Best electronic albums of 2017: a tankful of techno

Not everything can make the top twenty. Here are some techno treats that, although not in the final list of best 2017 albums, are still well worth wiggling your ears at.

Call Super's Arpo (Houndstooth) was great. As I said in my review for Electronic Sound: "Imagine 808 State staggering out of a club at four in the morning, crusted eyes straining at the streetlights. In a rainforest."

Manchester's Claro Intelecto ‎offered up some interesting work on Exhilarator (Delsin) - check the steely bounce of Guardian Angel - while the beatless trance music of Claude Speeed's Infinity Ultra (Planet Mu) was unlike anything else I heard this year. And Com Truise's Iteration (Ghostly International) gave us synth jams for some far-off sunny boulevard.

DB1's junglist Zwischenwelt (Hidden Hawaii) can be best described as "Euclidean meditations", while JASSS's dubby Weightless (iDEAL Recordings) brought plenty of colour to an industrial sound. And this might make it sound terrible, but it really is worth making time for the improvised Rhodes jams on Juju & Jordash's Sis-boom-bah! (Dekmantel).

The rolling techno of Karen Gwyer's Rembo (Don't Be Afraid) comes with a bonus delight: the track titles consecutively question and answer each other. Track 3 is Why Don't You Make Your Bed? Track 4 is It's Not Worth The Bother. Love it. And finally for this section, listen out for the bobbling party techno of Photay's Onism (Astro Nautico) and the dripping, snarling dub techno of Porter Ricks' Anguilla Electrica (Tresor Records).

Plenty more techno to come.





Scroll all of the best 2017 electronic albums by clicking here.