What's the deal with Boards of Canada's mystery VHS tapes?

Is this the return of Boards Of Canada? Is this the return of VHS? And which one of those two possibilities is more exciting?

Boards of Canada have been teasing a possible new album by sending out video tapes of abstract noise and sounds to carefully-selected recipients. It’s all hush-hush: they’ve not told anyone they’re doing this. But the crackling audio and decaying analogue images on the tapes seem very much in the style of BoC.

The devious despatches have left fans trying to decipher the tapes’ mysterious phrases and symbols, as if they were ancient runes that renowned professor Robert Langdon is trying in order to prevent the Pope from morphing into a man-bear or something. Sorry. I’ve been reading too much Dan Brown.

Nottingham electronic musician Lone (pictured) was one of those that received a VHS tape. “Who knows what’s in store at this point,” he said on his Instagram page, “but judging by what’s on the tape I think it’s safe to say they haven’t mellowed one bit.”

YouTuber MATTHS has been updating the internet on the Boards bamboozling. He says 17 have been mailed out so far, as of yesterday, although uber-geeks on a BoC tape mailings forum – yes, that's now a thing – have updated this figure to over two dozen.

It seems legit. MATTHS says the recipients seem to be connected by purchases they made from Warp Records’ online shop Bleep.com. He’s also spotted an image on the VHS tape that has turned up on Warp Records’ Spotify page.

BoC have form for this kind of shenanigan. When they released Tomorrow’s Harvest in 2013, they did a similar Krypton Factor-style teaser by eking out codes via limited-edition 12-inch vinyl. Once solved, the codes led fans to a video page and an album pre-order.

Most people just "drop" an album; BoC are dangling theirs. Mailer campaigns, physical media, online speculation? It's pleasingly old school. Everyone's playing detective and we are loving it. I bet deerstalker and magnifying glass sales have gone through the roof.

If you're reading this, I'll take mine on Betamax, chaps. Cheers.

Update: Posters have appeared in Soho in that there London. Have a look at Jo-Cliche's Flicker page. They're awfully creased.

Photo from Lone's Instagram page

Further Fats: Geo-giddy: Boards of Canada's one word Facebook publicity explosion (2012)

Further Fats: Happy 30th anniversary, Warp Records (2019)

A brush with electronic music: Jim'll Paint It's new Eraserhead album

Microsoft Paint artist Jim'll Paint It has released an electronic music album. This news is a surprise and a total delight. If you could see my face right now, you would see a big wide smile (drawn using the marker pen tool in the brush dropdown menu). 

His recording name is Eraserhead, the album is called Violence. It clearly comes from a passion for bass music, jungle, acid, IDM, breakcore and all the lovely stuff that has kept this music blog going for the past 21 years.

"This release is the realisation of a dream I’ve had since I was about 9 years old," says Jim, "recording noodlings from my Yamaha PSS-380 toy keyboard onto TDK tapes... This is the truest expression of self I’ve ever managed in any medium."

The collaborations are immense. D.A.R.E with Enduser is an apocalyptic mix of rolling breaks and industrial terror. Om Unit brings significant wub to the dark acid of Operation Hardtack. Nadia Rose is full of sass and brap-brap on title track Violence – referring to Eraserhead by saying "certain heads need erasing" is poetry.

He's got Beans spitting furiously over the bad-tempered jungle of Hurricane With Teeth - I was fond of his Antipop Consortium outfit back in the day. And I don't know what's going on with the the ambient screamo-rave hellscape of Monolith with Amée Chanter, but I like it. I really like it. 

Even without the collaborative tracks, there's distressed acid, growling digital ambience and even a saxophone that sounds like a randy housefly. Better that than the other way round: if you had a fly in your living room buzzing like a saxophone, you'd have to move out.

I'm an electronic music guy. I'm a cartoon illustrations guy. This album is two of my worlds colliding. It's the equivalent of Banksy dropping a glitch album or Rembrandt launching a punk band or Francisco Goya joining an experimental kazoo ensemble.

If you want to get the album, you can download it via Microsoft Pai-- oh wait, no, that's not how music works. You can stream it on Bandcamp and bag a copy on digital, vinyl or cassette.

Further Fats: Chosen Words – D is for Design (2010)

Further Fats: 8/08 – The most Roland day of the year (2025)

Holy heck, it's top of the God pops

Today is Easter Sunday, which is an annual day of celebration for that time a chocolate egg fell from heaven and killed the Easter Bunny to forgive our sins.

The UK singles chart is a pretty godless place. A quick scan of the current top 40 singles chart and I can see songs about Dracula, swimming, dancing and loving each other, all of which sounds terribly non-Christian. Erm. Probably.

To celebrate the day Jesus rose from being cross and ascended to Heaven nightclub – I really need to brush up on my Bible knowledge – here are the ten most successful Jesus-themed songs in the UK singles chart.

Disclaimer: I looked up the words “Jesus” and “Christ” and didn’t go much beyond that, so if I’ve missed something, feel free to condemn me to all seven circles of hell. Oh and they're in order of chart success, so we'll be ending on a couple of number one smashes.

10 – Longpigs: Jesus Christ (number 61, 1995)

While there were more prominent proponents of the Sheffield’s Britpop scene, the ‘pigs were absolutely brilliant. Jesus Christ was full of their typical yearning and the lead singer looked a bit like a future Matt Smith. Their guitarist went on to be in Pulp and their original drummer used to play for Cabaret Voltaire, which makes them the most Sheffield band ever.

9 – Delirious: White Ribbon Day (number 41, 1997)

An obscure choice here, but this did precede a four-year run of top 40 singles for this Christian praise & worship outfit. White Ribbon Day is proper religious – there’s praying and the cross and hallelujah and all that kind of thing. The gospel truth is they sounded like U2 from the late 1980s, which ticked boxes for people that found 1990s U2 too MacPhisto-ish.

8 – Green Day: Jesus Of Suburbia (number 17, 2005)

“Everyone's so full of shit,” preaches Billie Joe Armstrong on this nine-minute epic beloved by Green Day fans. This is, apparently, Green Day doing a Bohemian Rhapsody,  and the track is split into five movements, like me after a bowel exam. I was never a massive ‘Day follower, but it feels like we need their agit-angst more than ever now. 

