The eMusic Dozen: 2007 Rewind: The Year in Dance

Shackleton, "Blood on My Hands (Ricardo Villalobos Apocalypso Now Remix)"
When DJs like Ricardo Villalobos and Cassy began charting dubstep tunes amidst their minimal-techno staples, fans began salivating at the prospect of a proper crossover. That's never really come to fruition, aside from Shackleton's recent remix of Simian Mobile Disco's "Hustler." But when minimal's most avant-garde producer tackles dubstep's finest, that's enough to stand in for an entire imaginary genre. Shackleton's original was a doomy tribute to the World Trade Center massacre; Chilean exile Villalobos doubtless had a different September 11 in mind when he gloomified spoken-word scraps like "Flesh is weak and forms break down, they cannot last forever." That I was listening to this while driving down the coast of Chile at the exact moment that General Augusto Pinochet died only reinforced the suspicion that there's some serious voodoo behind Villalobos' dread bass and palpitating triplets.

Noze, "Remember Love"
More than any other, this song closed my DJ sets this year, and it never failed to send the party out on the perfect ending note: boisterous, upbeat, cheeky -- and not a little melancholic. The lyrics, despite being delivered in clumsy French accents, are catchy enough -- and ridiculous enough -- to have everyone singing along by the end: "Everybody's happy to believe in love/ Everybody wants to have a hot flip-side." (The song's an ambivalent paean to the joys of an affair.) Even if you don't catch the song's drift, the rollicking piano riffs make for instant levity, and the adrenaline levels only rise when the chorus quotes Technotronic's "Pump Up the Jam," making even the sternest curmudgeon nostalgically misty-eyed. 2007 was the year that French electronic music broke the U.S. in a big way, but Noze remain criminally neglected. Would it be too much to ask for fans to slip out of Justice's grasp for a hot flip-side with a different Parisian duo?

DJ Koze, "Cicely"
Driving back to Portland from the Oregon coast one wet spring Sunday, my head still throbbing from a house party the night before, I listened to this song over and over and over, its fizzy analog synths, augmented chords and squirrely jazz-guitar licks proving the perfect foil for the rain-slicked forest highway outside. Even if you don't have such an anecdotal link to the song, it's impossible to resist "Cicely," the work of International Pony member DJ Koze. While International Pony have a sensitive side beneath their parodic G-funk bluster, and while Koze's solo productions are uncommonly complex, he's never showed himself to be as deep -- or as sentimental. Reducing the beats to a few gruff, melodic toms and the occasional squall of hi-hats, Koze focuses his energy on the bluesy melodic midrange, but his command of rhythm is such that you never feel left out in the cold; the slow, housey glide is enough to carry you wherever you want to go.

Mr. G, "U Askin'?"
21st century techno doesn't often reference the raucous style, known as breakbeat hardcore, that underpinned acid house's glory days; hardcore was sloppy and chaotic, while contemporary techno puts a premium on restraint and control. But UK tech-house veteran Mr. G manages to have it both ways on this blinding single for Radio Slave's Rekids label. Rattling Latin percussion and a hardscrabble snare pattern combine to create a breakbeat-like pattern that sounds like a jungle record played at 33RPM. A sing-song vocal sample repeats "I'm dancing" like a euphoric mantra. Sirens flare, signifying imminent meltdown. But that slow-mo beat just keeps going, wrapping itself in cymbals and junkyard percussion as its magnetic coils heat up, serenading a moon-stomping rave where the drugs have all been cut with cough syrup.

Dusty Kid, "Kore"
Dubstep fans are prone to rhapsodizing over the bass-heavy genre's propensity to "wobble," but techno proved it could woozy-foot it with the best of them this year, thanks to cuts like Teflon's "The Wombat" and Ernesto Ferreyra's "The Last Shooter." But Dusty Kid's "Kore" outdoes'em all with this nine-minute-plus anthem. Opening with the teasing oscillation that sounds like a didgeridoo being controlled by a jaw harp, the track begins its steady descent to the center of the earth when the bass kicks in -- a blustery, side-to-side swagger that lurches like a drunk making for the bar at last call. Sure, the track's formulaic, but so is the theory of relativity. The high-end riffs whip dancers into a frenzy; breakdowns kick in and are thrown aside with a sense of timing so keen you could set your watch by them. For all its minor-key bombast, "Kore" is a winking concession to the laws of the dancefloor that manages to transcend them all the same.

The Martinez Brothers, "My Rendition"
Their backstory is impeccable: The Martinez Brothers are two kids from the Bronx, one 15 and the other 18, whose Gospel-loving father turned them on to house music as a secular alternative to hip-hop. But as "My Rendition" proves, the siblings have the chops to back it up. 2007 was allegedly the year that Europeans rediscovered the untrammeled rush of deep house, but no one delivered it with more pumping aplomb than the Martinez Brothers. Over a 4/4 drum pattern that nods toward reggaeton, they layer shoomping chords reminiscent of Basic Channel and then go braiding counterpoints into a golden rope that's as tough as it is rich. Bent notes add to the sense of liquidity; a high, lonesome string sound adds an unhinged echo of DJ Pierre's "wild pitch" style. At an age when most teens are writing half-assed raps or flailing at battered guitars, these kids crossed Steve Reich with disco and hit upon nirvana.

Cortney Tidwell, "Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up (Ewan Pearson's Objects in Space Remix)"
You might not guess Cortney Tidwell hails from Nashville; her accent betrays no particular region, and despite the guitar tremolo and shuffling acoustic chords of her original recording, the song's about as obviously country as, say, Beth Orton's first efforts. But the easygoing "Stars" -- with echoes of Lambchop, Portishead and Mazzy Star -- is also little like the electro-pop tunes that Ewan Pearson is usually tapped to remix, which makes his triumph here all the more resounding. Of Pearson's four versions, this 12-minute epic is the best: a Kompakt-like thump adds subtle bounce as Pearson inflates Tidwell's dusty, understated grandeur -- billowing guitars, diamond-edged synths -- into something as tough as it is tender.

Len Faki, "Rainbow Delta'"
Berlin's Berghain and Panorama Bar -- two sister clubs operating out of a monumental former gasworks -- are quickly becoming something like legends in their own time, thanks to their endless running hours, infamously hedonistic crowds and brain-meltingly good lineups. They're not just any old clubs, either: this year, among other projects, Berghain initiated a collaboration between the Berlin Staatsballet and musicians like Ame, Sleeparchive and Luciano. Len Faki is one of the clubs' resident DJs, and his track "Rainbow Delta," released on the Berghain's fledgling Ostgut Ton label, does a good job of approximating the vibe of the place. Endlessly filtered chords create the sensation of weightlessness while a tribally stomp approximates the rush of blood in quickened veins. There's nothing terribly new about it, but its seductive, skillful execution is more than enough.

Dapayk & Padberg, "Black Beauty"
The technology for DJing with MP3s has been around for a few years, but 2007 was the year that Serato, Final Scratch and the like really seemed to take off. Even DJs who 18 months ago swore an undying allegiance to vinyl suddenly swapped record crates for a laptop bag. While it's too early to sound the death knell for wax, it's clear that a generation is being weaned off its addiction to "black crack," making Dapayk & Padberg's funeral oration -- "This could be the last vinyl album/ MP3s killed the black beauty" -- more than a little prescient. The track felt even more significant for the way that it breathed new life into the genre known as "minimal," which itself seems finally to be on the way out. With little more than sub-bass wobble, flashes of white noise and the eerie tonalities of detuned voices, the cut summed up the best of the genre. Download it now -- before MP3s themselves are a thing of the past.