Articles
2009 Ten Favourite Labels
Simon Scott's Navigare
Traxx's 10 Chicago Tracks

Albums
Aerosol
Andrasklang
Aquarelle
Matt Bartram
Bassnectar
Bell Horses
Broadcast & Focus Group
Angus Carlyle
Celer
Ytre Rymden Dansskola
Do Make Say Think
Dorosoto
Isnaj Dui
Shane Fahey
Jan Garbarek Group
Lisa Germano
Rachel Grimes
Halogen
Hellothisisalex
Christopher Jion
P Jørgensen
Leyland Kirby
Klimek
KZA
Elisa Luu
Mountain Ocean Sun
Marcello Napoletano
Andy Nice
Nicolay
port-royal
Rameses III
Sankt Otten
Danny Saul
Simon Scott
Sleep Whale
Susanna & Magical Orch.
Syntaks
Traxx
Claude VonStroke

Compilations / Mixes
5
Crookers
Favourite Places 2
Music For Mathematics
Snuggle & Slap
Sander Kleinenberg 2
Y9

EPs
DJ Bone
DJ Nasty
Duque and Baxter
Filterwolf
Ghenacia & Djebali
Ikonika
Kez YM
King Roc
Vadim Lankov
Lavender Ticklesoft
Lo-Fi Soundsystem
Niko Marks
Seuil
Subeena
Mark Templeton

Crookers: I Love Techno 2009
Lektroluv

Crookers, started by Milanese DJs Phra and Bot in 2003, distills hip-hop, house, and all manner of bass science into a jacking style that's as twisted and crooked as its group name implies. With their contribution to the I Love Techno series, the Italian duo deliver a feverish mix that's as up-to-the-minute as it could possibly be, given the inclusion of cuts by Fever Ray, Jahcoozi, Zomby, Rustie, Metronomy, and others.

Things get moving nicely with “Glamourama,” a funk-house classic from Photek circa 2000 whose wrist-slashing hi-hats and beat rumble set just the right tone for the raging cuts that follow. It's the only backwards glance Crookers casts, with almost every one of the seventeen selections that follow 2009 productions. Emvee lets loose a bass swarm of synthesizers for the jacking house swing of “Glitch Dub,” after which Nadastrom's “Ghetto Pass” cranks the mix to delirious levels before handing the baton off to Todd Osborn for a brief slice of bleepy techno (“The Count”).

The Milanese duo includes two Crookers remixes, the first a stepping funk-house riff on Jesse Rose's “Touch My Horn” (its stop-start jack peppered with, yes, horn riffology) and the second a heavy makeover of Fever Ray's “Seven” (which not surprisingly, spins the mix into another dimension the moment Karin Dreijer Andersson's wail enters the picture), and also works its own hot-wired stepper “Knobbers” into the middle of the set-list. Oliver$ climbs aboard the roller-coaster bleep-and-bass-throb of Jahcoozi's “Watching You,” and things take a tribal turn when KU BO's rollicking “Lefe” arrives. Slamming, synth-heavy dubstep from Rustie (“Bad Science”) and rampaging tech-house from Deepgroove (“Spike”) also find their way into the set.

November 2009