Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Soulwax crank up their happiness machine

This is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

Soulwax: All Systems Are Lying (Deewee / Because)

Here's another Top 20 Banger – one of my absolute favourite electronic music albums of 2025.

Nuclear oblivion is upon us, the government is going to deport trans people to the moon, and all the CEOs are snogging the wrong people at Coldplay concerts. The world has gone to hell in a handbasket. But all will be okay because Soulwax are back.

This is unashamedly a pop album. “Pop” in the sense of music style, and “pop” as in a graphical punch that hits you between the eyes. A Lichtenstein BAM! There are plonky pianos, daft synth fills, giddy bongos, sparky acid, and a track called Constant Happiness Machine.

Just listen to that wriggly acid bass on the dizzy title track All Systems Are Lying. It’s massive. It’s like Daft Punk on a week-long bender. It’s like Giorgio Moroder farting down a plughole. It’s like… wonderful.

The Dewaele brothers describe this as “a rock album made without any electric guitars.”  Like Led Zep with zaps. And yet despite its flairs and flourishes, there’s a simplicity at the heart of Systems. Modular synthesisers, live drums, some studio gubbins, but not a whole lot more. It’s the ideas that keep things busy.

The early Romans didn’t have a name for January and February. Do me a favour. During the dizzly misery of the coming winter weeks, during that long characterless slush before the flowers start budding again, pop this album on your record player and/or streaming device. Add a burst of Soulwax colour to your grey life.

Hell can keep its handbasket. It's just nice to have Soulwax back.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Rainy Miller finds his catharsis in Joseph

This is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

Rainy Miller: Joseph, What Have You Done? (Fixed Abode)

Welcome to my top 20 favourite electronic music albums of 2025. These top 20 bangers are in a randomly selected order. No countdown, no number one, just 20 outstanding slabs of bleepy brilliance.

First to pop out of my tombola of top tunery is Preston's Rainy Miller. His latest album's name indicates the concept at work here: Joseph, What Have You Done? Overtones of Christ’s words “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Joseph is almost uncategorisable. Sometimes it’s industrial noise, sometimes is folk whimsy, it’s confessional and reflective yet lacerated with Miller’s harsh “Northern gothic” aesthetic. And lacerated is the word.

The best representation of the yin and yang of this albus his Vengeance, his collaboration with High Vis vocalist Graham Sayle. For this piece, a pop hook vocal insists on holding its footing despite every attempt to get knocked down by a powerful avalanche of distorted drums. Think razor-wired Modeselektor. It’s brilliant.

There’s grave digging, A-roads, self-destruction, a Derbyshire dam, the documentary Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus, a crucifixion witness,  and tracksuited teens. None of this is random: it all flows from the very gut of Miller. In my Electronic Sound interview with Miller in May 2025, he called the album a “catharsis”. Something that he had to do.

Don’t be fooled. This is not a religious album. It is about eternal themes and storytelling. And making a crap load of noise that is unlike anything else in this Top 20 Bangers list. Rainy, we see what you’ve done.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: here's what I found in the Upside Down

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

We have almost finished the first tier of the best electronic music of 2025. One final summary blog post before we go to the Top 20 Bangers of the year. I say "we". It's me doing the work. You're just sitting there in your balloon-back armchair scoffing Pringles with half an eye on your Snapchats. This lot is filed under 'assorted', which is terribly helpful of me.

Anthony Naples – Scanners (ANS)

The sixth album from Incienso label boss Naples is a neat affair. Glorious head-bobbing house music, deceptively complex with a lot of production tweakery beneath those chilled vibes. In fact, the creation of Scanners followed an abandoned album edit with much bigger floorfillers. I'm glad we got this mellower cut.

Barry Can’t Swim – Loner (Ninja Tune)

A second album from the most summery, shiny DJ this side of the Shetlands. He's like Bonobo doing the Chemical Brothers, and whereas tracks like his O'Flynn collaboration Kimpton aren't ploughing new ground, it's all so very satisfying. A thoroughly entertaining listen. Barry's gonna work it out.

Carrier – Rhythm Immortal (Modern Love)

Modern Love spoil us yet again with a debut album of pitch-black ambient dub cuts. Found-sound clanks and clunk reverberate within expansive pools of sinister frequencies. It's like Photek has got lost in the Upside Down. The rhythms are truly immortal. There's an appearance from Voice Actor, who can be found elsewhere in this year's Best of 2025 lists.

Ehua – Panta Rei (3024)

I love the start of this album. Its shuffling, tentative stumbles make it feel it's crawled out of a London manhole in preparation for a chaotic night out full of skewed, tangled club tunes and lolloping electro. It's like she's lovingly assembled a music studio, then tipped everything out of the window: one of the most original albums in this year's roundup.

Introspekt – Moving The Center (Tempa)

Dubstep is alive, and it takes the form of this in-your-face debut album from Introspekt. I've tested the bass on my wub-ometer and it passes muster. She counteracts the shivery UK bass feelings with well-selected vocals: a gasp here, a scrap of lyrics there. "Dubstep" is reductive for such a sharp and varied selection: all of bass music is here.

Marie Davidson – City Of Clowns (Deewee)

I'm going to be controversial here. I think every major city should be home to at least fifteen thousand clowns. Clowns at the bus stops, clowns in the vape shops, clowns on yer mam's downstairs toilet. Clowns everywhere. Davidson's latest album is a tremendously fun parade of characterful electro and frisky dance pop. With Soulwax on production, this is a corker.

Nick León – A Tropical Entropy (TraTraTrax)

What do you do after winning Resident Advisor's best track of 2024 (for Bikini)? You produce this hazy collection of wonky dembow pop. Grab your suntan and your best flip flops: the South Florida vibes are strong. He's not alone in this party atmosphere: there are guests galore, including 96 Back, DJ Python, Loraine James and Chanel soundtracker Ela Minus. 

TurquoiseDeath – Guardian (Phantasia)

The bluey-green one completes his Univa trilogy with a transportive sweep of golden drum 'n' bass. It evokes the smokiest and most elevated moments of the genre, and isn't afraid to lay on a phat four-to-the-floor either. The album also represents the death of the TurquioseDeath project – I hope he resurrects himself, turquoise, maroon, puce or otherwise.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: saw waves, queer life, and a steamy greenhouse

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

Here are some experimental highlights of 2025, and you can tell these albums are experimental because their titles contain words like "vortex" and "tranquilizer". This next bit will only make sense after you've read the text below. Altogether now: Bring our your dead! Bring out your dead!...

Aleksi Perälä – Vortex 1–4 + Cycles 0 (AP Musik)

If you ask Google how many albums Aleksi Perälä released in 2025, Google will explode. Fact. On New Year's Day, he released the understated Cycles 0. Then in the second half of the year, he released 15 albums all called Grace. The series mapped an electronic geography, from simple saw waves to Indian percussion. The whole thing was enchanting and you need Perälä in your life.

