Is it December already? Time for one of those pesky music polls. The RA team has put on our thinking caps, rifled through our records and agonised over our choices to present the first ever RA music poll. Writers and contributors to RA have been arguing about bass drum tones, stage presence and mixing styles for weeks, and this week it's time to announce the results. Roll out the red carpet.

The RA trophies will go to winners across nine categories: top albums, top remixes, top compilations, top labels, top DJs, top producers, top live acts and of course top five RA podcasts. Votes came in from contributors as far afield as Japan, Singapore, Bulgaria, Spain and Israel. The wonders of the Internet will never cease to amaze!

But no surprise, really, because these days the dance music community is a global one. Whether you are out partying each weekend in the club capitals or dancing around the living room at home in the sticks, in 2006 it seems like we've all got access to good music in one way or another, and in that sense we're connected (give or take a trance hotbed or two in India). But while the Internet might be opening up ears to this fantastic music all the time, it brings with it a new responsibility: to choose to give back to the artists. Let's honour them with trophies, but also with cash.

Judging by the quality of the releases this year, 2006 has been great for dance music. The purpose of this poll is to celebrate the best electronic rhythms out there, but we also hope that it might turn you the reader on to something you might not haven’t discovered otherwise. At very least, it might give you a good idea for that difficult last minute Christmas present.

Are you ready for RA's top ten label picks? Winners are inside.

RA Poll: Top 10 labels of 2006

Boo M_Nus

Nah fair play, they churned out alot of stuff this year and apparantly had a lot of wild parties.

That hard-earned discipline by the Germans has to be commended. Well it has been on its own because its music is doing the talking and the walking.

"On a recent trip to Frankfurt,  went to the supermarket and electronic balearic trance music was wafting through the aisles. You just don’t hear that in New York or Sydney."

This quote sums up the culture existing in the German capital, a synonymous concept to Hollywood for film, Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Roman Catholics...

Sure many may argue it is cold, straight-hard beats that are filtered through the speakers yet effective in its own right. Those who have labels behind them, just as the risks that include running one (a label) are numerous yet rewarding when the job in hand is done correctly.

This is testament to their hard work to what pleasures our eardrums, not to mention, a hats-off gesture to the contributors, impartial, realistic, in-your-face objectivity is the way to go.

I should have submitted my vote



sorry

V good article. I must admit i have shaken a leg to heaps of stuff from the above mentioned labels throughout the year.

Will be interesting to see how trends develop in 2007.

By this time next year, Hooj will be numero uno!

Great label in its time.

Would be good to see it return to its former glory days.

How do you define a good label??

is it on innovations
does it have to be independent
is it on its way of showcasing artists, or making them popular
is it quality
???

its really hard to know--

Innervisions, perlon, cadenza (Quality), mobilee, minus, spectral, nrk, kompakt and trapez have delivered quality material, though some more than others.

But I would say Pokerflat has to be the one when it comes to making it for its artists.. I remember pokerflat back in 2001-2002, so different from what it is today. It has manage to grow itself to enormous porportions.. Amazing!


Though if I should name my favourite label all over it has to be Trojan

congratulations to the winner!!!
m_nus deserves the first place with no questions!!

omg... I'm so stupid! I didn't even think bout M_nus when pickin ma favs... I consider that as a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge mistake... well, next year

Once again, great selection...you guys obviously know your dance music, though I'm not sure about Dial and Traum/Trapez, don't think either of them made any serious impact in 2006 (maybe Traum/Trapez by the sheer quantity of releases but not qualitatively). Would make more sense to have Pokerflat, Bpitch or Wagon Repair up there instead...and doesn't anybody find it strange to talk about Kompakt without mentioning Gui Boratto?

quote:

---

posted by DCBPIP
V good article. I must admit i have shaken a leg to heaps of stuff from the above mentioned labels throughout the year.

Will be interesting to see how trends develop in 2007.