7 – Kanye West: Jesus Walks (number 16, 2004)

Before things went south for West, he made tracks full of braggadocio and brilliant beats. Jesus Walks was super militaristic, but this was okay in the mid-2000s because the US army had definitely never done anything bad ever. Ahem. These days West is just full of braggadocio and bullcrap. Shame because his College Dropout years were banging.

6 – Ash: Jesus Says (number 15, 1998)

The video for Jesus Says has the camera spinning around and around, like you’re inside a washing machine. The effect prompted protests from fans who complained of nausea, but they needn’t worry coz they could just pop their vom-splattered t-shirt into said washing machine. “God give me strength,” sing Ash on Jesus Says. Fair comment.

5 – Depeche Mode: Personal Jesus (number 13, 1989)

For far too long, I thought a Personal Jesus was a personalised Christ service in which He followed you around all day and made bitchy comments like ‘You look fat in that jumper’ and ‘That blusher’s far too gay’. Anyhoo, this is Depeche Mode at their peak, and it gave the impending 1990s permission to blend rock and synths and change music forever.

4 – Marilyn Manson: Personal Jesus (number 13, 2004)

For far too long, I thought a Personal Jesus was a– oh hold on, we’re already done this. I’d lost track of Marilyn Manson and where the allegations were up to, so I googled “is marilyn manson a wrong 'un” and Google’s AI bot responded by saying that the truth is “subjective”. So that’s settled then. I do not want Marilyn Manson to reach out and touch me.

3 – Morrissey: I Have Forgiven Jesus (number 10, 2004)

Oh holy hassocks of hell. Am I in some kind of purgatory? Is writing this blog post punishment for my multitude of sins? Here comes another person I would not to choose to be stuck in a lift with. I wouldn’t even follow behind him on the stairs. I much preferred Mozza when he was a lyricist and not a polemicist, although maybe he has always been both.

2 – Cliff Richard: Saviour’s Day (number 1, 1990)

Finally. A perfectly normal pop star. Cliff’s religious output is universally awful, and his triptych of Christian chart-toppers – Mistletoe And Wine, Saviour’s Day and The Millennium Prayer – have the same linear drop-off as the Godfather trilogy. Still, I’m glad Cliff exists. If he wasn’t around to be God’s representative in the pop charts, we’d have to choose Ye and that wouldn’t do at all.

1 – George Michael: Jesus To A Child (number 1, 1996)

You’ve got to have faith, and you’ve got to have this caramel-smooth cheese-fest from king George. Without telling anyone, George Michael donated the royalties from Jesus To A Child to the ChildLine charity. That makes this paeon to a lost lover the most Christian track in this list.

Not much electronic music in this list. Jeez, get it together Jesus.

Further Fats: Delirious' bid for number one: the rock delusion? (2010)

Further Fats: Warning! Dinosaurs are taking over the UK album chart! (2021)

Name me a better remix album list than Daniel Avery's remix album list

“Alright, name me a better remix album than this,” says Daniel Avery to the camera as he brandishes a CD copy of Nine Inch Nails 1992 release Fixed.

Avery has just released Tremor (Midnight Versions), a reworking of his own album Tremor which came out last autumn. The remixes have a bit of a boogy about them – as he puts it, these are “club edits aimed squarely at the strobe light”.

Remixes are clearly on his mind, because he recently posted on his socials a tribute to his favourite remix albums. He leads with the Nine Inch Nails album, and the artwork for Midnight Versions seems to be inspired by the Nails artwork.

But he then mentions another batch of remix albums that he loves. Let's go through them.

The Human League / The League Unlimited Orchestra: Love And Dancing (1982), a dubbier take on their Dare album

The Cure: Mixed Up (1990), various twelve-inch bits and related bobs

Massive Attack V Mad Professor: No Protection (1995) – ain’t no Protection from this level of dub wizardry

Björk: Telegram (1996), various remixes of her Post tracks

Primal Scream: Echo Dek (1997), with Bobby’s band reimagining their Vanishing Point album, and oh my word how good was this era of Scream

Two Lone Swordsmen: Peppered With Spastic Magic (2004), although please can we let that word die

Aphex Twin: 26 Mixes For Cash (2003), which I wilfully misunderstand in this blog post

Soulwax: Nite Versions (2005) – they “reshaped my brain as a teenager” says Avery

That's a cracking selection, my favourites being Mad Professor, Primal Scream and Aphex Twin. I'd throw in Dangermouse and maybe Pet Shop Boys too, and I know James's Wah Wah doesn't count but it pretty effectively remixed my brain. 

What is your favourite remix album? Write your answer on a postcard and immediately remix it into a shredder.

Daniel Avery's Tremor (Midnight Versions) is out now.

Further Fats: Music Order Remixed New (see what I did there) (2017)

Further Fats: Cover me bad – Block Rockin' Beats by the Chemical Brothers (2021)

It's all about the Electronic Sound podcast

It's All About Vinyl is a new podcast in which Mark Roland and Push, the guys that founded Electronic Sound magazine, bring their favourite vinyl into a podcast studio and smash it all with hammers.

Oh. Apparently they don't smash the vinyl with hammers. Instead they just talk about it. That's disappointing. Chaps, if you're reading this, can you please return all those hammers I posted to you? Cheers.

These fellas know what they're talking about. The pair did electronic music stuff for Melody Maker before moving on to Muzik magazine, for which Push was founding editor. One of them once edited a fanzine called 'Happy Cheese'. I won't tell you which of the two, but you can see it in his eyes.

So far in their podcast series, they've had delightful waffle-chats about The Damned, Tin Machine ("horrible"), Hawkwind, Harry Styles (!), Kraftwerk, Suzanne Ciani losing her synthesiser, the history of Melody Maker, and why the first 19 editions of Electronic Sound didn't quite work. They've even had snookerist and bleepy music head Steve Davis on.

Electronic Sound has been running for 135 issues. That's a big number. It's about twice as many people that were in The Fall, or about as many weeks Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere has spent in the UK charts since it debuted in 1988, or exactly the same height as the London Eye in metres.

