Best electronic albums of 2018: unsafe in the hands of Fat Roland

Time to shoot some more sonic ducks off the funfair wall of sound. Here is another selection of the many albums that didn't make the final top 20 – there are some big names here.

Warp Records' longest-serving act Nightmares On Wax returned with Shape The Future (Warp Records) for a mainstream take on trip hop spiritualism. Jeff Mills turned in a murder-thriller soundtrack on And Then There Was Light (Axis Records), giving us everything from Detroitian stomping to plaintive Rhodes. And considering its experimentalism, there were plenty of little hooks on Yves Tumor’s Safe In The Hands Of Love (Warp Records).

Leon Vynehall finally cracked open a debut album with Nothing Is Still (Ninja Tune), a fascinating ambient reflection on his grandparents. The 81-year-old Jon Hassell evoked strange technological spaces on Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One) (Ndeya). And there was never a dull moment on the box of tricks that was Syclops’s Pink Eye (Bubble Tease Communications) with its pick-and-mix attitude to dance music genres.

If you want something more robust, try these three. Blawan produced club thumpers with bite on Wet Will Always Dry (TERNESC). Grime has never sounded so glistening as on Wen’s EPHEM:ERA (Big Dada). And Helena Hauff was as downright dirty, as ever, on Qualm (Ninja Tune) – no, that’s not your speakers distorting.

I hope you like these little side-visits as I count down the top 20 best electronic albums of 2018. Don't worry, we'll be back on the main tour bus shortly.





Scroll all of the best 2018 electronic albums by clicking here.