Top ten best electronic music albums of 2021: GCOM – E2-XO

Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents another brilliant album:

GCOM – E2-XO (!K7 Records) 

This is Global Communication. Y'know. The ones who did 76:14. No, you're not taking this seriously. Listen to what I'm saying. This is Tom Middleton's solo relaunch of the greatest ambient project of modern times. You're not listening. This is big. This is seriously big. The GC bit stands for Global Communication. Are you hearing how massive this is? Hey! No, come back. Stop running. TALK TO ME. STOP RUNN--

Ahem. Sorry for bothering you. 

As with previous instalments in this best-of list, I had a chance here to revisit my review of this album for Electronic Sound magazine. The review, published a month or two ago, contains the following sentences:

"A Martian space whale mounts the International Space Station."

"A manatee from Jupiter swallows Elon Musk whole."

The review also contains some sensible bits, such as: "Opener Noctis Ultimus is Max Richter orbiting Saturn, stratospherically enriched by the swooning cello of Susie Blankfield. It leads us into the vacuum-packed intensity of XO Transmission #1, written with the late French IDM producer Thomas Denis. With its jagged asteroid belts of sharp, outlandish rhythms, the pairing feels like Westeros invaded by Autechre..."

So that should give you an idea of the tone of this Global Communication reboot. It spans the universes of modern classical and electronic composition with aplomb.

I referred to this in the magazine as "a sister planet to 76:14". I can come up with no greater compliment. A real treat of lockdown was to receive their impressive box set Transmissions, but this truly tops it. 

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