In Depth by Rory Gibb
It seemed appropriate, then, to use this final transmission from me as an excuse to take a look backward through some of the year's more obscure/less widely distributed album releases in the electronic music spectrum. It's hardly intended to be comprehensive, more a chance to take personal stock of the year gone by and offer some recommendations to people bored with the stagnant homogeneity of most mainstream mags/websites' end of year lists. So here's an armchair dancefloor top 10: ten records that deserve your undivided love and attention, and warrant careful (and very loud) listening. I hope you find something worth loving in here.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
DiS returns to the Primavera of the east.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
Poland's best festival returns.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
With a weekend of Glastonbury's sheer magnitude, it's nigh on impossible to try and capture everything within a single review - although we've made a fair attempt with our Glastonbury Diary.
Here we offer DiS writers' musical highlights of the festival, from the audiovisual showdown that was Beyonce's Sunday night headline set to Radiohead's 'secret' set and psychedelic dance-pop from Caribou.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
DiS' Rory Gibb pilgrimaged to Pilton, and here's his diary.... "There are so many stages, bars, themed areas and tiny oddities to discover across the course of five days that it’s no longer necessary to worry about being at a certain place for a certain band at a certain time. That’s something the BBC’s TV coverage only ever touches upon, and even commentary from news outlets like the Guardian often downplays its importance, beyond spouting vague pronouncements about the ‘Glasto spirit’."»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
In lieu of trying to provide a blanket overview of such a huge line-up, here we offer DiS’ top ten picks for the weekend, bringing together some of the biggest and smallest acts worth your time and addled attention...»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
With this edition of armchair dancefloor we’re going in simple: all new music, no frills. And we kick off with one of the best electronic compilations of the last few years, and certainly an absolute essential for anyone even remotely interested in the experimental possibilities of club music; Hessle Audio push its boundaries until they almost snap entirely.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
After the club-centric four-to-the-floor session that was last week’s column, this week we’re more armchair than dancefloor, rounding up some of the best current and upcoming releases in experimental electronics, dissected dance and deconstructed pop. Dur»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
What with the modern world’s rapid-fire state, where an album can be released, downloaded, listened to and discarded within the space of a single day, it can be difficult to find the time to sit and give an entire piece the attention it deserves. That’s e»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
Thanks largely to the first hints of summer bathing the country over the last couple of weeks, house music has suddenly become a whole lot more appealing again, its slower pace and analogue warmth heralding the arrival of lazily sun-blushed days. Well, th»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
Panda Bear aka Animal Collective's Noah Lennox’s new album, Tomboy, is out this month, having been preceded by several singles on Kompakt (along with an excellent Actress remix of ‘Surfer’s Hymn’, which re-interprets the song for a dancefloor without sacrificing its essence). In contrast to Person Pitch, it’s a far more concise and easily accessible listen, its songs shorter and Lennox’s voice further creeping into the foreground. It retains its predecessor’s densely layered grandeur though, and the same intense textural focus. DiS caught up with Lennox to chat about its inception, his influences and wrestling with the whims of music technology.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
The year’s release schedule is warming up nicely. Without further ado, here are the records that have been constantly soundtracking recent weeks. There are quite a few of them, it’s been a good few weeks.»
News
by Rory Gibb
Good news for anyone who’s been missing their weekly fix of heavy beats and silky-voiced enthusiasm; first lady of UK electronic music Mary Anne Hobbs is returning to the radio. From 9th July she’ll be taking over a prime time Saturday evening slot on XFM, which promises the same focus on cutting edge music that marked out her Radio 1 show as the station’s best until her departure last year.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
Butlins Minehead has a slightly jarring atmosphere in the middle of the night. Sprawling chalet lots and the cocked arms of fairground apparatus have an unnerving tendency to suddenly loom from the darkness without warning. While ATP’s beardy warmth adds a softer edge to that experience, its intensity is further heightened at BLOC Weekend.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
This edition of armchair dancefloor marks a convergence point. As the dividing lines between what does and doesn’t constitute ‘bass music’ grow ever thinner, it feels like a worthwhile exercise to incorporate our bass column, Subliminal Transmissions, into a thicker, heavier and more muscular single beast. So here we have it: still rounding up the best in experimental and electronic sounds, armchair dancefloor will now also feature interviews, thoughts and ideas about the UK scene’s current state of play. So to kick off this week, we launch straight into a chat with Bristolian bass crossover man Addison Groove, who performs live at BLOC this weekend...»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
Welcome to the latest edition of armchair dancefloor, where we take a swift tryst round the twisted copper wires and fried circuits of this month’s electronic and experimental music releases.
