Quietus Charts Quietus Reissues Etc Of The Year 2017, In Association With Norman Records

John Doran , December 15th, 2017 12:06

These are the reissues, compilation, mixes and all-important "etc" that we have been getting most pleasure from this year. This chart was compiled by John Doran out of polls from Patrick Clarke, Christian Eede, Luke Turner, Anna Wood & himself based on their favourites of the year since January 1.

12. JD Twitch (Optimo) - 1987 Reimagined (30 Year Anniversary Mix) JD Twitch (Optimo) -

(mix)

Here are 30 tracks mixed together that were the sound of my late teenage years that I tried to turn people on to 30 years ago. Most of the records in this mix would lie dormant on my shelves for the next 20 years but in the last 10 years or so a surprising number have found their way back into my sets and finally found an appreciative audience and sound as good, if not better today than they did 30 years ago. JD Twitch

11. Brian Eno - Another Green World Brian Eno -

(Virgin)

Something that sets Another Green World apart from other albums of its time, and indeed the 40 years following it, is its reckless zigzagging of mood, feel and genre. When the sessions finally kicked into gear, it appears that Eno felt unashamed to follow his creative muse wherever it might take him and he ended up with a mesh of influences that surround the album, from art pop, minimalism, jazz, folk to German kosmische musik and many other strands between, all adding to his tapestry of inspiration. William Doyle

10. Leyland Kirby - We, So Tired Of All The Darkness In Our Lives Leyland Kirby -

(History Always Favours The Winners)

Apparently put together from Kirby's prodigious archive of tracks, lurking in his Krakow HQ, it's like an assemblage of all the best moments of album interlude music you've ever heard drunk, wept over, grieving and bleakly euphoric, like rolling over onto the other side of a bed still warm from a lover just departed for good. Luke Turner

9. Pep Llopis - Poiemusia La Nau Dels Argonautes Pep Llopis -

(Freedom To Spend)

The album is a paradise of soft edges and sun, comforting like a new towel or freshly-made bed. But into this paradise no darkness can enter, there’s no shade to its light or vile sea creatures lurking in its aquatic utopia. Ben Cardew

8. Various Artists - Cairo Calling Various Artists -

(Rinse x 100 Copies)

In 2014 the British Council helped facilitate a meeting between key players from the UK bass/grime scene and Egyptian's emerging mahragan movement (we've finally been persuaded to stop calling it electro chaabi!) which included exchange visits and a Boiler Room collaboration. This cross-pollination of scenes was celebrated in a recent documentary called Cairo Calling but (perhaps slightly confusingly) it is now also the name of a great compilation album put out by Rinse and 100Copies Cairo celebrating the best new dance music from the Egyptian city, featuring, as it does, old favourites such as Islam Chipsy and Amr HaHa and newcomers DJ Ismail and El Gezawee. John Doran

7. Various Artists - Lessons Various Artists -

(Front & Follow)

As with the preceding 49 releases from F&F, there's hardly a dull moment or an iota of filler on Lessons. It's like being given the best kind of mixtape, one that prompts further discovery while retaining that sense of wonder. While the album admirably exhibits Front & Follow's eclecticism, it does so with a seemingly effortless simplicity that relies neither on juxtapositions made for their own sake nor diverging too wildly from an overall worldview. Richard Fontenoy

6. Graeme Miller and Steve Shill - The Moomins Graeme Miller and Steve Shill -

(Finders Keepers)

Somehow our creations, influenced by Kraftwerk, Eno, Bryars and the entire ethnographic collection of Leeds City Library (an impressive selection) seemed to achieve a kind of autonomy, as if someone else had invented it or it had always been. This kind of re-purposing and juxtaposition that you hear in the Moomins putting ocarinas and Casios together really came out of the same left-field that has its roots in art movements from the 20s to the 50s in Europe and the US. You don't really realize how that legacy is affecting you at the time. Graeme Miller

5. Call Super - Fabric 92 Call Super -

(Fabric)

Call Super’s Fabric 92 carries a distinct sense of freedom, flowing so smoothly that, at times, you might be unsure of whether there are two or three tracks in a mix, or when one track finishes and another starts - no mean feat for a mix that traverses overwhelming techno from Objekt, blissed-out trips from Carl Craig and a 1970s blues acapella piece recorded by Walter Brown, with beatless and electro tangents somewhere in between. Christian Eede

4. Various Artists - NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training) Various Artists -

(Akashic)

The acronymic word ‘neet’, derived from ‘not in employment, education or training’, is not in itself pejorative, but rarely used in a positive context. Glasgow label Akashic are bucking that rule with N.E.E.T, a compilation of (mostly) covers recorded in the city’s Green Door Studios over the last eight years, as part of a course aimed at local youth who fit the neet description. A follow-up of sorts to the Musikal Yooth LP from 2010, this is a worthy exercise, honourable even, but I wouldn’t be writing about it here if it wasn’t great as well. Noel Gardner

3. Cosey Fanni Tutti - Time To Tell Cosey Fanni Tutti -

(Conspiracy International)

"People kept asking me about this, that and the other, and there was a lot of misinformation going around at the time. I didn't and don't want the art world to think that I'm just kept in this tiny little gallery and my work is just that; it's not, it's music and it's public. This had a a life of its own, it went outside of the music business, outside the art world, into women's magazines. I think Time To Tell represents everything before, and a cut off point for that kind of action. I came to realise that people expected me to be naked. So obviously I kept my clothes on, and disappointed them. Tough!" Cosey Fanni Tutti

2. Various Artists - Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat of Cameroon 1976 - 1984 Various Artists -

(Analog Africa)

In the mid-1970s funk and disco collided with the bass-heavy Cameroonian music incorporating the merengue, high life and rhumba, causing the makossa sensation across the dancefloors of that country that would last for nearly a decade. From a blazing one hit wonder from Bill Loko to an undeniable Afro anthem by Pasteur Lappe, this Analog Africa compilation is 100% killer. John Doran

1. Alice Coltrane - The Ecstatic Music Of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda Alice Coltrane -

(Luaka Bop)

I can't help feeling that right now there may be Californian musical outfits listening to this remarkable record and trying to craft their own replication of it. All I will say is, just, please don't. I am no believer, yet when I hear these sounds, and when Alice Coltrane stamps down hard on her Oberheim pedals at 'Keshava Murahara''s end, I can feel openings in our perceived reality begin to reveal themselves and usher us forward into divine infinity. You have never heard anything quite like this. In the words of recording engineer Baker Bigsby, “...it sounds like a spaceship landing in heaven”. Euan Andrews







The Quietus Reissues, Mixes, Compilations, Etc Of The Year 2017