It does mean that there's plenty of material for them to plunder. Anecdotes, interviews, favourite records, memorable gigs, music industry bashes, awful columnists. Wait. No. Not that last one. Ignore that last one.

I rarely get to meet my editors in person, so it's a pleasure to see their digital faces poking out of my internet. You can listen to It's All About Vinyl on that new-fangled Spotify thing or on the YouTubes.

Further Fats: Fat Roland Bangs On... as an Electronic columnist (2012)

Further Fats: This is a journey into Electronic Sound 2.0 (2016)

Here are my hot tips for the 2026 Brit Awards and if I'm wrong, I'm moving to Mars

On the day that the Brit Awards come to the Co-op Live in Manchester, here are my hot Brit tips. For each category, I have chosen who I think will win. I was passing the venue last night and a gang of the Brits production crew got on the tram. One of them was impressively beardy and very London. Anyway, I shouted this entire blog post at them until they crawled out of the windows to escape.

Album of the Year: Dave – The Boy Who Played Harp

I’ve not really listened to Dave since his Psychodrama album. I enjoyed that one, with its introspection and all that. Can he win Album of the Year again? I reckon he can, as long as the title of this album lives up to its promise and it’s one hour of Dave playing a harp. Like a proper big one you’ve got to straddle. If any other instruments are involved, I’m not interested.

Artist of the Year: PinkPanthress

I wanted to choose Self Esteem for this one, or Little Simz. But Ms Panthress sampled Underworld for her track Illegal, and that earns her a life membership to Fat Roland’s List Of People That I Think Are Alright. In fact, if anyone ever samples anything from Underworld’s 1994 album Dubnobasswithmyheadman, they should automatically win 12 Brit awards.

Song of the Year: Fred again.., Skepta, PlaqueBoyMax – Victory Lap

I’m not that inspired by the tracks in this category. Lola Young’s Messy was fun, and I liked that one song Raye did a while ago. Skepta’s a great match for Fred again, though, going together like cheese on toast, or beans on toast, or trifle on toast. The track was used on EA Sports FC 26, which I think is a video game of footballers eating fried chicken.

Group of the Year: Sleep Token

In an era of solo stars, is this category even relevant? I nearly went for Pulp. Nearly. But I would love Sleep Token to win this. It would create a seismic wave, like the solar flare in the movie 2012 or like the Greens in Gorton & Denton. Of course, if a metal or metal-adjacent act wins this category, it would be a bitter blow for this electronic music blog, and I reserve the right to whinge about it for the next 12 months.

Breakthrough Artist: Barry Can't Swim

This is a pretty strong category. I've chosen Barry Can't Swim for two reasons. One: he's great. Two: his name contains an apostrophe. This would be the first Brits win for an apostrophe-containing act since Rag 'n' Bone Man, who inexplicably won Best Song for Human in 2018. Yes, we've had Beyoncé with her acute accent and confident comma use from Tyler, The Creator. But big up Barry Can't Swim, who bossed the apost.

International Artist of the Year: Bad Bunny

I can't give two hoots about Bad Bunny's music. Not my cup of tea or, to give it a Latino twist, not my cup of té de hierbas. However, his performance at that big American sports thing was legendary. Even Cardi B turned up, and you know it's a party when Cardi B turns up. The Maga petrol-snorters lost their minds, crooning about jingoism and fishing - it was meant to be wholesome, but you can't spell 'wholesome' without 'ole!'. 

International Song of the Year: Taylor Swift – The Fate of Ophelia

Really, Swift is a placeholder here. The song is fine, but just fine. Better than some of the others. However, if Alex Warren wins with his global megahit Ordinary, I will saw off both of my ears with my snapped copy of his CD single. And if you think that metaphor is weird, check his lyrics: “I'm on the edge of your knife, stayin' drunk on your vine.” What?! If this wins, I’m moving to Mars. No. Uranus. I'm moving to Uranus because it's funnier.

International Group of the Year: Geese

It’s not easy being a group. Cramped tour buses, endless rehearsals, and there’s always an ego in the gang. That’s why I’m backing Geese to win. No disrespect to the human nominees, but if a gaggle of geese bag this award, I’d be stoked. Imagine the podium speech: honking like a feathered berk, beaking canapes out of people’s fat hands. Brilliant.

Alternative/Rock Act: Wet Leg

Is rock still a thing? I thought we’d killed it off with dubstep or when Oasis stopped. I’ve chosen Wet Leg because (a) I like that song they did ages ago about a futon or a pouffe or whatever it was, and (b) I got puddle-splashed by a car the other day, soaked from head to toe the absolute gits, and I spent much of the morning with an actual wet leg.

Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act: Little Simz

Hmmm. She’s won before, so this might be what the modern internet youth call a ‘bad take’. But I think Simz is still critically acclaimed, and I can’t see why she can’t bag another Brit. It’s a strong category, though: she’s up against Vanilla Ice, Kid ‘n’ Play and PJ & Duncan. (I may need to update my notes.)

Dance Act: Sammy Virji

If I had told 1990s Fat Roland that UK Garage would be dominating the charts in the 2020s, I would have thrown me out of the house. What was I even doing in my house anyway? Get out of my house, me. Anyway, doff of the hat to Virji and the rest of the UKG lot for constantly reinventing a once-underground movement. Wait. This is meant to be a silly blog post. Erm… poo bum willy.

Pop Act: Raye

You'd like me to be silly about Raye's name, wouldn't you. Oh look, he's talking about a stingray or a ray of sunshine, how funny. Oh look, he's comedically mistaken her for a bricklayer called Ray, oh ha ha. I'm not your performing monkey. Anyway, Raye swept the board at the 2024 Brits and I haven't really listened to her since then, so maybe she should win everything again, I dunno.

R&B Act: Sault

Sault are probably the most successful household seasoning alongside Salt from Salt-N-Pepa and Pepa from Salt-N-Pepa. Here's a fact for you: Sault have released as many studio albums as Robbie Williams. Do what you will with that fact; maybe bring it up at a family meal or when you're visiting your cousin in prison. Anyway, Sault are due a Brits win, and the fact they eschew the limelight would make that win even more hilarious.

