Where my head is at musically in the year of the future: twenty oh eight.

Right now I’m really looking forward to the 100th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen. The Southbank Centre has a bunch of concerts this year showcasing his work and I’m definitely going to at least Des Canyons aux etoiles and Turangalila-symphonie which the Southbank describes as “requiring an orchestra of colossal dimensions and a large array of tuned percussion”. I’ve got no idea who goes to modern-classical concerts but I guess I’ll find out.

On a similar-ish tip I’ve been listening to some Terry Riley recently and marvelling at how much he worked like a Hiphop producer in the 1960s. Ten years later Miles Davis was busy being a Hiphop producer too and that period has just been covered by an exhaustive box-set “The Complete on the Corner Sessions”. Covering sessions for the phenomenal “On The Corner” and “Get Up With It” (and also “Big Fun”) the six discs mark an unbelievable stretching of musical boundaries for the early 70s. Heavy looping psychedelic funk but with personel capable of soloing some profound and beautiful shit on top.

I read a crazy rant by Julian Cope the other week about how Miles retired for five years after completing these sessions, not because he’d hit a dead end (as the Jazz critics would have you believe) but rather because he’d reached some kind of musical nirvana. It kind of works for me. Being any more ahead of his time would have had him making music from a time after his own death, which is some Marty McFly shit I’m sure the world couldn’t have coped with.
For me this box represents the greatest achievement of Miles The Bandleader. Nothing else sounds like it and best of all when you pull the book/cd wallet out of the metal case you can see all drawing and that on the INSIDE of the box!

Another thing that’s in my head is the prospect of Goodie Mob reforming and recording together. They were interviewed at an Atlanta radio station together last November, laughing and joking with their international superstar Cee-Lo.
This isn’t that exciting to the world at large. They’d probably rather have another Gnarles Barkley album. It ought to be though. Goodie Mob are the best. Outkast are the best but Goodie Mob are the best too. They’re the Gospel and Soul to Outkast’s Blues and Rhythm. What those two bands have created in the last fifteen years, with direction from Organized Noize and with help from the extended Dungeon Family, is the most important modern music to me. The finest direction for music to be travelling in.
I love me some “Hey Ya” as much as the next guy, and “Crazy” is cool and all but the world needs some “Distant Wilderness”, some “Hootie Hoo” and some “I Didn’t Ask to Come”. I’m forever finding myself on discogs, correcting little things on Dungeon Fam releases and adding obscure Organoid 12″s that I pick up along the way.

This is where my head is at. Actually another section of it is lost in Harcore/Jungle right now as I copy my 12″s onto iTunes. “Ruffige” by MA1 (DJ SS), “Boyz” by A Bedroom In Hackney, “Let’s Go (Remix)” by Potential Bad Boy and “In Effect” by DJ Red Alert & Mike Slammer. These mind-blowing experiments in rhythm are fifteen years old and fifty years in the future. Maybe it’s not even our future but the future of some never-happened West-African global empire that colonised East London.

I’m trying to equip myself with the means and knowledge/understanding/ignorance to make some futuremusic of my own. Something I can be proud of, or at least something to free me from the torment of not having tried. All these musics are in mind as I try and get closer to that music. Cross fingers.

I wasn’t as up on new music in 2007 as I was in the preceeding few years so I’m not doing a album-of-the-year countdown. The only album I loved was Radiohead’s. It is great and a whole and manages to be great even amongst all the hype about its release. I did buy new albums this year but not ones with more than a couple of good tunes, so I’m gonna do a top 20 tracks of the year…

From last to first, one track per artist…

20. Tracey Thorn – It’s All True
Disco 2000 (and 7) done very right. If I’d been out anywhere where this played this year I would have been really pleased, but I wasn’t so I wasn’t. It’s great.
(From her album Out Of The Woods)

19. Dude ‘N Nem – Watch My Feet
Did you know “eskimos” can rhyme with “egg rolls”? It can. The second best really stupid dance craze rap tune of 07.

18. Klashnekoff – Terrorise The City (Featuring Kool G Rap & Kyza)
K-lash’s album seemed to be a bit of a disappointment to most people but it wasn’t so bad at all. Some great beats on there, and this one blessed by the great G Rap, was the pick.
(From his album Lionheart: Tussle With The Beast)

17. Jay-Z – Success (Featuring Nas)
“I used to give a fuck, now I give a fuck less” could be how the world feels about new Jay-Z albums, but to be fair this year’s concept album (where the concept was “imagine it was 15 years ago”) was pretty solid when it came to rhymes. Between the official version and the K-Def remixes there’s plenty of worthwhile Hov to add to my playlists, and “Success” makes Jay-Z and Nas two for two on collaborations. Great beat, Jay must have picked it.
(From his album American Gangster)

16. Soulja Boy – Crank That (Soulja Boy)
This is gonna be number one in the UK next week? After its been out for more than six months in the US? Anyways… The best really stupid dance craze rap tune of 07. I’m sure Hillary Clinton will be doing the Soulja Boy at the next caucus. There’s probably video on youtube of The Queen cranking back three times. Yoooooo.
(From his album

15. Baron Zen – Theme (Danny Breaks Remix)
The strange new wave archeology project that was Stones Throw’s Baron Zen album was probably better in remixed form and the Baron Zen Theme remix was the first time Danny Breaks had caught my attention since the Droppin’ Science days. He probably makes beats this great every day but I don’t notice. A big beat.
(From his album At the Mall: Remixes)

14. Freeway – We Gona’ Ride (Featuring Oskino)
Freeway’s first album is one of my favourite Hiphop albums of this decade. Great emotive rapping, great Just Blaze and the Roc beats and great guest spots. I was really looking forward to his much delayed follow-up “Free At Last” but when it dropped it was shitty. Exec produced by 50 Cent? No Beans or Peedi on it? No Just Blaze? Rubbish. He did have a great track on a mixtape though.
(From the State Property – Out on Bail mixtape)

13. Devin The Dude – What A Job (Featuring Snoop Dog & Andre 3000)
Andre and Devin are a great match and Snoop doesn’t do any harm here. My favourite Devin songs are allways these slightly mournful and quiet numbers, where Devin gets time and space to flow. Andre had the best guest spots of the year, whetting my appetite for a proper Kast album sometime soon.