Dale Cornish – Altruism (The Death of Rave)

"Bring our yer dead! BRING OUT YER DEAD!" This disconcerting drawl is an uncomfortable start, which is good, because this is not a comfortable listen. Cornish gives us an album that is DIY in production and intention. The nihilism of its broken and rusty half-rave music is bravely undercut by his lysergic vocals full of truth about queer life.

Hieroglyphic Being – The Sound Of Something Ending (Mathematics)

In anyone else's hands, this would have been a deep house album. The Chigaco producer quickly sends things sideways with electro-jazz, horn-laden microhouse and psychedelic EBM. It feels like he's commandeered a studio, planked over the doors and windows, then poured boiling oil on anyone else who dare approach its boundary. Entertaingly original.

Holden & Zimpel – The Universe Will Take Care Of You (Border Community)

Border Community's James Holden is always up to something, like a disobedient child or a naughty poodle. He goes all kosmiche on this partnership with folk musician Waclaw Zimpel. This builds on their Long Weekend EP from a few years ago, and it's jazzy, loose, carnivalistic and earthy. What will he get up to next? Someone keep an eye on him.

Los Thuthanaka – Los Thuthanaka (self-released)

What did I just listen to? Bolivian-American brothers reimagine music of the Andes. The result is uncategorisable: it's scratchy and shuffling, but also epic and hysterical. Someone called it a trance album, but that's true only in so far as its exuberant clattering and deceptively subtle dynamism will induce a kind of psychosis.

Oneohtrix Point Never – Tranquilizer (Warp Records)

Mr Never is back doing his thing, this time plumbing sounds pulled from ancient sample CDs and CD-ROMs featured on the Internet Archive. Tranquilizer drags us into a steamy greenhouse of organic sounds, bursting with heady colours and with frequencies sprouting all over the place. It's all so precise, though, and intoxicating throughout.

rRoxymore – Juggling Dualities (!K7 Recordings)

This latest selection of 2025 albums have defied categorisation, and rRoxymore's third album is no exception. Opener Am I Human? could have been lifted from Global Communication's 76:14, while elsewhere it feels like motorik Detroit techno, library music, or jazzy coffee table electronica. She never takes an eye of melody.  

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025:cyborging friendships with a bunch of techno tunes

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

Here is another Best 2025 Albums summary, grouped under the general heading of techno. I'm not sure it's the done things these days, what with colour TV and air fryers, but you really should be swinging your pants to every one of these albums.

Charlotte de Witte – Charlotte de Witte (KNTXT)

In 2025, Berghain DJ de Witte reached the peak of her powers. Lashings of critical acclaim and finally a debut album of floor-fracturing room-rattling bangers. Thudding acid techno, aerodynamic power mantras, colossal build-ups, tribal take-downs. And that constant slamming bass rhythm. I'm already regretting not including this in my final 20 albums.

DJ Bone – DJ Bone XXXV: The End of Never (Further)

Detroit comes on strong in this no-nonsense funky techno jams arising from his Further club night. Play They Flew Away. That beat is off the chain, that boss drum insistently nutting you in the face. It's full of soul too, and his work has been bigged up my Laurent Garnier and Carl Cox. Another chapter and another success for Detroit.

Hieroglyphic Being – Dance Music 4 Bad People (Smalltown Supersound)

Jamal Moss has two albums in my end-of-year list, in two different subgenres. This collection, which sees him joining the Smalltown Supersound label, is inspired by disappointment with the dancefloor. Good job, because there are few straight lines in this splashy, broken techno. An inventive and entertaining addition to his catalogue.

Paul St. Hilaire – w/ The Producers (Kynant Records)

The dude also known as Tikiman brings us a dubwise selection of foggy sound system techno. He's used a different producer on each track, including Timedance label boss Batu. He really is w/ the producers. St. Hilaire's voice echoes and ricochets throughout, adding to the whole nocturnal flavour of things. One to play as the daylight fades.

Sandwell District – End Beginnings (Point Of Departure)

After many years away, Regis and Female reform Sandwell District for a more human take on their usually severe techno. Amid those clockwork drum loops are screes of mechanical harmony. It's a cracking listen, and surprisingly listenable for a new audience. Spacey final track The Silent Servant is dedicated to their bandmate John Juan Mendez.

Slikback – Attrition (Planet Mu)

I think Slikback is my favourite music artist named after a hairstyle. His arrival on Planet Mu is noisy, wonky, playful and sometimes terrifying. Staccato rhythm onslaughts, strobing drum meltdowns, malfunctioning robot clankery, and hyper-footworkery that nearly made my trousers fall of. Not. A. Dull. Moment.

Valesuchi – Futuro Cercano (Discos Nutabe)

That last record was from Poland via Nigeria. Now we jet to Brazil, Chile and Portugal for the very international DJ Valesuchi. Her second album was made by "cyborging my friendship with the machine", which is a clever way of saying: a bunch of squiggly computer music, busy and bobbling beats, and cheeky melodic circuitary. It's like LFO gone YOLO. Ace.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: poking my eyes out with a stick

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

I hope you're enjoying my end-of-year blog posts. There are a few more summaries to come, and then we can get into the Top 20 Bangers. This selection can be loosely labelled IDM, or armchair techno, or Braindance, or whatever the heck you want to call it. Oh and some of it is electro, not IDM. And some of it is... oh never mind, just get reading.

Blackploid – Cosmic Drama (Central Processing Unit)

German producer Blackploid has had a lot of fun with his latest album. Flirty drum machine patterns get hot and sweaty with growling basslines, with plenty of digital dramatics, Imagine a bunch of robots short-circuiting on the dancefloor. A touch of Drexciyan humanity in the enjoyably robotic world of Central Processing Unit.

Bogdan Raczynski – Slow Down Stupid (Disciples)

He's featured multiple times in my end-of-year lists. This is meant to be a slowed-down version of his 2024 album You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever. So skippy noodlings become woozy soup, and everything becomes a bit of a ketamine entity. It's how I felt in my maths exams. Weirdly enjoyed learning the numbers and stuff, but the exams turned my brain to mush.

The Flashbulb – Papillon (self-released)

Let's pop Stateside to see what The Flashbulb is up to. This short album is a rather fluffy addition an otherwise intricate catalogue of works. The beats skip merrily, the synth lines dance about t he keyboard, and the nu-jazz vibes style it out with confidence. It's neat stuff and probably a good entry point for people wanting to get into IDM stylings.

µ-Ziq – 1979 & Manzana (Balmat)

These pair of Mike Paradinas albums were released a week apart, so I'll deal with them with one entry. This is µ-Ziq in contemplative mode, in with his signature melting-clock chords are even drippier than normal. Manzana in particular has some serious heroin haze, and if some of this work isn't used in horror soundtracks, I will poke my eyes out with a stick. Or a µ-Ztick.

Ship Sket – InitiatriX (Planet Mu)

In music's underbelly is the belly button itself: it's moist and mucky, and exactly where we find Manchester producer Ship Sket's debut album. Frequencies collide in this dark mix of grime, shattered techno and distended footwork. Listen to Casting Call's caustic EBM collapse into a circuit-bent piano disaster. You want to look away but you can't.