Critics’ Choice

This has already been awarded to Jacob Alon (pictured above, photo credit James Klug/Getty Images), so there's no point in writing about it. Here's some hold music instead. Dum-de-dum dingy dah doo-doo dah tingle ingle dum-de-dum. Boing boing. Whaaaaang. Tssst tsst tssst tsst doo-be-doo clunk. Actually, this is a brilliant tune. I hope I win a Brit Award for it.

Further Fats: We need a new Mercury Music Prize for people that give a crap about electronic music (2009)

Further Fats: Brits 2010 – a prejudiced review from someone who doesn't give a damn (2010)

These ghost sounds from Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner are the spookiest thing you'll hear today

 

Until now, I have been pretty convinced that ghosts can't make music. Something to do with temporal forms not being able to strum a guitar, or no-one from Rentaghost becoming a chart-topping pop star.

And yet, have a listen to that YouTube video. Ghosts! Actual ghosts!

It's actually a remarkable bit of audio detritus that arose from when Suzanne Vega's 1987 a cappella Tom's Diner got transferred from high-quality audio to MP3.

This may be news to some, but MP3s are low-resolution. They are compressed in size and quality, balancing storage space and audio fidelity. It ensures that your cool and trendy iPod (!) isn't the size of Battersea Power Station.

MP3s are a lossy format, so when converting from a high-quality format, bits of the sound are chopped out. The lost sound has to go somewhere, I guess. There was a terrible Doctor Who episode once in which people lost fat, and the fat formed into blubber aliens that everyone wanted to kick in the face. It's exactly like that. Probably.

In a brilliant feat of reverse-engineered psychoacoustics, that video is the sound of that lost audio when Tom's Diner was converted to MP3. Developer Karlheinz Brandenburg used the song's clean vocals to test the parameters of MP3 compression, and this is the studio offcut.

This also mean that Tom's Diner was the first MP3, christening Vega as the "Mother of MP3". Which is impressive, and a damn sight better than being the Uncle of AIFF or the Second-Cousin of Spotify. 

This is part of the Museum of Portable Sound, which collects non-musical noise. It contains field recordings, old hi-fi gear, 1960s television commercials, urban soundscapes, the sound of Sigmund Freud’s toilet, and the sound of me grunting when I get up from a sofa. Alright, the last one was a lie. But it really does contains Freud's bog.

"This is one of the most revelatory and inspiring things I've heard recently," said Robin Rimbaud, a who releases spectral ambience as Scanner. If Scanner is impress, you know it's brilliant.

Pictured above: Vega in the video for Luka, which is the wrong song, but hey.

Further Fats: Ghost written – podcasts, music, Buffy and emails (2015)

Further Fats: Delia Derbyshire Day – even more original than the Atari (2017)

Best electronic music albums of 2025: all of the featured albums

In the five days it has taken me to post my 2025 albums list, the US has invaded Venezuela, Bulgaria got rid of the lev, and Raye scored the first number one single of the year, something she also did in 2023.

My end-of-year blogging is always intense. I wrote thousands of words about a shedload of electronic music albums, and now my brain is fried. Some of those words were good words, and some of those words were really average words.

A summary might be useful. So here is a list of all of the albums featured in my Best electronic music albums of 2025 blog series. Each one links to the summary it was featured in. The ones labelled "🏆Top 20" have their very own dedicated blog post.

I should do a playlist. Suggestions of good, accesible Spotify alternatives would be welcome.

µ-Ziq: 1979 & Manzana (Balmat)

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

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

Anthony Naples: Scanners (ANS)

Barker: Stochastic Drift (Smalltown Supersound)

Barry Can’t Swim: Loner (Ninja Tune)

Bicep: CHROMA 000 (CHROMA) 🏆Top 20

Biosphere: The Way of Time (AD 96)

The Black Dog: Loud Ambient (Dust Science Recordings) 🏆Top 20

Black Sites: R4 (Tresor Records) 🏆Top 20

Blackploid: Cosmic Drama (Central Processing Unit)

Blawan: Sick Elixir (XL Recordings)

Bogdan Raczynski: Slow Down Stupid (Disciples)

Bruise Blood: You Run Through the World Like An Open Razor (Rocket Recordings) 🏆Top 20

The Bug vs Ghost Dubs: Implosion (Pressure)

Cain: Lineage (Fine Grains) 🏆Top 20

Call Super: A Rhythm Protects One (Dekmantel) 🏆Top 20

Carrier: Rhythm Immortal (Modern Love)

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

Charlotte de Witte: Charlotte de Witte (KNTXT)

Clark: Steep Stims (Throttle Records) 🏆Top 20

Cosey Fanni Tutti: 2t2 (Conspiracy International)

Dale Cornish: Altruism (The Death of Rave)

Daniel Avery: Tremor (Domino Recording Co)

Debit: Desaceleradas (Modern Love)

DJ Babatr: Root Echoes (Hakuna Kulala)

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

DJ Koze: Music Can Hear Us (Pampa)

Djrum: Under Tangled Silence (Houndstooth)

Ehua: Panta Rei (3024)

Facta: Gulp (Wisdom Teeth) 🏆Top 20

FKA Twigs: EUSEXUA (Young)

The Flashbulb: Papillon (self-released)

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

Hieroglyphic Being: The Sound Of Something Ending (Mathematics)

Ikonika: SAD (Hyperdub)

In Transit: In Transit (Felt)

Introspekt: Moving The Center (Tempa)

James Holden & Waclaw Zimpel: The Universe Will Take Care Of You (Border Community)

Jeremy Hyman: Low Air (JH Recordings)

John Tejada: The Watchline (Palette Recordings) 🏆Top 20

Josef Tumari: JANNAT YURTIM (DSL System)

Kaytranada: Ain't No Damn Way! (RCA)

K-LONE: sorry i thought you were someone else (Incienso)

Lila Tirando a Violeta: Dream of Snakes (Unguarded) 🏆Top 20

Lindstrøm: Sirius Syntoms (Feedelity Recordings)

Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka (self-released)

Loscil: Lake Fire (Kranky)

Low End Activist: Airdrop II (Peak Oil)

Lynyn: Ixona (Sooper Records) 🏆Top 20

Lyra Pramuk: Hymnal (7K!)

