Top Albums of 2010

1. James Blake - CMYK/Klavierwerke

James Blake is the brightest upcoming producer. His music is something completely new. He is also a genius in voice manipulation and creating space in music which is why his two EPs are the greatest thing to happen to modern electronic music since Burial released Untrue.

2. Four Tet - There is Love in You

Words cannot describe how great this album is. Each track is a hypnotic swirl of complex fragil sounds over a 4/4 beat. A perfect album, a work of art.

3. Toro y Moi - Causers of This

Though the genre died out relatively quick, Toro y Moi's music evolves rapidly with each release. Causers of This is a masterpiece of beautiful sample work.

4. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor

The Monitor is just one of those big punk records. Some of the best songwriting I've heard in a longtime.

5. Cosmogramma - Flying Lotus

Flylo's epic masterpiece is a lesson in fusion, the best since Miles Davis' Bitches Brew.

6. Mount Kimbie - Crooks and Lovers

Mount Kimbie pushes dubstep into new territories and promises a bright future for the young genre.

7. Tycho - Past is Prologue

Tycho makes impossibly beautiful electronic music, and their newest is just that.

8. Bonobo - Black Sands

Black Sands gave me hope for the future of downtempo. Ninja Tune Records still puts out good stuff.

9. Twin Shadow - Forget

Twin shadow did the impossible in 2010, they brought back new wave without making it clique

10. Scuba - Triangulation

The head of Hotflush Records demonstrates why he is the king of the ever progressing genre.

Notable Mentions:

Harlem - Hippies
Twin Sister - Color Your Life
Onra - Long Distance
Skream - Outside the Box

Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo/Shrew EP

Darkstar - North (hyperdub)

After a slew of promising EPs and singles on Hyperdub, Darkstar returns with their debut LP release ‘North’. The duo has ditched the deep bass sound and set to release a synth pop record. For such a fresh act is the post dub-step movement, I expected some sleek hyper complex sounds, but ‘North’ is not what most fans were probably expecting.

They sacrificed the glitchy pinpoint bleeps and bloops and focused in on washing synths and minimalist percussion lines over simple chord progressions. The vocals take center stage this time around. Just about every track features vocals from Neleswa, who has a slow burning soft voice. They keep the idea fresh on each track by using lots of voice modulation to make it a fully electronic experience.

Although the new direction Darkstar is taking makes ‘North’ something that needs to be checked out, there isn’t much replay value with all the simplicity going on, even for a pop record. It sounds like they’re trying to recreate or pay homage to the sounds of yesterday’s electronic producers who started the movement, which of course is understandable. But if you’re looking for a quick easy listen when you’re brain is aching from all the complexity of modern electronic, Darkstar is a worthy listen to ease the mind.

Burial - Untrue (Hyperdub)

The once secretive and unnamed london based producer ’Burial’ follows up his debut self titled release with the best album of 2007, and without a doubt, my favorite electronic album I’ve ever heard.

While listening to this grimy fogged up haze of dark midnight melodies I couldn’t help but realize how inaccessible it is to some people. Not everyone would dig this sound, not everyone would ‘get it’, this truly is underground music. But maybe thats the whole point of the album.

Burial is presenting a dance record. It has everything the UK garage sound needs, the skattering percussion tripping over its self, the deep sub bass that vibrates right through you, warm yet distant soul vocal samples glowing in the darkness of the gloomy sound which is keeping his signature sound from being full blow dance Garage. It comes off more of Burial’s salute to the now dead and gone, but not forgotten, genre that is UK Garage. Each track sounds like he is attempting to recreate one of his favorite 2-Step tunes from a half remembered memory. It’s foggy and hazy, it’s not all there, but it’s glowing with nostalgia.

Mount Kimbie - Sketch On Glass EP (Hot Flush Records)

Evolution is the theme of today’s electronic music. It the artist’s sound isn’t progressing with each new release, then you’re probably listening to Vampire Weekend. Scuba’s ‘Hot flush Records’ is the leading pioneers (along with Kode 9’s prestigious ‘Hyperdub Records’) of the post-dubstep movement, and one the top of their roster, we have the newly emerging duo of producers Mount Kimbie.

The ‘Sketch On Glass EP’ is short at four tracks, but each is a standout. As expected, the sound is comprised once again with skipping 2-step percussion under washing rhythms of synths and deep dubbed bass lines so low the untrained ear will have a difficult time identifying the note they are resinating. ’50 Mile View’ second half features such a bass line over a sleek section of ultra clean mallet hits. Mount Kimbie’s great sense of ambience and empty space in their sound are what makes the duo stand out in the scene. The focus is on the space of the sound to avoid ugly clutter.

‘Serged’ is the standout track of the release. The rhythm of the distorted distent synths and soulful vocal samples over the pounding dub bass line and garage esq skittering percussion make for a unique mix.

The Now of it

It's been about two months now, haven't written anything. I stopped writing reviews for Little Blue Frog because I haven't listened to that sort of music since I wrote the last one.

By now if you haven't picked up on the blogs underling theme then chances are you aren't smart enough. Every album I have reviewed is fusion of some sort. You wont find anything purely one genre in here. I adopted the name "Little Blue Frog" from my favorite track off of Miles Davis's 'Bitches Brew' which is the ultimate fusion album. Although I guess you could say all of today's music is fusion when you look back far enough. And I would say fuck you.