Wagon Christ – Planet Roll (De:tuned)

Hallelujah! Christ has returned! It's classic Luke Vibert, which, for those new to his formula, consists of party beats, end-of-the-pier synth wibbles, and a phalanx of playful vocal samples. "Bitch!" say the samples on Bitch. It's doesn't break new ground, but why should it? Vibert doing Vibert is a joy, and mid-album track Acid is up there as one of his bestest ever tunes

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: a carnival of ghosts and a lake of haddock

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

This is a summary of ambient albums released in 2025. For those unaware of ambient music, it's basically like normal music but everything's floating in space, or floating in water, or floating in spacewater, which is a kind of water I just made up. Enjoy.

Biosphere – The Way of Time (AD 96)

Veteran ambient producer Biosphere, Mr Sphere to you or me, dug into the past for his epic new album. It's inspired by twentieth century writer Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and his compositions take in a Beethoven string quartet, a 1951 radio adaptation and his usual rack of analogue gear. The vocal samples will give you goosebumps.

Debit – Desaceleradas (Modern Love)

Using old Sonido Dueñez DJ mixtapes, Debit brings us an album of cumbia rebajada, a Mexican subgenre of music in which everything is slowed down. Woozy. Lethargic. Flipping well spooked out. It's perhaps less haunting than her previous Modern Love output, and the closing title track sounds almost carnivalistic. Well. If the carnival was full of ghosts.

Loscil – Lake Fire (Kranky)

Nearly 400 million square kilometres of land burn in wildfires every year. It's a terrifying figure. So here comes Loscil with an album "celebrating life while the world burns". He presents the smoky drones of Ash Clouds, and the suffocating fumes of Candling. This is slow ambience, beautiful in its completeness, and so very hot, hot, hot.

Ø – Sysivalo (Sahko Recordings)

This is Mika Vainio's final work as Ø, finally completed eight years after his death. The title comprises the Finnish words for dark and light. There are plenty of shadows and shiny bits in its numerous short ambient tracks. Brooding and pensive, stardusted and heavenly. "Vainio's last word," says the press release. No, there's a lump in YOUR throat.

Pye Corner Audio – Lake Deep Memory (Quiet Details)

More grandiose ambient divination from the UK's most cinematic producer. This one was inspired by Guatemala's Lake Atitlán, the deepest lake in Central America. And it sounds like that lake. Extravagantly expansive, impossibly deep, gracefully sweeping and endlessly rippling And full of haddock. Probably. 

Steve Hauschildt – Aeropsia (Simul Records)

I don't think ambient music is allowed to have bangers, but this is as close as it gets. Hauschildt calls his seventh full-length album an ode to Chicago – he recently moved from there to Georgia (the country, not the state nor the hamlet in Cornwall). It's full of classical and house oomph. like Kiasmos if they were made from cotton wool. Fluffy bangers.

Whatever The Weather – Whatever The Weather II (Ghostly International)

Loraine James' introspective pseudonym is back. Again, all the tracks are temperatures, ranging from 1°C (brass monkeys, mate) to 26°C (ice baths in the supermarket car park). There are swathes of textures, homely chords, evocative chattering samples, and the occasional burst of popping and spotted micro-rave. All that an a brilliant opening line: "It's a bit chilly, innit."

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: the Chuckle Brothers, hotdogs and ketchup

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

I have this summary of 2025 albums filed under "assorted beats". I really should sack my filing clerk. It goes to show that labels are ultimately meaningless and should be avoided wherever possible, especially for a queer ENFP WASP like me. Oh. Wait...

The Bug vs Ghost Dubs – Implosion (Pressure)

This is a to-me / to-you alternating album, which is as far as the Chuckle Brothers comparison can go. The Bug is in a right huff, all grimacing bass synths and gasping ambience. Stuttgart's Ghost Dubs sounds even more subterranean: his contribution is so dubby and minimal, it's hardly there. Recommended as a headphone listen, preferably while carrying a piano up a staircase.

DJ Babatr – Root Echoes (Hakuna Kulala)

Welcome to raptor house, a genre of music composed by dinosaurs. Oh wait. That doesn't sound right. These frenetic club cuts, collated over the past couple of decades, are the sound of the Venezuela's club scene with massive chunks of UK rave and Eurodance thrown in for joyous measure. Sirens and screams and celebratory drums abound.

Ikonika – SAD (Hyperdub)

It's fifteen years since I first wrote about Ikonika ("more pow than Batman"), but I think this is the first time I've heard a vocal-led album. The beats are as smoky as ever, skipping through sub-genres like a boss, but the addition of her voice has led things in a - dare I say - poppier direction. A thing of beauty that, if released earlier in the year, may have ended up higher on my list.

Low End Activist – Airdrop II (Peak Oil)

The strangled rave calls that open this album sum things up. This is hardcore, but it's throttled to within an inch of its life. A bouncy laser bass drift aimlessly amid spacious ambience, junglist rhythms struggle to lift off amid ghostly synths, a fuzz bass is left on its own to slowly die. This is the dancefloor, but underneath the floorboards where there's dampness and cobwebs and all of rave's darkest secrets.

Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke – Tall Tales (Warp Records)

From my Electronic Sound review: "Mark Pritchard of Global Communication fame doesn’t just illuminate as Yorke’s foil: he throws fireballs of blinding light. His analogue electronics stutter and spark, with ambience flowing like lava. Yorke appears as an addled narrator dragged, squinting and startled, into Pritchard’s midday sun."

Rian Treanor & Cara Tolmie – Body Lapse (Planet Mu Records Ltd)

I saw this performed live last year, and it was as fascinating as it was uncomfortable. Tolmie chatters and vocalises and yanks sounds from every inch of her body. Treanor accompanies this with machine-gun percussion and squirls of manic electronics. Incongruous Diva sounds like Bjork's Army Of Me on the other side of an apocalypse. 

Verses GT – Verses GT (LuckyMe)

I love a collaboration. Orbital and Kneecap; Leftfield and Lydon, hotdogs and ketchup. This meeting by Jacques Greene and Nosaj Thing is proper supergroup territory. Greene brings the melody, Thing brings the darkness, and somewhere in this middle is this pleasing, melancholic creation. Vocals from the likes of George Riley and Tyson add an r'n'b sheen.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: some actual tip-top, clubbing jam fair

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

As a house music hit once said, "house, house, ha-ha-ha-house". Probably. Here is a summary of some of the notable house music albums of 2025. And as usual, that definition is very loose. Some of them might be outhouse music. Or shed music. Or lean-to music if you're old fashioned. House-ish.

DJ Koze – Music Can Hear Us (Pampa)

Despite the scientific inaccuracy of its title, this is a likeable collection of folky house music. A flute tooting over paddy drums, dreamy vocals over wide glittering chords, a bit of drum 'n' bass, and Damon Albarn singing about a reconciled love over an amapiano shiffle. Koze did a DJ Kicks album once, and this feels very much in that vein.

