This was intended to be EY's final update of 2011 - our annual countdown of the tunes that had given us the energy and enthusiasm to update this tiny little purple hub of shiny new electro. Strange electro magnetic fields scuppered all that as hardrives clicked and choked and finally died followed by a hastily purchased laptop replacement that kept switching itself off prior to dreaded Windows 7 blue screen warnings. Warnings full of meaningless computery jargon that made no sense after umpteen bottles of cava and mountains of mince pies.
We've finally been able to fire up our lovely red HP Pavilion and we have a trial version of the latest Dreamweaver CS5.5....
Keeping in line with last year's poll, we've adhered to a strict policy of listing just ten tracks - a challenge set down by Babooshka
We've spent a week scanning through EY's archives in a year that has seen the site cover more electro newbies than ever before from the delicious retro pop of Simian Mobile Disco and Beth Ditto right through to the intruding sub-genre of Alt-Synth where traditional synthy pop merges with abstract indie knob twiddling with no commercial pressures, Alt-Synth acts such as High Places, The Golden Filter and Au Palais have all delighted us with a new way forward.
Compiling this top 10 has been a lot tricker to compile this year with some great tracks narrowly missing the final batch and they include The Human League's 'Sky' - one of the better comebacks of all the heritage electro acts and tunes from The Good Natured, Nero vs Skrillex and the sharp suited Miracle.
2011 was the year in which all bands worth writing about were those on tiny yet innovative labels who championed the return of the vinyl EP whilst encouraging their artists to experiment and push the genre into the next decade. 2011 was EY's most diverse year yet in terms of coverage and the number of new acts that were covered and there is so much to look forward to in 2012 with the return of La Roux, Ladyhawke plus debut long players from Niki & The Dove and perhaps even an album from iamamiwhoami?
For the best Alt-Synth party on your estate, we recommend that you watch all of the following links with some sparkly wine and pull those speakers up close...
10: Orbital - Never
To be honest, we weren't really expecting an awful lot from the Hartnoll Bros when we first read that Phil and Paul were planning to return to record again. Comebacks from legends can crush cherished legacies so how lovely is Orbital's 'Never'? Super lovely in fact and one of the best instrumentals since Mode's 'Nothing To Fear'. There is a touch of Vince too in 'Never' with lots of warm analogue moves. Mode/NIN legend Flood is behind the mixing desk for the new Orbital album that should be heading our way in Spring....
Much of our Alt-Synth coverage in 2011 was provided by some very promising new Canadian acts including Grimes (who has just signed to the 4AD label and we will have more on her later), Austra and this much played EY fave from John Maus. With deep booming vocals that echoed Ian Curtis, 'Head For The Country' harks back to EY of old and sounds like part of a lost broadcast from Radio Luxemburg circa 1982 with similar chords and soundscapes to The Thompson Twin's 'If You Were Here' mixed in with some unusual and very memorable instrumental breaks. Emo shoegaze electro (with a foot tapping melody).
Sods law that breaking news always seems to happen to us during catastrophic hardrive failure and on Monday, EY faves Niki & The Dove made the Top 5 shortlist for the BBC's monstrously huge Sound of 2012 resulting in top billing over at bbc.co.uk and countless other places. It even resulted in electro on proper terrestrial TV for a day or so....happy, happy days.
There's a lovely interview with Malin Dahlstrom and Gustaf Karlov over on a lush purple BBC site who chat about creative arguments prior to the studio recording of 'Under The Bridges' and cups of English tea. The interview can be reached here but before you do that, sample their brilliance below...
Brooklyn NY based boy/girl band
High Places served up this lovely slice of distinctive and original electro even though it shared similar analogue pulses and rhythms with 'Enjoy The Silence'. A deserved EY Tune of The Week a few months back clocking up over 300 plays via EY over on Youtube within the space of the week- our eyes are on Mary Pearson and Rob Barber for future gems in 2012...
It seems all the rage now for artists to obscure their identity and create a sense of mystery. Fever Ray's Karin Dreijer Andersson was one of the first and Janine Rostron has taken it a bit further with some old DIY Star Trek Next Generation prosthetics. Despite the saxophone bit, 'The Breaks' is wonderfully haunting with some stripped back synths and Rostron's rallying vox. This is a tune that would enter our heads at unexpected moments here at EYHQ many moons after we first covered it. Clever how some tracks tend to do that...
