Farewell Transmission

Your dedicated blogger on his suicide mission to entertain his audience

So this is it. A year ago I wrote my first post and this will be the last. What started out as a way of writing about and promoting my own music evolved into an electro/hip hop historiography of sorts, with stories and genealogies about the pivotal year of 1982. And even more surprising, I found myself writing about new releases and artists at least half the time. So what is electro's state of health? Despite the continued popularity of retro-minded 80s electronica (La Roux, Annie, Sally Shapiro, Little Boots, Zoot Woman, Cold Cave, ...), real electro music has still failed to be noticed by the general public this year. And though this is pretty much the only blog covering this kind of music, I'm still just getting a handful of views.

But I don't want to end this on a purely negative note. Despite the lack of mainstream recognition, 2009 has been an excellent year for electro. Here's a very subjective (and incomplete) recap:
- Freestyle made a comeback (the group, that is ... the genre has always been around ... kind of).
- The Egyptian Lover has been active doing some collaborations and releasing his strongest material in years (Freestyle, Debonaire, Jamie Jones).
- Some other pioneering artists that have reared their heads again: Newcleus, Donald D, MC Chill, Debonaire, Scratch D, John Robie, Mele Mel, Mic Murphy ...
- The legendary Street Sounds label is back and has already released 2 volumes of the "Nu Electro" series.
- Randy Barracuda and a bunch of other Scandinavians made a lot of noise (lit. and fig.) and put the sound of Skweee on the map.
- Dâm-Funk took everybody by surprise with his massive Toeachizown release.
- Dominance Electricity's "Global Surveyor III" compilation just came out before christmas.

I'll just leave you with my favorite tune of 2009 - may the funk be with you!