Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents five more brilliant albums:
Aleksi Perälä –
Spectrum Analysis
(Repetitive Rhythm Research)
I want to avoid reissues and repackages in my best albums list, but this
triple vinyl compilation of Perälä's Spectrum Analysis minimal techno series
was too much of a treat not to include. The mathematical simplicity of his
micro-house loops are made to move your feet and soothe your brain. The
Finnish Rephlex veteran is so prolific, this entire list could have just been
him. You're only allowed one per end-of-year list, Alekksi. Reader, do
yourself a favour, and spend some time dangling in the laser web of his music.
It's quite something.
Alva Noto –
HYbr:ID
(NOTON)
There will be a few albums in this list that were written for choreography.
You don't want me writhing in my leotard, so you'll just have to imagine the
dance moves that accompany this low-key electronic scree written for ballet
bloke Richard Siegal. Synths hum, static leaks, ambience drones. It's
ASMR in its attention to detail, its little landscapes of electronic
experimentalism building into a sonic experience that seems to occupy every
inch of the room. Its inspiration is astrophysics and cinema, but it sounds
like the atoms between the two.
Amon Tobin –
How Do You Live
(Nomark)
25 years after his debut, Amon is still going. It's testament to his talent
that he continues to be uncategorisable. Buzzing synth cycles meet swooping
strings, end-of-the-pier organ lines spiral over hippy guitar noodlings,
shimmering half-grooves follow breathy folk vocals. It's scratchy and
sketchy, glitchy and groovy, always with a cinematic bent. Albeit a curious
indie film than a sweeping blockbuster. A vision of Sergeant Pepper
appearing in a cloud of spliff smoke.
Anthony Naples –
Chameleon
(ANS)
This New York label owner created his latest album by jamming out the tracks
on real instruments first rather than, say, start with the software or
bashing kittens with a mallet. So where I'd normally expect driving house
music, instead we have something much more organic and experimental. In
these late-nite ambient instrumentals, blues-style drums meet chill lounge
chords and unhurried melodic loops. Its lack of urgency belies the fact this
is a producer at the top of his game. A soundtrack for sleepy parties.
Arovane –
Reihen (12k)
Uwe Zahn is back, and this time he joins Taylor Deupree’s 12k label for a
bunch of noise wafflings produced in early 2021 using a limited range of
gear. The blurb mentions pointillism and etherealism, with Zahn
citing "intermodulated oscillators, amplified and distorted". This is tiny
sound writ large: cascading ambient mirages reflect playfully against the
resonating harmonics of fuzzy analogue synth lines and hammer-dulled piano
chords. It's almost church-like in its stillness.
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