This week we run down a few of the stand out producers of 2011, today with Funkineven, Vakula and Objekt.
15. FUNKINEVEN – Various Eglo / Apron
All we can say is thank god renegade beat-smiths like Funkineven exist to fight their way through a ocean of laptop producers churning out lacklustre formulaic beats. Raised on a healthy diet of old-school greats including Prince, Masters At Work, George Clinton and Kraftwerk, and brought up on the soundsystem culture of West London via Grenada, Steven Julien does it the old-school way – corporal, un-prescribed and analogue all the way. Just take a look at his promotional youtube rip of his ‘Apron EP’, a hand-held video clip of Julien spinning his new record on his bedroom decks. Low budget, massive respect.
Best Bit: The moment the schizo 303-led acid line on ‘Rolands Jam’ loses the plot completely.
14. VAKULA Various Firecracker / Schevchenko / Unthank
While the UK underground flippantly passes through its current house-obsessed phase, it takes someone like Vakula, and his true Detroit state of mind, to show the trend-led amateurs how it’s really done. The Ukranian producer has been bubbling along in the underground for a short while now, but 2011 was really the year that he burst forth into the consciousnesses of those with a palette for the deeper side of things. With ten releases on six different labels in the space of one year, Vakula seems to be lost in a perpetual vortex of endless creativity and inspiration, crafting a clear and distinguishable sound based on mesmeric patterns of hypnotic analogue warmth.
Best Bit: Vakula’s mesmerising rework of Steve Reich’s classic leap of faith, ‘2×5: Movement 3 Fast’.
13. OBJEKT Various Objekt / Young Turks
The Anglo-German entity that is TJ Hertz perhaps embodies what’s been so fascinating this year. With one foot firmly planted in the contemporarily rigid structured dance scene he then uses this as leverage to propel himself into completely new ground. He silently released a few oblique 12”s this year but one blast of his ‘CLK Recovery’ and you’ll understand the form of his rabid mongrel. Objekt mingles space, silence and long edits with the fury of a bubbling dancefloor, a statement never qualified more strongly that with his collaboration with SBTRKT on the 12” white label called SBJKT, which could only be called dangerously effective techno.
Best Bit: Objekt’s remix of Radiohead’s ‘Bloom’ sets perfectly out his manifesto written with space and bass.
Follow the rest of our Top 15 Producers of 2011 across this week on ClashMusic.com.