Marie Davidson: City Of Clowns (Deewee)

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

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

Nadah El Shazly: Laini Tani (One Little Independent) 🏆Top 20

Nazar: Demilitarize (Hyperdub)

Nick León: A Tropical Entropy (TraTraTrax)

Noumen: Altum (Central Processing Unit) 🏆Top 20

Ø: Sysivalo (Sahko Recordings)

Oneohtrix Point Never: Tranquilizer (Warp Records)

The Orb: Buddhist Hipsters (Cooking Vinyl) 🏆Top 20

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

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

Polygonia: Dream Horizons (Dekmantel)

Powell: We Do Recover (Diagonal Records)

Purelink: Faith (Peak Oil)

Pye Corner Audio: Lake Deep Memory (Quiet Details)

Rainy Miller: Joseph, What Have You Done? (Fixed Abode) 🏆Top 20

Real Lies: We Will Annihilate Our Enemies (Tonal)

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

Rival Consoles: Landscape From Memory (Erased Tapes) 🏆Top 20

rRoxymore: Juggling Dualities (!K7 Recordings)

Sandwell District: End Beginnings (Point Of Departure)

Shed: Towards East (The Final Experiment)

Sherelle: With A Vengeance (Impressed Recordings) 🏆Top 20

Ship Sket: InitiatriX (Planet Mu)

Slikback: Attrition (Planet Mu)

Soulwax: All Systems Are Lying (Soulwax) 🏆Top 20

Squarepusher: Stereotype (Warp Records) 🏆Top 20

Steve Hauschildt: Aeropsia (Simul Records)

Surgeon: Shell~Wave (Tresor Records)

Tim Reaper: sfs (self-released) 🏆Top 20

TurquoiseDeath: Guardian (Phantasia)

Valesuchi: Futuro Cercano (Discos Nutabe)

Verses GT: Verses GT (LuckyMe)

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

Wagon Christ: Planet Roll (De:tuned)

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

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Squarepusher plays to (Stereo)type

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

Squarepusher: Stereotype (Warp Records)

80-plus albums later – probably closer to 90 but no-one’s counting – and we finally come to my last entry of Fat Roland’s Best Electronic Music of 2025, subsection Top 20 Bangers. Except this next album is not from 2025. It’s a cheat. Don’t tell anyone.

In July 1994, Wet Wet Wet were wedged at the top of the UK singles chart with Love Is All Around. Somewhere in the Essex suburbs, Tom ‘Squarepusher’ Jenkinson was recording two albums. One of them was Feed Me Weird Things which would be released on Rephlex Records two years later. The other one, originally released under the artist name Stereotype, was this.

Whooshki is a beefy 16-minute opener, gliding from silky, spiralling IDM into a clumping 909 tantrum. 1994, which I suspect is named after the year 1994, is a scratchy home-knit of tangled hi-hats and dystopian ambience. O'Brien sounds like Clark slipping off a cliff.

There’s early Aphex feel to Greenwidth, with its muffled rhythmic charge drizzled in oily ambience. Falling is drum ‘n bass compacted and tarnished by weighty, wistful analogue chords. We finish with O’Brien again, this time remixed and sounding like it’s come back for a sulk.

I don’t know how people remaster old tapes to make them sound better. I asked William Basinski this about his remaster of The Disintegration Loops. Surely a muffled old analogue tape is a muffled old analogue tape. Anyway, I’m none the wiser, but thank the gods for 1990s Squarepusher, redone and refreshed 32 years later. Old is the new new.

If you've been reading along, this is the last blog post for my 2025 album highlights. Excellent reading, well done. Someone tell Jools Holland that 2026 can now officially start.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Central Processing Unit do it again with Noumen

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

Noumen: Altum (Central Processing Unit)

My top 20 albums of the year wouldn’t be a top 20 albums of the year without an album from those ever-reliable electro selectors Central Processing Unit. In previous annual lists, I have featured their artists Maelstrom, Silicon Scally, S>>D, Nadia Struiwigh and Proswell.

So here we have Noumen from Ukraine, who returns to CPU with an album of scrummy ambient techno. Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: There are definitely nods to old Autechre, particularly on the clatter of Telemask, the dark musicality of Fate Carette, and in the concrete snares of Far Wind.

With that out of the way, let’s see what makes Noumen so Noumen. On that latter track, the cold mechanics of the rhythm section are joined by layers of shiny synths until it becomes more about the melody than the Ae (it's what the cool kids call Autechre). And tracks like Splutter and Centrip are so brilliantly detailed and spidery.

The opening track Oion – and this is bold – runs for 15 minutes. It’s an airy ambient dub chug-a-long, really wonderful, its endless electro rhythm never giving up. It’s a real statement starting with a track that long. The message is clear: strap in or bugger off.

Can I just say, by the way, that I love Central Processing Unit’s commitment to binary. The catalogue number for this record is 10000010, binary for 130, and you’ll notice elsewhere in my end-of-year list Blackploid’s Cosmic Drama, which was their release before this one (10000001, or 129). I give then 1010 out of 1010.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: snake-charming Lila Tirando a Violeta channels her inner Cronenberg

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

Lila Tirando a Violeta: Dream of Snakes (Unguarded)

Here is another electronic music album highlight of 2025. Make sure to read the rest of the series, although it may take you the rest of 2026 to read it all.

Here comes Lila Tirando a Violeta, Hyperdub artist and created of audio-visual treats for people like Primavera and Boiler Room.

We start across the Irish sea. The last time I was in Ireland, I encountered the New York–Dublin Portal, a high street video sculpture where people could wave, jump and generally play with their cross-Atlantic counterparts. When I think of Ireland, I think of this joyful connection.

When producer Lila Tirando moved from the Netherlands to Ireland, she thought of snakes. Not a video sculpture of snakes, but actual proper wriggly tongue-flicking snakes. They kept popping up in her dreams.

For her, though, her recurring snake dreams were comforting. They connected her to her childhood, to her grandparents, and to memories of her native Uruguay. And she is expressing that memory with Dream Of Snakes, a collection of wild, upfront and sometimes venomous industrial techno.

