Top 10 electronic music albums of 2022: μ-Ziq – Hello

This is the penultimate album in my 2022 countdown. This brings to an end my Top 10 countdown, indeed my countdown of 75+ albums, bar one important final blog post – the number one electronic music album of 2022. So nearly there.

See the full countdown here.

μ-Ziq: Hello (Planet Mu)

There’s a lot to unpack here. There was an EP called Goodbye and now an album called Hello, and there was three-part magical pony prancing, and indeed his other 2022 album Magic Pony Ride (Planet Mu) should be considered as part two of this top ten inclusion. Pardon? You might want to read that again. 

It seems reworking his classic 1997 album Lunatic Harness triggered in Mike Paradinas a period of fertility worthy of post-brain tumour Anthony Burgess or post-brain frying Jack Torrance. Hello is melodic beyond words. There’s waveform-wobbling choirs, moth-bitten acid, junglist breaks suspended in pea soup gloom. It's like raving to drill and bass but the drills are blancmange and the bass is even more blancmange. Paradinas being Paradinas at his most Paradinas. Absolutely wonderful.

Curious track: Magic Pony Ride (Pt​.​3) is a deliriously happy conclusion to his various Pony Rides.

Album feels: Like a fairground with more candy floss stands than it necessarily needs but no-one's complaining.

Cover art: A conceptual evocation of early Warp Records vinyl artwork. 

From another website: Загадочный IDM/DnB-эмбиент от радующего нас уже тридцать лет британского ветерана электронной сцены. Вполне мог бы быть саундтреком к восьмибитной компьютерной игре в жанре фэнтези. (AOTY)

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2022. Read it all here.