, the video’s amazing too! We Just Can’t Do Anything About It!

and i guess i don’t have to remind you that 2006 is still most officially the year of the Arctic Monkeys, do i?

and here’s a handy link to all of the things i found videos of…

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