Charles Webster & The South African Connection – From The Hill (Stay True Sounds South Africa)

From a sizzling Cape Town comes a collection of sunny deep house tunes, with oodles of jazz asides and downtempo loungings. All very pleasant. There are tonnes of collaborators, including Daev Martian, Atmos Blaq and FKA Mash, who I assume is FKA Twigs' gloopier cousin. Here's a fact: it was recorded in Nelson Mandela's former prison.

K-Lone – sorry i thought you were someone else (Incienso)

I'm still playing K-Lone's 2020 album Cape Circa. This is an equally exotic offering, spilling over with warm club tunes. The attention to detail is fascinating: the sprightly beat on Fauna, for example, is so crystalline. Loss and grief underpin its themes, and the title reminds me of the time I waved at someone in a car park by mistake then felt hot embarrassment for a week.

Kaytranada – Ain't No Damn Way! (RCA)

This Canadian producer says his album is "strictly for workouts, dancing and studying" so excuse my while I get my spandex disco pants and/or spandex mortarboard. I love this album. Head-nodding house beats dominate, but there are nods to rave, disco and 1990s Euro-techno. Sampled acts include J Dilla, Tangerine Dream and TLC. Boy, these pants are chafing.

Lindstrøm – Sirius Syntoms (Feedelity Recordings)

This trickily-titled album is a perfect introduction to one of the most positive producers on the planet. Cheerful doesn't even cut it. He makes Roger Hargreaves' Mr Happy look like Strong Sad from Homestar Runner. Sparky disco, acidic house, cheery bass grooves. Plus the best track title of this entire blog series: Sharing An Orange (With Omar S On The Train From Minehead To London).

Ploy – It's Later Than You Think (Dekmantel)

Now we're talking. To exactly quote Tyres from Spaced, this is "tip-top, clubbing jam fair. It was a sandwich of fun on ecstasy bread, wrapped up in a big bag like disco fudge." It's banging and breathless; exactly what should be pouring out of the dancefloor speakers at 2am. Another brilliant Dekmantel release.

Real Lies – We Will Annihilate Our Enemies (Tonal)

Real Lies do Real Lies better than anyone else, and that's no lie. Where would we be without Kevin Lee Kharas' likeable wafflings, and the emotive nostalgia of their expansive club production. At its heart, it's a love album. As he says on the Bicep-ish Towards Horses, "If all people were the same, I’d have no-one else to play with." Aaaaw, lads.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: new bowels, my uncle's moustache, something about Berghain

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

Blawan – SickElixir (XL Recordings)

I have seen Blawan live a few times, and on each occassion, I had to contact the NHS and order new bowels. SickElixir has rightly been lauded for its distortion and bass badness. It's powerful beyond belief. It's like one of them grime acts have done a big dump not only over your home speakers, but over reality itself. I suspect it's going to be much copied.

Daniel Avery – Tremor (Domino Recording Co)

When my Uncle Augustus grew a moustache, I hardly recognised him. With a gang of vocalists leading the charge, including Alison Mosshart from The Kills and Walter Schreifels from Rival Schools, this is almost unidentifiable as an Avery album. I'm not entirely convinced, although it's very well done, and my fictional Uncle Augustus loves it.

Djrum – Under Tangled Silence (Houndstooth)

I wasn't expecting this. Djrum's third album leads with flowing piano, melodic ambience and a generous splatter of sinuous drum programming. I mean, he's plonked the piano before, but this is giving Kiasmos-levels of classical music energy. He's still got the grimy bass and acidic techno, but this is pushing the piano up the staircase more than before.

FKA Twigs – EUSEXUA (Young)

Here comes the new album from FKA Twigs or,  to give her her full name, Felicia Kenneth Alabaster Twigs. It's a reliably entertaining mix of airy electronica and pop vibes. She gains electronic music points because the influence of producer Koreless is evident – in fact, Koreless did the production on Drums of Death while flying to Berghain. Hardcore.

Nazar – Demilitarize (Hyperdub)

It's over to Angola for a truly unsettling album inspired by pandemic illness. No, wait, it's better than it sounds. This is a singular sound comprising what I assumed had been confident r'n'b tunes before they were smothered in a gauze of audio unease. The muttering. The scuzz. The broken production. It's like a glitzy dancefloor covered in insects... in a good way.

Polygonia – Dream Horizons (Dekmantel)

Going out of the house naked, flying naked through the air, fighting naked ninjas while naked – we've all had vivid dreams. On this latest album, Polygonia lays out a series of dream sequences with playful and pin-sharp techno. The staccato percussion tickles, and at one point a clipped vocal loop looks set to hypnotise you into unconsciousness. 

Surgeon – Shell~Wave (Tresor Records)

YES. Finally. An album with a tilde in the title. Do you know how long I have been waiting for this? Praying to Santa every morning for a tilde album. Never mind the mathematical symbols, Sheeran, what about the chuffing tilde? Anyhoo. This is Surgeon being brilliant Surgeon. Rowdy bangers, razor-sharp machinery. Even the ambient Dying feels like it's going to tear your face off. Delicious.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: deeply dubby about Neapolitan ice cream

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

My 2025 highlights continue. Here are bunch of albums I have categorised under "experimental", which is a cop-out way of saying "assorted genres but let's not get too hung up on labels, yeah?". Despite my laziness, it is still an excellent summary, and you should get these albums down your ears.

Adrian Sherwood – The Collapse Of Everything (On-U Sound)

Despite its apocalyptic title, Sherwood's first solo album since 2012's Survival & Resistance is an uplifting affair. It's got lashings of deeply dubby delights, more than a few jazzy soiree moments, and Brian Eno pops up on production duties for one track. The most fun moment is Spaghetti Best Western, which I guess is better than a Brown Rice Britannia.

Barker – Stochastic Drift (Smalltown Supersound)

It's nice to have Barker back for a second album. His music is sometimes called "post-club", which means chilled dance music rather than an enthusiast organisation dedicated to the Royal Mail. He keeps thinks clean and minimal, shifting and shiny, and thoroughly emotional throughout. The very definition of a headphone listen.

In Transit: In Transit (Felt)

Oh hello there. Dave Huismans appeared in two previous end-of-year blog posts: as his alias A Made Up Sound in 2016, and as 2562 way back in 2019. Nice to have him back. This album has only just come out, and develops his ex_libris work into an even deeper, duskier ambience. You'll get lost in the smokiness and the speckles of it all.

Josef Tumari – Dubovaya (DSL System)

All the way from Tashkent comes a killer collection of ambient dub, slamming house and spiritual breaks. Sublimation Collective's Josef Tumari gives us a real pick 'n' mix here, but that's part of the charm:. Once a groove lock in, it's truly transportive: his sounds and vocal use is never less than hypnotic. I'm off to check some Uzbek playlists.

Lyra Pramuk – Hymnal (7K!)

Techno, folk and classical music collide in a tasty Neapolitan ice cream mix for Pramuk's second album. The building blocks for this album are wild: a German classical music quartet, the poet Nadia Marcus, the I Ching, the artist Jenna Sutela, slime moulds, and some nifty CDJ work. Yes, I said slime moulds. Yet again, her vocal work is on point.

