This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.
1127: ض (Nashazphone)
Arising from the Cairo underground, 1127 produces a second album of dirty industrial techno and caustic rave. It's tough stuff, perhaps lightened by its occasional influences of early twentieth-century Egyptian music. 1127 in centimetres is about the same height as a telegraph pole, a fact which is no help to anyone whatsoever.
33EMYBW: Holes of Sinian (SVBKVLT)
You can abbreviate 33EMYBW's name to 33, pronounced "San San". She calls her music "limb dance", and this fourth album of footwork-adjacent, scratchy, experimental robotics will certainly encourage bodily convulsions. Collaborations include Marina Herlop, Batu, Forrest Gander and oxi peng.
AceMo: Save The World (Self-released)
This prolific Brooklyn DJ gives us a welcome blast of energy on this relentlessly positive album. Thundering house music, kinetic techno and dramatic electro. "Music made with the intent to make a positive impact on this Earth," says Mr Mo. He spent his youth in a marching band: I can see why. This just missed out on my top 20 of 2024.
Actress: Statik (Smalltown Supersound)
Actress composed his tenth album under an "extensive flow state", which I think might mean diahorrea or something. His rhythms are still squeaky, still cheeky, but perhaps softer and more accessible than previous work. Some of it sounds like early Aphex Twin – just listen to that paddy bass drum on Six. (Artwork pictured above.)
Anetha: Mothearth (Mama told ya)
Parts of Anetha's first album are so bouncy, you might start chanting "badger badger badger". This Parisian artist is a trained architect, and the beats are appropriately architectural: squared-off trance, perfectly symmetrical donks. A lot of euphoric fun. Mushroom mushroom!
Basile3: 43°C (InFiné)
A Bandcamp review of this album, recorded between Paris and Brussels, says: "43 is my favourite prime number for synaesthete reasons." Ah, looks like we have some friendly geeks in the house. Excellent. This album is a playful mish-mash of ambient techno, hyped-up club music and Insta-pop. A scrappy but fun debut.
British Murder Boys: Active Agents and House Boys (Downwards)
In my Electronic Sound interview with these guys, I mentioned this album's "excoriated acid lines", its "all-consuming reverberations" and it sounding like "a stack of modular hardware escaping from a torture chamber". All in a good way of course. Really great stuff from Surgeon and Regis. (Artwork pictured above.)
Christian AB: The Nu Life LP (Faith Beat)
No-nonsense pumping techno. Three of the tracks are called Locked Groove, which is pretty self-explanatory. The tracks here were tested on clubbers during Faith Beat founder Ryan Elliott's DJ gigs, then realised in vinyl form by Christian Browne. Listen if you like your beats minimalist and absolutely pumping.
De Schuurman: Bubbling Forever (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
"You think this is some gangsta sh*t" says a sample halfway through this album. If this music for gangsters, the mobsters are wearing clown noses, multi-coloured spats and silly-string machine guns. These party bangers are restless and raucous, with air horns, 8-bit beats and a tonne of Caribbean flavour.
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