So, I thought as well as entering, I should also try my hardest to document the best entries for WeeklyBeats 2012 each week. I’m pretty serious about this, so much so I quit my job (well partially the reason) and if the problem arose, would write this article over writing a new track. I was considering doing a five worst each week as well but quickly realised that would be counter-productive instead, so instead I’ll do a top five put in order of my personal preference, ten honourable mentions (I’ll be straight with you now, there wasn’t meant to be a set number, it just so happened I accidently had chosen ten this week, which works nicely!) (EDIT: just noticed there are in fact 11. Every week following from here on there will be 10 however) and also a “cTrix Of The Week” section, the reasons for which I’ll explain below. So, good luck everyone, keep up the great work (it was genuinely difficult to choose five tracks this week) and here’s to the rest of the year!!!
Best Of The Week: (Top 5)
1. Robotsexmusic-Hungry Wolves: Starts off foreboding and drenched in samples before kicking into a bittersweet melodically rampant and glicthy jaw-dropper. The main thing I liked about this track was the surprise once it began to open up, and the relentless pace never gave in. Plus, it still managed to sound fresh despite sounding also very angry and overbearing, so kudos to RobotSexMusic for pulling that off. The claustrophobic samples and mixing may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found they added a layer of intensity that would otherwise be dormant.
For Fans Of: Superspink… I meant to put three here but it’s genuinely difficult to find comparisons for a song this unique!!
2. Low_Gain-The Others: Beautiful melodies and a snaking, pumping beat. A masterful use of the chiptune sound to create a song that expands past the limitations of the genre into not just being “a good song for chiptune”, but a great tune altogether. If we are to expect this level of quality each week from Low_Gain (which seeing as how strong his track record is, I can see being a definite possibility), we are in for a good year.
For Fans Of: failotron before he got really sad about everything, Kkrusty’s none chipbreak stuff, Bittersweet-ness.
3. Roboctopus-Bongo Romance: A gorgeous blend of chiptune and other instrumentation, sounding remarkably professional and, at its core, just a genuinely outstanding song. The closing melodies before the final syncopated chord flourishes are stunning and the overall mood of the piece is sweetly bitter to a heavily defined tee. Outstanding.
For Fans Of: The J. Arthur Keenes Band, ‘Plastic Beach’ by Gorillaz, Forced splicing.
4. Anonymeye-Week 01: Trance-enducing cascades of notes with some eventual droning notes sustain an ethereal atmosphere as the syncopation and scales slowly shift from left to right with an astonishing level of subtle grace.
For Fans Of: little-scale, involuntary movement, maths.
5. Lucas Darklord- Deepening European Crisis: Perfectly asymmetrical to the overall excited and optimistic atmosphere found on most of the other entries to the competition, Lucas Darklord creates an extremely powerful sense of dread and desperation whilst showing how a song title, when applied expertly, can have devastating effects on the atmosphere of a piece. The reek of decay is almost claustrophobic, and whilst drone tracks may not be everyone’s cup of tea, this is a definite MUST listen for this week’s entries. Dark, foreboding and incredibly powerful throughout until it stumbles and slowly dies at its climax.
For Fans Of: failotron after he got really sad about everything, Sunn O))), Earth.
Honourable Mentions:
Biko-Jakarta: Off-beat staccato dance with a hook the size of the Empire State. More sections and structural integrity would have been nice, but for a short floor-shaker with an addictive sound, look no further!
CK- Automatic: Simple, straight-down-the-line house with emphasis on harmonising soft vocals and 80s synths. Better than Metronomy and fuck you if you think otherwise.
Frostbyte-Growing Trees: Beautifully sweet mixture of brass and acoustic guitar form a wonderfully quaint and extremely surprising meld.
Mooninite-You Said I Was The Country: Soft melodies and sounds with even softer vocals. It’s like listening to a baby’s blanket (in a very good and catchy way).
NWSPR-2012: Genius use of sampling with a funk-infused and catchy as hell melodic overlay, with some of the nicest most ‘Stepdad’ –like harmonies I ever did heard
Optimus Chad-FPFR: Showing everyone who ever doubted him that he has become a titanic force inside the quickly-expanding chipthrash scene. The almost rave-like mid-section is just pure genius.
PaK-Zer0-Alpha Beam: So dirty and aggressive I couldn’t leave it out. Genius melodies and some pure face-punching anger make this one fantastic listen.
Paper Buldings-Sincerely: Beautiful trip-hoppy magic.
Solarbear-One Last New Year: Bittersweet and sounding like the dirty pop of 2112, this one is unmissible.
Trash80-Starfield Sonnet: I’ve missed Trash80. That recognisable synth with that unforgettable atmosphere and that in-humanly good aptitude for writing melodies is all intact, leaving this astonishing track sounding like a b-side to the mind-blowing ‘Icarus’. Not a dance track, but a subdued melodic teaser, with one of the best cadence uses I have ever heard.
Vmuriel-Reabinn: Industrially charged and gabber-inspired jumps between the ambient and the beat-driven, with a relentlessly bleak atmosphere draped over the top. The opening is face-melting.
cTrix Of The Week
The High Life:
So a little explanation as to why cTrix has his own section. I really like his music. A lot. So I thought it’d make more sense to do a little write-up about his tracks each week rather than him clogging up the first or second spot on my top five every week for this year. So without further ado…
Beautiful melodies engulf from the beginning sending the listener on a beachside trip with some of the most upbeat and optimistic sounding harmonies ever heard come out of an LSDJ (and coming from a medium that half thrives of making people smile, that’s saying something). Snaking round melodies in an unrelenting structure before the cheerfulness slowly drains to something slightly less gleeful and something entirely more bass-lead and funk-injected. Whether he meant to or not, it definitely feels like cTrix has been flexing his compositional muscles, darting from the happy plod of the beginning to the funk before finding a meeting ground for the two styles, effectively combining three ideas that were strong enough to stand on their own feet as separate entries. When I first saw cTrix on the list of participants, I was very excited. To anyone who had not heard his work prior, this was why.
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