Powell – We Do Recover (Diagonal Records)

We do indeed recover. This album was collated over an eight-year period, finally achieving form after Powell lost a friend to suicide. This tragic loss forms one of the themes here, and it feels like an experimental producer working things out in real time. There are moments of contemplation, of grief, of darkness, of wonky piano and broken circuits.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: one drummer leaping and a dubby Welsh ambienteer

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

Here are some picks with an ambient vibe, or thereabouts. Light up a doobie, set fire to your beanbag, and let the fumes send you to a blissful nirvana. (Don't actually do that. It's dangerous.)

Cosey Fanni Tutti – 2t2 (Conspiracy International)

There's something super-epic about Cosey Fanni Tutti's third solo album. The ritualistic choir in the opening track, those pulsing drones moving everything forward, the distended mourning of Stolen Time. When things slip into organic ambience in the second half, you can still feel the thrum of the drones. A big album with big music even when it's bring small.

Jeremy Hyman – Low Air (JH Recordings)

A drummer leapfrogs his drum kit for a debut solo album. Although it's not as drummy as you'd expect. This occasional Animal Collective collaborator has dialled down his, er, dials. The rhythms ripple rather than pulse, and sparkling washes of rich ambience provide the energy. There's a track called Clear Chords, which sums things up nicely.

Mark Van Hoen – The Eternal Present (Dell'Orso Records)

Locust was one of the first electronic music acts I saw live, and I was not ready for it. It hurt my brain (I was naïve and very wrong). This latest work from a post-Locust Van Hoen, taken from many years of archive recordings, meanders from swelling ambience to buzzy four-to-the-floor techno. There's even a Slowdive cover. And a detuned ambient track called Xmas (take THAT, Kylie).

Purelink: Faith (Peak Oil)

Note to be confused with Addicted to Bass writers Puretone. In fact, this is diametrically different. I shouldn't have mentioned it. Sorry. Faith is a big old gaseous ball of cosy ambience, with Basic Channel instincts, bursting with sunshine and beauty. Even cameo vocalist Loraine James sounds chilled. Lovely beyond all loveliness. Not to be confused with PureGyms.

Shed – Towards East (The Final Experiment)

Here comes album full of ambience, but this one is very different. Yes, there's lilting on Shed's sixth album. The lilting is locked in, don't you worry. There are also junglist loops that scribble into your brain, the obligatory dub techno scowls, and chords so portentous, you'll be looking up "portentous" in a dictionary.

Voice Actor & Squu – Lust (1) (Stroom)

Voice Actor's debut album Sent From My Telephone was 108 tracks long. Their collaboration with dubby Welsh ambienteer Squu is a sensible length, and best of all is it's dubby and rhythmic. Clever use of wonky vocals add so much here, and even spooked me out on the haunting nekk. The darkness is really quite beautiful, putting the "aaaaah" into ASMR.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic music albums of 2025: an introduction

I have no doubt that your favourite moment of 2025 was busting the 6-7 move with the new Pope while on a Jet-2 holiday (£200 for a conclave of four). However, my best moment was all of the excellent electronic music that was released throughout the year.

It's time for my annual best-of list. All the bleepy music highlights of 2025. I've been doing this list annually since 2009, with the exception of my stroke year of 2023 when my brain was all wonky. Let's set out some ground rules using bullet points because I am a grown-up and that's what grown-ups do.

• The list is not definitive. If I rewrote it next month, it would no doubt change. I will have missed something good off. If I have, leave a comment.

• I am no longer doing an overall Best Album. This has felt increasingly trite in recent years. There will be two tiers: a Best Album Summary featuring a few dozen albums, then a Top 20 Bangers with all of the top dogs, the boss cats, the first-place ferrets.

• I have excluded rereleases and compilations, although albums comprised of archive material are okay.

• My definition of "electronic music" steers towards IDM, braindance, home listening and experimental, so you're unlikely to see Deadmau5, Vengaboys, David Guetta or, erm, Bombalurina with Timmy Mallett. Although, you never know...

That's the ground rules, and if you don't like them, you can shove a Labubu up your nose. Whatever a Labubu is. I seriously have no idea.

There will be THIRTY blog posts – yes, thirty, count 'em – over the next few days, taking you through the Best Album Summaries then moving into the Top 20 Bangers.

What's the timeline? It's 30th December today. Instead of cramming all of my blog posts into the 30th and 31st, as I have done in previous years, I will take my time. I expect to finish on Saturday 3rd January 2026. Spilling into next year irritates my inner perfectionist, but I'd rather take my time. And people will still have their Christmas trees up on the 3rd, so whatevs.

Get ready. Have a notepad on hand. No, not a Silvine one. A fancy one, with coloured edges and a clasp.

Here goes...

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Blistering barnacles, here comes Bjork in 2026

It's okay, everyone. The world might be going to hell in a handbasket, but here comes Björk to make everything okay again.

Reykjavik Arts Festival takes place in May 2026, presumably in Reykjavik and not, like, Bognor Regis or something. The festival announced a fancy new installation from Björk as part of their line-up, and along with that there will be a new Björk album.

The exhibition will be called Echolalia, which is the name for when someone involuntarily repeats words. Children do it a lot, as do some people with autism and Tourettes, as did my old neighbour Lovely Philomena who would always repeat the last three words of anything you ever said.

"I've just been to the shop to buy milk, feta cheese and some mouldy old doughnuts."

"Mouldy old doughnuts."

She (Björk not Philomena) created the exhibition with Gloucestrian-turned-Icelander James Merry, who also worked on the visual presentation – and funky masks – for her Cornucopia tour. Some of those masks were wild: they looked like birds and beasts and barnacles.

The new album is “currently in development”. In my world, this means I have thought about it but haven't actually started any of the work. My epic fantasy novel set on Uranus is in development. My conceptual triple-album about bionic snails is in development. This blog post is in development.

The world feels more heavenly: it's always exciting to have more Björk in our lives.

"In our lives."

Thanks, Philomena.

Further Fats: Blade Runner 2049, Jóhann Jóhannsson and an origami cow (2017)

Further Fats: Best electronic music albums of 1995 – Autechre versus Bjork (2020)

Bruise Blood cuts deep in Electronic Sound magazine

In the current edition of Electronic Sound magazine, I have a good old waffle blab with Bruise Blood, the solo project name of Mike Bourne from psychedelic rockers Teeth Of The Sea.

In the interview, we chat about the sonic dirtiness of his debut solo album, having the confidence to go solo, buying old gear from Cash Converters, and his love of Autechre.

His album, called You Run Through the World Like An Open Razor, came out a few days ago on Rocket Recordings. My notes for the album contain phrases like "so very very dirty" and "the scuzz is mesmerising", and "gaaaawjeous" which may or may not be a word.

