RSSRandom A-List for Set: Dance/Techno
Dance/techno.
Here are 12 A-list albums, selected at random from Set: Dance/Techno. Use your Reload button to get more.
Dancehall Stylee: The Best of Reggae Dancehall Music Vol. 4 [1993, Profile]As if to prove Jamaica isn't totally overrun by electric percussion and macho bwoys grunting about guns and punany, this comp centers on two winsome pieces of lover's rock, one male and one female. It also makes room for numerous melody instruments, most of them saxophones repeating phrases you'll want to hear again (and will). For all I know, hardcore dancehall users will find it, to employ an expression current in my country, soft. But old reggae heads who can't be bothered distinguishing between Buju Banton and Wu-Tang Clan can start here. A−
The Disco Years, Vol. 1: Turn the Beat Around (1974-1978) [1990, Rhino]
With its beatwise hooks, generic soul, and cheap orchestral effects, disco was the great singles music of the '70s, finally ripe for rediscovery unimpeded by the territorial imperatives of individual labels. Compiler Ken Barnes tries to stick in some bad records, for history's sake. But though only "Shame, Shame, Shame" could qualify for volume two's "Ring My Bell"-"I Will Survive"-"Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" run, Andrea True and Peter Brown are commercial crap like it oughta be, and once "The Hustle" makes its statement the hits just keep on coming on, untouched by electro blandout. Seven songs here went number one, and all four non-top 10 choices belong. Travails that touch the heart, relieved by the phony good cheer that makes life worth living.
A
The Disco Years, Vol. 2: On the Beat (1978-1981) [1990, Rhino]
I know that (a) it never really died and (b) if it did it was killed by rockist philistines and the homophobic media. So basically this is a fairly ace singles comp. But since formal exhaustion happens, and so does commercial exploitation, disco does begin to suck a little here. Case in point: Lipps, Inc.'s "Funkytown," a better-than-average novelty record so brittle that to place it up against the magnificently novel "Ring My Bell" is to tempt the wrath of the gods. So let it be noted that two of Rhino's evil "CD bonus tracks" (by GQ and the B.B.&Q. Band) are so bland that I'm tempted to recommend the cassette. Best novelty sound: the flushing toilet of Indeep's "Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life"--one more proof of the inexhaustibility of human ingenuity and human chutzpah.
A−
DJ Shadow:
Action Adventure [2023, Mass Appeal/Liquid Amber]
I have no idea how or indeed why the human born Josh Davis selects, refurbishes, juxtaposes, and sequences the mostly electronic textures, beats, scraps, notes, phrases, lines, and occasionally even choruses from which he constructs what undeniably ends up his music, although it's safe to presume that at the very least he thinks they "sound good" that way. Admittedly, my own first response to his first album in four years was something like "Nuh." But a few plays in I began to notice that just as individual pieces some of them sounded good to me as well and it was off to the party, then exhibition, then aesthetic experience. No Endtroducing because nothing is. Little if any of the sneak humanism of The Private Press either. Organic whole, not really--too many moving parts. So think of it as a sound collage, or if you prefer a playlist with feints and occasionally detours that never vacates your pleasure zone or loses its way.
A−
DJ Shadow:
The Private Press [2002, MCA]
Accusing Josh Davis of repeating himself is like bitching that Between the Buttons came after Aftermath--or that Light in August begat Absalom, Absalom! Sui generis masterpiece--which for all its influence has never been replicated, much less topped--then excellent effort in the same sui genre. The overall effect is less grand than that of Endtroducing six years ago, popper and rocker and r&ber. But an overall effect there is, grounded in Shadow's trademark-tremendous bass 'n' drum, which, among many other things, recontextualizes small-timer big talk from the prophet rock of Colonel Bagshot's "Six Day War" to the gangsta rap of Hollywood's "Gangster Rap." If only those schmos had taken their music higher, Shadow believes, we might have glimpsed the beauty and profundity within them. He's wrong. But he mounts quite an argument.
A
DJ Shadow:
Action Adventure [2023, Mass Appeal/Liquid Amber]
I have no idea how or indeed why the human born Josh Davis selects, refurbishes, juxtaposes, and sequences the mostly electronic textures, beats, scraps, notes, phrases, lines, and occasionally even choruses from which he constructs what undeniably ends up his music, although it's safe to presume that at the very least he thinks they "sound good" that way. Admittedly, my own first response to his first album in four years was something like "Nuh." But a few plays in I began to notice that just as individual pieces some of them sounded good to me as well and it was off to the party, then exhibition, then aesthetic experience. No Endtroducing because nothing is. Little if any of the sneak humanism of The Private Press either. Organic whole, not really--too many moving parts. So think of it as a sound collage, or if you prefer a playlist with feints and occasionally detours that never vacates your pleasure zone or loses its way.
