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RA Poll: Top 10's 2009

Thursday, December 10, 2009 11:34 AM Posted by Mexikan Tekno Mafia




Resident Advisor Poll: Top 10 Djs of 2009 RA says to DJs: It's likely that they're why you're here, right now, reading these words. You went out one night, they played some music that you'd never heard before. Or maybe they played music that you knew intimately, but mixed it in a way that you'd never heard before. Or perhaps they even did both. However it happened, we're guessing that at least one DJ has made an impact on you along the way, and it's why we ask you, the RA reader, to let us know the one(s) that have changed your life the most each year.



01. Richie Hawtin Love him or hate him, you most likely have an opinion on Richie Hawtin. But while there was plenty of hoopla around the non-musical aspects of Hawtin in 2009, it was a year that was mostly defined by the Minus boss getting back down to the business of DJing. Instead of large-scale Contakt shows dominating his DJ schedule, Hawtin ended up playing more often than not on his own to crowds big and small. His ability to do both equally as well is a quality that often goes underrecognized. But more fascinating is to hear the command that he now has over his intimidating Traktor set-up. You get the sense that he was formerly on the edge of control—something that Hawtin, a technology nerd at heart, obviously enjoys—but has now taken complete control of the machines that he uses to DJ now. Which has made for sets that would have never been possible only a few years ago. At this stage in his career, there's no reason for him to care as much as he does about expanding the boundaries of what a DJ set can mean. And that's one of the many reasons why he's your pick as the best DJ of 2009. 02. Ricardo Villalobos It was a relatively quiet year for Ricardo Villalobos. No groundbreaking releases. No huge developments. No tabloid-ready moments. Just some of the most mind-bending sounds that you'll ever have the pleasure to be heard played in some of the biggest rooms in the world. Villalobos' experimental streak is a wonder in an age when so many DJs are content to play it safe. But it's also why we probably love him as much as we do. Without this genre-spanning, vinyl-loving DJ, the dance floor would be a much more boring place. With him, it often seems like anything could happen. 03. Luciano Ah, Luciano. Has there been a DJ who has sparked more heated debate over this past year? Well, perhaps Richie Hawtin, but you get the picture. The naysayers have largely focused on his lurch towards more party-friendly sounds in recent years (and the fact that his much anticipated second album didn't quite live up to expectations), while conversely, his appeal as a DJ to rock the "main stage" has seen his global fan-base swell exponentially. On the latter point, there is no denying that dancing to Luciano these days can be seriously good fun; almost to the point where the DJ we speak of should be considered a new incarnation. Or in other words, Luciano is dead. Long live Luciano. 04. Loco Dice In a list of our favourite business moves of 2009, Loco Dice's "Under 300" concept ranks high among them. Few jocks of Dice's stature decide to play an extended tour to smaller audiences. That it was a smashing success, wasn't all that surprising though. Dice's sound—a physical house-inspired blend that's keyed by his insatiable record buying habit—is perfect for cozy parties where the sweat literally drips off the the ceiling. Our only gripe? That he doesn't plan to do it all over again in 2010. 05. Marcel Dettmann 2008 may have been when Marcel Dettmann rose to international prominence, but 2009 was the year in which he was able to enjoy it. Berghain 02 served as his gold-plated "business card" and paved the way for bigger bookings, including shows in Japan and across South America. His brand of muscular, yet skeletal, techno is his choice for these shorter international sets, but it's during his extended performances at Berlin's Berghain that he comes into his own; taking the crowd on an epic journey through electronica, house and techno that demonstrates both his broad knowledge and ability to get a crowd moving. 06. Dixon When Dixon "surfaced" back in 2007, his presence felt almost revolutionary. His manifesto promise? Songs. And lots of them. Fast-forward to 2009 and Dixon enjoyed an almost perfect storm scenario with everyone falling back in love with deeper house sounds and two exemplary mix CDs in the form of The Grandfather Paradox and Temporary Secretary hitting shelves. Those two discs took advantage of the format, but the secret to his DJing success is that he doesn't try to rewrite the rulebook, instead fashioning a palette from the finest quality music of the last twenty years or so, and presenting it as a good old-fashioned story. 07. Sven Väth Papa Sven's circus rolled on in 2009, with his Ibiza residency at Amnesia proving to be one of the island's success stories in what has been a relatively quiet year for the island. Väth has ensured that he has kept on top of recent trends, supplementing last year's rolling tech-house sound with plenty of ethnic samples and hooks. Above all this, though, Sven's appeal is his unfettered enthusiasm for entertaining the crowd, and even though he celebrated his 45th birthday earlier this year, it doesn't look as if his fervour for DJing has diminished one bit. 08. Seth Troxler Are there DJs having more fun being a DJ than Seth Troxler? If so, we'd like to meet them. The Berlin resident defines the hedonistic nature of the city, reveling in the afterparty lifestyle and launching legions of "Did you hear what Seth did/said/played?" stories. Oh. Right, played. Yeah, that's been amazing too. It seems like the word is out about the American jock: Troxler's DJing style more often than not reflects his personality. Ebullient, fun, sexy. And a tiny bit out of control. Which, when you think about it, makes for some of the most memorable sets of all. 09. Magda Minus' first lady of minimal holds her position this year, and the reasons are simple: The pint-sized Pole has continued to push the envelope with her layers of loops—as demonstrated on this year's Fabric 49 compilation—bringing a certain sense of funk to the dark and reduced sound that she favours. That said, she's equally as adept at working a crowd when resorting to a more traditional turntable setup via Traktor Scratch. With new solo material set to drop in 2010, it looks like her already packed DJing schedule is going to get even busier. 