Electronic Beats has decided to close out the year the best way we know how: by giving our readers a bunch of free stuff. This holiday season, we have a ton of autographed CDs and 12″s from EB favorites, as well as free trips and tickets to our forthcoming EB spring festival season, which will hit Warsaw, Bratislava, Prague, and Cologne between February 27 and May 29. We’ve bundled the items into five separate prize packs, which we’ll unveil over the course of the next week, and we matched each batch with a mix from one of five producers who left an indelible mark on 2014’s cultural fabric. In order to score the bounty, you’ll have to listen to the mix and send us as many track IDs from the set as you can. Whoever IDs the most tracks wins the prizes.

It’ll be hard to look back on 2014 without thinking of Caribou, as it was hard to exist in 2014 without thinking of Caribou. Dan Snaith was a key figure in the EB universe surrounding the release of his latest album as Caribou, Our Love. Weeks before the record dropped in October, we met him in a hotel room in Berlin to discuss the legacy of Sun Ra, and soon after that we freaked out when a stream of his imminent album appeared online. And then, of course, he headlined our EB festival in Vienna.

Snaith has become a central artist in the Electronic Beats family because we’ve always been enamored of his ability to straddle both the indie and dance universes with grace and aplomb. We’re sometimes skeptical about indie artists’ attempts to court dance floor audiences, and vice versa, but with Snaith it never feels forced or clueless, whether he’s composing swirling melodies as Caribou or heads-down house chuggers as Daphni.

The mix we’ve chosen for our Winners of 2014 contest demonstrates Snaith’s ability to blend and move between many different genres. After all, one can cover a lot of ground in 7.5 hours. This set isn’t from 2014, but it’s too epic to ever sound dated. You know the drill by now: send us as many track IDs from this mix as you can, and make sure to include the time the track appears in the mix, and whoever identifies the most wins a batch of autographed CDs and LPs, which are listed below.

Metro Area, fabric.34 (fabric) [CD]
Daphni, Jialong (Merge) [LP]
Four Tet, Beautiful Rewind (Text) [LP]
A TBD James Holden LP
Trust, TRST (Arts & Crafts) [CD]

Submit your Track IDs in the form below. Be sure to include the artist name, track name, and the time it appears in the mix using the format time-artist-title (ie. 15:25-Lynyrd Skynyrd-Free Bird). When you’re done, hit Subscribe. Keep an eye out for more chances to win new prizes throughout the next week, and click here to enter our other year-end contests.

//

Electronic Beats has decided to close out the year the best way we know how: by giving our readers a bunch of free stuff. This holiday season, we have a ton of autographed CDs and 12″s from EB favorites, as well as free trips and tickets to our forthcoming EB spring festival season, which will hit Warsaw, Bratislava, Prague, and Cologne between February 27 and May 29. We’ve bundled the items into five separate prize packs, which we’ll unveil over the course of the next week, and we matched each batch with a mix from one of five producers who left an indelible mark on 2014’s cultural fabric. In order to score the bounty, you’ll have to listen to the mix and send us as many track IDs from the set as you can. Whoever IDs the most tracks wins the prizes.

Like yesterday’s winner, Ben UFO, Skrillex has dominated several consecutive years now—although they operate in parallel spheres. Both of them first became known thanks to some affiliation with unique permutations of dubstep, yet one rose to the top of the heap in the underground and the other became an EDM kingpin. While at first these taste cultures had an antagonistic relationship, a sea change occurred over the past 12 months as Skrillex haters started to admit that he’s actually pretty damn good, which is why 2014 seemed to be an especially important year for the DJ/producer. In February, THUMP US ran a story about coming around to Sonny Moore, and in the following weeks and months, stories with similar sentiments appeared on THUMP UK, Mixmag, FACT, and The Guardian. He also snagged a Rolling Stone cover story around the same time.

Around the same time that the tide started to shift, Moore released his debut album, Recess, without announcing its arrival beforehand. The LP contained cheeky, self-aware track titles like “All Is Fair In Love And Brostep” that seemed to wink at the haters and converts. Later in the year, he unleashed his first collaborative single with fellow hugely-famous DJ Diplo under the banner Jack Ü. For all of these reasons and more, Skrillex seemed to have an especially killer year in 2014.

Unfortunately for us, most of his sets from 2014 come with complete tracklists, so in an effort to find a slightly mysterious one, we present to you Skrillex and Diplo mixing as Jack Ü on Power 106. Whoever sends us the most track IDs in the form below wins the following rowdy LPs, all of which are autographed by the artists:

Dizzee Rascal, Boy In Da Corner (XL) [LP]
Riton, Lost My Mind (Ed Banger) [LP]
James Pants, Seven Seals (Stones Throw) [LP]
Modeselektor, Modeselektion Vol. 02 (Monkeytown) [LP]

Submit your Track IDs in the form below. Be sure to include the artist name, track name, and the time it appears in the mix using the format time-artist-title (ie. 15:25-Lynyrd Skynyrd-Free Bird). When you’re done, hit Subscribe. Keep an eye out for more chances to win new prizes throughout the next week, and click here to enter our other year-end contests.