---

um, I don't think it will be that interesting. More Minimal, More Minimal and even more Mininal!

its not really worth argueng about but....
maybe im on my own on this really have been feeling simple recs releases all year. not saying they should be top but def above some of those others in there. is planet e in there just cause of 'full clip'? are taum / trapez actually not quiet boring?
hope i dont offend anyone but to me i like minimal as a part of house music not as a separate genre.
2 years from now most of those records will be worth the same as my speed garage records!!!!!!
holla

oh yeah and i meant to say prog house is dead
to me this is obvious
its all just modern european house music these days
take a look at the recent zabiela dj mag cd
not that i would like to classify it but if i did the word prog would not spring to mind.
house / tech / minimal / electro / deep / 'prog' = 1
or am i wrong?

"

quote:

---

to me i like minimal as a part of house music not as a separate genre.

---

Me too. Re: Gui Boratto - i kinda think he didn't live up to the promise of Archipelago this year. There was Like You but the remix was better. He's got an album coming out on Kompakt in 2007 - maybe he'll find form again.

Down with that, Planet E doesn't really belong there either. Prog house ain't dead yet though, just obsolete. It's trying to stay alive by incorporating minimal and electro elements, but it still sounds oh-so-proggy when you stick the standard massive reverbs and delays on those cheesy synth melodies.
The only reason this dinosaur was ever so popular was due to the lack of anything else in dance music that had any sort of capacity to thrill (rather than that hands-in-the-air uplifting vibe you get from funky house and breaks) but now that we're over that, even the DJs and producers who were making it started noting that it's just a bit too exaggerated and mechanical compared to all of the more subtle forms of dance music that we're offered nowadays. It's not gonna die as long as Nick Warren keeps releasing GU compilations with the same frequency I change my socks (yep, sometimes I wear them for a whole week) but it's rarely going to receive any acclaim or recognition and will probably go down significantly in popularity.

whao - theres some good points
i rememeber going to see howells and lawler in the end a good few years (i was going tosee the end rather than those 2 djs) and i found the whole proggys sound so bland sterile and un funky - real white boys with hands in the air music. it just wansnt dirty funky fresh bouncin rockin house music. but you are so right. looks like all involved have moved and and lets be thank full for that. just liatening to larry heard/ mr white 'sun cant compare' tune while typing this. if you dropped this at 4/5/6am after a load of vocaless min/tech house the place would erupt media.phonicarecords.co.uk/181768022258_3.mp3 its all about the past the present and the future on one dancefloor

really nice Larry Heard track. I get frustrated because I'm always looking for good, deep proper house music like this, but the labels are releasing like one track a year so you can't follow the labels well. i wish house like this was more popular in the US so more people would make it.

As for the genre thing, no genre is any good on its own thinking it's the greatest and doesn't need any help from outside. I get bored listening to old school house music all night and I get bored listening to hours of identical minimal records all night. It's the djs who find the connections between all of the seemingly different things that i respect the most. stating the obvious really.

I really would love to know what drugs everyone is on that feels these tracks produce any sort of vibe at parties. I've given most of these techno and electro and minimal flavor-of-the-day DJs a chance it's nothing like the feel-good days of years before. To say that a new breed of labels is good because it's not like something else doesn't say why it's good. I surely hope this reactionary phase will die soon and we'll start saying music is good because it's good. To say that something is good only because it's not prog won't hold with new generations who never got to experience the hazy psychedelic days of deep house, progressive and trance. There were so many amazing house, trance, breaks and progressive tracks this year and it's too bad that  has now pigeonholed itself to be just another robot mimicking the code of other robots. De-program yourself, guys.

quote:

---

posted by love
I really would love to know what drugs everyone is on that feels these tracks produce any sort of vibe at parties. I've given most of these techno and electro and minimal flavor-of-the-day DJs a chance it's nothing like the feel-good days of years before. To say that a new breed of labels is good because it's not like something else doesn't say why it's good. I surely hope this reactionary phase will die soon and we'll start saying music is good because it's good. To say that something is good only because it's not prog won't hold with new generations who never got to experience the hazy psychedelic days of deep house, progressive and trance. There were so many amazing house, trance, breaks and progressive tracks this year and it's too bad that    has now pigeonholed itself to be just another robot mimicking the code of other robots. De-program yourself, guys.