In lieu of a guest mix, here’s instead a small selection of »
In Depth by Rory Gibb
It’s fair to say that DiS is no stranger to Butlins, Minehead. Given that we try our hardest to attend as many editions of All Tomorrow’s Parties as possible each year. The faint edge of chaos that still runs through ATP, especially late at night, pales in insignificance compared to BLOC Weekend, which tends to descend upon the place like an ode to hedonistic excess. This year’s edition takes place on the weekend of the 11th to the 13th March, though if you’re learning this for the first time, you’re a little late to the party – it’s entirely sold out.»
News
by Rory Gibb
London's Ether Festival have announced the full line-up for this year’s event, which marks a full decade of its ever-impressive blend of electronic, pop and avant-garde sounds, all dotted around the giant concrete maze that is the Southbank Centre.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
For this edition of Subliminal Transmissions, we offer some thoughts on the increasing convergence/irrelevance of genre in a web-driven world, and the rise (and rise) of R'n'B signifiers in UK bass sounds.»
Review
by Rory Gibb
Arcade Dynamics is perhaps best seen as the siesta to Landscapes’ nocturnal astral tryst – lighter and less intensely psychedelic, but immensely enjoyable nonetheless. »
News
by Rory Gibb
Hyperdub’s finest (well, only) purveyors of melancholy, rain-drenched synth pop are heading out for their first full tour of UK and Ireland in February.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
With armchair dancefloor 026 we’re ringing in January with a bang, taking a trip through some of the finest releases from the last few weeks of 2010 and looking forward to some new gems from the likes of Demdike Stare, Sandwell District and Emptyset.
Our»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
Track the hardcore continuum backwards far enough, from dubstep back through two-step, jungle, hardcore, and eventually you cross the Atlantic and land squarely within US boundaries. Sure, we’ve made UK-borne dance music our own over the last fifteen or t»
News
by Rory Gibb
This weekend was the fifth birthday of Mary Anne Hobbs’ legendary (and rightly so) Dubstep Warz Breezeblock show on Radio 1. That’s right, five years. Largely credited with helping to push the emergent scene into wider consciousness, it remains a vital li»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
So to close off 2010 it feels appropriate to take a scan backward through some of the year’s most exciting developments. We’ve recorded a mix that gathers together some of our favourite tracks from this year, from the blissful sensory overload of Oneohtrix Point Never and Hype Williams to the darkened soundscapes of Demdike Stare and Raime, alongside a healthy dose of music from the fertile ground explored by dubstep’s progeny. You can stream it from Mixcloud or download immediately below; the tracklist follows at the bottom of this article.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
2010’s been a busy year for Seb Rochford. On top of Polar Bear’s fourth album Peepers gaining attention above and beyond anything he’s yet been involved with, he’s just finished a final tour with thrash jazzers Acoustic Ladyland, remixed Peepers alongside London MC Jyager, performed with theraminist Palemia Kurstin and recently took a road trip through six towns in a day, hitting the skins in a white van.»
Review
by Rory Gibb
Tantalisingly short but precociously fully formed, operating both within and totally apart from current trends, it’s like nothing else out there.»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
armchair dancefloor 025 marks a change in personnel – ever on-it column founder Chris Power has passed the buck onwards to me, but the format's going to remain very much the same. So expect the usual round-up of the month's best releases in the electronic»
In Depth by Rory Gibb
Over the past few year's, DiS has used the annual year-end 'listing season' to highlight a few of our writers favourite records that for one reason or another, slipped through the cracks and failed to garner the attention they deserved. In these increasingly fractious times, where amid a deluge of opinion consensus is hard-veering-on-impossible to find, records are increasingly lost but over the course of this week, ahead of next week's 50 albums of the year listageddon, DiS will be highlighting 10 records from 10 of our staff, in the hope that they finally find a place in a record collection or two... Here Rory Gibbs reveals his choice, a gritty, beautifully deconstructed vision of modern music. »
Review
by Rory Gibb
In a year that’s seen UK-centric bass music continue to expand without compromise, discovering a host of new and exciting shapes, it’s still unusual to come across a release that unites several disparate aspects into a coherent whole.»
