It’s fair to say house music had a strong year of consolidation in 2008. If you take a top tune per month, our first anthem alert was sounded towards the end of January with Hercules & Love Affair’s ‘Blind’, featuring a quite literally blinding Frankie Knuckles remix. For February we’ll take the return of Shara Nelson, adding ‘Go That Deep’ to her list of spine-chilling vocals with NUfrequency. For March Kris Menace & Spooky were making waves with ‘Stereophonic’, an update of that wonderful ‘Stereo’ tune in 1995, while April’s fool was definitely not Li’ll Bo Tweak and ‘The Mixup Fixup EP’, ripe for those who like their Detroit style riffs. Guy Garrett picked out Discorama’s ‘Giddy-Up A Go Go’ on the Oxyd label towards the end of May, while Radio Slave’s ‘Grindhouse’ could not be missed with its Dubfire remix the following month.
Norman Cook rode back into town in July as the Brighton Port Authority, Dean Thatcher admiring its’ ‘bass heavy wobble’, while a band that couldn’t be ignored over the summer was Midnight Juggernauts, unstoppable with ‘Into The Galaxy’. Some cheese, next, with the reincarnation of Guru Josh’s ‘Infinity’ in September, then the first rumblings of Sander Van Doorn’s ‘Close My Eyes’, the Robbie Williams-led stormer that’s bound to be huge commercially next year. Into the same category falls Steve Angello and Laidback Luke’s ‘Show Me Love’, now cleared for release, while amongst much quality November offered the Phones mixes of Santogold’s ‘Say Aha’.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
Ben Hogwood
