39.
“An original drone was created very separate to the film but then I realised it might work as a score. From there I created a set of about 12 drones (eight of which are on the album) which were mostly variations on a theme and I began to place them in the edit to match the score. The drones work very well with the sounds of the sea, which is pretty much omni-present throughout the film and makes it easier to embed a drone without it being a big ‘musical’ statement.”Mark JenkinBait (Original Score)Invada
38.
VANigeria 70: No Wahala Highlife Afro Funk & Juju 1973-1987
The first new entry in Strut’s Nigeria 70 series for almost a decade is one of its very finest. Focusing on a time in Nigerian music where established styles like highlife and juju began to intersect with jazz and funk, as well as exploring musical links between Nigeria and Benin, it is a glistening and essential listen.
37.
Rupa Sen Biswas’ ‘Disco Jazz’ sold barely any copies in 1982, and the Bengal-born singer quickly faded into anonymity. However after someone uploaded the record to YouTube, original copies suddenly became worth hundreds. Dan Snaith, aka Caribou’s use of one track ‘Aaj Shanibar’ in his DJ sets has garnered it over a million views. Newly reissued by Numero Group, the record stands up to its sought-after reputation. A wild and immensely enjoyable lost gem from the golden age of Indian disco, Disco Jazz is a must-listen.RupaDisco JazzNumero Group
36.
Levi’s score sounds instinctive, and its first appearance in the film is an intense and wavering synth melody, juddering away while the Monos train, their bodies and stamina being mercilessly pushed by the Messenger. But the tune isn’t brutal, there’s a warmth to it despite what it sounds like, which seems to illustrate the contradiction of what is less a group and more a family – albeit an incredibly dysfunctional one.Mica LeviMonos (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)Invada
35.
From the synth strut of ‘Baby Tears Blues’ to ‘You Don’t Have to Walk a Begonia’, Mother Earth’s Plantasia continues to hold special dominion within a nebulous sonic sphere that has trickled into 1980s Library Music, 16bit RPG-soundtracks and far beyond. Now, thanks to the efforts of Sacred Bones, we have a chance to view it as something more than Garson probably ever wished for it to be. Not least from the vantage point of an era where mass plant extinction, from the Chile sandalwood to Saint Helena olive, is no longer some idle cosmic threat but a we-could-actually-be-fucked reality, let’s honour Garson by not simply viewing his 1976 album as something lovely, or even groundbreaking, but as a cue to heed the red flag for what it is.Mort GarsonMother Earth’s PlantasiaSacred Bones
34.
If you don’t know much about CCL, this mix for Unsound is a great way to get acquainted with them as the Seattle-based DJ runs through various sub-aquatic sounds mostly shy of the 100 BPM mark. In little over an hour, they hit on UK dancehall, D&B, jungle, various chugging delights, EBM and electro, all of it blended to perfection.CCLUnsound Podcast 56Unsound
33.
Mary Lou Williams’ discography as a musician, composer, arranger and band leader is among the most imperious in the history of jazz, but among her hundreds of releases, this slender 1964 LP might be the very best of them all. For its breathtaking opener ‘Black Christ Of The Andes’ alone, this LP is an absolute must.Mary Lou WilliamsMary Lou WilliamsSmithsonian Folkways
32.
2019 felt like they year that DEBONAIR deservedly finally broke through following years of excellent sets at clubs across the country alongside hosting one of NTS’ best shows. This mix for Resident Advisor shows off various sides of her club sound, touching on EBM from Front 242 and A Split Second, banging techno by LSDXOXO and great recent material by Yves Tumor and Nkisi, amongst lots more.DebonairRA.677Resident Advisor
31.
Shellac of North America played their first Peel Session in 1994, three months before their first album, At Action Park, was released on Touch And Go. Of the four songs they played for BBC radio, only ‘Crow’ made it onto the debut, with ‘Canada’ and ‘Disgrace’ ending up on Terraform in 1998 and ‘Spoke’ only surfacing on Excellent Italian Greyhound in 2007. The second part of the album is more of an honorary Peel Session, given that it is an eight-track live album recorded in front of an audience at Studio 4 of Maida Vale. According to Ken Garner’s very useful book The Peel Sessions, after the DJ died unexpectedly in October 2004, Rob Da Bank hosted his show for the rest of the year, “using Peel’s already planned running orders, and already commissioned or recorded sessions” which included this blistering December 1 set. The band dedicated the session “and probably the rest of our career” to the DJ. The undoubted highlight is a strident but poignant ‘The End Of Radio’, complete with alternate lyric: “John Peel was a hell of a man.”ShellacThe End Of RadioTouch & Go
30.
BBC 6 Music ushered in Halloween this year with a gloriously autumnal live session by Sunn O))). On her mid-morning prime-time show the next day, Mary Anne Hobbs played a reverberant section of their 30-minute drone metal track Troubled Air, and introduced the band to her large audience as the “overlords of experimental metal”. Using a dizzyingly large backline at Maida Vale studios, they summoned warm waves of overdriven guitar noise, complemented by a heavenly swell of trombone, which crashed up against current hyped playlist hopefuls and canonical heavyweights including Depeche Mode, Missy Elliott and Tom Waits.Sunn O)))BBC 6 Music Session for Mary Anne Hobbs
29.
