Wriggling on in 20eight

Some or all of these beats were going through my head during the recent ambulations, as i formed my short-but-sweet highlights of 2007:

Retina It – Zucchine Alla Scapece. Glitchy ambience from the Hefty electronica label builds up to a nice suffusion.
Joachim – Lonely Hearts. The French producer’s reputation built over the year – Drumtrax was on Simian Mobile Disco’s Fabric comp – and it was this slice of uptempo and proud miserablism that captured hearts.
The Ghosts - Suicide Train. Professionalized, major-label ‘Indie’ as it-has-become continued to appal throughout and in this context labels of wilful amateurism and obscurity such as Stolen begin to matter. Their compilation was stoked full of punky garage bursts and synthy, acoustic and other weird-outs, and this stomp over the Stooges’ turf was one of the most effective.
Hadouken – Girls. The Dr Frankensteins of grindie lay down a bouncing paean to the varying lives of ‘girls’ Jamie Smith may or may not know.
Durrty Goodz – Boi Dem. Atrophic slabs of demented harmonica and dub stylings underpin Durrty’s riff on the unassailable ‘young and fly’ man.
Mala – Lean 4wd. Dubstep began to eat itself in 2007 and this was not a tune like Coki & Benga’s Nite to apply the genre to wider dancefloor concerns, but its nervous, quasi-medievalist tones worked well with the usual beat and overlying pen-tap percussion.
Various Production – Chief. Team Various came back with loads of releases in late 2007. This powerful slice of industrial ‘step with synth washes didn’t go anywhere but revelled in its own sound. Also liked Took, another of their medievalist conceits.
Battles - Leyendecker. The most accessible of the Warp experimental rock troupe's Mirrored album, a slamming trip hop-style beat, gooey pitched up vox and supporting synth lines make this a delight.
[The Djekyll – Revenge Brun (mp3). IF this were a mixtape, I’d need chopped up breakbeats, bass drones and Indian elements to push the feeling on, so I’ll stick my own spacey sitaricon in.]
Tomboy – Zamiang. Gomma’s happy dance too often looks to 80s New York, but this tune from the Italian producer forgot the party to concentrate on lysergic synths, snapping the synapses.
Bloc Party – Where is Home? (Burial rmx). Having still not bought Untrue (mainly due to diminished use value on current reduced tech set up), this would do nicely. Kele Okereke and co dematerialise and return only as apparitions in an otherworld of rave comedown unbliss.

Now let’s get the tech upgrade to do this as a compilation.