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Five Singles to Remember 2017 By

Do you even MMXVII?

By Benedict Tetzlaff - DeasPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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If there's one silver lining that history tells us comes of tumultuous times, it's that they tend to bleed rather well into all things creative.

And while the year twenty-hundred-and-seventeen was always destined to be the long comedown from the intense Kafka-trip that was, in so many ways, the year before, it would be rude not to also say that it has introduced us to some interesting new stars and shapes in the kaleidoscope of music.

Indeed, with the turgid beast of early 2010s stadium-dance EDM now dead, toe-tagged and awaiting burial, there's been noticeably more breathing space opened up to some of the other genres that make up music's rich tapestry.

Tech house, electro, bassline and footwork were just some of the styles receiving fresh exposure this year, each gaining traction in the clubs and on the web as they returned to popular music consciousness after years of underground innovation and nichery.

Elsewhere we've had 'mumble rap,' in all the glory of its fluorescent dreads and weird Xanax iconery, showing everyone that the ouroboros of modern pop culture does sometimes take a break to eat something fresh. Say what you will, but for the first time in far too long, there's been a new development in music that is foolproof material for confusing the shit out of your parents. Esketiiit.

The last twelve months also saw music take on characteristics of a social movement in the west again for perhaps the first time in a generation, with '#Grime4Corbyn' appearing to have a visible impact on the polls, and the booming politicised underground 'Cxema' rave scene in Ukraine beginning to turn heads from further afield.

So, to pick just a handful of tunes mustn't be fair, right? Well, no, it's not—but then neither is life, bud, and I'm not sure end-of-year lists go much longer than this without being scrolled past at high speed:

By any possible measure, it has been a year for South London's favourite son Stormzy. Having been right in the centre of grime's monumental comeback, the 24-year-old's independently released LP Gang Signs & Prayer saw a level of debut anticipation genuinely without parallel in British music since Arctic Monkeys' first outing, leading it to become the first grime album in history to reach number one. And flatter to deceive it did not, with Stormzy drawing heaps of acclaim for the unapologetic tone of the record's lyrical content, and the confidence in which he broaches different musical styles. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Blinded by Your Grace pt 2, a triumphant three-minute gospel-infused tune featuring vocals from MNEK, movingly performed by Stormzy himself at a fan's father's funeral this month. It's grandiose, especially for him, but damn does it work.

The last year has been a lively one for all things bassline. Buoyed by the renewed success of its sibling genre in grime, we've seen the likes of Skepsis, Holy Goof, DJ Q and Jamie Duggan send young'uns into complete frenzy up-and-down UK dancefloors this year, showing that a bit of sub-bass served with a lot of high-energy goes a long, long way. The birthers of many a club classic that are DJ Zinc and Chris Lorenzo teamed up to do their own in pushing things along with a pearler in "Gammy Elbow," a marriage of bassline and house sounds that set the beat for all others to follow. Surprising some and entertaining many, it told us one thing for certain; hard four-to-the-floor is back.

Lump scorn on 'jump-up' drum 'n bass till you're blue in the keyboard if you wish, but if you found yourself in a dark, sticky club this year and it didn't absolutely go off when Tour came blaring through then, frankly, I got nothin'. This is the kind of tune that oozes the vibes of many a messy, messy session in its unrelenting — and forgivably repetitive — escape into raw, snarling bass, and offered a healthy sign of life from the remarkably resilient musical force that is DnB.

Haunting, ethereal, and instantly etched in the memory, Glue was nothing less than a pièce de résistance from the most dedicated duo in British dance music, Bicep. It's no stretch to say that there's a certain quality to this one that, even when held up to the rest of a superb and varied debut album, completely marks it out from most other things you'll have heard this year. Of course, Bicep has been by no means a secret for some time now, but it's hard to believe it's not in the league of superstar DJs when you listen to this; in a great year for genre fusion in electronic music all-round, this breakbeat-influenced track can be piled at the very top.

Now two years into managing the roster of his label 'Fcking Serious', there should be little doubt left now that Boris Brejcha occupies a particular pride of place in the minimal techno stakes. In one sense, Bleeding Heart is everything one has come to expect from Brejcha, being the kind of portentous, futuristic musical journey that has become his calling card. And yet, as with everything he does, it's also very much of its own character and quirk, managing to do so much sonically while doing so little, and straying a safe distance from sounding like a reworking of earlier material. If any genre can be singled out as really pushing the envelope right now, it's this breed of 'high tech' minimal, and with the Berlin techno scene now receiving public funding, there doesn't seem to be much at all standing in the way of Brejcha and his peers.

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About the Creator

Benedict Tetzlaff - Deas

http://benedicttetzlaffdeas.wordpress.com

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