I normally struggle to think what tunes have been and gone in the last month, so trying to remember what I was listening to back in January is a mountainous mission in itself, which is probably why I’m going to write this avoiding any specifics and will talk around the subject pretending I know what I’m talking about like any good politician would do. But from what I can recollect “minimal” became housier (or maybe I became housier?), Dubstep collided with Techno and Disco has undergone a massive revival

So lets start with the shift towards the housier sounds. We noticed a lot of DJs ditching the repetitive and bland “minimal” sounds that were starting to stagnate and instead nudging more towards the house end of the spectrum. This meant a bit more funk and soul embedded into tracks, more vocals and jazzier samples. It may sound like we’re harking back to the funky house days circa 2000-02, but this was slightly different, it was more an amalgamation of what came out of the “minimal-tech” sounds which dominated ’05-’07 with older house music sensibilities as seen from the Chicago deep house days. A perfect example of this is probably My My, their remix of Djuma Soundsytem’s Les Dijnns ’s typifies where the sound was during 2007 whilst their latest release Everybody’s Talkin’ is a glimpse into the house sound doing the rounds at the moment. The same goes for Josh Wink’s Stay Out All Night and Matthew Styles We Said Nothing, both distinctly Chi-town influenced numbers which bebop’s to a fun and funked up skipping rhythm. In a similar vein who could forget Johnny D who’s had a fantastic year. His track Orbitallife was causing raucous everywhere through the summer not to mention all his other releases.

But then it wasn’t all fun funked up house, this year saw a lot of dub style house and techno music with heavy basslines at a relaxed pace. Tracks like Trus’me’s W.A.R Dub particularly stood out as did a lot of the output from Gedde’s new label MurMur which had artists like Bearweasel pumping out deep and hypnotic house. One of the best tracks of the year for me was the highly elusive Wax1001. There was no artist or label, just this white label containing the rawest house track ever. A simple track with clunky beats, classic hi hat patterns and a dark raw bassline made Wax1001 show how less is definitely more.

Amongst all of this was another return. Afrobeat house started reappearing in a heavier form predominately coming out of the Innervisions camp but also a whole host of producers. This house sound brought a lot of energy through African rhythms, chants and tribal beats. Henrik Schwarz’ I Exist Because of You was a prime example as was Dixon/Ame/Schwarz’s effort on D.P.O.M.B and to a lesser extent Laurent Garnier’s return to production on his Afrodiziac mix of Back to my Roots. Away from the Innervisions folk, Osborne’s Afrika had a not surprising African feel making it a firm favourite for many including EarPipe and was part of an incredible year for the Michigan born producer who’s self titled album received critical acclaim. The other big African influenced house but probably more so house influenced African music came from Afefe Iku and his track Mirror Dance. The heavy tribal beats and highly infectious glockenspiel hook were an instant success made apparent when every one would always poorly attempt to vocally imitate the glockenspiel hook.

Aside from genre nit picking, house and techno came out with some pretty good gems. SIS was a massive mover this year mainly with his track Nesrib but there was also Orgasa, Clarinete and that annoying but quite fun Trompeta. Truly a stellar year for the young producer. Another trend for 2008 was taking samples from old scratchy foreign records and working it into restrained house beats a la Italoboyz style. Stimming’s Una Pena and La Pena’s A1/Davino Canto were particular highlights of this trend and pushed massively by the Lucianos and Villalobos’ of the world. Radioslave also continued his world domination with a new direction through Eyes Wide Open not to mention his more ambient and down tempo project with Joel Martin as Quiet Village. But that’s not to say Radioslave’s dark technoness didn’t continue on. Dubfire’s remix of Grindhouse Tool was making a right mess on most techno dancefloors right through the summer. It was fun at first but it has become a bit dull.

Whilst many were disputing what house and techno had become there was an alchemy experiment happening behind the scenes where Dusteppers were blending Dubstep with Techno in an attempt to produce gold. Their attempts have been pretty successful Shackleton returned the favour by remixing Villalobos’ acclaimed Vasco EP, whilst Appleblim and Peverelist topped many charts with their track Circling as well as pushing their Skull Disco label to new nether regions in the Dubstep world. But it’s probably Appleblim’s RA podcast which helped to break down Dubstep/Techno/House barriers for many people.

But the most interesting development for EarPipe has to be the recent Disco revival. Its been bubbling away since the start of 2007 and properly came to attention when the James Murphy and Pat Mahoney FabricLive 36 release came out in October 07. From there Disco has gone from strength to strength in the capital. New night Disco Bloodbath and Horse Meat Disco have been busy throughout the year, whilst Fabric, Secretsundaze and Mulletover have all jumped on board with Disco backrooms. One of the biggest developments for the Disco revival was the release of Hercules and Love Affair’s self titled debut album. The album hit the charts and was widely respected by the critics putting this new Disco come House sound in the spotlight. Across the North Sea our Scandinavian friends Lindstrom and Prins Thomas continued pushing their cosmic disco sound on Smalltown Supersound and Metro Area’s Fabric 44 gave us a reminder of where disco came from.

So that’s what we at EarPipe can remember from the year in music. It has been fun, there has been some rubbish, but then there have been some delectable moments and no doubt this will continue into 2009.

If we’ve missed something out then do stick it in the comments!

You can catch our review of clubs, festivals and parties here.