2023: tracks of the year
Another big year, yes yes:
Oklou – God’s Chariot (SH Remix) [Welt Discos]
What’s such a big deal about a skippy garage-ish beat, a kind-of-an-organ bassline, and a sing-song vocal? Well, pretty much everything; the SH remix veers between Two Shell, early Jacques Greene, the “feels” of the original ballad, and the post-pandemic desire for Big Tunes with totally perfect aplomb.
Silvia Tarozzi & Deborah Walker – La Lega (featuring Coro delle Mondine di Bentivoglio)
Not a Big Tune, but another entry in my personal subcategory of folk music vs contemporary music. Tarozzi & Walker appear to have done the very difficult thing of doing nothing more than multi-tracking a song, adding a simple string part under it … and ripping my heart out every time I hear it.
georg-i – Statis
An unrepentant, spectacular DJ tool – 100% roaring, rubbery bass hits, with just enough weird noises over the top to make the whole thing unpatronizing.
CRJ – Call Me Maybe (AYA Edit)
You didn’t seriously think I’d spend a year without Carly Rae Jepsen on this list, did you? The Big Hit gets run through AYA’s modular, with predictable and spectacular results.
Suzanne Kraft – DJ Safety Track
This choppy, German / Detroit sort of record, on a very very hot summer’s day at Mr. Sunday, came within a millimeter of sending me into an altered state of consciousness.
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes – Bad Luck (A Dmitri From Paris Disco Re-Edit)
Ronnie Baker on bass, at his finest – the edit makes a big tune even bigger. Even when you can sort hear the joins, they’re bringing the best parts back.
Minor Science – Workahol
Well, this is nothing more than a really big post-90’s “nuskool” bass music record … but, like, really, really, really, really, really, really big.
Pangaea – Installation
a) another BANGER ALERT; but, b, more interestingly, I think more and more that the reason this record works is the sampled speech, and how the emphases in the speech don’t quite line up with the boom-tss boom-tss drums, cheesy lead, and just-off-kilter-enough bass part.
Very, very honorable mentions to a long list of amazing tunes this year; all of the below are either in the BANGER or SNEAKER BANGER category:
- Olof Dreijer – Rosa Rugosa
- Jam City – LLTB (feat. Wet)
- Sofia Kourtesis – Madres
- Shanti Celeste – Shimmer
- Anz – Clearly Rushing
- Ghost Assembly – I Miss Your Love
- Louie Austen – Hoping (Herbert’s High Dub)