30 best electronic music albums of 2021: Jim Noir, Joy Orbison, LNS & Murcof

Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents four more brilliant albums:

Jim Noir – Deep Blue View (Dook Recordings) 

This was a massive surprise. Not in a horse's head in your shopping trolley kind of way. More like a unicorn in your wardrobe kind of way. Is that better? Not sure. Anyways, in Electronic Sound, I described Noir's ludicrously listenable music as "a full-on hug... a Jim Noir boudoir. Think Air covering the Beatles via John Barry." Honestly, this is possibly the most pleasant work on this best-of countdown. Ah, I've thought of a better simile. It's like ripping open your pillow then finding another pillow inside then ripping open that pillow and finding pillows carrying on until the end of the universe. Whilst sleeping with a unicorn. Delightful.

Joy Orbison – still slipping vol. 1 (XL Recordings)

You wait ages for a Joy Orbison debut album and suddenly one comes along at once. Look, it's not like you need to release an album to make a name for yourself. Orbison is electronic music royalty. However, it's astonishing to think that his game-changing debut track Hyph Mngo was released in the decade before last, and it's only now that he's chosen to pop out a long-player. It was a curiously low-key mix-tape-style debut, his floaty club cuts peppered with the voice of family members distanced from him during lockdown. Still, although there wasn't much to get your teeth into, it was extraordinarily listenable

LNS & DJ Sotofett – Sputters (Tresor Records)

What do you get if you cross a Canadian producer and a Norwegian DJ? Great big holes all over Australia! Wait. That's not right. This is the first time these collaborators have produced an album, and the fact it's on the hard-nosed Tresor Records gives a clue as to its content. Hammer-blow bass drums lead the energy, bringing with them twitchy 909 rhythms, abraded acid and lots of science fiction sounds. The best thing is the album's dubwise attitude, with the echo machine working overtime to plump the cold hardware with warm air. Dubby electro fun and no mistake.

Murcof – The Alias Sessions (The Leaf Label) 

Another album that probably should have been in my top ten. This abstract minimalism was originally written for a dance performance, and sees Murcof reuniting with the legendary Leaf label for the first time in 13 years. "Murcof creates cataclysmic ripples from the smallest waveform, like a moth’s wingbeat causing Saturn to explode," I wrote in Electronic Sound before waffling about "gaseous glitches" and "transient arcs" and an "ominous gong, rusted piano over supercharged static". For an act so obtuse to mainstream ears, it's incredible how listenable this is. Arguably Murcof's best work for a long time.

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021. Read it all here.