High Contrast – “Not Waving, But Drowning”

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Lincoln Barrett, better known by the stage name High Contrast, made a storming return to music in 2012 with the release of his sixth studio album “The Agony and The Ecstasy“.

One of our favourite cuts from the album was the dark and moody “Not Waving, But Drowning” which features the operatic vocals of Jessy Allen. High Contrast apparently signed her up to appear on the album after she came up and sung to him outside a nightclub. With a voice like that we’re guessing he found it very hard to say no.

alt-J – “Tessellate”

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It would be unheard of for there to exit, a song of 2012 blog post without the Indie quartet – or rather, Mercury Award Winners, alt-J. “Tessellate“, our favourite song from their debut album “An Awesome Wave“, is a post-modern sponge of various genres and sounds. “Tessellate“, which denotes a pattern of shapes fitting perfectly together, is extremely fitting, as these shapes happen to make noise…(figuratively of course).

WZRD – “Teleport 2 Me, Jamie”

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Sampling the brilliant “Under Your Spell” by Desire (which was popularised by the fantastic 2011 film Drive), KiD CuDi & Dot Da Genius‘s collaborative project known as WZRD released their own take, which they called “Teleport To Me Jamie“.

This is the kind of instrumental that Kid CuDi excels on, so it was no surprise to us about how good it was.

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – “Tapes & Money”

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After “Garden” had been pumping out of everybody’s speakers for the last two years we were expecting quite a lot from Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs‘s new material, and Oxford-based genius Orlando Higginbottom definitely delivered with his brand new single “Tapes & Money“.

The track mixes some pulsating, uplifting synths, with his trademark melancholy vocals whilst all the time building towards an epic, electronic crescendo.

Redlight – “Get Out My Head”

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After releasing two mega-anthems in 2010: “Stupid” featuring Roses Gabor, and “What You Talking About” which included Ms Dynamite, Redlight  was clearly biding his time before unleashing the devilishly clever Get Out My Head on the world.

This is definitely one of those tracks that you have no excuses not to get up and dance to in the club.