Boy/Girl duo from New York who have been releasing material for well over two years but crept within EY's radar last November with one of the most engaging EPs that we've heard in a long, long time particularly with the genius slow burning 'Shake'. The Golden Filter came to us via the beautifully shot short film 'Syndromes' directed by Norwegian Kristoffer Borgli with a soundtrack that's perfect late night listening with incredibly inventive knob fiddling from Filter Heads Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman.
'Syndromes' is the League's 'Dignity of Labour' parts 1-4 with added melodic loveliness. Hard to pick a fave track but the leading single 'Mother' is a good place to start. Au Palais gave the track an uplifting remix that was close to the quality of their debut track but we adore the claustrophobic nature of the original recording.
The Golden Filter feature on a album of cover versions in celebration of New Order's 'Power, Corruption & Lies' - a fabulous freebie giveaway with this month's Mojo Magazine (review to follow shortly). You can sample a very promising excerpt of The Golden Ones version of 'Age of Consent' via the album cover opposite.
We would have had them covering 'Your Silent Face' but then what do we know?
Canadian girl/boy sibbling duo who moved to London to make electronic music beginning with 'Tender Mercy' - an epic and hypnotic modern day analogue classic that runs to six and a half minutes (and could run for even longer as every second of this track is perfect). 'Tender Mercy' builds very slowly with a pumpy resonating bassline that sounds like it was recorded in some dark basement somewhere deep in Camden.
Best bits include 3m.22s when the synth lead kicks in - one of the most uplifting leads we've heard in a while and then there's the segment of the track at 4m.20s when singer Elise Commathe takes the lead with echoing 'oooohs' whilst all the synths melt into a climatic melodic mental overload. Bloody genius and and basically a lovelovelove track and one that has made us fantasise about owning a sleek, silver record deck where the arm weighs more than Saturn...
Yet another very talented Swede seemingly from the bonkers School of Mystery where the head teacher is Miss
Karin Dreijer Andersson. iamamiwhoami is thepart-time musical project of singer Jonna Lee - an intriguing character who began releasing viral tunes in 2009 with videos that contained hidden codes.
There is a whole Wiki page entry full of digits and hidden messages within the videos - we got a bit of a headache trying to understand it all to be honest but thankfully the tunes really are quite special to the point where you wish that the artist would go down the conventional route and a website with an album release date.
It's unclear at this point if Jonna will be releasing an album (if she does then it will probably be hidden and scattered across the web on obscure sites). Our choice iamamiwhoami track is ;John - and the music doesn't begin until 1m.22s into the video. Your patience
will be rewarded by the warmest and most soul melting synth chords of the year...we promise.
iamamiwhoami.html was our most popular EY page of 2011 in terms of hits...
2: Austra - Beat and the Pulse
Four months after Babooshka first raved about this track for EY, we heard this track blasting out from a PA moments before Niki & The Dove took to the stage for their debut live performance at the venue formally known as Slimelight and the bassline was simply immense. Austra are possibly the definitive Alt-Synth act of 2011 - a prefect combination of all the elements we look for when it comes to finding new content for EY with intense and deeply melodic synth action all perfectly sequenced to the operatic vocals of Katie Stelmanis
Here's the original uncensored video that didn't get past the ludicrous censors at YouTube...
Its extremely rare for us here at EYHQ to prefer a live track over the studio version but this particular recording from Czech born artist Emika has scooped up the EY Tune of 2011 for its forward thinking sonic excellence and a captivating knob turning performance from the artist.
'Pretend' is also the most popular YouTube video we've ever embedded on this site clocking up over 700 views via EY
within a month of us awarding it Tune of The Week (you all know a good tune when you hear it).
Inspired largely by the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop and Delia Derbyshire, Emika's obsession with sounds and frequencies has led to some very intense tracks on her debut album. Emika writes, engineers and produces all her own work and rarely have deep frequencies and buzzing synths been used in quite the same way. Technically, Emika is a good few years ahead of everyone else in this genre and one can imagine her being approached by big acts for production duties in years to come.
A new EP is currently being recorded with yet another album to follow in 2012 that will reportedly mark a shift in sound from her debut.
EY wouldn't be at all surprised to see Emika make the shortlist for the BBC's Sound of 2013...
Belated seasonal greetings to you all and thank you clicking on this little site everyday, we hope to bring you loads more in 2012.