Anyway, within the past two months I have been listening to an abundance of electronic UK based music. There has been a lot of Post-Dubstep, IDM and Future Garage (the new love of my life). I can't even remember the last time I heard a guitar that wasn't so drenched in effects that you could even tell it was a guitar you were hearing.

I want to continue the blog because I have came so far, but my currents musical interests don't fit the theme. There's a possibility in creating a whole new electronic based blog. I'll keep you posted.

Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles

I've been moping around with a hole in me. Something important has been missing for quite a long time. I haven't heard an album so complex, colorful, texturized, deep and unique that I actually enjoyed for months now. Something that I can listen to over and over and get something new out of it every time I experience it. Something that is before it's time. Last masterpiece of an album according to my criteria that I've found was Burial's Untrue, Gang Gang Dance's Saint Dymphna or Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma. It's been at least a year. So I've been looking for something to fill that void for about a month now.

Xiu Xiu's Fabulous Muscles is an old album, 6 years now, and it's better than it should be. Thats the problem with a lot of great albums. They're before their time. Kid A, Bitches Brew, Remain In Light... you know what I'm talking about.

The album is dark to say the least, but it's not depressing. There's so much emotion, and variety in the emotion. It's something I've never heard in music before. It drags you down to a dark places, makes you feel like you're all the way at the bottom, where there's no light. Then it takes you back up in a split second in a gust of alive emotion, only to drop you back on your face again. It's what I'd imagine The Cure's Disintegration to had sounded like by the kids in '89. It's raw, it's noisy and beautiful yet it's exceptionably coherent for such an experimental sound.

Man Man - Six Demon Bag

I’m not much of an Animal Collective fan anymore. There was a phase when I get together with friends and we’d indulge on hallucinogens while listening to Strawberry Jam. It’s a phase long gone now, just like the classic rock phase. It was good at the time, and played a large role in shaping my music tastes.

There’s been a lot of bands basing their sound off of Animal Collective lately. They take that wavy, dream, overly happy highly original sound and rehash it with out adding anything original to it (and if they do it’s no good). Then there is Man Man. Call them Animal Collectives evil brother.

Six Demon Bag is a stomper. It sounds like straight up Viking/Eastern European/Gypsy/Circus music all combined into one violent mess. It’s like a drunken Beirut on a coke binge singing war songs. It’s an album for steampunks. What I really enjoy about the album is how all the instruments that you will rarely ever hear anywhere else play such a huge role in the sound. Hell, I don’t even think there’s any guitar at all on the album. There’s a great sense of variety as well. You’d expect the sound to be gimmicky and get old after a song or two, but it’s not the case at all. You’ll be so intrigued and wanting more, curiously wondering what’s next. Such a fun band.

Pretty Lights - Spilling Over Every Side

This is part 2 of a 3 part series of EPs that Vincent Smith is putting out while on tour this year. The first one was excellent, and it's not like I had any hope for it after the terrible third album. I mean that this was bad. Once the popularity and festival fame hit, it went to his head and his music lost the 'soul' half of the sound, leaving nothing but glitchy electro, even going a little dubstep in some places... Anyone can make that, and it wasn't even good. So he came back strong stuffing the soul back into the sound on these EPs, bringing back that urban rainy night thing.

The six tracks on the EP are pretty long, seven minute average. Usually thats not a problem for a pretty lights song. Hell, Take Away The Sun is a solid ten minutes, and it's a great track. The difference now is that those tracks would travel, the song would progress and go somewhere, the tracks on the new EP are just too tedious. I guess it's just an EP so it's not a huge problem. But my biggest disappointment towards the new EP is that there's nothing that sounds like the unique Understand Me Now from part 1 of the EP series. I almost expected it lack anything like it, because it was just so incredibly good, his most soulful sound, no question.

The Flashbulb - Arboreal

Most great music demands patience. Granted, sitting down a devoting 70 minutes to listening to an album isn't an easy thing to do. But sometimes thats what needs to be done. A great album is a journey somewhere. And this album is a car ride right into an electrical storm. The Flashbulb is a IDM/Breakcore project that combines glitchy electronic percussion over beautiful lush soundscapes of orchestral music. It's like Squarepusher mixed with Thee Silver Mt. Zion.

Each track on the album is a completely separate part, unique from any other. When you listen to just one track, you feel like you were shown a glimpse into a new future world. But when song after song is played, you keep going further and deeper into this unknown future, and all you want to do is see more, and before you know it, seven tracks have pasted by. The sound is so atmospheric in a completely futuristic way that it really provokes your imagination. Once the album concludes, you're left wondering what you just saw. Its like seeing a really complex and intelligent movie, and you sit there trying to put everything together.

Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot

I was shocked the first time I listened through Sir Lucious Left Foot, then a second and third time. I had been hearing good things. The mix tape was great, but I wasn’t prepared for this. This is what Hip-Hop should song like.

It’s been so long since we’ve heard new material by OutKast that I was kinda worried that Big Boi, often seen as the lesser half behind Andre 3000, wouldn’t stack up. But from the opening Daddy Fat Stax, it’s nothing but gold. The production is nothing short of perfect, as to be expected with names like Scott Storch and Organized Noize. There’s a great sense of balance between loud stompers (Shutterbug, Daddy Fat Stax) and softer, more heavily and diversely musical tracks we’re used to from OutKast (Turns Me On, Shine Blockas) Then there’s Big Boi’s amazing flow and lyrics, which will speak for themselves when you hear it.

It’s without a doubt the best release of 2010 and I can’t say enough good things about it.