Articles
2009 Top 10s and 20s
King Midas Sound
Starke

Albums
36
Aardvarck
Matias Aguayo
Anaphoria
Anduin
Arbol + Fibla
Aufgang
Beneva vs. Clark Nova
Black to Comm
Bvdub
Cornstar
Dinky
Enola
Fieldhead
FOURM / Shinkei / Turra
Billy Gomberg
The Green Kingdom
Chihei Hatakeyama
Ian Hawgood
Marek Hemmann
Khate
King Midas Sound
Marcel Knopf
Robot Koch
Lambent
Shinobu Nemoto
Olekranon
Laurent Perrier
Piano Magic
Porzellan
Pylône
Ryonkt
Shadyzane
Slow
Small Color
Solomun
The Sound of Lucrecia
Stray Ghost
The Use of Ashes
Sylvie Walder

Compilations / Mixes
Sebo K
Will Saul
Tama Sumo
VOLTT Amsterdam Vol. 1

EPs
Blindhæð
Roberto Bosco
Franco Cangelli
Dieb
dub KULT
Abe Duque/Blake Baxter
Gemmy
Christopher Hobbs
Duncan Ó Ceallaigh
Christopher Roberts
The Sight Below
Two Fourteen
Van Der Papen
Andy Vaz
Vetrix
Eddie Zarook

DVD
Optofonica

Andy Vaz: Shadow City
Yore

Recorded by Andy Vaz in Cologne (with additional production by B.troit), Shadow City presents different visions of funky house grooves. The A side's “The "Y" Theme” gets nicely moving with a funky house pulse before stoking the fire with the addition of speaking voices (trippily intoning the Q&A “What are we doing this for?” and “The music”), a move which single-handedly jumpstarts the track. After the voices appear, the groove's intensity escalates and plunges deeper, its gyroscopic house swing becoming more dizzying and torrential with each passing bar before coming to an acidy end. In its opening moments, “Shadow City” opts for a less frenetic and rather more serenading vibe by comparison, but that's traded in for a slinkier attack at the three-minute mark that grows progressively more ferocious as the track makes its dramatic upwards ascent. The B side's other track, “Mumbai Dweller,” keeps the focus primarily on the bottom end, specifically a strutting tribal-house funk groove that's dragged even deeper by a throbbing bass undertow. So nice to hear the Yore captain digging into three clubby cuts that are anything but minimal.

December 2009