A−
DJ Shadow:
Action Adventure [2023, Mass Appeal/Liquid Amber]
I have no idea how or indeed why the human born Josh Davis selects, refurbishes, juxtaposes, and sequences the mostly electronic textures, beats, scraps, notes, phrases, lines, and occasionally even choruses from which he constructs what undeniably ends up his music, although it's safe to presume that at the very least he thinks they "sound good" that way. Admittedly, my own first response to his first album in four years was something like "Nuh." But a few plays in I began to notice that just as individual pieces some of them sounded good to me as well and it was off to the party, then exhibition, then aesthetic experience. No Endtroducing because nothing is. Little if any of the sneak humanism of The Private Press either. Organic whole, not really--too many moving parts. So think of it as a sound collage, or if you prefer a playlist with feints and occasionally detours that never vacates your pleasure zone or loses its way.
A−
DJ Shadow:
Endtroducing . . . DJ Shadow [1996, Mo Wax/FFFR]
Armed with a sampler, a sequencer, and the black plastic he gave up trying to catalogue in 1989, 24-year-old Josh Davis of Davis, California and London, England distills everything he loves about drumbeats, symph-schlock, and oddball Americana into a 63-minute work with a beginning, a middle, and a to-be-continued. Some under a minute, some over nine, the 13 tracks are designed for headphones--Apollonian even if beat-driven, their only vocals spoken-word and comedy samples that accrue a mysterious fascination without ever revealing their relevance to each other or anything else. Except, that is, for the 30-second intro to the six-minute "Building Steam With a Grain of Salt," in which a square, self-taught drummer explains himself as a reassuring crackle attests to his vinyl authenticity down in the mix: "I'd like to just continue to be able to express myself as best as I can. And I feel like I'm a student of the drums. And I'm also a teacher." And then he chuckles nervously. And then Davis loops that chuckle for a second or two, making of it music and chaos and satire and self-mockery and music all at once.
A+
History of House Music, Vol. 2: New York Garage Style [1997, Cold Front]
Where the Chicago-based volume one honors disco and spawned techno, the Gotham-based volume two honors funk and spawned nothing. Compressing clenched male studio voices into keyb-saturated bass-and-percussion, it's just a dense, urgent, anxious moment of dance music--unutopian even when Colonel Abrams soul-shouts that "Music Is the Answer." "Don't Make Me Wait" set it off. "Set It Off" was the answer.
A−
Hot Luv: The Ultimate Dance Songs Collection [1996, EMI]
Tough nooky to snobs who think good dance music now consists entirely of sensitive techies extending the frontiers of recorded sound. Its essence remains stupid singles you can't get out of your head, as on this peerlessly crass contemporary collection, which will lower your IQ so fast you'll settle for a "Macarena" with no girls on it. Sure I could nitpick about every cliched, overexposed, blessedly obvious track. But only if you gave me more time to think about it.
A
Hot Luv: The Ultimate Dance Songs Collection [1996, EMI]
Tough nooky to snobs who think good dance music now consists entirely of sensitive techies extending the frontiers of recorded sound. Its essence remains stupid singles you can't get out of your head, as on this peerlessly crass contemporary collection, which will lower your IQ so fast you'll settle for a "Macarena" with no girls on it. Sure I could nitpick about every cliched, overexposed, blessedly obvious track. But only if you gave me more time to think about it.
A
The Prodigy:
Music for the Jilted Generation [1995, Mute]
They acted so stupid when I caught them opening for Moby that I passed off their Mercury Prize as techno tokenism. Nor was I impressed by the failed ad campaign of a title, or the picture of a longhair defending the chasm between big bad city and vernal rave with a stiff finger and a big knife. But this is stupid in the very best way. The style of sensationalism is fireworks display--pinwheels and Roman candles and starbursts popping out of starbursts popping out of rockets midair. Sound effects too, of course--breaking glass is a favorite--and even ideas involving melody if not harmony, including a flute solo. One of the rare records that's damn near everything you want cheap music to be, and without a singer on the premises.
A