Dance Music 2012

Dance Music 2012

21 December, 2011
by: Lowri

What should we expect from the London dance music scene in 2012? Lowri Clarke asks those best placed to know.

And relax. The end of one year, the onset of another. With this annual changeover comes plenty of summing up of the year elapsed, some analysis, some foretelling. What happened? What was big? What changed? Who rocked it? With this collective mulling over comes a good deal of partying, a pinch of resolve and a small side order of reflection.

We asked some of our friends what they thought 2012 would bring in dance music. And these are the results...

DJ Marky
DJ and Producer

“That's quite a tough one! I think 2011 has taught us that dance - or electronic music as a whole - is becoming more popular and mainstream. I don't think anyone would have predicted 10 years ago that we would be waking up to drum and bass or heavy bass music on the radio.

I do hope that 2012 brings a return to some more harmony based electronic music, not just crazy heavy basslines and tweets. If current trends continue then I would say bass music overall will be a major force for 2012, maybe someone will create a London Olympics dubstep tune! Hahaha!

Overall it's great though. The fact that dance music is so popular now can only be good for the scene and means that there isn't the same kind of stigma attached to dance music as there was in the past.”

Graphics
DJ and Producer

“I can see 2012 merging even more genres. There was certainly more techno influence in the 'bass scene' in 2012 and ones to watch who are already making forward thinking techno are Artifact and South London Ordnance.

I'm interested to see if footwork will really kick off next year as it's grown and grown with the likes of Machinedrum and Addison Groove championing it. And I'm very excited about Distal and DJ Rashad's collaboration forthcoming on Well Rounded Individuals.”

Nikhil Shah
Founder of Mixcloud
http://www.mixcloud.com/

“One of the things we're really excited about at Mixcloud is the amazing data at our disposal. We're now collecting radio shows, sets and of course track-lists from over 100,000 DJs and expert music curators using the platform. There's a lot of cool stuff to be done with this data. We like to think of it as "wisdom of the experts" - the collective voice of the world's biggest and best curators.

Last year we partook in the best of the year bandwagon; our Best of 2010 turned out to be very interesting, revealing James Blake's CMYK as top track of the year rather than the pop R'n'B number he's better known for.

I'm not going to ruin the surprise by prematurely spoiling our Best of 2011. But I can confirm that our list supports the story we're hearing everywhere - 2011 was the year of electronic music.”

Max Cooper 
DJ and Producer

“No one can predict what is going to be big next year, that's the beauty of music.”

Ben Pistor - Disco Bloodbath
Promoter, DJ and Producer

“Maxxi Soundsystem had a belter of a year following the release of their runaway hit 'Criticize' in January 2011. Any time I heard Sam play this year I'd ask him what certain stand out tracks were and they were always a new Maxxi remix.  Having spent a bit of time in his studio and witnessed the amount of music he's working on at once, 2012 is set to be another massive year for this Brighton gent. “

SOFI (Some Other Female Interest):
Vocalist

“Expansion! It's gonna be hard to top this year! For me personally it was so awesome, I got to play tons of amazing festivals, sold out shows with Deadmau5 and had more fun than humans are allowed to have! Im always excited about a fresh start and new opportunities. so we’ll see what the future holds. From what I hear December 2012 is gonna be the end anyway so let's have a damn good time, shall we? I definitely wanna work on more music and lock myself in the studio for a bit and really just keep doing my thing and hopefully have people enjoy it so we can all have more dance parties and be happy.”

Ali Tillett and Ollie Seaman of The Warm Agency on who to watch in 2012:

Blondes
“After a series of widely lauded 12s in 2011 Blondes are set to unleash their debut album on the world in February 2012. Rich analogue production, euphoric synthlines, and equally at home on a beach in Ibiza as they are in a sweaty London basement, 2012 is all set to be the year this pair of New Yorkers hit even greater heights.”

Lapalux  
“Stuart Howard is from Stanstead and he makes the most ridiculous beats. I don't think I have ever heard such phenomenal production from someone so young. He's also super-prolific but the quality is always outstanding. Flying Lotus has just picked him up for his Brainfeeder label so 2012 is set to be the year of Lapalux - his releases this year have seen him end up in the end of year of charts.”

Mr Word  
“These mysterious guys sent me a few demo's out of nowhere about ten days ago and they blew me away so now I'm managing them and we are going to get their music out there! It's a duo from Stockholm: they use old tape recorders and old synths and it's a definite homage back to the old Chicago house days but with a modern twist in some of the tracks. Super excited about these guys for 2012.”

Brokenchord
“In a musical climate that seems to unveil more teenage producers than most of us have had hot dinners, it's sometimes hard to sift the flash-in-the-pans from the soon-to-be household names. To date this Lithuanian youngster has just two (excellent) EPs until his belt, with 'A Girl Of 13 Summers' going a long way to prove his sonic mastery. Lush synths, blink-and-you'll-miss-em hooks, and (most importantly) a groove beyond his years. A remix for Radiohead quickly followed. Expect big things from Brokenchord in 2012.”

Click here to read our 2012 Preditions in Comedy, Art, Food and Drink and Live Music.

Lowri