The countdown of 2009’s best Dance acts continues with London’s shadowy dub step don, Untold, and Berlin’s electro-clash pioneer and International Deejay Gigolo Records label boss, Dj Hell, snuggling up in the fifth and sixth positions.
6. Untold
As much as dubstep has been maligned as a trend-du-jour and generally misunderstood by the masses (until it’s heard bearing down on them from a rather large sound system), what’s perhaps holding the most attention is its restless mutation and changing of form. Untold, a suitably anonymous Londoner, has been doing great work in overlapping its edges onto techno and more weird 4/4 forms.
Releasing on his own Hemlock Records as well as Hessle Audio, Hot Flush and Boka, he’s been in all the right places this year and now gets the favour of Hardwax Records in Berlin. The bass men from Del Monte have spoken, it seems. 2009 was very much a year where dubstep went in many directions but the most concise one was where rhythms (nearly) overtook bass as the focus. As well as the labels above we can add in acts such as Appleblim, Mount Kimbie, Joy Orbison and Ramadanman to this fray. The magic is in the detail and Untold’s tracks like ‘Just For You’, with incredibly tightly programmed shuffle edits, straddled techno and dubstep perfectly, expanding his name well out of his bedroom, his mother’s bridge club and firmly into the next decade.
Download: ‘Just for You’ EP, ‘Yukon’ EP
5. DJ Hell
Don’t you just hate opinion charts? Bloody subjected to subjection. DJ Hell, however, does deserve to be in here. Possibly higher if we weren’t so swayed with fresh forms of dance music and new interpretations of sub bass. Damn us.
But Hell, after inventing electro-clash, lay kinda low for a few years then in 2009 unveiled his ‘Teufelswerk’ double album, which brought a way higher level of integrity to his productions than his previous kitsch techno. Of this series ‘Day’ is more Krautrock inspired whilst ‘Night’ is a narcotic stroll around his influences, which has led him as the original international deejay gigolo around the world more than a few times.
Download: ‘Teufelswerk’ LP, ‘My Definition Of House Music’ EP
Stay tuned for the rest of the countdown all this week on ClashMusic.com