---

Spot on. But then I suppose who are we to dissagree... if thats the pigeon hole they want, it's up to them.

quote:

---

posted by love
I've given most of these techno and electro and minimal flavor-of-the-day DJs a chance it's nothing like the feel-good days of years before.

---

Dear Jaded

Rather than blanket, sweeping dissing of whole genres of music, maybe you'd like to cough up your top ten labels of 2006 (not 1996) so    can see where it's going wrong.

T

To be honest, I think  is reflecting the 2006 trend more than the acctual scene..

What about Cadenza, K7, Sender, Dubsided, Karloff...(?)
And why is get physical 2'nd?? Because of the booka shade album alone??
It cant be because of those shitty mixtapes they have delievered..(?)

quote:

---

Dear Jaded

Rather than blanket, sweeping dissing of whole genres of music, maybe you'd like to cough up your top ten labels of 2006 (not 1996) so    can see where it's going wrong.

T

---

Out of interest what is the policy of RA? What music is  supposed to be supporting? Who is RA? And would  actually care if it was 'going wrong'. As far as I can tell 'RA' has no interaction with any users on this forum.

quote:

---

Out of interest what is the policy of RA? What music is Resident Advisor supposed to be supporting? Who is RA? And would Resident Advisor actually care if it was 'going wrong'. As far as I can tell 'RA' has no interaction with any users on this forum.

---

The policy of    is to support all forms of dance music across the genres. As an information service, we try our best to cover all major releases of interest to the general dance music reader internationally. Half of our magazine section contributors joined    in 2006. As far what gets reviewed, photographed and written about,    likes to defer to their judgement and taste. If you're disappointed    is not covering what you'd like it to cover, you're more than welcome to contribute in whatever way you can to this section. Of course, if you like the site a lot, you're also more than welcome People can use this form to get the ball rolling. We'd love to hear from you. In the end,    is simply the sum total of what people put into it.

If someone has got the skills and volunteers their good time and effort to contribute something, then it will go up onto the front page of RA. The list of contributors to    this year is at the end of all of the poll articles, although some aren't listed because they didn't get their votes in on time Many of the contributors post on the forum too. Editorial staff are Tami Fenwick and Jeremy Armitage, podcast manager is Richard Chinn and the directors of the site are Paul Clement and Nick Sabine. Hello!

i suppose like so many sub genres of the house/techno scene many get stuck in one place too long.........which may explain the demise of the prog bubble.......i dont think that progressive music died completely, rather that certain sounds/tracks had their 15mins and we got sick of them - too many similar djs playing similar tracks (yawn factor quite high)when u look back, very few of those recs last the test of time today........ this could happen again with other styles out there........but i'd agree with that good chap Tiddlerz there was a lot of blandness with prog, too smoothed out - no rawness.

quote:

---

And why is get physical 2'nd?? Because of the booka shade album alone??

---

Yeah...but maybe just as well because of the (amazing) Fuckpony album and some (great) singles by Williams, Chelonis R Jones, Jesse Rose, Audiofly X, Heidi vs Riton, DJ T vs Booka Shade and Djuma Soundsystem. I'm actually quite surprised they're not no. 1 as they've pretty much changed the face of dance music over this year (starting at the end of the last one) by continuously expanding their sound, defying and defining trends and setting a standard for everyone else, unlike M-nus, who aside from Loco Dice's single pretty much stuck to their old formula, be it as good as it may (and it is).

As for the whole prog vs minimal thingy, it's really not worth fighting about. Unless you're talking about manufactured commercial pop, music (and art in general) always had to be innovative as well as good to stand out, and trends or movements have always been there and always will be. Minimal is now and it's not just one genre but affects all existing genres. Soon it might go away and something else will come, which doesn't mean it'd be better. Prog will die and maybe 20 years from now will be revived like electro was a few years ago. C'est la vie.