On Heavy Is The Soul, processed vocals attempt hyperpop over a clattering barrel of unruly beats. Eye Slice is a floor-stomper so pounding, you can barely hear the accompanying synths fireworking into fractals. New Flesh sees sci-fi keyboards accompany her whispered recitation of dialogue from David Cronenberg’s film Videodrome. Inventive all the way, and well worthy of my top 20 list.

“I wanted to feel the music coursing through my nervous system, that same adrenaline rush I get when watching a David Cronenberg film,” she said in an interview with Ransom Note. There are no FLIES on her. Geddit? No? Oh suit yerself.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Bruise Blood is dirtier than a ketchup-splashed pop shirt

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

Bruise Blood: You Run Through the World Like an Open Razor (Rocket Recordings)

Welcome to more highlights of 2025. I banged on about dozens of best-of-2025 albums, and now we’re into the Top 20 Bangers. The very best electronic music releases of 2025. With Bandcamp embeds and everything.

If you like your EBM, you may well adore this album from Teeth Of The Sea’s Mike Bourne. It’s industrial, crunchy synthwave noisecore kind of thing, splattered with acid and shoegaze and ‘orrible grubbiness.

I’m behind schedule with writing these blog posts, so forgive me for a moment of laziness. Here is an extract of me talking about the album when I interviewed Bruise Blood for Electronic Sound magazine. This was published a couple of months ago:

“This is a dirty album. Not the sanitised kind of dirty you get in detergent commercials in which a child splats ketchup onto their impossibly white polo shirt. This EBM-inspired workout is the filth of electronic aeons, riven with analogue grime and the leaking pneumatics of old studio hardware.

“For example, Cede leads with an impossibly dented bass rhythm while a rusty sawtooth yowl cuts through a splatter of vinegary ambience. And the scuzz of the title piece is so mesmerizingly broken, your inner cave-dweller will be bashing rocks to its 85bpm stomp.”

That pretty much sums it up. Thanks, past me. A doff of the cap should go to music magazine The Quietus for giving 'Blood the impetus to create this album, and to make our world a whole lot grubbier. I love it.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: bassoons, neuroscience and fine-tuned Lynyn loops

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

Lynyn: Ixona (Sooper Records)

Despite all the letters of complaint, my 2025 album series continues. Only a few more entries to go, and then we can start our 2026 properly. 

Lynyn’s first album Lexicon was in my 2022 end-of-year list. My review for Electronic Sound magazine called it “the brain half of braindance”. Intelligent beats and all that. And now, like a very good football team scoring two goals in the space of three years, he’s back in my end-of-year list.

It’s still brainy. Lynyn is one of those clever people. He’s a proper academic and probably has, like, all 26 letters after his name. And some Greek ones too. He’s classically-trained in composition, plays guitar in an avant-jazz band, and knows a lot about bassoons and neuroscience. No really. He knows a lot about bassoons and neuroscience.

However, this second album, released by Sooper Records based in his hometown of Chicago, is a spookier affair. Gloops of haunting ambience. Pin-point drum clicks. He gets the big guns out on Versilitude, a grizzly roller that, still, finds itself entangled in a web of intricate, cocooning electronics. It’s like Burial covering Squarepusher. Squarial.

As inspiration for Ixona, he listened to dub techno pioneers like Pole and Basic Channel. Pole was first featured on this blog in August 2007, dontcha know. An especial inspiration was the speckled static of Jan Jelinek’s 2001 masterpiece Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records. That would be a great companion listen to Ixona.

The closing piece Pad 4 U is a lovely palate cleanser. A trombone skips merrily over a beanbag-flopped dubstep rhythm. Is there anything this man’s brain can’t do?

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: E's aren't good – Clark is back at his best

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

Clark: Steep Sims (Throttle)

Can I please get something off my chest? In their write-up for this album, Boomkat compare one of Clark’s tracks to “his namesake Vince Clarke”. This is wrong. Clarke cannot be a namesake for Clark, nor vice versa. One has an E and the other doesn’t. It’s like saying Iain and Ian are the same name. Absolutely not. Iains with two i’s are salt of the earth, their hearts pure. Ians with one solitary i are all sub-human scum. Namesake indeed. Pah.

Clark had this album without fuss and in record time. He relied on a Virus synthesiser for a dancefloor feel – you’ll know its sound: think of the Prodigy in full techno mode. The result is Clark at his most ravey and most rebelliously bleepy.

The start is brilliant: on Gift And Wound, ghostly chords glow as the rave synths line-up for a full-on assault. The words bumps and goose come to mind, not necessarily in that order. The middle is brilliant too: on Globecore Flats, a fussy breakbeat leads the saddest detuned rave in history. And the end is brilliant: the fuzz of Micro Lyf is Clark at his most emotional.

No rich soundtracking or obtuse electronics here. Clark has gifted us perhaps his most in-your-face work on Steep Sims. Reducing his toolbox of available gear has clearly worked. He says his Virus synth was awkward to program, as a lot of old gear would be. You wouldn’t think it. This is Clark-with-no-e at his natural best.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: the Arrakis spice is strong with Nadah El Shazly

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

Nadah El Shazly: Laini Tani (One Little Independent)

Who agreed to writing this blog series over five whole days? I’ve not been out, not been to the shops, not got any fresh air. I’ve been hunched over my laptop eating cheese strings and bashing my face at the keyboard until blog posts accidentally appear on my screen. What a life.

For this latest entry in my Top 20 Bangers of 2025, we’re looking east and west, for the Egypt-born Canada-based Nadah El Shazly. As long as you don’t try to look at the two places at the same time, you’ll be fine.

Her second album combines acoustic and electric experimentalism with Arabic vibes. The title of the album, Laini Tani or لاقيني تاني in Arabic, means something like “meet me again”. It’s about longing for home. In fact, the whole thing feels like longing.

Let’s start with the vocals, sinewy and sweltering, sounding like Natacha Atlas if she had been left in the baking hot sun. The sound simultaneously mournful, as if lamenting into the void, and richly hopeful and significant.

The singing foregrounds compelling organic electronics. Listen to the heart-tickling slow drum procession of Kaabi Aali with that waterfalling synth tones. The floor-shattering bass drop on Dafaa Robaai. The bourgeoning clamour of Ghorzetein, sounding like an army of Bjorks.