What these recordings show is a musician, and philosopher, who was ahead of his time. Sadly he died at a time when electronic music was starting to get recognition as a serious art form, not just a fad, and this might be the reason why Bartlett isn’t as well-known as his peers. Plus there isn’t a lot of his recordings, but what is available shows in inquisitive mind, with an innate understanding of melody and composition. With these albums we are being given vital recordings that will hopefully shine the spotlight on an underrated and long forgotten composer, producer and pioneer.Martin BartlettAnkle OnArc Light Editions
28.
Dekmantel’s main stage, at which Dutch DJ upsammy played this set, isn’t the most intimate of spaces which makes her steadfast commitment to playing the music she wants to play all the more admirable. In this case, that involved angular techstep, jungle and various IDM curios all put together and paced impeccably.UpsammyDekmantel Festival 2019Dekmantel
27.
When he’s not assembling end time animist raves and possession cult rituals with a mass of musicians and performers, Dan Jones also performs strident techno as a solo producer, also under the UKAEA name. He can be found once a month testing battle weapons on Threads, a London community radio station in Tottenham.UKAEAThreads Mix, 21 October 2019Threads
26.
Batu is a DJ very much at the top of his game right now, adept at playing various styles and tempos, as he evidenced in numerous sets around the world this year. This set for the Truants blog’s long-running mix series is an example of his wide-ranging ability as he fuses together all manner of tripped-out modern club sounds and psychedelic techno while crossing tempo boundaries with ease.BatuTruancy Volume 240Truants
25.
On the introductory ‘Saturday Morning Doze’, birds’ singsong and sounds of a hazy and lazy Saturday are framed within glossy synth lines and tender zither strums. While the ambient music tropes he uses would today soon be renounced as kitsch, Hood’s earnestness elevates them to pure sonic euphoria. Like the “olly olly oxen free” melody that a girl first sings on ‘After School’ only for Hood’s keyboard to repeat it, with glee. Or the nocturnal ‘August Haze’ that employs distant dog barks, insect chirrups, and a faint swinging radio transmission to masterfully preserve the essence of a sweltering hot and careless summer night. It all ends at night, too, with a game of Kick the Can and the Happy Days theme song hummed in passing, as the time to go home approaches.Ernest HoodNeighborhoodsFreedom To Spend
24.
British Murder BoysReceiving The Law
150 copies of limited edition cassette album Receiving The Law were given away during a rare British Murder Boys set at fabric earlier this year. This was recorded at their residency at the Willem Twee Studios earlier this year – but obviously it isn’t twee at all, and features a markedly different sonic palette from what you might expect. Piano, sordid mutterings, Regis channelling Jhon Balance, David Tibet and Marc Almond all at once feature, along with a cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Real Good Time Together’.
23.
Brian Eno once remarked that his intention was not to soothe those awaiting a flight but to remind them that death, should it come, need not be feared. A far flight from Spotify’s akimbo onslaught of pre-packaged ambient playlists and an integrated Headspace subscription. Leon’s record is similarly interruptive in this landscape. This is music for interplanetary airports and as much as it soothes, it sonically unsettles. But that said – when the project is taken holistically – the listener also risks being unsettled by the contexts that lie in its peripheries.Craig LeonAnthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 2: The CanonRVNG Intl.
22.
Every new mix from Call Super feels like a treat and this one wastes little time getting going as the Berlin-based DJ and producer sets things off just north of the 140 BPM mark. Finding a course through spaced-out techno, classic hardcore, electro, jungle techno and more, he soon winds down proceedings a little in the home straight via head-scrambling polyrhythms and blissed-out house.Call SuperCrack Mix 300Crack
21.
Eighth Grade is a comedy of awkwardness, a drama of social unease and stomach-knotting cringe. In this sense it resembles – or is at least some kind of z generation heir to – TV shows like The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm. But unlike those older peers, a great deal of Eighth Grade’s tension is generated by the brilliant score from Anna Meredith. The one-time Camberwell Composers Collective co-founder has produced an electronic soundtrack of dizzying intensity, like EDM with all the macho drops and pumping bass stripped out, still left with all of its thrills, its high-wire fervour, its maximalist delirium.Anna MeredithEighth Grade (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)Columbia
20.
Die Nibelungen comes from the mighty Årabrot’s live soundtrack to Fritz Lang’s classic silent films of the same name. Kjetil Nernes’s shifting collective brought in members of Gnod, Nurse With Wound and Current 93 for a five hour long performance, now honed and trimmed into two extraordinary 20-minute movements. ‘Part I’ is disparate, ominous and intense in its sparseness, showing Nernes’ brilliance when it comes to atmospherics. Disparate industrial grinds and screeches cut arrhythmically through the drone, but so to do moments of real beauty. Then, on ‘Part II’, the band begin to let loose a little. Rumbles of guitar give way to a hint of the hard-riffing power of Årabrot’s last two studio LPs, but always handled with a deft dynamism that betrays the depth and skill of one of the modern greats.rabrotDie NiebelungenPelagic
