Witness the fitness

So now that the dreaded poll is out of the way, I’ll get on with highlighting some rather excellent moments from the year 2007. Witness the complete transformation of Matthew Dear from darling of the minimal/techno fraternity to pure unadulterated pop star. I imagine he’s being fitted for leather pants right now as i type. In my opinion, Dear has been consistently brilliant for a number of years. Ever since I got my hands on his first album – also a classic – Leave Luck to Heaven, I’ve been hooked. His more minimal/experimental material crops up under his False moniker, and his tougher acid tinged techno can be found in the Audion or Jabberjaw section. The Audion singles on Spectral are a particular career highlight. Dear’s latest album, Asa Breed is truly splendid, and varied. It polarised his fanbase, as techie kids couldn’t really get their heads around it. “What?! Guitar?! On a dance record?!” But the beauty of Dear is that he always had bigger aspirations than most of his contemporaries. The vocal tracks on LLTH were all exceptional and an indication of where his sound was heading. At least he’s had the decency to split his different projects up with several names, so as not confuse the techie kids altogether.

My favourite track on Asa Breed – Don & Sherri – just happens to be one of my tunes of the year. This track really got inside my head, because my better half also took to this album as much as I did. It was one of the few things we managed to agree on this year musically, so it got some heavy rotation in our place. So in honour of her – and as I totally ruined her night last night -here’s the vid for Don and Sherri.

From what I’ve heard, this track also made it onto a commercial in the States or Canada.