10. Joris Voorn If Luciano was the DJ that made the Great Ibiza Leap in 2009, Joris Voorn was surely a close second. With one of the summer's biggest hits, "Sweep The Floor," and one of the year's best mix CDs, Balance 014, Voorn came in with a bit of momentum, which he promptly capitalized on with sets at both Space and Amnesia that undoubtedly cemented his position as a top draw on the island and elsewhere. What will that mean for 2010? That much is anyone's guess, but as Voorn was once trained as an architect, you know that he likely has it all mapped out. Resident Advisor Poll: Top 10 live acts of 2009 01. Moderat Looking not unlike Krafwerk, Moderat featured three producers standing upright in front of platforms that held their gear aloft for them to play. A minimum of fuss, a minimum of movement. Modeselektor + Apparat = Moderat. The key was in the visuals, once again provided by frequent collaborators Pfadfinderei, who translated the music of this trio effortlessly into images, both literal and figurative. And, of course, the music, which somehow sounded as if it was built expressly for the live arena, this bassline exposing its true power, that drum pattern revealing itself to be eminently danceable. It was a show in the truest sense of the word, a spectacle that you had to experience firsthand to understand the rave reviews that followed them everywhere. And it's also the reason that you, the RA readers, picked them as the top live act of 2009. 02. Reboot Frank Heinrich may have had a live set in 2008. But he certainly didn't have a live set like the one he had this year. Armed with a sure thing of a closer in "Caminando," as well as plenty of tracks that bridged stylistic boundaries, Heinrich's performances were a rejoinder to the idea that live sets needed to have a similar sound palette to succeed. While there was an obvious current of southern German bounce to the proceedings, Heinrich keeps things interesting by bringing in plenty of groove boxes and synths along in a nod to some of his heroes: Alter Ego and Der Dritte Raum. 03. Fever Ray Mysterious, mystical, thrilling. There was no shortage of adjectives used to describe Fever Ray's live show in 2009. Taking its cues from Karin Dreijer Andersson's other group, The Knife, Fever Ray performances were heavy on atmosphere, perfectly encapsulating the sense of dread and unease of the music that her band unleashed each night on stage. As Andersson put it, the show was like a moving exhibition of masks from Papua New Guinea or Africa. Whatever it was, it left us grasping for single words. Mysterious, mystical, thrilling and much, much more. 04. Booka Shade Booka Shade didn't perform all that much on the live circuit this year, preferring to focus upon their new album. But the shows that they did play had an obvious impact. Maybe, as Arno Kammermeier put it in an interview with RA earlier this year, it was their big balls? More likely, though, it was the fact that the duo have succeeded in finding a way to perform songs that are largely constructed with synths in a way that is visually compelling and—for lack of a better work—rocks pretty hard. Then again, the balls did light up. 05. Henrik Schwarz Despite the fact that he was part of a new live conglomeration over the past 18 months—A Critical Mass—RA users couldn't get enough of Henrik Schwarz. And who can blame them? The man's jazz-infused deep house set has been honed for maximum enjoyment, a masterful example of how to build an hour to a boil. Schwarz's hasn't changed much in the past 12 months, but it's always new: His devotion to improvisation means that the elements may remain the same, but that the outcome is different each time—a little bit, in fact, like the jazz masters he admires so much. 06. Mathew Jonson You couldn't go many places in the world this year as a techno traveler and not run into Mathew Jonson. Whether he was performing as himself, as part of Cobblestone Jazz, as part of The Modern Deep Left Quartet or even doing a one-off with Dandy Jack, he was nigh on inescapable. That's a good thing: Jonson's laudable approach to performing live is close to that of a DJ, separating out his sounds so that he can mix them into new forms, and hopefully creating something that resembles one of his signature tunes, but in a way that you've never heard it before. 07. Modeselektor Modeselektor performed just as much as part of Moderat in 2009, but that just made the shows they did under their own name seem to count even more. Fans who found Moderat to be just a tad too self-serious for its own good, welcomed the return of the boys late in the year with open arms. Slightly more unhinged, slightly messier and slightly more vodka were the recipe, and Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary (and visual genius Pfadfinderei) followed it to perfection, reminding us all why we loved the original so much in the first place. 08. Laurent Garnier Laurent Garnier has performed live before, but 2009 was perhaps his biggest test yet, taking out a live band to perform the hugely varied batch of songs that found their way onto Tales of a Kleptomaniac. RA's Matt Anniss described the full-length as "dubstep-influenced hip-hop and politically-aware dance floor jazz workouts [mixed] with slick techno, raucous drum & bass and dubwise downtempo flavours." Yet Garnier somehow pulled it off, bringing together his merry band like a conductor and performing fire-breathing renditions of the new material, while hauling out old chestnuts and making them sound new. 09. Gaiser Last year, Colin Shields perhaps put it best when describing the appeal of Gaiser's live set, saying that the producer's take on the genre was the "'just enough and no more' rather than the minimal of 'less than is needed'." There's a reason that you can pinpoint Gaiser as among the best of the Minus stable: His live set is expertly composed, building up and tearing down at just the right moments, as responsive to the needs of a room as a well-managed DJ set. (Although having tracks like "Withdrawal" and "Wet Contents" to draw from surely doesn't hurt.) 10. Joris Voorn The 10th best DJ and the 10th best live act in the world in 2009? Now you're just spoiling Joris Voorn. That said, the Dutch DJ/producer had one of his biggest years yet, taking Ibiza by storm and unleashing one of the year's finest mix CDs with Balance 014. Music doesn't make the live set entirely, however. The key to Voorn's success is the way that he mixes in productions like "Sweep the Floor" and his remix of Robert Babicz's "Dark Flower," pushing things to the breaking point and then pushing them just a little bit further.