A couple of days ago I spent more time than I really should have staring into space, compiling a detailed mental list (indeed like a mentalist) of my favourite tracks of 2011 thus far for no good reason other than to appease the manic list-fetishist deep within me. This is merely an off-shoot from my own Desert Island Discs list obsession based on the long-running BBC Radio 4 show where famous folk are quizzed on their top 8 records of all time to take to a desert island. My own DID list is a work in progress that I feel compelled to maintain lest I am asked by anyone in particular – a friend, colleague, random on the Tube, anyone – what mine would consist of. I’m sure no one at all is particularly interested in my list, alas I feel the need to be fully prepared and armed with the basics should the need arise, and if I no one asks me throughout my lifetime then I shall reveal all on my deathbed, probably to my cat.
I digress. So this ‘Best of 2011’ ponderment morphed into me frittering away several hours of the only life I’ll ever have cementing this into a physical playlist, accompanied by much umming and ahhing and hand-wringing about what should be included and where. The resulting satisfaction of feeling cleansed and ordered is fleeting, mind; for after the great exercise I was confronted with the crushing realisation that the list is purely of that moment, a temporary pleasure until a new contender elbows its way in and throws everything into disarray again. It matters not in the case of Chmmr’s intriguing new snappily titled jam, ‘The Updated And Expanded Tenth Anniversary Edition’ which has a strong chance of remaining in my 2011 All Stars List for a good while yet.
Chmmr is otherwise known as Norwegian beatmonger Even Brendan, and this smiling assassin of a track makes up one fifth of his new EP out now on Relish Recordings, a jaunty juxtaposition of a bouyant groove with a faintly eerie, sinister undercurrent. Not dissimilar to, oh I don’t know, the flinty, wild-eyed chuckle of a maniacal shaman sweating and chanting in his wicker hut before he plunges a bejewelled dagger into the heart of a voodoo doll, I imagine. Concocting some hefty Balearic-rainforest-rave-in-a-monsoon vibes, ‘TUAETAE’ as I shall now refer to it encapsulates what I can only describe as tropical apocalyptic (Tropicalyptic? YES) doom-disco, which I think must be in my Top 5 genre favourites of all time. No wait, maybe Post-arsonist Bungalow Dubcore would be placed ahead of it, or even Dickensian Chimneysweep Orchestral House. Gah – this, my friends, calls for a List. *stares into space*
The Updated And Expanded Tenth Anniversary Edition by RELISH
