Kid 606 – GQ on the EQ
Fantastic twiddling of them electronic nobs – this tune features pretty much one beat that never, ever wants to stay in one place. Cue one of the slickest, sweetest but messiest beats thinkable at 4.30. (Pascal Ansell)

The Knife – Heartbeats
A few years old I know but relevant this year for me (and La Roux too it would seem). I’m a sucker for pop music and especially pop music that uses bizarre composite parts to make a palatable whole and this perfectly sums that up. Every single sound on this single, when isolated, is horrible. From the “pom! pom!” drums to the cruddy synth to her whining vocals it should add up to a sizeable audio turd but instead it hangs together so perfectly and lumbers along so patiently as to warrant immediate replays. (Chris Summerlin)

Annie – I Don’t Like Your Band
Not the best song Annie has done, but it’s good that finally someone has managed to express those difficult emotions of going to see your mate’s new band and discovering they’re terrible. Though Annie’s advice of ditching those tedious guitars for a nice shiny synth is not without flaw – do we really need any more tedious synth bands? One to keep aside for your next passive-aggressive mixtape anyway. (Marceline Smith)

Andrew Douglas Rothbard – Wisely Wasted
Super lush electronic IDM psyche unlike anything else I’ve heard. I could listen to this song over and over again (and let’s face it, I have). The song as a whole is utterly fantastic but the point at about 3:30 where it stutters fucking blows my mind. Every time. (Justin Snow)

Fire by Jimi Hendrix then the Buff Medways then Lupe Fiasco
A few months ago I went through a weird phase where this song in various forms appeared to be following me around. First the original popped up in a pivotal moment in Entourage and with the appearance it blasted its way back into my consciousness. Next I came across a live version by the Buff Medways in the Billy Childish Is Dead documentary which I prompted hunted down on both seven inch studio version and a live XFM Buff Medways album. Then the strangest of all was a day or two later getting in my car to hear a bastardized version of the original on Zane Lowe’s Radio One show. Some rapper was now spitting all over the song and amazingly it didn’t sound awful. That was Lupe Fiasco. If you have never heard “Fire” by Hendrix where have you been? It is a wonderfully pounding and mesmerizing with heart stopping breaks and pauses before a pure swing shoots it off into the outer limits. If only all Hendrix songs had been as good as this. (JGRAM)

Goran Bregovic – Kalashnikov
Balkan madness. Just listen to it, listen to it, listen to it, NOW! (Pascal Ansell)

Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name
Having been comprehensively denounced by pals in the pub last night for not liking Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing In The Name’ [or whatever it’s actually called], it would have to be that song. Not because it’s my favourite, but because it’s my favourite use of a mediocre song in a bizarrely misguided herd-following load of cobblers that wasted a lot of everybody’s time at the end of this year. (Simon Minter)

Posted: 12|30|09 at 10:00 am. Filed under: catch-ups, end of year, record reviews.
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