Untold – That Horn Track
Jack Dunning, aka Untold, emerged in the glorious flush of UK bass music with his label Hemlock, before releasing James Blake’s earliest material and putting out his own music. Tracks such as Motion the Dance were instrumental in joining the low-end of dubstep to the grid of techno – which of course everyone is now doing. This year has seen more work than ever before, with two albums getting a release – Echo in the Valley and Black Light Spiral. There was also a single, That Horn Track, released for the 10th anniversary of Warp’s digital shop Bleep, which is getting a vinyl release this week. In it he fires up high-tempo beat pattern that feels like air cut with rotorblades. Marcel Dettman contributes a remix on the flip, inevitably tying its guy ropes to a 4/4 beat, but still letting chaos flutter. Word on the street is that Dunning is to work with a certain technologically-minded, collaboration-happy female star. Expect his dark star to do nothing but rise.
Mr Mitch – Don’t Leave
Not only has grime returned to the Mobo categories, but it’s a broader church than ever: while the old guard of JME, Skepta et al are making strong bangers, there’s a new leftfield with folks like Rabit and Logos making spartan noise, or Visionist and Murlo sketching out eerie sonic waiting rooms. Mr Mitch meanwhile is going totally emo: his debut album Parallel Memories is out on 1 December, and for every moment that drifts into Zomby-esque bland lachrymosity, there’s another, like Don’t Leave, whose sadness is thrillingly empty. He repeats a pitched-down Blackstreet sample over and over, and while 90s R&B licks are by now a total dance cliche, Mr Mitch turns the fairly lighthearted entreaty of the original track on its head: his is a loneliness that he is completely unable to process.
Bicep & Hammer – I Believe
Irish duo Bicep started out as disco nerds during the golden age of music blogging, where anyone with an FTP client and a USB turntable could become a hero for bringing forgotten gems to light. Soon their DJing took off, then their own productions, now they are every house fan’s favourite secret – but unlike the Johnny-come-latelys who shoddily bolt diva vox on to piano chords, Bicep are steeped in the style’s transformative melancholy. I Believe opens their recent Essential Mix, and it features a gorgeously sad clave-like tick throughout, but it’s just one track from a recent burst of activity. Icebowl has a perfect ravey melody being held just under the surface, before breaking out with crisp confidence; Poly Pineapple rides fat Terje-like synth bubbles; Day 3 is high-speed chord-driven malaise; and Lyk Lyk, with its whooping female vocal, is like Joy Orbison at his absolute poppiest – all are made with the love of true fans, rather than the cynicism of scene-chasers.
Helena Hauff – Hiemal Quietus
With the re-blossoming of the kind of techno that sounds like a puddle of acid splashed by steel toecapped boots, Helena Hauff’s sessions at the Golden Pudel in Hamburg have become an essential pilgrimage. Blending nastily hydrochloric bangers with no-wave electro strutting and dark Italo, her style is an unpolished, freewheeling mulch, and all the better for it. This latest release of her own work features three fairly standard 808 workouts, plus Hiemal Quietus, a far more tense and stately affair. The haughty gothic chords hum down empty halls, while a melodic pattern frets through them– the kind of simple and dramatic track that lifts your feet clear when played very loud through dry ice. She may be very much underground, but this could easily eke its way into the boxes of Europe’s techno elite.
Bing & Ruth – Reflector
And finally, something that is barely touched by electricity. This take on classical minimalism is from a New York group playing piano, clarinet, cello and bass, but whose work is fed through tape delay, creating a blissful chamber of echo. The tape interventions are so subtle as to be almost untraceable, but it works best on Reflector, where the chords induce calm but don’t seem to always know where they’re going.