That latter comparison isn’t entirely fair – she is nothing like Bjork – but the instrumentation on this album is addictive, like Arrakis spice. I have a feeling that Bjork producer and LFO bleepist Mark Bell would hear this album and smile.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Call Super would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids

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

Call Super: A Rhythm Protects One (Dekmantel)

I have a policy of not featuring compilation albums in my end-of-year lists. Otherwise my lists will be full of Ibiza Classic Choons Volume 92 or Now That’s What I Call Breakcore (Unplugged). No compilations. That’s the rule.

The next album in my Top 20 Bangers of 2025 is a compilation from London techno experimentalist Call Super. He has gathered the greatest names in crepuscular micro-techno for a blockbusting collection of pristine, wonky beats.

There’s Call Super himself with the caffeinated bossanova garage of Waterways. Conny Slipp turns up for the Blue Sun pairing: a bluesy clarinet heats up a snuffling scatter-beat. Louis Lupin gets all spacey on Lululu. A defiant Eye Gritt treadmills his machines into a flurry on Same Battles.

Except, it’s not a compilation. It’s a trick. All of these artists are Call Super. Conny is Call Super. Louis is Call Super. This whole album is Call Super in the guise of his various projects and pseudonyms. What a reveal! This is his Keyser Söze / Wizard of Oz / fairground owner out of Scooby Doo moment.

The album includes a mixed DJ set of all of the tracks. Which feels like the point of A Rhythm Protects One. In the days of Spotify’s lug-eared shuffle function, which has the curational integrity of a labrador writing a crossword, mainstream DJ mixes feel like a thing of the past. Call Super is reclaiming the mix CD, albeit it in his usual opaque, tricksy and delightfully entertaining fashion.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: BICEP MAKE THEIR (UPPER) CASE WITH CHROMA

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

Bicep: CHROMA 000 (CHROMA)

If you’ve just started reading, welcome to the list of my 20 favourite electronic music albums of 2025. My Top 20 Bangers. You are welcome here. Just make sure you use a coaster, and stick to using the downstairs toilet unless you’re having a number two. Next on my list: Bicep.

Nearly two years ago, Bicep launched Chroma. It’s stylised in capital letters, but I can’t be doing with that kind of nonsense. Chroma was designed to be a record label, an event series, an audiovisual show, a dry cleaners, a cure to trenchfoot and my drag name. Well. Some of those, anyway.

The music side of Chroma displayed Bicep’s club chops. For example, Chroma 001 Helium, released in January 2024, sounded like a usual catchy Bicep track after it has been shoved into a swamp by a particularly angry crocodile. Snappy stuff.

So here are all the Chroma tracks gathered onto one album. There’s the exhaust-fumed fast pace of Chroma 002 LAVA, the reactionary clamour of Chroma 04 Rola, the sad-emoji breaks and arpeggio redemption of Chroma 005 ALOE, and the uncompromising mechanical samba of Chroma 009 KR36.

It might be the case that Bicep have sacrificed some of their emotion in favour of, as cool clubs kids would say, dropping a phat one. But I love it when my favourite artists step out of their comfort zone, even if they do choose track titles so obtuse, you might think they’re selling Ikea furniture. And yeah, that’s Ikea not IKEA. I told you. I’m not having it.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Rival Consoles is back, despite my best efforts

 

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

Rival Consoles: Landscape from Memory (Erased Tapes)

Time waits for no man, and blogging waits for no, er, blogger. My 2025 albums list has been going on for days. Thanks for bearing with me. There’s just so much good music to bang on about.

Rival Consoles has made regular appearances in my best-of lists over the years. I wrote about him in 2018 (“so sweet and so warm”), in 2020 (“oh my heart”), in 2021 (“another corker”) and in 2022 (“ah, that Rival Consoles shimmer”). I’ve used the word ‘shimmer’ a lot.

He then hit a creative block. So effusive was my praise that Ryan Lee West got all embarrassed and couldn’t write another note of Rival Consoles music. Probably.

Thank goodness he found his mojo again. Let’s poke some of the tracks and see what sound they make. Catherine leads with an graceful melody that is scattered amongst shuffling half-step. Gaivotas side-chains itself into a gasping melancholia. Tape Loop sounds like Jon Hopkins on a tiny choo-choo train.

Yes, it’s intricate. That’s what Consoles does. But in redrawing his musical landscape, he has straked his cinematic vision with primary colours. Big bold melodies, perhaps more so than ever before.

Before we get too pretentious in our muso talk, it’s worth noting that:

(a) Some of the drum sounds were recorded using his sofa. and

(b) ‘Ryan Lee West’ is an anagram of ‘weeny alerts’.

So let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I like this reinvigorated Rival Consoles a lot. Although I’d better not tell him that: if he gets too embarrassed, there might not be another album for a decade.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: The Black Dog becomes Orange And Yellow Oblongs Dog

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

The Black Dog: Loud Ambient (Dust Science)

I’m dead arty, me. I own a watercolour set, and I have a pair of Mondrian-themed socks. I lied about the watercolour set. I appreciate a mooch around a gallery, and so it’s the art world we will turn for the next entry in my Top 20 Bangers of 2025.

The geometric work of the 20th century’s leading square pusher Mark Rothko was an inspiration for The Black Dog’s Loud Ambient. They used Rothko’s colour fields as the building blocks for the album’s varied tones. The Black Dog becomes Orange And Yellow Oblongs Dog.

As a result, their usual brutalist aesthetic has become, as visual metaphor, brilliant. Murky flows of befogged gloom are replaced by sunlit synth cycles. Several Rituals lays down a house beat with roof-raising claps. They Came For My Head is Global Communication surfing a rainbow.

They say they fell back in love with fall back in love with the 707, 808 and 909 while making this album. That’s a series of Roland drum machines, all with slightly different tones. The TR-707 is especially happy in tone, and has been used in italo-disco gubbins.

They did release another album this year, My Brutal Life 2, a continuation of their architecture-themed ambience. But it was this album that added colour to my 2025. 

