Songs In The Key Of Life

"Don't you ever wonder how the hell does Stevie Wonder see things?" - Hot Chip, "Keep Fallin'"

OK, the man may make a few too many appearances in inappropriate places (most notably lately: on stage at the Grammys with Jonas Brothers), but there's no denying that pop music would not be anywhere near where it is without the efforts of one Stevland Hardaway Judkins, aka Stevie Wonder.

Lately I've had plenty cause to dive deep into into his twinkling well of righteously original tunes, having been booked to DJ at an 80s-themed birthday party as well as at a shop launch where the brief is disco. Stevie works er, wonders in both contexts.

Prepping for these events over the past weekend, I dropped the needle onto my vinyl copies of 'Songs In The Key Of Life' and 'Hotter Than July', and bathed my soul in the glorious heart-tug of tracks like "Master Blaster (Jammin')", "Sir Duke" and "All I Do". I highly recommend this to everyone on a Saturday afternoon.

Having won an incredible 22 Grammy Awards (the most ever by a solo artist), one might expect this legend to just slink off into the shadows, but he's still relatively busy and has collaborated with far cooler cats than Jonas Brothers in recent years.

In 2006 he hooked up with British soul singer Omar on the 'Sing (If You Want It)' album, and their "I'm Feeling You" recently turned up remixed by Henrik Schwarz. If I wasn't convinced already that German producer Schwarz makes the most golden dance music on the face of the earth, I'm beyond sold after listening to this reworking.

Enjoy a Stevie classic and what for me is, by far and away, the song of the year so far...

Stevie Wonder - All I Do
Omar ft. Stevie Wonder - I'm Feeling You (Henrik Schwarz Remix) [Excerpt]

The Art Of Noise

The brilliant Saul Williams posted a bunch of Youtube links from his Twitter yesterday, including songs by Sade, Miles Davis, Gary Numan and Loose Joints. All were awesome, but the one that resonated to the point of getting me to post was this beyond lovely Art Of Noise tune.

Assembled in Trevor Horn's ZTT hit factory, "Moments In Love" has been a fave of mine for a while (and recently became one for Diplo too) and along with a lot of AON's catalogue, it's been the unwilling subject of some of my early production efforts (file somewhere between re-edits and unlistenable, going-nowhere, loop experiments).

Nonetheless I tried a far simpler thing with the 'Daft Slow' version of the tune in order to slot its beauty into DJ sets: sped it up (whilst keeping the pitch the same).

Also well worth downloading is the surprisingly restrained Caspa remix (which you'll find over at These Rocks Pop), which basically tacks a dubstep drum rhythm underneath the original, proving how far ahead of the curve Horn and company were.

The Art Of Noise - Moments In Love (Dexterity's Daft Faster Version)

DJ Dexterity’s Favourite Albums of 2008

It's been interesting how much consensus there’s been on year-end best music lists. A handful of albums have been cropping up consistently across the blogosphere and on sites like Pitchfork: Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Cut Copy, Kings of Leon and the album in my top spot seemingly rubbed many people the right way in 2008. But barring Hercules And Love Affair's self-titled debut - a remarkable transposition of disco tropes into modern shapes that transformed Antony Hegarty into a torch singer every bit as worthy as Marc Almond or Chaka Khan - I thought these touted albums were effective (and affective) rather than radical.

In 2008, I located listening joy in the retro-future flights of fancy taken by Erykah Badu, Raphael Saadiq and Jamie Lidell; in the body-punching drums and sparkling rhymes of Q-Tip (as well as the wheezier and sleazier but highly questionable slant supplied by Lil Wayne); in brilliance from Bristol: the highly-anticipated returns - and returns to dirty, dazzling heights - of Portishead and Tricky; in acts like Foals, Vampire Weekend and Esau Mwamwaya, who turned their attention to Africa and found fresh avenues for alternative music here; in subsonic explorers like Benga, Zomby and Flying Lotus, who ensured that 'bass' music (which has been somewhat annoyingly broken up into a multitude of mini-genres, like dubstep, grime, wonky and aquacrunk) still does damage to dancers’ internal organs; in the strange and unlikely 'pop' music that Gang Gang Dance and Nôze stumbled across; in the audacious bootlegging of Pocketknife and Cousin Cole, who managed to make main floor fodder out of rock and folk oldies like Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen…


