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.
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