[Dynagroove] SINDEN'S 2007 END OF YEAR ROUND-UP

[aaron at tohzt.com]

http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/da/65862

SINDEN'S 2007 END OF YEAR ROUND-UP
Wednesday, 05 December 2007

Sinden trawls through his hard-drive to give us his essential picks of
2007's global street-level sounds, from hip-hop and R n' B to niche and
'booty house'. Featuring MIA, Dude n' Dem, T2, Buraka Som Sistema,
Radioclit, Herve and many more...


Club music moved fast in 2007. Some genres, like funky house, died; some,
like niche, came and conquered; and others, like hip hop, shifted
radically. After combing through two huge hard-drives and a stack of vinyl
and CDs, here’s my guide to the jams that jammed, and the artists that’ll
shine next year.

In the US, hip-hop got fun (cartoonish, even) this year. There seems to be
a clear shift away from gangsterism, with things lightening up. The
biggest records in the US - Huey’s ‘Pop, Lock and Drop It’ and, in
particular, Soulja Boy's ‘Crank That’- both spawned dances that caught on
like wildfire. Check out the Youtube vids, where Souljah Boy is synched to
kids TV programmes like Barney! While many southern beats got super-slow,
things were speeding up in the Midwest. My jam of the year was Dude n'
Nem's [pictured left ] ‘Watch My Feet’ – an unbelievable halftime/double
time Chicago juke banger clocking in at 150bpms. Lil’ Wayne had another
massive year off a plethora of mixtapes, freestyles and guest appearances.
Lyrically, he’s so absurdly and effortlessly next level and weird. His
long awaited Tha Carter III LP drops early next year.

On the softer side of things, R n’ B had its best year for ages. Maybe it
was Timbaland who set the trend when he dropped his Shock Value album.
Suddenly, R n’ B went all mad gated synths, trance arpeggios and vocoders.
This was the year R n’ B got hard-edged, with Rihanna, T-Pain, Pretty
Ricky, Chris Brown, and Trey Songz all dropping forward thinking joints.
Bubbling under right now is The Dream (producer of ‘Umbrella’) who has an
album forthcoming on Def Jam. He’ll be massive next year.

Back in the UK, I got bored of bass-less, serious ‘dude music’ this year,
so I was glad that garage came back strong. Niche, aka Bassline House,
brought back the warped, layered bass lines and pitched-up female vocals
of speed-garage. Its no-holds-barred frantic tempos, weird beat pattern
swaps and no rules bass lines put a smile on your face and brought the
girls back to garage. It’s taken a while for the sound to catch in the
south but now the scene’s starting to break through. T2’s ‘Heartbroken’
had daytime Radio 1 jumping on board as well as the dance shows, bringing
him a Number 2 hit. Other big tunes this year have included DJ Q’s
‘Shottas’, TS7’s ‘I Feel for You’, Dexplicit’s “Niche & Bump’, Platnum’s
‘Over The Heartbreak’. Northern Line will be one of the bassline labels to
watch next year.

Huge basslines came back in a big way in house too, with the rise of
‘booty house’. Central to this was one man, Herve, with a whole lot of
aliases: Count of Monte Cristal, Voodoo Chilli, Speakerjunk, Dead Soul
Brothers. Productions such as ‘Foxy Lady’ (as Speakerjunk) made
dancefloors melt this year, along with essential remixes for New Young
Pony Club (‘Ice Cream’) and Chemical Brothers (‘Salmon Dance’). The sound
inspired Italian producers Crookers, who this year proved to the world
that decent dance music can come out of Italy. Their remixes of Dusty the
Cat on Southern Fried and Adam Sky on Exploited were certified club
killers. Watch out for a full length on Southern Fried next year.

‘Booty music’ was a truly global sound; around the rest of Europe,
Berlin’s Modeselektor [pictured above right, mucking up the Garden of Eden
] released the fantastic Happy Birthday LP and ZZT (Zombie Nation & Tiga)
came with the leftfield insanity of ‘Lower States Of Conciousness’, while
in the US Blaqstarr reinvented B-more club music on Diplo’s Mad Decent
label. Detboi and Trouble and Bass should blow up in 2008.

This year, previously localised dance scenes broke through on a world-wide
scale. Brazil’s Bonde Do Role introduced people all over the world to
their own brand of Baile Funk with their album With Lasers. Its UK success
was a sign of a new receptiveness to non-English speaking club music and
MCing. One of my favourite record labels, Berlin’s Man Recordings,
released a ton of music from around the globe; their Funk Mundial vinyl
series pitted Brazilian MCs with house producers to create mad little
hybrids. The Count of Monte Cristal and myself got involved, as did Seiji
(Bugz in the Attic), Crookers, and Makossa & Megablast. Blogs were
instrumental in creating awareness of these new international sounds, and
the biggest buzz concerned a new beat from Angola, called kuduru. Lisbon’s
Buraka Som Sistema (pictured left)made this previously difficult to
unearth music more accessible, taking the kuduru sound and mashing it
together with influences from the house music of Dubsided as well as
broken beat and dubstep. Their ‘Yah’ single was one of the tunes of the
summer.

Radioclit produced one of my favourite remixes of the year for Danish
popsters Alphabeat’s ‘Fantastic Six’. Their version is all afro drums and
uplifting horn sections. Their ‘Techno Jihad’ remix of French electro kid
Brodinski propelled the world vibe even further. Their new monthly night
Secousse at Notting Hill Arts Club will bang all this shit out. Check it!

The queen of this globe-trotting scene is, of course, MIA. Her Kala album
is truly unique. It’s the weirdest pop record you’ll ever hear, recorded
on location in Trinidad and India, and featuring everything from Bollywood
disco to Aboriginal Kids rapping to anthemic gun-toting tracks sampling
Blur. Kala was one of 2007’s most important releases and sums up a year in
which old boundaries were broken down and musical fusion ran riot. See you
next year!

Words: Sinden

Don’t forget to check Sinden's show on Kiss 100.00FM every Wednesday night
/ Thursday Morning from 1 til 2am.

Check: Sinden's myspace



love,

_A

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