2009 has gone. Who danced? We did. Who made us dance? Lots of transient underground types who will disappear as others arrive in cool austere.
What follows isn’t so much as a definitive chart chiselled from stone – the type that Dave Lee Travis could get his knickers in a twist over – but more of a tiered snapshot of a year in the right places.
There are many more that could have easily have sashayed into this restless and shifting list but underground music is a fickle business. And we are fickle creatures.
Thus, in the words of our mate David Bowie: ‘Let’s Dance’!
Revealed across this week, read about the acts filling the number 10 and 9 slots below.
10. Motor City Drum Ensemble
Metaphorically speaking house music has been dying for years. Resigned to watching Quincy on repeat in the genre hospice, its days, only occasionally visited by nephews such as broken beat and nu jazz, are numbered. Yet, every now and then the life support system gets a recalibration by a young talent such as Isolee, DJ T or Ame. Another name strapping an increasingly threadbare bow is Motor City Drum Ensemble, AKA Danilo Plessow.
Investing heavily in a deep vision of house, delicate vibes and subtle yet jacking percussion, this German is assured in his music and his talents. Take his ‘Raw Cuts’ series that migrated far and wide across the world, five 12”s that many DJs and punters won’t forget for a while. Restrained yet confident, he’s one of a handful of house heads still managing to keep the flow of emotion. Treasure it.
Download: ‘Raw Cuts Series’ EPs, ‘Lonely One’ EP
9. PANTyRAiD
Towering planes of sound all crisp, clean and blinding in their reflective funk, PANTyRAiD landed this year from America and they can certainly stay. Warbling bass, stunted snares, dazzling beats of silver and melancholic soul, PANTyRAiD is a cross between Glitch Mob’s Ooah and Marty Party; they tell Clash more: “We are the heavy and the soft – Josh’s soft emotional melodic landscape and then my hard bassy drumbeat to bring it home; that’s pretty much who we are. The West Coast music scene is really where we developed our mid-tempo feeling, that’s why the music sounds like it does. That influence, paralleled with dubstep coming in, and the bass being very prevalent in the scene, is really where PANTyRAiD came from.”
Download: ‘The Sauce’ LP, ‘Beba’ EP
Stay tuned for the rest of the countdown all this week on ClashMusic.com