It wasn't a great year for electronic/dance albums (it rarely is), but promising emissions - 'wonky' ways forward, if you'll forgive the totally unnecessary use of this year's most shockingly-named genre - emerged from the aforementioned sub-bass operators, and I suspect that the likes of Joker, Headhunter, Rustie, TRG etc. will pull off similar feats in 2009.

There are some also-rans (or nearly theres) that deserve a mention: '808s & Heartbreak', a solid, slightly different issue from Kanye West that might have made the list had T-Pain not already smashed the Autotune to within an inch of its life; the psychedelic kiss that was MGMT's 'Oracular Spectacular', which was officially released in 2007; the so so clever and super-cheeky, but often cheesily cloying, Girl Talk album; Beck's 'Modern Guilt', which was just too flimsy and flyweight in places; and the head-spinning 'Dear Painter, Paint Me' from M_Nus man Heartthrob, which was a little too specialised (but had some of the most exciting moments of any album from last year). Add to these decent but not-too-daring records from Jay Haze, Bauhaus, Bloc Party and Osborne. And as always, because of the daunting mass of music released, I didn't/couldn't get around to listening to records from The Roots, Roots Manuva, Matthew Herbert, Neil Landstrumm, Morgan Geist, Mr. Scruff and Shed.

Here though are 25 albums that I did get around to listening to (most more than once!) and that I thought most effectively grasped the sonic possibilities available in 2008; albums that had my pleasure centres and synapses (and often limbs too) operating overtime…


25. Lil' Wayne - Tha Carter III
24. Esau Mwamawaya & Radioclit – The Very Best
23. The Bug - London Zoo
22. Nôze - Songs On The Rocks
21. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
20. TV On The Radio - Dear Science
19. AmpLive - Rainydayz
18. Radiohead - The Best Of
17. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
16. Loco Dice - 7 Dunham Place
15. Theo Parrish – Sound Sculptures
14. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
13. Zomby – Where Were U In '92?
12. Foals - Antidotes
11. Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It
10. Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna
9. Q-Tip - The Renaissance
8. Benga – Diary Of An Afro-Warrior
7. Pocketknife & Cousin Cole - Tambourine Dream
6. Prosumer & Murat Tepeli – Serenity
5. Tricky - Knowle West Boy
4. Jamie Lidell - Jim
3. Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War
2. Portishead – Third
1. Hercules & Love Affair – Hercules & Love Affair

Hercules & Love Affair - Blind (Frankie Knuckles Dub)
(not on the album - buy it!)

Gettin' Chilly In Here

Two tasty trips tonight: something old and something new...

These two records book-ended my midnight DJ set at the rather rocking Social Security party in Braamfontein's Alexander Theatre on Friday night.

For the opening salvo I fired off the mega-dramatic, 15-year old (and nearly 15-minute long!) pinnacle of progressive house, "Sugar Daddy", by Secret Knowledge (aka music journalist and producer Kris Needs and vocalist Wonder Schneider).

Like the undulating Rufus Wainwright number below, it features a rainstorm (pure coincidence, I promise) and it's fully-loaded with searing special effects. The difference between the tracks: "Sugar Daddy" is all sweat-soaked, brothel-tainted lust, with Wonder's provocative vocals bridging some inner ear-bending ground-fire hi-hats and bulldozing kick drums.

This record first squinted its way into the light of day - mascara smudged and hair tousled - in 1992, the debut vinyl issue on Andrew Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise label and one of the sharper offerings on the seminal 'Deep Cuts' collection, the long-lost label's debut CD emission.