12. R. Kelly – Same Girl (Featuring Usher)
The Kells album delivered on all fronts and more importantly we got the second disc of “Trapped in the Closet” which is really the best music, film and comedy of the year if I was being precise. “Same Girl” trod the fine line between great melody and great comedy that all the best Robert songs do. The album had the ridiculous lyrics (Sex Planet, Real Talk) and a great beat (Hook It Up) but it’s the Usher collabo that gets the blend right for repeated listening.
(From his album Double Up)

11. Turf Talk – Broke Niggas!
Much like the last E-40 album, the beginning of the Turf Talk album sounded like the best Hiphop release of the year. Somewhere around the half way mark it kind of crapped out and never recovered. This track is amazing though. The chorus sound like this year’s “Still Tippin’”. Big beat from Droop-E proving that Sick Wid’ It’ still lead the way out west.
(From his album West Coast Vaccine (The Cure))

10. Rihanna – Umbrella (Featuring Jay-Z)
Why lie?

9. Camp Lo – 82 Afros (Featuring Ski)
Ski is still one of the best Hiphop producers around. The Camp Lo album was a bit below par but its ten years since they made their classic so I shouldn’t be too mad. It had some real stand-outs though. The title track, “Sweet Claudine” and this here “82 Afros”. Rock toms and guitars make this sound like some 2007 version of BDP’s “Nervous”.
(From their album Black Hollywood”

8. Madlib the Beat Konducta – Selah’s Children
I really should have bought Madlib’s indian album thingy, I heard good things and I’d probably really like it. This track (it’s just a beat) was the closest anything came to blowing my speakers this year. Synth-bass for your face London. Madlib is still very much on top of his game.
(From Sones Throw’s Chrome Children 2 compilation)

7. Ghostface Killah – Yolanda’s House (Featuring Method Man & Raekwon)
I didn’t really need another Ghost album yet but you know what, it was actually pretty good. This track is Ghost doing stories. It’s like “Maxine” part 2 and can you believe Meth almost steals the show? Uh huh. Someone did a great chop on the vocal sample, some real MPC pad gimmick shit but it sounds great.
(From his album Big Doe Rehab)

6. Beanie Sigel – Why Wout I
Beans’ album is reportedly shit so I haven’t bought it. This track is phenomenal though. “Come on hun, you’ll forever be stuck under the baker’s thumb, (if) you keep dealin’ with them crumbs”. The only track of the year thats really there for the rhymes. Beans is the only dude really holding his head up with Clipse and Wayne when it comes to fucking with the English language.
(From the State Property – Out On Bail Mixtape)

5. Aloe Blacc – Happy Now?
I’ve never really clicked with Aloe Blacc or his old group Emanon and this is produced by Four Tet who puts out as much tripe as he does good stuff but this tune here is the business. Really. I like it when cuddly soft singer/rapper types get all huffy and pissed off with being seen as cuddly singe types. Great beat. I’d love to see Stones Throw get Four Tet to do a proper rap album with someone. When he focuses he can really get his shit together. Doors samples? Something like that.
(From Sones Throw’s Chrome Children 2 compilation)

4. UGK – Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You) (Featuring Outkast)
So the beat wasn’t new but Dre’s verse stuck in a lot of peoples heads this year. More hits for Three 6, a bit of recognition at last for UGK, just in time for Pimp C to die to young. The other three rappers don’t light up your brain on this but they do bring their best flows for your ears. I think Big Boi was taking it easy in 2007 so I’m expecting big things for 08 from him. God knows what will happen to Bun B now his partner is gone.

3. Timbaland – Miscommunication (Featuring Keri Hilson & Sebastian)
The best pop song I heard this year. Hilson has a really nice pop voice and Tim and Danja can do this in their sleep (see Bjork, Britney etc) but there’s still no one better than them. It may sound really simple but theres a lot of nice, creative musical devices going on here, a lot of counter rhythms in the vocals that just mark Tim’s stuff out.
(From his album Shock Value)

2. T.I. – Tell ‘Em I Said That
Ay, ay, ay. So it wasn’t a great year for T.I. His lacklustre album took the lustre from his King Of The South crown and getting caught buying a personal arsenal doesn’t look like it’s gonna benefit his career much. He really ought to listen to his earlier albums, when his message was “Be Better Than Me” rather than the “I’m realer than these other dudes” which is whats left him looking a very real bid. Danja again on the beat here. Like I said him and Tim do this better than anyone and this is EXTREME DRAMA RAP of the finest order. It might be said that Danja’s work on the T.I. and Britney albums was actually better than what Timbaland did this year… This track is crazy.
(From his album T.I. Vs. T.I.P.)

1. Radiohead – Reckoner
They had me at the first bar. There’s a lot of Radiohead songs that I’d love if they had some quality polyrhythms under them, if they sounded like this. Take the beat out and it’s another Radiohead song but with that shaker, that crazy switching ride… amazing. Free to do what they want they can now make this kind of “complete” music. Everymusic. Theres a fair bit of it on the album. Music that people with very different taste can agree on.
(From their album In Rainbows)

Favourite tracks of the year?