//

UPDATE: Thanks for participating! We’ve picked the lucky winner and will be mailing out the package in a few days.-

Electronic Beats has decided to close out the year the best way we know how: by giving our readers a bunch of free stuff. This holiday season, we have a ton of autographed CDs and 12″s from EB favorites, as well as free trips and tickets to our forthcoming EB spring festival season, which will hit Warsaw, Bratislava, Prague, and Cologne between February 27 and May 29. We’ve bundled the items into five separate prize packs, which we’ll unveil over the course of the next week, and we matched each batch with a mix from one of five producers who left an indelible mark on 2014’s cultural fabric. In order to score the bounty, you’ll have to listen to the mix and send us as many track IDs from the set as you can. Whoever IDs the most tracks wins the prizes.

Its somewhat misleading to say that Ben UFO was one of 2014’s most hyped DJs, because one could argue the same for 2013. The Hessle Audio label boss has sustained a constant buzz over the past few years, especially among diehard heads with a soft spot for left-field dubstep derivatives and noise-leaning electronics. Tuning in to his weekly radio show on Rinse FM in 2013 seemed to be one of the few rituals that united the international underground, and his list of shout-outs sounded like a roll call that included RA writers, aspiring producers, established DJs, and popular techno-related Internet personas.

His momentum from 2013 propelled him to new heights in 2014; he played over 120 gigs across 32 countries, including stops at major festivals like the Warehouse Project, Dimensions, Weather Festival, Parklife, Free Rotation, Dekmantel, and ADE. The constant gigging helped UFO break through to wider audiences that regard him as something of an ambassador of certified underground sounds, especially the weirder ones. His ascendance corresponded with what feels like a generally increased interest in dance music’s avant-garde fringes over the past year or two, as evidenced by the rising popularity of gritty lo-fi textures and labels like PAN, The Trilogy Tapes, and Berceuse Heroique. It creates a sort of chicken-and-egg scenario: Did Ben UFO make antagonistic dance floor music more popular, or vice versa?

As aforementioned, there are over 100 Ben UFO sets from the past year to choose from, and we’ve settled on one that has stuck with us since it was posted at the end of last summer: his appearance at Dekmantel. If you can help us ID more tracks than anyone else, you’ll score the following autographed CDs and LPs:

Hudson Mohawke, Butter (Warp) [CD]
Mount Kimbie, Cold Spring Fault Less Youth (Warp) [LP]
James Blake, Overgrown (Atlas) [LP]
SBTRKT, SBTRKT (Young Turks) [CD]
Disclosure, Settle (PMR/Island) [CD]

Submit your Track IDs in the form below. Be sure to include the artist name, track name, and the time it appears in the mix using the format time-artist-title (ie. 15:25-Lynyrd Skynyrd-Free Bird). When you’re done, hit Subscribe. Keep an eye out for more chances to win new prizes throughout the next week, and click here to enter our other year-end contests.

//

Electronic Beats has decided to close out the year the best way we know how: by giving our readers a bunch of free stuff. This holiday season, we have a ton of autographed CDs and 12″s from EB favorites, as well as free trips and tickets to our forthcoming EB spring festival season, which will hit Warsaw, Bratislava, Prague, and Cologne between February 27 and May 29. We’ve bundled the items into five separate prize packs, which we’ll unveil over the course of the next week, and we matched each batch with a mix from one of five producers who left an indelible mark on 2014’s cultural fabric. In order to score the bounty, you’ll have to listen to the mix and send us as many track IDs from the set as you can. Whoever IDs the most tracks wins the prizes.

Our second chosen beatmaker, Arca, isn’t a DJ, and he didn’t make any mixes this year, which means this contest is going to work a little bit differently.

For a producer like Arca, it makes sense to bend the rules, because conventions and traditions are like putty in his hands. The Venezuelan producer broke out in 2012 with the Stretch EPs/albums on UNO NYC, which introduced his warped and mangled take on hip-hop and R&B. As was the case with our last pick for this year-end series, PC Music, I never followed Arca’s work very closely—but I didn’t have to, as his body of work has already reached such great heights that even those who don’t seek it are exposed to it. When he released his &&&&& mixtape/album in 2013, my roommate played it on loop in the studio apartment we were renting for the summer. When stalwart experimental outpost Mute unleashed his Xen LP a few months back, Adam Harper got to work on a recommendation for our magazine, which you can read here. And when he played a live show in Berghain a few weeks ago, I tagged along with a friend to see what the fuss was about. Plus, his high-profile production credits on Kanye West’s Yeezus album and FKA twigs’ LP1 (not to mention a forthcoming album from Björk) were hugely popular in wider spheres.

