Compilation Recommendations December 2010

Review: Iconic label Strut have really hit their stride in 2010 with a veritable slew of retrospectives, compilations and artist albums covering everything from disco to Sowetan Jazz. They round off a fine year with the auspicious introduction of a new series of mixes called Disconnect with Leo Zero at the helm. The concept behind this series is to invite Strut's favourite DJs and producers to explore the darker, more extreme corners of their record collection. Armed with this creative freedom, Leo Zero has delivered 75 minutes of delightfully subversive music that sets the standard high for subsequent volumes. Commencing with the lilting afro beat of Desmond & The Tutus - surely Tigersushi's most underrated act? - Leo draws on his fifteen years experience as a DJ and producer with a Balearic mix in the truest sense, veering effortlessly between spiky 80s punk funk, reggae that sound tracked Zero's Soulsonic parties, a Sting cover version, nu beat chuggers, kraut rock and EBM throbbers. This is an invitation to consume the lesser broadcasted reaches of a record collection you should not turn down. Golf claps to Strut for including a bonus CD that has eleven of the tracks in unmixed format!

Review: The fascinating (and wholly appropriate) concept behind Ostgut Ton's fifth anniversary compilation was conceived by British born, Berlin based artist Emika. On a night out at the label's legendary affiliate club Berghain she noticed the walls were moving and giving off their own frequencies, such was the ferocity and energy of the music and revellers within. And so Funf was born; with Berghain and Panorama Bar's extensive family of artists given four gigabytes of field recordings taken from within the club after hours - be it humming fridges, creaking doors or unseen footsteps - and asked to make a track using these sounds as their foundation. The results are absolutely stunning, with a disparate yet inexorably linked selection of tracks that range from subtle soundscapes (Emika's "Changing Room") to experimental dubstep (Fiedel's debut production "Doors To Manual"), minimal house (Dinky's "Twelve To Four") and banging techno (Shed's "Boom Room"). Split across 2 CDs this is an absolutely unmissable slice of contemporary techno history.

Review: Having teased us with a series of 12 inches premiering exclusive cuts from the creme de la creme of electronic production everyone from BokBok to Shed Monkeytown finally deliver the full bass bin whack that is Vol One of the label's Modeselektion compilation series. A short but oh so sweetly demented burst of instrumental hip hop from Modeselektor's apprentice Siriusmo sets the tone brilliantly, and the quality doesn't dip one iota across the seventeen tracks that follow. From the brushed minimalist Burialism's of Apparat's "King Of Clubs" to the cavernous approach to stripped back head nodders adopted by Dabrye's Tad Mullinix & Daniel Meteo on "The Good Star" and the ever swirling mass of not techno not dubstep presented by 2562 that sits between, every track proves a winner. As the truly unique strains of the final track - Capsicum's edit of Cylob play the lasting sensation of this compilation is Modeselektor laying out a exciting blue print for the future of a nascent sound that is growing across the world.