We close out 2010 with a series of shout outs to the great and the good that have a special bond with 20JFG.  From guest writers who’ve put out spectacular albums to alumni that have hopped the fence and started their own labels, with this post we salute you because we love you and we kinda’ feel all proud about what you’ve gone and done.  20JFG doesn’t do nepotism.  If we did you’d see through it a mile off for we would present the damning mp3 proof with every post.  So, this isn’t an infected zone of back slapping, this is a collection of music that would have slotted neatly into the other sections (free-form as they are) but we thought, if anyone’s going to cast aspersions on these picks we may as well make a big song and dance about it.  Guns blazing, at it were.

It’s appropriate then that, a year on from his last words for 20JFG (helping us collate last years lists in fact) we begin with Tri Angle records.  Arriving at our black gates in 2007, Robin strung together the gothic folk soundtracks of Luboš Fišer with the necro-bass of early Cassie – a genre agnosticism that we hold very dear in the 20JFG citadel.  Tri Angle began their vinyl life with the Balam Acab 12″ which ends with one of the most beautiful pieces of music we’ve heard all year.

This year was also the first full year of operation for the label owned by half of 20JFG: Hungry for Power.  We managed to get our act together long enough to put out two disparate 12″s from two disparate duos.

Peepholes are Brighton/London pair Nick and Kat who kindly gave us three tracks to form the A-side of the Lair EP which we then invited people to remix for the B.  This is what we said about E*Rocks remix:

E-Rock slows it down into some sort of amaze communion of tribal stomping and holy riffarama which comes across like Gang Gang Dance and Fucking Champs massacring Daft Punk’s Veridis Quo, literally banging.

Peepholes- Lair (E-Rock’s remix) (posted February 22nd)

Water Borders hail from San Francisco and brought along their friend Glasser for our third release: the Akko EP.  We described the Petals remix as:

This is terrifying music. The pure heart of every Giallo disco scene. This is the vision of the killers. Grooving to their own murderous 4/4.

Water Borders – Akko (Petals remix) (posted September 17th)

And finally, we journey to the land of occasional contributor Taraka Larson.  Prince Rama of Ayodyha had been featured in these pages long before Taraka started contributing (indeed their inclusion was how she started contributing) which, in all fairness, should have prepared us for the tidal wave of drum centric synth infused psychedelic landscapes that unfurled from within the Shadow Temple LP.

Prince Rama – Raghupati (New Post)

Which is a wonderful way to end the year.  If you’re in Brighton come party with one of us here.  If you’re not, have fun doing whatever it is you’re doing.  We’ll be back in 2011.

Post script:

We’ve stuck here to people that have written on these dark pages this year or who we’ve worked with so directly it’d be absurd not to include. There are vast, vast swathes of the other lists that — hoping we were not being too presumptuous — we’d consider ‘friends and family’ of this shuffling electronic zine.  We salute you all and eagerly anticipate devouring your 2011 wares…