This edition also contains my 130th column, this month themed on brains. "What's inside a brain?" I ask. "What are brains made of? Do they taste of cauliflower?" I pontificate, before going on to answer precisely none of those questions. I do, incidentally, briefly talk about my stroke (see blog posts passim).

The cover star of this edition is Gary Numan and his guitar-drenched 1980 album Telekon. The album contains humdingers of track titles, such as Remember I Was Vapour and I Dream of Wires. However, none of them can hold a candle to Bruise Blood's And They Burned a Hole Through the Earth All the Way to Hell and Oh But You Can, Oh But You Will. Absolutely sublime.

Read my Bruise Blood feature here. Read my column here. Both of those links need a subscription.

Further Fats: My own personal braindance (2023)

Further Fats: The dark destroyers – my interview with Black Sites (2025)

On the Fat Roland radar: a sunset, a head-spin and a marshmallowy James K

October is often busier than a wild ferret building its igloo for the autumn. Does that metaphor work? Pretty sure I saw that on a David Attenborough documentary once.

I haven't had much blogging time, so before the month is out, before we discard October onto the laundry heap of forgotten month-pants (really need to work on those metaphors), let's listen to some music.

Here are some tunes I have recently enjoyed. Five tracks that are worth a pause in your day, when you stop to listen and decide that these tracks are "yeah, okay I suppose". That's enough for me.

Let's go.

Alexander Kulikov – Sunset

A foggy offering from this LA producer signed to Scotland's Soma Records. This is murky stuff, and although the bass drum is a real pile-driver, it's so incredibly distant - maybe even absent without headphones. Minimal, ambient and a perfect autumnal meditation.

This is from a recent EP. I don't think it includes this track, but look out for the new album Radio Edit out later this month on Greyscale.

Blawan – NOS

Yorkshire producer Blawan is turning heads at the moment. Then making those heads spin and go all vomitty. One review called his new headphone-exploding album SickElixir "a victory lap against his demons". 

See what you think. Razor-bladed ASMR electro. 

Djrum –  Three Foxes Chasing Each Other

Let's get pastoral. This tropical groove starts light, with a playful picturesque patter emphasising the "OK" in "evoke". And then comes the staccato charge of the machine-gun bass. A really interesting piece of work: tropical, tribal and ever-so teasing.

This is taken from the Oxford experimentalist's upcoming new album Under Tangled Silence. 

James K (pictured) – Hypersoft Lovejinx Junkdream

A breathy swoosh-gaze meditation from this New York producer's third album Friend. It's a song about disappointment, I guess, but it's disappointment cushioned by marshmallows, clouds and teddy bears made of marshmallows and clouds.

This pairs quite well with the Djrum piece, although it's a lot more silky.

Kneecap + Paul Hartnoll – Sayōnara

Well this was fun, wasn't it. Let's do it again sometime. We finish with subversive euphoria from Kemi Badenoch's least favourite rabble rousers Kneecap, with a little help from one half of Orbital. The video is worth a look-in: they're having a ball(gag).

Further Fats: Student's guide to new music (2010)

Further Fats: New musical excess (2015)

Raves against the machine: Mr C (and Octo Octa) lead the way

"Get up," said Bob Marley. "Stand up," added Bob Marley. "Stand up for your rights," Bob continued, really hammering his point home. The Bobster was onto something. Sometimes, we really do have to stand up and be counted.

You may have noticed that the political atmosphere has become increasingly febrile, a word that is only ever used for political atmospheres. The far right is on the rise, geopolitical tensions are at breaking point, and idiots have got their y-fronts in a twist about trans people and roundabouts.

Electronic music is political. There are a tonne of reasons for this, and there's a whole Substack long-read to be written about techno music, tribes and politics. However, this is not Substack. It is Blogger. So let's approach the subject in an utterly trite way.

Let's start an occasional blog series featuring political electronic music. Yay! Woo! Bleepy tracks that will have you dancing on your soapbox.

Each time I'll feature one particular political tune, with a couple of extras. Some tracks signal their politics with bright glow-sticks, while others will be more opaque. Either way, hopefully this will awaken the campaigner in us.

The Shamen: Fatman (1992)

The Shamen were a band in constant flux, moving from '80s electro pop to acid house freneticism to chippy chart pop to trippy introspection. I always felt that 1992's platinum Boss Drum album was an uneasy mix of a lot of these things.

Ebeneezer Goode was clearly making a point, vibing about the charts like no other track could. But it's album track Fatman that I want to focus on. It's a miserable tune, all minor chord and morose. The lyrics depict corporate fat cats as predators to be avoided – indeed, to be run away from. "Keep running," the song insists over a pensive Balaeric beat. 

"...The rich are getting richer / The poor destitute / Whilst the Fat Man, / He's got your loot."

The band's early work was political, taking on religious indoctrination in Jesus Loves America or a politician getting mashed on mescaline in Christopher Mayhew Says. Later on in their career, they seemed more concerned about the wonders of cannabis - tracks such as Sativa and the trippy Cannabeo being a case in point.

Fatman was proper politics. Like going to a rave and being battered around the head with a copy of Socialist Worker. It feels like the band was capturing a perfect balance between meaningful soapboxing and "coming on like a seventh sense" drug talk.

Last year, rapper rapscallion Mr C reposted Fatman to his socials, commenting "We needed change over three decades ago - we're desperate now." He's not wrong.

Octo Octa: Power To The People (2019)

The breezy breakbeat, the hyped-up crowd noises, the sheer joy of it all. This 2019 tune from US DJ Octo Octa (pictured above) is a cheery number, and a highlight from her Resonant Body album.

The crowd noise in this track is specifically political. The sample is taken from an ACT-UP meeting that was held in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS pandemic; ACT-UP stands for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. The sound was captured in David France's 2012 documentary How To Survive A Plague.

The group was preparing for a face-to-face with New York mayor Ed Koch: the words you can hear in the Octo Octa track are "Act up, stand tall, tomorrow morning at City Hall". When Koch met the campaigners, he defended his description of ACT-UP campaigners as fascists. Considering he was a New York Democrat, Koch would have fitted in petty well with the modern Republican party.

The rest of Octo Octa's discography is worth a rummage. 2017 album Where Are We Going? is a deep house joy, and has a real sense of celebration, it being her first album release since fully coming out as trans.

Orbital: Are We Here? (Criminal Justice Bill mix) (1994)

This Cage-esque silent track was Orbital's response to 1994's Criminal Justice Act that sought to ban repetitive beats and to shut down the UK's illegal rave scene. If you don't have a copy of this Criminal Justice Bill mix, you can recreate your own version by not playing it. Orbital are still protesting. Paul out of Orbital recently collaborated with Kneecap, and Orbital have recently been opening their own sets with the "peace or annihilation" challenge of Choice. I think the correct answer is peace: the other one sounds bad.

Further Fats: I have just burned down my local NHS hospital while listening to Phil Collins on my walkman (2010)

Further Fats: On my mind – the Guardian's 100 greatest UK No 1s (2020)

Ultimate 90s Number One: Baby Spice, Baby D and a bunch of terrible Brothers

It's time for another blog episode (blogisode) of my ongoing chart countdown (chountdown) to find the bleepiest and the bangiest (blepangiest) number one hit single of the 1990s.