Secret Knowledge - Sugar Daddy

For dessert, my parting shot was the tune of the year so far. "Chilly Willy" is almost as silly as its title suggests, but this wonky workout from Montreal's Guillaume Coutu Dumont, aka Guillame & The Coutu Dumonts, balances tomfoolery with an infectious groove, stuttered devotional voices and a battery of sparkling horns.

Trained in Latin and classical percussion, this strange Canadian spent some time playing with a jazz act in Senegal, and while there are traces of Afrobeat here, there are many more constituent elements too. The 'Trouser Jazz' of Mr. Scruff is probably this cool track's closest cousin, with multiple elements facing off over an easy-stepping skank.

Elsewhere, Guillame & The Coutu Dumonts' inviting techno experiments neatly parallel the queasy, greasy rhythms of fellow Canadian Akufen or Frankfurt's Isolee, and they are sublimely showcased on last year's 'Face À L’Est' album on Musique Risqueé. This label has also just blessed us with the 'Poco-A-Gogo' EP from Chic Miniature, Guillame's collaboration with Ernesto Ferreyra.

Guillame & The Coutu Dumonts - Chilly Willy

Something Outta South Africa

The Real Estate Agents have ruled the South African electronic music scene from their Cape Town base for half-a-decade, and have made headway outside the borders, with various bytes and pieces appearing on international labels.

The duo – machinist Markus Wormstorm and turntablist Sibot – sizzle on stage and are brimming with bright ideas: so many ideas, in fact, that their last self-titled release spread their high-octane electronics over three CDs. Add to this that in the past couple of years they have busted out with various side and solo projects, including Markus's 'The Wormstorm EP' (on NY's avant-rap label Sound-Ink) and Sibot's excellent In With The Old long-player.

Two of these additional projects – both of which are in many ways more forward-thinking than the Prefuse vs Oizo template that the Real Estate Agents have down pat - happen in tandem with super talented emcee Spoek Mathambo. Alongside Markus it's Sweat.X, and the sound is a little like Jamie Lidell tweaked on “tik” (the South African name for crystal meth); their 2007 'Ebonyivorytron' EP on UK label Citinite is breathtakingly brilliant in places. Spoek + Sibot = Playdoe, and the latest project from a prolific and precocious crew has found a home on Lyon-based label, Jarring Effects.

“Hungry Waste Line” comes off their free label sampler JFX BITS 2, a 24-track trawl through jumped-up electronica, jungle dub and jagged breaks from a batch of producers you've probably never heard of, but who nevertheless impress in places. Playdoe's 7-track debut EP is available now through this French entity.

Also worth checking are Spoek's collabs with DJ Edjotronik (who I think is French – info is sketchy) available via The Fast Life, exclusive Sweat.X tune “Shut Up” on Discobelle, the loud and cool Sweat.X blog Throwing Shade, and The Fader's great article on X in their recent Africa issue.

Playdoe – Hungry Waste Line

Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas

For the inaugural entry in what I hope will be a long-running and reliable endeavour, I've decided to share what's been my favourite song for the past two decades - a tune that's unlikely to be eclipsed in the near or far future.

A melancholy meeting of two musicians who've successfully managed to move deftly between - and reconcile - the radical and the accessible for thirty-something years, "Forbidden Colours" couples Ryuichi Sakamoto's gravity-defying synth and string signals with David Sylvian's otherworldly vocals.

Released in 1983, this elegiac and angelic piece is essentially Sakamoto's main theme from Nagisa Oshima's movie 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence', with Sylvian's desert-swept narrative hovering over its sublime surface.

Sakamoto, the former Yellow Magic Orchestra magician, also stars in 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' along with David Bowie, and despite minor flaws it's worth watching for the sublime score alone; it also happens to be one of Bowie's more successful cinematic turns.

The film's script was based on work by South African author Laurens van der Post, specifically 'The Seed and The Sower', which diarised his real-life ordeals as a Japanese POW in World War II.





There are a few versions of "Forbidden Colours" and the Sylvian-less 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' main theme floating around, all well worth seeking out, but this beauty is the best - and an all-time favourite.

Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian - Forbidden Colours