So, instead of sending track IDs from a genuine Arca mix, you’ll have to link us to tunes you think he would include in an imaginary DJ set. If the panel of Arca experts we’ve hired determine that you’ve nailed it better than the rest, you’ll score seven LPs and CDs from his electronica-related peers. Today’s prize package includes:

Jon Hopkins, Immunity (Domino) [LP]
Laurel Halo, Quarantine (Hyperdub) [LP]
Moderat, II (Monkeytown) [LP]
John Talabot, ƒin (Permanent Vacation) [LP]
Trust, TRST (Arts & Crafts) [LP]
Bonobo, The North Borders (Ninja Tune) [CD]
The 20 Jahre Kompakt CD

Submit your Track IDs in the form below. Be sure to include the artist name, track name, and the time it appears in the mix using the format time-artist-title (ie. 15:25-Lynyrd Skynyrd-Free Bird). When you’re done, hit Subscribe. Keep an eye out for more chances to win new prizes throughout the next week, and click here to enter our PC Music contest.

//

Electronic Beats has decided to close out the year the best way we know how: by giving our readers a bunch of free stuff. This holiday season, we have a ton of autographed CDs and 12″s from EB favorites, as well as a free trip to one of the shows in our forthcoming EB spring festival season, which will hit Warsaw, Bratislava, Prague, and Cologne between February 27 and May 29. We’ve bundled the items into five separate prize packs, which we’ll unveil over the course of the next week, and we matched each batch with a mix from one of five DJs who left an indelible mark on 2014’s cultural fabric. In order to score the bounty, you’ll have to listen to the mix and send us as many track IDs from the set as you can. Whoever IDs the most tracks wins the prizes. Submit your track IDs in the form below by January 5 at 15:00 Berlin time, and make sure to tag each tune with the time that it appears in the mix so that we can double check your work. 

The first mix we’ve chosen comes from several of the key players in the divisive London internet label PC Music.

This will surely seem like an trite choice to hardened heads in the world of underground electronic music. Press and chatter about the label became virtually unavoidable for a few months in summer and fall following the release of two singles from Numbers affiliate Sophie. The producer’s one-two punch started with “Lemonade”/”Hard,” a rippling and swung beat that explodes into a saccharine parody of an EDM-tinged pop hook, and hit again a few months later with “Hey QT,” a sickeningly viral collaboration with PC Music boss A.G. Cook that arrived via indie giant XL.

The two monster releases inspired a veritable shitstorm in the music media that was fueled by equal parts fanatic love and frenetic hate. Listeners were either interpolated by the producers’ slick pop sensibilities or repelled by their garish sonic proclivities (chipmunk vocal hooks, EDM synth blasts), sometimes simultaneously. Although neither arrived on the PC Music label itself—the outpost doesn’t release physical records, anyway—the distinctive sound of pixie stick-sweet and über digital art-pop was attributed to Cook’s lab.

For a few weeks, a fierce debate raged about whether PC Music’s style was a shrewd critique of mainstream music and an example of visionary futuristic pop, or an assault on the standards of taste that uphold the electronic underground. Electronic Beats kept quiet on the issue, mostly because none of us felt very strongly about the music either way. We found it more interesting to transcend the polemics and dissect the controversy from an ambivalent vantage point.

To us, the most interesting aspect of the whole debacle was that, in retrospect, this ostensibly ubiquitous phenomenon turned out to be an extremely isolated trend. The SoundCloud clips of “Hey QT” and “Lemonade” have racked up 140,000 and 660,000 plays respectively, but PC Music’s Facebook page has only attracteda bout 10,000 likes. Sure, that’s a considerable amount of fans in the context of the artists and labels we usually pay attention to, like weirdo post-goth anti-dance producers, inaugural releases from furtive Hamburg house collectives, and limited pressings from long-lost Japanese techno legends, and we’re aware that social media isn’t always the best barometer for determining the influence of a cultural product, but to be honest, we expected all the PC Music hype to have amounted to more significant numbers. It’s things like this that remind us that our coveted underground is pretty unknown, even when it seems like its taking over the world.

The mix we’ve chosen was helmed by PC Music’s A.G. Cook, GFOTY, Danny L. Harle, Lil Data, Nu New Edition, and Kane West for DISown radio, and the prize pack includes the following items:

Wild Beasts, Present Tense (Domino) [LP]
Erlend Oye, Legao (Bubbles) [LP]
Washed Out, Paracosm (Sub Pop) [CD]
Mac DeMarco, 2 (Captured Tracks) [LP]
Charli XCX, True Romance (Asylum/Atlantic) [LP]
Lana Del Rey, Born To Die (Polydor/Interscope) [LP]
Mø, No Mythologies To Follow (Chess Club/RCA Victor) [LP]

Submit your Track IDs in the form below. Be sure to include the artist name, track name, and the time it appears in the mix using the format time-artist-title (ie. 15:25-Lynyrd Skynyrd-Free Bird). When you’re done, hit Subscribe. And keep an eye out for more chances to win new prizes throughout the next week.

//