I don’t want to make a habit of this, but I should also acknowledge the upsetting death of The Black Dog’s founding member Ken Downie. Robin Rimbaud, the musician better know as Scanner, put it best in a social media post. I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting him here:

“As a founding presence within The Black Dog, Ken helped carve a language that refused easy spectacle, and his passing leaves a quiet, resonant space in electronic music—one shaped by intelligence, restraint, and an unwavering belief that machines could think, feel, and remember.”

A quiet, resonant space indeed. RIP Ken.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: 160 reasons to like Sherelle's debut album

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

Sherelle: With A Vengeance (Impressed Recordings)

It’s the second day of January. 2026 has embedded itself like a persistent cold sore or the pigeons in your loft. However, I have two more days of blog posts highlighting my favourite 20 electronic music albums for 2025, and you’re not allowed to do any 2026 things until we’re done.

The publicity for Sherelle’s debut album calls it a “rally cry for the 160 scene”, which can mean one of three things. It’s an album bigging up people who are very good but not perfect at darts. It’s an album for users of the New Jersey bus service that runs past the Meadowlands Sports Complex. It’s an album for fans of high-energy electronic music.

Probably the latter. Dancefloor delectation abounds: the rubbery footwork of the defiant Don’t Need You; he rooftop sirens of the filthy With A Vengeance; the twin speed garage and propulsive jungle on Freaky (Just My Type), George Riley’s vocals adding a distinctly sweet flavour.

I saw Sherelle playing at the Repercussion club night a few weeks ago. She was on just after Special Request, another go-to for upfront party junglism. I should have taken notes if I had known she’d end up in my end-of-year list. Oh and shout out to the Leeds couple who had come over especially for the gig.

Where were we? Oh yes. Sherelle. With A Vengeance is the sound of a woman who has mastered her craft. She has previously presented a BBC radio programme about how The Winston's Hey Brother became the Amen Break. She knows what she’s doing regardless of BPM.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Cain reaches God-tier with a highlands highlight

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

Cain: Lineage (Fine Grains)

Cain's lineage is detailed in chapter four of the book of Genesis, which means Bible scholars can trace the descendants of Cain, the firstborn son of Adam… oh wait. Sorry. Wrong Cain. Let’s start again.

For the past eleven years, since Cain’s addictive Savan EP, I’ve been growing increasingly impatient. Sitting there, looking at the internet, tapping my watch and tutting. Just when is he going to release a proper studio album?

What I wasn’t expecting was an album of pipe music featuring Gaelic singing and with an illustration of a Pictish boar on the cover. Nor would the expect it to be one of the best debut albums of recent times.

At his best, there’s a mystery and an endearing gawkiness to Cain’s work, and that’s all on display here. The boss drum thumps hard, the melodies paint chunky Prodigy primary shapes, and the droning synth lines add soundtrack oomph wherever they go.

The Scottish flavours, so folky and human, come from a very real placer. In his youth, Cain was a junior bagpipe champion. His wife Katie Mackenzie is a Gaelic singer, and her voice is featured prominently, as song or as Bicep-style samples.

Unlike the past 15 or so years, in this year’s best album’s list I have committed to NOT declaring a number one. But… y’know… Cain. Lineage. You absolutely have to rinse this album from now until the end of time.

One extra note. This beautiful and personal album also stands as a tribute to Alexander Horne, otherwise known as DJ Uraki Riddim, who founded the Fine Grains record label. I suspect his influence runs deep on Lineage, and his recent passing will be felt by many.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: an album that's child's play for Tim Reaper

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

Tim Reaper – sfs (self-released)

Let’s have another top 20 album of 2025. You wait a year for one, and then 20 come at once.

Sometimes it’s nice to have a change, like eating a chicken & mushroom Pot Noodle instead of the usual tapioca & cheese flavour. Tim Reaper has done a similar thing, although with music noodling, not with… well, you get the idea. For this album, he has veered away from the jungle stylings featured on 2024’s In Full Effect with Klondike – see last year’s best-of list.

But does this change work? Has he fluffed it on sfs? Or has he entered exciting new territory? It’s good news. The bloke is such a genius, he could release a mumble rap album and still make it one of the most listenable albums of the year.

It’s treat after treat after treat. Buzzy balaeric chords meet hyper-pop vocals on Haribo. A rolling samba parade sways and morphs on Native Land. The dubwise Weathered spins all over the place.

The cover of sfs depicts a boy – presumably a young Tim – making tunes with a Winnie The Pooh Play-along Piano Book. It suggests a childlike approach – playfulness, first principles, not taking things too seriously.

In fact, by self-releasing this album on Bandcamp for free, it’s almost like Reaper wasn’t taking the album too seriously. Not a core project. A DVD extra for the fans. However, this deserves to be considered as one of his most entertaining works. That boy is prodding those Play-along buttons hard.

This is all first-draft quality, so can we please forget about that tortured Pot Noodle metaphor? Thanks.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Getting grubby – really, really grubby – with Black Sites

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

Black Sites: R4 (Tresor)

My countdown of the top 20 best electronic music albums of 2025 continues. Although it’s not a countdown. Everything in the top 20 has equal billing. No more Number 1 Album Of The Year: music taste is more complex than that. Jeez, I sound so pretentious.

ANYWAY. This new album on legendary techno label Tresor sees an old musical partnership revived. The first half of Black Sites is analogue knob-tweaker Helena Hauff. The other half is studio big-brain Kris Jakob, better known as the impressively obtuse name F##X.

R4 is the pair’s first album proper, and the first Black Sites release since 2014. They met years ago while DJing at Hamburg’s Golden Pudel club. You can tell when a partnership is nicely embedded: the rusted gears of this album spin with unfettered ease.

It’s a corrosive and deliciously grubby musical project. Rotted industrial snares, rickety mechanical jitters, overdriven synth crunches, frequencies smashed and crunched and bleeding for their lives. Yet it’s so listenable. So, so listenable.

When I interviewed Black Sites about this album earlier last year, I was fascinated about the yin and yang of it all. As I wrote at the time, it’s a mix of crabs-in-your-pants scratchiness and party-poppin’ electro bangers.

“Haha, it’s a fine line indeed,” said Hauff at the time. “We enjoy having fun and being playful, but we both love harsh and raw sounds. But having fun can be dirty, you know.”

And that’s why R4 works. In some ways, this album is as hard as it gets, but it’s such a good time.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025