Old Is The New Neu Albums of 2007

M.I.A. - Kala

M.I.A.’s second album, coming back with power power as she chants on the opening track Bamboo Banger. On first listen Kala seemed disappointing not offering the immediate buzz of her previous album Arula there was not quick fix quite like the Rocky sampling Bucky Done Gun. Diplo again produced several tracks though this time fidgit house master Dave Taylor aka Switch also produced. Tracks such as Bollywood sampling Jimmy and the anthemic Paper Planes showed a fresh, mellower side to M.I.A. while the international feel to the album was even more passport busting than Arular, taking in Brazilian, Indian, African and Aboriginal influences, this was real world music. Uber producer Timberland produced the albums closing track Come Around maybe hinting on M.I.A. breaking into mainstream America but very much keeping things on her own terms.


M.I.A.-Bamboo Banger

The Good the Bad and the Queen

After working with the cartoons for the last few years Damon Albarn wanted to be in a band again and what a band to put together. Enlisting Paul Simonon the bassist from the Clash and Afro Beat pioneer Tony Allen on drums. The band was named after their album full of dark songs set in a post millennium London, with the feeling of a country at war yet often seemingly unaware of it. Live they simply played the album from start to finish but did so perfectly. If Tony Allen’s drumming lacked his afro beat flourish it was because here was a band very much in service to the music they had created together. Hopefully another album will come from this group but it seems more likely this was a one off experiment. An album that will mature nicely and increase in importance in years to come.

Radiohead - In Windows

All the talk was about the innovative distribution method, the pay what you want download, but the music was much more important. Very much a return to form, Radiohead continued to explore electronica yet were very much focused on the songs again. They produced a album of euphoric melancholy as only they know how. The album track All I Need perfectly balanced the varied dynamics of the Radiohead sound, being as good as anything they have previously produced. The chatter across blogs and the media at large showed however they wish to sell or give away their records Radiohead are still more relevant than any of their contemporaries and the have a fanbase that will follow them down whichever road they wish to travel.

Mathew Dear– Asa Breed

If 2007 was the year minimal techno become the new progressive house i.e. drawn out tracks all sounding the same, it was also the year it crashed fully into the mainstream conquering Ibizian dance floors. Prog house DJ Dubfire, of Deep Dish fame, moved into the M_Nus camp and Villalobos released a Fabric mix completely made up of his own production work. Meanwhile the most interesting minimalist Mathew Dear aka Audion and Flase released a song based album, Asa Breed, a sort of minimal goes pop it owes as much to The Human League as Robert Hood. Dear hit the mix just right.

Map of Africa

If the whole Re-Edit, new Balearic, cosmic disco ‘scene with no name’ that has bubbled away on the DJ History board, music blogs and more diverse dance floors throughout the year, has an unelected scene leader it must be DJ Harvey. Harvey is the type of cult DJ whose track selections become canonised, but collaborating with Thomas Bullock of Rub and Tug he has also made one of the albums of the year, not a collection of super rare Black Cock style disco re-edits but a tribute to 70’s coke rock in the shape of Map of Africa. Released on the super cool Whatever We Want Records, in the words of Alan McGee ‘the future of dance music', the vinyl pressings soon became fought over by crate diggers going for £65 a go on Ebay and coursing fist fights in record shops. Mistakenly labelled as a dance record this is mostly sleazy rock at it’s finest, leather pants and moustache territory and all the finer for it. Here’s the Doorsesque instrumental Ely Cathedral.


Map Of Africa - Ely Cathedral

Tinariwen - Aman Iman

Tuareg Blues, beautiful joyful music. Tinariwen’s third album Aman Iman, the title means ‘water of life’, brought them to a wider audience taking in European festival dates through the summer and facing off across the studio floor from the Artic monkeys on an edition of Jool’s Holland’s Later. Still their work is criminally under presented in the media if you have not heard them, of all the music on this list you really should check them out. Tinariwen’s songs often tell of the Tuareg rebels fighting for independence from the government of Mali, but to the non French or Tamashek speaker they just speak as deeply soulful pieces of music. Here is the album’s opening track.


Tinariwen - Cler Achel

Fabric Live 36 – Mixed by James Murphy & Pat Mahoney

James Murphy’s dance rock outfit LCD Soundsystem pretty much ruled in 2007 with their second album Sound of Silver making it to the top of most year end charts, as well as their impressive Nike sponsored 45:33. I wanted to focus instead on Murphy’s DJ mix for the Fabric Live series. Murphy joins LCD’s drummer pat Mahoney to mix a selection of New York underground disco cuts finding the source of the cowbell heard in so many LCD productions. Opening epically with the Love Of Life Orchestra's - "Beginning of the Heartbreak" the mix takes in Chic, Was Not Was, NYC Peech Boys as well as neu disco from the likes of Daniel Wang and of course LCD themselves, all mixed up using a vintage Bozak DJ mixer for that authentic Paradise Garage vibe. The long running Fabric mix series can often fail to impress with well mixed but less than stunning track selections, though the LCD mix looks set to be a future classic.

Mountain of One – Colleted Works

Not really a debut album but a collection of their previous EP’s. Leo Elstob’s group mine a type of Balearica first found in the late sixties, early seventies psychedelic records of Pink Floyd such as More. Add in Krautrock and ambient influences and they create southing yet often melancholic epics. You don’t so much listen to their songs as float through them. I hope an album project is not to far of in the future.

Burial - Untrue

Dubstep aimed very much at the brain rather than the feet. Burial’s second album Untrue had more in common with Aphex’s ambient records or Massive Attack’s darkest work rather than “hold tight London” pirate stations. Although not as dance floor conscious as the work of Skream and Digital Mystics this was just as much about the evolving sound of dubstep as their work.



Burial - Raver