This is the final heat of Ultimate 1990s Number One. Once I pick through this final selection of 1990s chart-toppers, we will move to the grand final in which I will choose the titular ultimate number one. How exciting.

"But Fat Roland," I hear you plead, "surely, you should put the final singles to a public vote, and get your loyal readers to choose the Ultimate 1990s Number One." Nope. This is not the X Factor. I am not Dermot O'Leary or Davina Whats-her-face. There is no phone vote at 98 quid a minute. The bleepiest banger will be my choice and my choice alone.

With that heart-warming audience-friendly reassurance clanging gently in your head, let's get into the final selection. Remember: my two criteria are: is it a banger, and is it bleepy?

The contenders

All Saints: Bootie Call  |  Another Level: Freak Me  |  Baby D: Let Me Be Your Fantasy  |  Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds: 3 Lions '98  |  Boyzone: All That I Need  |  B*Witched: To You I Belong  |  Peter Andre: I Feel You  |  Snap!: Rhythm Is a Dancer  |  Spice Girls: Wannabe  |  Spice Girls: 2 Become 1  |  The Outhere Brothers: Boom Boom Boom

Beefy bangers

Every pop act has a lesser well-known hit single, and this might well be the case for these All Saints and Boyzone selections. Let's discard these, like an old pair of boxers or a broken old stereo or an unwanted child. Same goes for Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds: their football anthem was dealt with in a previous blog post.

Ginger, Scary, Beefy, Farty and Parpy have been regular stars of Ultimate 90s Number One. But it's not until now that I get to rate the two iconic Spice Girls singles Wannabe and 2 Become 1. They are both hands-down, cards-on-the-table, hamster-in-the-shredder bangers. One is a patchwork of sassy pop hooks, and the other is a seductive salute to rubber johnnies. Total bangers, but not bleepy enough for this competition. And bleepiness is what I really, really want.

Take a bow(ers)

"Let me lick you up and down," said Another Level in Freak Me. I had never realised these schmalty chart-topper was so soggy. The most famous Level-er was Bowers who, after a flirtation with UK garage, became a TV presenter. He has appeared in Totally Boyband, Celebrity Big Brother and season three of The Wire. I lied about The Wire. For me, Another Level were never really on another level.

To You I Belong was perhaps B*Witched's more obscure number one single. I can't remember how it went, but it probably involved a lot of denim. Despite that, this single should be notorious. This was the song that ended a seven-week run at the top of the charts for Cher's Believe. I'm not a legal expert, but that should rank as some kind of hate crime.

Like To You I Belong, Peter Andre's third number one single I Feel You has faded from public memory. It's basically him impersonating a late-career Michael Jackson ballad, with a bit of falsetto and some washboard abs thrown in for good measure. Meh.

I cannot get excited about any of these singles, and they certainly don't fit my bleepy banger criteria. Why am I even writing about them? Let's move on.

You've come a long way, Baby

Our very final number one selections end things on a strong note. Mostly.

Melodic, euphoric, emotional, and a beautiful tribute to the hardcore scene. Baby D's one chart-topper Let Me Be Your Fantasy is a bang-to-rights banger with extra bangs on top. It took over two years from original release to get to the top of the charts. Its sampling is next-level: the Amen break, 2 Bad Mice, Bizarre Inc and more. Baby D (pictured above left) really did like the hardcore scene. Straight through to the Ultimate 90s final.

A year after their brilliant smash hit The Power, Snap! seemed like a spent force. Any group from that era resorting to a 'Megamix' single was clutching at straws. However, in 1992 Snap! (pictured above right) produced their biggest UK hit. Rhythm Is A Dancer was as serious as cancer, scarier than malaria, as stern as, um, Covid-ninetern. It's also a bit silly, so I won't put it through, despite that feeling like an arbitrary call. A snap decision, if you will.

"Boom boom boom," Shakespeare once wrote, "let me hear you say wayo." The Outhere Brothers are included in this final section because I guess it's a bleepy hit, in that it falls under the umbrella of 1990s dance music. But that's like calling Coldplay a rock band or calling JK Rowling a positive role model for young readers. Smash Hits gave this single zero stars out of five, which was the second best thing Smash Hits had ever done, the first being employing Neil Tennant. No, you won't hear me say wayo, thank you very much. Pah.

What a miserable note to end on. Stupid Outhere Brothers. I have now covered all 206 number one singles of the 1990s. At least I hope so: there are bound to be mistakes. If I've missed something, leave a comment.

Next up, the grand final. I'm so excited, I'm frothing in several places. While I drill for gold so I can build a massive trophy, have a browse of the Ultimate 90s number ones series.

Set for take-off: remembering Stu Allan

There have been many famous radio DJs. There was John Peel, there was that Moyles one, and, er, someone called Dave probably. But for us Mancunians, the name that speeds up our heartbeats-per-minute is Piccadilly Radio DJ Stu Allan.

Stu Allan, or "Stoooo Allan" if you're the American voice doing his jingle, was legendary in the North West of England. He championed rave, electro and house music before it had properly broken through to the mainstream. He was a counter-cultural force as embedded into Manchester culture as Coronation Street cobbles, Tony Wilson's ego and Bez's quivering maracas.

I'm Gen-X so I grew up without the internet. A shocking thought, I know. I relied on the radio to learn about all the cool new bops. Mainstream radio was pretty tofu, with ballads, AOR and pop factory piffle. Allan's riotous shows on Key 103 felt like a portal into something subversive, as if it was a private broadcast of all the stuff you weren't allowed to listen to.

Allan was one of the first UK DJs to play Chicago house music. It was the clattering rave tunes I remember best; this would have been my first exposure to it. Offensive beats, breath-taking energy, and a liberal sprinkling of hardcore daftness. All listened through a gauze of fuzz because our radio equipment was naff back then.

And there's more. We have Allan to thank for Voodoo Ray legend A Guy Called Gerald. Allan used to welcome Gerald 'Guy' Simpson onto his radio show as "a guy called Gerald from Hulme", and the nickname stuck.

"Stu was so important to 808 State when we were starting out," remembers Graham Massey on Twitter. "He was the first person we delivered our test pressings to. I remember me and Gerald taking a copy of Newbuild there on a Sunday night, and Gerald had been on his show earlier than that giving him his moniker."

The tributes continue: "He introduced me to more amazing music than I can remember," said Justin 'Lionrock' Robertson at the time of his passing. "His Bus Diss [Piccadilly Radio show] and his seamless house shows were my introduction to the sound of hip hop and house."

I should have written this tribute following his sad passing, which was three years ago today. But any time is a good time to ping his name back into the internetosphere, and to remember the legacy of a lad who started off my listening to John Peel play Grandmaster Flash at his childhood home on Anglesey, and ended up soundtracking a generation of ravers.

