Artist: James Blake
Album: James Blake
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On his eponymous debut long player Dubstep producer James Blake presents us with 2011’s most gorgeous track. ‘Limit to Your Love’ is a touching contemporary ballad of pianos and vocals that also allows the trademark Dubstep bass to shine, and with plenty of silence the song proves that the silent spaces in music are equally as important as the music itself. Blake has been making challenging and progressive Dubstep for a while, but this latest release threatens to push the genre into the mainstream, for which Blake would be reviled by the purists. Let them shake I say, this album proves the genre, like Drum and Bass before it, will not wither and die.
Artist: The Streets
Album: Computer’s and Blues
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The Streets undoubtedly peaked with 2004’s ‘A Grand don’t Come for Free’, on which Mike Skinner’s unique blending of British hip hop and garage expressed itself through the conceptual retelling of losing a girlfriend through 11 tracks. But even on the follow up releases there has been something inherently great about the Streets, many of Skinner’s lyrics are simply naff, yet his deliberate lingering and drawing out of vowels are the hallmarks of the Street’s greatness. Shame this is their swansong, it’s an underrated must-have.
Artist: Tim Hecker
Album: Ravedeath, 1972
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This is a fine, sublime and engaging piece of work from Tim Hecker, an artist who knows how to channel the power of music devoid of rhythm. Ravedeath, 1972 is the result of a single day’s recording in a church in Reykyavik and the production is a haunting, troubled exercise in paranoia-inducing soundscapes. But there are no drums to save you here, no bass to pull you out of your purgatory, just pure sonic infinitude, the kind of music you would expect to hear while floating endlessly at the edges of the universe. Don’t forget your popcorn.