January is the month when each respectable paper, TV/ radio station or internet service is trying to recap the previous year. Is that a sufficient reason why Sound Revolt editors decided to join that company? Probably yes, but we won't keep secret that there's something more to that. Other important reason is the gratefulness we want to show to our favourite artists. By marking them out, we want to thank for the job they did last year to entertain, rejoice, touch…. This year we decided to concentrate on six categories. In each of them we've picked a winner and four equivalent distinctions, put in an alphabetical order. Right next to each pick we tried to give reason for it. Next year we promise You some interaction - voting with prizes, but today we invite you to discuss about the decisions we've made.
We start this round up with artist album - an opus on the dance music circuit, which only few can afford to put together by themselves. Many producers simply don't have enough energy or ideas to come up with a CD made completely of their own productions. Nevertheless some of them achieved that goal in 2003. In our opinion the biggest credit should be given to Junkie's XL double cd - but not the one available in music stores, but the one called "7 AM" which can be downloaded from the artist's website for 6 Euro. Tom Holkenborg (JXL) underlined his supremacy in the producer's world yet once again. "7 AM" consists of two parts: Dance and Ambient. First one is full of dance anthems; the latter is an exemplary chillout album. Last year's vacations couldn't go on without those two. Speaking of chillout albums, if "7 AM Ambient" is exemplary, we must consider Urlich Schnauss' "A Strangely Isolated Place" genius. Electronic in its prime and by far the best non-dance album we've heard in 2003. Besides the Dutch (JXL) and the German (Schnauss), another foreigner appeared on the list - French-bred Agoria. He brought a breeze of freshness into our progressive hearts with his "Blossom" album. Just a simple touch of electro, techno & house served in a most spectacular way. Consecutive European- this time, be aware - a Pole! brought a lot of innovation into our music tastes too. Although Jeff Bennett left our country at the age of six and now lives in Sweden - still we have something to be proud of. "Puzzling Thoughts" opened our eyes on tech-house, which in his interpretation sounds phenomenally. Our fellow compatriot's work is a compact journey through deep kinds of sophisticated dance music, and although not mixed - undertaken with pleasure. What we've got here last is a masterpiece from the beginning of the year -Joshua Ryan's "By Design". The album found a place in this category although it contains some tracks by other artists; however most of them emerged under authors supervision. A very energetic, mostly trance record, which swayed us exactly a year ago.
In this category we complied all oficially released dj sets. Certain, unquestionable winner was James Holden with his "Balance 005" released by Australian EQ. More than a year ago nobody consider James a good dj, cause he simply wasn't! He has put a lot of effort into his technique and gathered a crucial musical intuition since then, which can be clearly observed on the record. An album built on a technique of track selection according to a chord key won't probably find a deserving succesor in a long time. Pointing out compliations from Global Underground "24:7" series, we buy the label's concept for more ambitious records, which supply all the necessary musical sensations all around the clock. . "Afterclub Mixes" from "Global Underground 25 - Toronto" fit perfectly into lazy, afterparty mornings, whilst Zabiela's new album is something for a more demanding listener. "Sound in Motion" lost to "Balance" just by an inch.
This category leaves no doubt about the winner as Yunus's EP-os "Invasion EP" steps in to take all honors. Here besides one of the best tracks of the year "Mass Schizophrenia" we have a splendid "Seyo in Blue", dynamic "The March" and soothing "Opus 34". Those two vinyls are the best that happened to electronic music in the past year. Add "Head First EP" and the problem concerning best producer is already solved. Now -Indigo Child is of course Yunus's pseudo used for Silver Planet recordings. Matthew Dekay inscribed his name with golden syllables in 2003. He's wonderful vision of Monday made an astonishing career, whilst "Fucking Friday" blew away many from the dancefloor. Energetically, Brian Mandry's productions stand firm and they had to find their place among those killers. Chicago's collective, know from hard drinking - Grayarea closes the EP van. It's not because of the Gabriel and Dresden remix of "One For The Road". The reason we've included this EP in our recapitulation is "Yewminyst" - a break monster, who's arrangement and motif richness still overwhelm us! That couldn't have been invented sober-minded.
I wonder if it possible to totally separate from the World and not hear Agoria's "La Onzieme Marche" at least once. It's a kind of track that injects a load of positive energy into us each time we hear it… and to think that it's based on few simple chords. The idea of the year! Holden's and vocalist Thompson's "Nothing" was even more popular, but in 2002. Because of many reasons it was finally released in 2003 - and we couldn't forget about it in our summary. Common feature of Nathan Fake's "Outhouse" and Joshua Ryan's "Buildings Inbetween" is an unbelievable dose of emotions, which those two tracks carry (read as: they cause goose bumps). Perc's "Closer" is the most progressive, dark and mysterious number on this list. Great piece of music!
The most important criteria in this category was the quality of metamorphosis applied by the remixer to the base song. It's much easier to make a decent remix from a perfect tune than to go the other way and make something really good out of poor original. Let's see who did the trick. Although it was supposed to be best remix, not remixes, but Steve Porter put two brilliant versions of "Anyway" on a single vinyl, ipso facto helping us to pick the winner. Those two adaptations were played by almost everybody, and as they say - one beats the other. Terrific job in putting something out of nothing was done by Flatline. We're not Dirty Vegas fans, but "I Should Know" dub is probably last year's strongest production. A dancefloor sacred song having nothing to do with the original. Also Chab's remix of "Faith" is totally different from the poor original. It was flawlessly shaped in his hands and acquired attributes which are not fundable in the prototype. Ruven, one of the Flash Brothers, on the other hand came up with an idea on how to redefine the techy, not in our taste "Reflections" during his lunch break. The Israeli duo made a hell of a good work! We have a small exception at the end of the list, since "Your Voice" is not that bad at all. But what Moshic did with this hybrid copy is unbelievable! Listening to his soften, dark and melancholic version we get the impression that the artist has a different music perception. It's probably true, but we've gonna discuss that in the last part.
Just to fulfill all the formalities… The best producer AD 2003 - in our opinion - is Yunus Guvenen . In his case the number of tracks (7!) was fully transferred upon quality. The leader of Turkish army has simply conquered the progressive world. Past him, four other producers, whose contribution to last year's dance music is inestimable, step up. We wrote about Agoria twice already, so it's probably enough. In Matthew Dekay's case we have to add that besides the distincted EP, he also recorded great "If I Could Fly" and "Time to Think" (the latter in collaboration with Akatisha). George Pallikaris on the other hand was a very busy remixer. His two versions of Phoebe "I Could See" are some of the most important Greek's achievements. Dekay and G-Pal are two figures that we've gonna carefully watch for this year. A person that we already had a chance to watch is Moshic of course. He finally sailed onto deep waters and with every consecutive production, he proved a class of his own. We eagerly await for the next bits of his artistic creativeness.
Ņandu (June 28th, 2004):
Keep like this!!!! You are doing a excellent job! Art is everything! Hilario Bs.As. -Argentina-
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