House Is A Feeling

10. Matt John-Soulkaramba (Bar 25)

I get this and “La Creme Bonjour” mixed up in my head constantly. But obviously that’s a compliment. This is another track that really shows another way of house music seeping back into so called “minimal”, and like most of the top ten I played this more times than I can remember this year.

9. Argy-1985 (Sydenham and Rune Mix) (Liebe*Detail)

I was a bit slow to catch onto this one, though obviously I read about it quite a bit when it came out. But gradually it worked its magic. It’s quite a strange record and one that typifies the differences between this version of house music minimal has drifted towards and you know, house music. You know, the ones that are so contentious!

8. Marvin Dash-Rush Hour (Morris Audio)

This is a late entry, perhaps you won’t have heard it, but what an addictive and sugary record it is. If you like John Daly then this is almost certain to be a track for you. Any time the party is flagging, any time music starts to sound grim and monotone, just cover yourself in this gold plated disco shield. Again the whole EP is strong too.

7. Chaton-Catch The Beat (Agnes Mix) (Shtmlaudio)

Endless plays this year for this one, the sort of record you could play for many years to come too. There’s no real similarity between Agnes’s swooning deep house take and the original, leaving you to wonder if this was an idea he’d already been working on. Regardless, the result is a track which seems to move people, physical, urgent, and instantly arresting, like so much of the best house music.

6. Mountain People-Mountain 004 (Mountain People)

This one caused an unseemly amount of hype in Dublin this year which was quite weird, purely for the experience of seeing a lot of people where I live catching on to it at the same time, despite not all coming from the same place or view musically. What always happens in this instance is that people mistake popularity for “hype” and end up going out of their way to criticise a record they may never have had any interest in to begin with.

What I love about “Mountain 004″ is how drenched in euphoria it is. Sure, this is housey, but just try listening to it without nodding your head. It reminds me of being 18 and listening to records with the sun coming up in somebody’s house, long after the club had ended. Someone would put on something like this, and everyone would pay attention. So it may be a little long, not amazingly sequenced, but those synapse tweaking sounds prevail. “Mountain 004″ is about as raw a slice of pleasure as house music yields these days.

5. Junior Boys-Like A Child (Carl Craig Mix) (Domino)

I forgot about this record for quite a while, after playing it a bit when it came out. Then on holiday in Berlin I heard it several times and was reminded.

What I love about it is the extent to which it’s a song as well as a club track. I like the Junior Boys in fits and starts but here Carl Craig really squeezes their character out into a techno revision that is all the more anthemic as a result. That repeated “I got the end in sight, got the end in sight” is one of the most triumphant moments of the year. Even if the rest of the record isn’t utterly mindblowing or interesting to me (am I the only one) that magical first few minutes is easily enough to merit inclusion here.

4. Onur Ozer-Red Cabaret (Overture) (Vakant)

Wild, unhinged, psychedelic. That’s Onur Ozer’s music. And this is the track on which he manages to marry all of these fine qualities with the dancefloor. Ozer is a producer recording for one of the quintessential “minimal” labels who rubbishes every preconceived idea about the genre with every track he makes. Praise doesn’t come much higher than that.

3. Kabale Und Liebe-Mumblin Yeah (Area Remote)

I wish there was a way to praise this record without making some people think they should hear something in it that frankly isn’t there. Sure it’s low key, sure it’s “not all that”. That is, if “all that” must be some big bombastic acid drop. It isn’t changing the world, it isn’t blowing the roof off, it isn’t a return to some classic standard, it isn’t any of these things. “Mumblin Yeah” is, for those who like it, an addictive, undeniable hook. It’s as neat a piece of house music as you’ll ever hear, and practically no one has made a track that sounds like it this year. More than anything else, it bears a great deal of repeating.