I'm with tokyoshockgrrl anyhow, tell us what you guys like rather than dissing.

No BPitch Control?!

IMO: the defining label of 2006!

quote:

---

posted by solaris82
To be honest, I think    is reflecting the 2006 trend more than the acctual scene..

What about Cadenza, K7, Sender, Dubsided, Karloff...(?)
And why is get physical 2'nd?? Because of the booka shade album alone??

---

yes k7 and sender did very well this year...ah sender...

OK..

hmmmm??

Sure, sender and k7 sucks

And what about Poker flat???? Tracks like smackman, the dig, big city music and Moesko from Poker flat (released this year) are way supreeme compared to any track released on get physical this year.. Or at least I think so...

i wasnt saying k7 and sender sucks...i like those two labels alot. i bought up all of the welt zwei on sender.
and poker flat is awesome aswell. remember way back to 2004. adjd - believe what a good song

No problem mate, I was just stating my fury with the hyped up labels..

welt zwei is one of my favourite acts all over..

cocoon ?? drumcode ??

yeah!

And what about wagon repair, pokerflat and cadenza..

Get Physical!! The most underground, innovative label in 2006!! SuRe

where d'fak is poker flat?

PLANET E?
OK...the Martin Bulltrich EP was really one of the most important releases of the year (although I think bringing back the Detroit sound is not so revolucionary, and I really hope this trend doesn`t spread around in 2007), but what else was so great about PLANET E?

DIAL?
How can anybody say this label was one of the best in 2006?

whats great about Detroit and what did planet E ever do ?
man oh man........ you're goin to techno hell for that one
blasphemy

OH my dear...
if you carefully read what I posted, you`re gonna see I`m commenting ONLY about Planet E`s releases in the year of 2006.
I am also not denying the importance of Detroit techno in history, just saying that repolishing the Detroit aesthetic is not the evolution I expect from techno music.
Although Carl Craig has done a great job mostly with remixes in this year, his label has not released such breathtaking music (apart from Martin Bulltrich and the Trez Demented EP, both of which I have myself purchased).
So...I dont think I`m going to hell or heaven...maybe I am just going to look for a nice party with cool music. You should do the same.

no, no....... i dont think ur going to techno hell........ i know u were only commenting in terms of 2006 re: Planet E . it was only a joke on my part, hence why i added a smiley.
Craigs' 'angel' (caya dub) is another i like from the label.
yes there's lots of good things goin on in techno right now....... its all a matter of opinion of course............hope u find the party ur looking for

I'd say Get Physical has been doing quality (Elekrochemie - Your My Kind is one of my favorite tracks this year) stuff and is well deserving of being on this list.

But no Boxer Recording (who had a great year in my eyes), Poker Flat (1000 Miles anyone?) , BPitch Control (Orchestra of Bubbles bitches!) , or Wagon Repair (Amazing stuff off of here) makes this the biggest dud of the best of lists for me.

yeah elektrochemie is awsome

quote:

---

posted by love
I really would love to know what drugs everyone is on that feels these tracks produce any sort of vibe at parties. I've given most of these techno and electro and minimal flavor-of-the-day DJs a chance it's nothing like the feel-good days of years before. To say that a new breed of labels is good because it's not like something else doesn't say why it's good. I surely hope this reactionary phase will die soon and we'll start saying music is good because it's good. To say that something is good only because it's not prog won't hold with new generations who never got to experience the hazy psychedelic days of deep house, progressive and trance. There were so many amazing house, trance, breaks and progressive tracks this year and it's too bad that    has now pigeonholed itself to be just another robot mimicking the code of other robots. De-program yourself, guys.

---

Totally agree with u, where all the other genres? they are better than this ketamine music (minimal) as ewan pearson said, where's the well produced MUSIC tracks, now its all like this whole bunch of crap everywhere.

trance is sooooo dull