I would finish by posting a video by Clock, the Euro dance outfit formed by Allan, and whose best-known single is Whoomp! (There It Is). But even the earlier, slightly clubbier stuff is naff. Instead, I implore you to jump over to YouTube and search 'Stu Allan mix'. There's a tonne of his DJ stuff, and it's pretty fun.

Maybe the last word should go to Suddi Raval from Hardcore Uproar hitmakers Together. He posted the following on Twitter:

"I was only nine years old when my older brother played me Numbers by Kraftwerk! By ten, I'd heard so many incredible new romantic records, oblivious this music affecting me. At 12, New Order, electro & Herbie Hancock’s Rockit, then by 15, Stu Allen gave me house music and I was set for take off."

And that's how it works. Stu Allan the rocket man, propelling others into a universe of musical discovery. Never forgotten.

Further Fats: A massive cry-baby remembers John Peel (2010)

Further Fats: Fader strokers unite – some recommended compilation albums (2011)

Back with another one of those Grok-rockin' tweets

The other day, the UK government tested its national Emergency Alerts system. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, millions of mobile phones blared out a siren. The alert might be needed for real one day, in case of fire, flood or Taskmaster going off air.

This was, naturally, a chance for me to be silly. Shortly before the test alert was triggered, I posted this across my social media channels:

Reminder: At 3pm today, the Fat Roland alarm will go off. Please prepare by having to hand an egg whisk, two car manuals and a cone of marbles (medium). No further instructions will be given.

Arf! Silly post, a bit of fun, let's move on.

Except...

Twitter has an AI chatbot called Grok. It likes to go round explaining things as if we were little children. And yes, I'm calling the service Twitter because it's current name makes me, er, cross.

I asked Grok to analyse my Fat Roland alarm post. Actually, that's not quite true: it was less intentional than that. I pressed the little circle next to my post because I didn't know what the circle was, and suddenly Grok whirred into life.

Grok said: "The post by Fat Roland, a Manchester-based musician and writer known for quirky performances, likely hints at an avant-garde sound experiment, given his history with albums like Hounds of Hulme and ties to Electronic Sound, where the listed items (egg whisk, car manuals, marble cone) could serve as unconventional instruments."

Nope. Wasn't even thinking about music. I was picking things out of thin air. Egg whisk. Car manual. Marbles. I am not Delia Derbyshire; I am not found-sounding my way to legendary status. I'm just thinking "marbles" sounds funny here, so let's write that.

Grok continued: "No scientific studies directly apply, but the concept aligns with research on sound art, such as a 2019 study in the Journal of Sonic Studies, which explores how everyday objects enhance auditory creativity, suggesting Roland’s alarm might be a public art installation."

I have never worked in academia, but I'd imagine that response would strike a chord with lecturers marking student essays. "I have no basis for this, but here's something I reckon." Grok was now imagining me winning the Turner Prize for my sound sculpture, in a a devastating critique of the modern milieu lauded in broadsheet magazines everywhere.

Twitter's AI bot wasn't quite done with me yet. It had one final stretch to make, one more overreach to snap another twine of credibility:

"The timing, posted on September 7, 2025, at 11:51 UTC (3pm BST), coincides with global tensions from Israeli strikes in Doha reported on September 10, 2025, adding an ironic layer—could this be a subtle commentary on chaos amidst world events?"

Thanks for the long dash, Grok, that's so very AI of you. Turns out I'm commenting on Israel's genocide now. From avant-garde sound experimentation to an auditory art instillation to critiquing the collapse of world peace. All that from me finding the word "egg" funny, and deciding that "medium" in parenthesis was funnier that "large" or "small".

At the end of the analysis, Grok cited its sources. The first two links were a Roland synthesiser owner's manual and a manual for a rechargeable egg-beater whisk. So many manuals. Grok is your dad, sitting in his stew-stained armchair, paging through an old Haynes manual, flicking to a page all about sprockets, and deciding that am illustration of a Type B reboreable chain sprocket is a comment on the cost of living crisis.

I'd generate another Grok response, however I respect the environment, and encouraging AI data-mining is something that should be done sparingly, like switching off the hall light when not in use, or only flushing after a number two, or only burning tyres on a Sunday.

Further Fats: Totally gay for Scouting For Girls (2011)

Further Fats: Twitter – a pile of collapsed scaffolding populated by only bird crap and rats (2023)

Full-mast hysteria: waving the flag for electronic music

 

Everyone's getting their cummerbunds in a twist over flags. Racists brandish St George crosses, idiots vandalise mini-roundabouts, and union jack underpant sales have gone through the roof. Probably.

In an effort to reclaim the national debate, I have designed six flags dedicated to electronic music. Shall we plaster pubs in these emblems instead? Replace the UK national anthem with Ageispolis by Aphex Twin? Yes. Let's do that. If you're reading this, please make that happen, the King. 

The first flag I designed is a red-white-blue rendering of the Aphex Twin logo (see above). This feels very flaggy indeed, and could be a distant cousin of the flag of Laos or maybe North Korea.

However, there's a problem or two. There's too much flag about this flag. Electronic music should be more creative than this. And the existing Aphex logo is black and white, which are the flag colours of his native Cornwall. No, we can do better.

This is my flag design based on Leftfield's Leftism. The shark jaw is pretty intact, and the embedded camera is represented by a series of circles. You do get animals on real-world flags – Wales has a dragon and Bhutan has a, er, dragon – but bits of bones are less common. Should flags have teeth? Vexillum dentata?

A simple T. Or is it? This one breaks a cardinal rule of flags: no fades. However, the speaker design feels geometrically pleasing. The KLF were notorious for their flag-flying, banner-raising live performances, so this redesign of their 1991 album The White Room seems apropos. The flag of Mu Mu Land.

Here is a flag version of Autechre's Oversteps album.  I did consider the designs for their numerous NTS releases, which were plastered with brilliantly blocky Designers Republic fonts. But I couldn't resist this more basic artwork, which is, essentially, the Japan flag with all of its colour and joy removed. Very much like an Autechre live performance, in a good way.

It was either this or the brown album. One thing I've noticed about actual national flags is that the colours are often bold. Look at Bangladesh's contrasting eye-popper or Seychelles' vivid fan of fun. Eyes will certainly be popped with this flag, based on Orbital's green album (Orbital 1). This flag feels lickable, which is something I always look for when hoisting a banner. 

I was drawn to Man-Machine by Kraftwerk because of its colours, and the geometry of the album text in its upper corner. But how to represent the band itself? Four simple polygons. And what are flags other than an arrangement of polygons. The main down side of this one is that once you think it looks like Hitler, that's something you can't get out of your head. Dammit, that's ruined it. Shouldn't have said anything. Sorry.

Flags are not bad things. They're fun, and we all want to cling on to identity and community. But let's keep them fun: everyone loves a bit of bunting. However – and this is just a suggestion – maybe let's not use flags to cause division and intimidate the vulnerable. If you're using a flag as a weapon, you are the weapon.

Further Fats: Blowin' in the wings – why protest songs should return to centre stage (2009)

Further Fats: I'm too techno to be Brexit (2017)