Clash’s countdown of 2009’s best Dance acts continues today with number 8, Hot Chip member and Greco Roman label boss, Joe Goddard, and number 7, Warp Records’ Clarke (read Clash’s Record of the Day award winning feature on Warp records 20th anniversary HERE).
8. Joe Goddard
Woozy but sexy. Jumpin’ but somehow restrained. Hot Chip’s electronic lynch-pin Goddard aptly displays why he’s a party starter on most continents. This man ain’t lazy. He’ll often rock the main stage with his day job (dressed as a roman or a sea horse) then be found spinning deep acid or jacking Berlin bangers in the dance tent till late.
This debut, snuck in between Hot Chip albums, is bendy in all the right bits. Searing synth stabs, intriguing rhythmic flow, a hint of dubstep lovin’, old Chicago references and nods to the fathoms of Theo Parrish make this a fun, but incredibly educated and cultured dance album. Immeasurably pleasurable and will stay in most travelling DJ bags for months happily drenched in dexterity and determined ideas.
Download: ‘Harvest Festival’ LP, ‘Apple Bobbing’ EP
7. Clark
There’s something so visceral about Chris Clark’s creations that we find it almost impossible not to be perpetually excited about him, past and future. His album of July this year, ‘Totem’s Flare’, continues the benevolent violence we have come to depend on from him and within this it sounds often that several songs are engaging in brutal sex with one another before it swings to another perverted perspective.
Clark also manages to make even the most shitty speakers sound about £200 more expensive than they are, as he haemorrhages sheen and serenity and replaces it with blood, tears and dismantled bliss. His latest album, however, still had the groove necessary to get away with the above hyperbole. It still makes you dance like a teenager in front of THAT girl, and we challenge anyone to find a more gargantuan and less essential club track than ‘Growls Garden’ – quite simply the most brutal bollocks.
Download: ‘Totems Flare’ LP, ‘Body Riddle’ LP, ‘Turning Dragon’ LP
Stay tuned for the rest of the countdown all this week on ClashMusic.com
