December 11, 2012 – As we know from Groove magazine photographer Ragnar Schmuck's popular photographic series on DJs' living rooms, Germans tend to put a premium on keeping their Musikzimmer tidy. (Well, most of them do. Dominik Eulberg, not so much.) Now, Berlin resident Peaches sings an ode to keeping one's wax sorted: "Me, My Shelf, and I."No, that's not a joke, and it's not a cover of a Weird Al parody of De La Soul. It is, in an oblique way, a kind of product placement: The lyrics were written by Rafael Horzon, a furniture maker known for his understated, modular, stylish-yet-affordable record shelves. I purchased some last year, and I can attest that they rule, although I may be biased, as the guys who came to install them complimented me on my record collection.

December 7, 2012 – Woe be to the artist who releases an album in late November or, worse, December. With critics and retailers hell-bent on year-end recaps those end-of-year albums tend to evaporate into a discursive void. To that end, today's column covers five new or recent albums that were at risk of disappearing into the virtual recesses of my own iTunes playlists. They're mostly "dance music," except when they aren't — offering strange, idiosyncratic shades of club music's vernacular that are all the more satisfying for the head-scratching they inspire. And some of them may make you glad you haven't finished your best-of-2012 list yet.Benjamin Brunn, A Sun Life (Third Ear Recordings) Earlier this year, Benjamin Brunn released a remarkable concept album called Colour Tracks, a 4LP set on multi-colored vinyl designed as an overview of canonical styles like techno, electro, deep house, and ambient.

December 6, 2012 – The Nordic countries may not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of fuzz-drenched psychedelia, but Finland's Kiki Pau look set to do for their homeland's reputation what Sweden's Sabbath-worshipping, kente-cloth-wearing Goat have for theirs.Kiki Pau aren't quite as doomy as Goat; Pines, the Helsinki band's third album, bears more in common with the mossy languor of Dungen, with woodwinds, hand drums, and guitar twang tracing links between pagan rituals under the midnight sun and Indian ashrams half a world away.

December 6, 2012 – After the 2013 Grammy nominations were announced last night, one question began echoing through dance-music circles: "Who the hell is Al Walser?"Left-field picks don't get much further out than Walser, a Liechtensteinian producer and self-described "entertainment mogul" who received a Best Dance Recording nomination for his song "I Can't Live Without You," landing himself in the elite company of Avicii ("Levels"), Calvin Harris ("Let's Go," featuring Ne-Yo), Skrillex ("Bangarang"), and the Swedish House Mafia ("Don't You Worry Child," featuring John Martin). But where those artists' songs represent some of the year's biggest electronic dance music hits, Walser and his single both appear to be virtual unknowns.Walser's Facebook page currently boasts only 1,437 "likes," compared to millions apiece for his competitors. As of 6 a.m.

December 5, 2012 – Until now, Usher's "Climax" has been one of the only truly successful marriages of R&B and EDM — or at least, one of the few fusions that hasn't strangled R&B's essential sensuality with the velvet-rope clichés of Las Vegas' ersatz-Ibiza phase. Now Kelis and dubstep pioneer Skream step up with a new single, "Copy Cat," that makes Usher's ode to Tantric stamina sound, in comparison, like the self-portrait of a one-minute man.If the winking point of "Climax" was that, duh, there was no climax, "Copy Cat" displays an even more exquisite refusal of the money shot. While his group Magnetic Man is no stranger to big-tent bombast, here Skream limits himself to an airy, elegantly restrained beat reminiscent of SBTRKT's "Right Thing to Do," with tuned hi-toms ringing like icicles dripping from the heat of Kelis' breath alone.

December 4, 2012 – The offices of Buraka Som Sistema's Enchufada label went up in flames on Sunday night, label reps reported on social networks today, reducing the entirety of the label's back stock and merch to ashes. Fortunately, there were no injuries."We have no idea how the fire started and we haven't had any word from the police or fire department about it yet," Buraka's João Barbosa (a.k.a. Branko, and the founder of the label) told SPIN. Only two months ago, Enchufada had moved to new facilities in downtown Lisbon. "Because it's mainly an office building and no one actually lives in it, it took a while before anyone alerted the fire department," said Barbosa.

December 4, 2012 – It's hard to believe, but Youngstar's seminal grime anthem "Pulse X" is ten years old this year. This means that grime, once dance music's enfant terrible, is now officially old school. To celebrate the occasion, the new label Liminal Sounds has commissioned a round of new remixes from Visionist, Blackwax, Slackk, Pedro 123, and Elsewhere, all rising bass producers influenced by grime's first icy wave.Originally released by Youngstar's former group, Musical Mob, "Pulse X" arrived as U.K. garage was winding down from its euphoric commercial peak and morphing into a darker, more anxious sound. Stripped down to little more than petulant, overdriven bass bleeps and nervous handclaps, "Pulse X" set the tone for grime's lo-fi, no-frills, almost nihilistic brand of minimalism, and its gaping empty spaces helped usher in the era of the MC as a central figure at raves and on pirate radio.

December 3, 2012 – Massive Attack's Robert "3D" Del Naja has released a new mixtape featuring the late Terry Callier, a former collaborator of the band, reports NME.Callier, a singer and musician who became known in the late 1960s and for his unique fusion of jazz, soul, and folk, and who returned to music after becoming an icon of the acid-jazz scene in the 1990s, died in October at the age of 67. He had recorded with Massive Attack on their 2009 album Hidden Conversations; for the mixtape, Del Naja dusted off 2005 sessions recorded with Euan Dickinson and producer Neil Davidge, longtime collaborators of the band. "It felt right to honour the short time we had with him in Bristol," Del Naja told NME.The 16-minute collage gathers together several songs, all foregrounding Callier's inimitable voice against subtle strings, electronic effects, and the occasional measured rhythm.

December 3, 2012 – The British producer and DJ Maya Jane Coles is on a tear, and what's striking is how sustained her ascendance has been. Her 2010 single "What They Say" was one of that year's biggest deep-house anthems, which led to a packed 2011 calendar of gigs at venues like Space Ibiza, London's Fabric, and Berlin's Panorama Bar. And this year, on the strength of her focused-but-eclectic style of DJing and a wide-ranging mix CD for K7's DJ-Kicks series, she became one of the few representatives of British and European underground to get booked at American EDM mega-fests like Miami's Ultra. The secret to her success is simple: She's got a unique sound, carefully poised between deep house and low-key electronic pop, and she's a formidable presence on the decks.

November 29, 2012 – Never mind what Muse or Taylor Swift may do; you can bet that Morrissey will never, ever go dubstep. Given that, it's only fitting that San Francisco's Blackbird Blackbird (Mikey Maramag) and Grenier (Dean J. Grenier, a.k.a.