60 best electronic music albums of 2021: SectorSept, Steven Rutter, Stigma, Tristan Arp & Ulrich Schnauss

Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents five more brilliant albums:

SectorSept – 954 (Gobstopper Records)

Pssst, mate. Don't tell anyone, but technically this is an EP. It shouldn't be on the list. If you tell anyone, I'll slice ya. Anyhoo, Mr. Mitch's Gobstopper label presents this delicious techno, er, album from this UK / Florida producer. The low-slung beats cast a line between UK bass music and smooth US electro, its low-res vocal samples only adding to the urban atmosphere. Not an artist I've encountered before, so I'll be watching keenly for future releases. A real head-nodder. Say nuthin', alright? Nudge nudge, wink wink, flap flap.

Steven Rutter – Riddle Me Sane (FireScope Records) 

Steven who? This is the bloke from legendary Artificial Intelligence act B12. The best thing? He's pretty much doing his B12 thing. Which is all kinds of fantastic. Electronic bloops, skippy snares. dubby bass, gorgeous early Warp vibes. There's a bleepy bit towards the start of the album which I want to either woo into marriage or take on a horrendously dirty weekend away. A melodic treat where, in the vein of classic ambient dub of the Warp variety, the machines truly feel alive.

Stigma – Too Long (Pessimist Productions)

A marching band staggers around the corner. They pound their drums but they're smashed on illegal grog. They stagger into bins, trip over kerbs. The guy at the back, the one with the cymbals, has been mounted by a squid. Welcome to the world of Stigma, the new name for Kristian 'Pessimist' Jabs. Big fat trip hop beats crumble into a pool of post-Massive Attack misery while wiggly bits of electronica splash around at the edges. This damn funk is sliced through with the spirit of Bristol. What a triumph.

Tristan Arp – Sculpturegardening (Wisdom Teeth)

Arp, who counts Arca as a former classmate, created this lilting electronic album during lockdown in Mexico City, a time when many of us were solo-journeying into nature. Sculpturegardening was inspired by Alan Titchmarsh. Oh, hold on. Not Alan specifically. It was inspired by gardening generally, and has a natural, dappled feel thanks to its wavering harmonics and soft cello sounds. Considering the generative processes he used, the result is remarkably pretty. An album for stopping and smelling the Alans. Roses, I mean. Smelling the roses.

Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters – Destiny Waiving (Bureau B) 

"I’ve never been massaged by puppies on a bed of candy floss," I wrote in Electronic Sound magazine, "but these serene sounds probably come close." I praised the album's "neon pink hallucination of bright open guitar chords and chains of blissful harmonics" before having second thoughts about my opening image. "Maybe not puppies. Kittens, perhaps. Really fluffy ones." Oh dear. Anyhow, this is all jolly and cheerful because it's Schnauss and you know what you're getting with Schnauss. "Possibly turtles?" I wrote. Blimey. Shut up, Fats.

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021. Read it all here.

Happy 30th anniversary, Warp Records

Warp Records has been celebrating its 30th birthday - it's the same age as Taylor Swift, Daniel Radcliffe and the twins who played Carl Gallagher in Shameless.

The first Warp track I heard was LFO's LFO, quickly followed by Tricky Disco's Tricky Disco. Both were UK top 40 hits - I know that because I taped the charts religiously every week: both songs would have degraded gloriously as I tape-to-tape copied them onto successive home compilations. Aside from loving the electronic simplicity of the records, having eponymous songs seemed weirdly rebellious.

Then came the Artificial Intelligence compilations, my musical fulcrum from which everything spewed, which featured Polygon Window, The Black Dog, Beaumont Hannant and B12. Warp also gave us some incredibly beautiful artist albums, most notably from - of course - Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, Autechre and Richard H Kirk. You already know this.

I remember Warp's tectonic plates shifting when they moved to London. A bit like when Boddingtons shut down their Manchester brewery. They widened their electronic remit (Warp, that is, not Boddies), bringing in acts like Anti Pop Consortium who sounded wonky and wild. And now they rule the world with artists like Flying Lotus, Plaid, Bibio, Kelela and Oneohtrix Point Never. You can catch a stack of the label's 30th anniversary broadcasts here.

Happy birthday, Warp. I'm glad you're still going strong, and I'm glad you're still putting out music by the likes of Lorenzo Senni, which has all the vital energy as your early stuff. I'll be forever grateful to the label being a beacon of quality techno, and the basis for a lot of further record browsing across a zillion other labels.

If I had one criticism, it would be that there doesn't seem to be much eponymous song titling these days. Just saying. If you want to release Fat Roland's Fat Roland, you know who to call.

Five great tracks from the Artificial Intelligence album

Hacienda-era ravers eventually had to take it easy - and that happened in 1992.

Warp Records' Artificial Intelligence was a series of post-rave albums designed for "long journeys, quiet nights and club drowsy dawns". The series began in 1992 and furthered the nascent work of Plaid, The Orb, Aphex Twin, The Black Dog and Richie Hawtin.

Perhaps most significantly. its seventh release was Incunabula, the debut album by Autechre.

The first Artificial Intelligence album, cleverly called Artificial Intelligence (released in the US the following year on Wax Trax!), is one of most influential compilation albums in any genre. Here are my five favourite tracks in no particular order. Enjoy.

Musicology - Telefone 529

Otherwise known as the massively important IDM duo B12. They later scooped up a whole bunch of their limited coloured-vinyl 12-inches for the Electro-Soma Artificial Intelligence album.



Autechre - Crystel

One of the Rochdale band's earliest tracks.



The Dice Man - Polygon Window

No doubt named after the Luke Rhinehart book, The Dice Man would later become Polygon Window, which is the name of this track. Confused? Polygon Window would release Surfing On Sine Waves as part of the Artificial Intelligence series. What became of this particular artist, I have no idea.



UP! - Spiritual High

An early appearance by Richie Hawtin, aka Plastikman - someone who would go on to conquer the DJing world. A touch of Detroit via Canada.



Dr. Alex Paterson - Loving You Live

The Orb kingpin was already top of the ambient world and didn't really need the Artificial Intelligence exposure. Indeed, this live version of Loving You was just a segment of A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld, its original Millie Riperton sample long since exorcised. Still... flipping great track, right?

What's in the Unbox? Techno remixes and new Future Sound of London

You know that film where there's a couple of cops and a bad guy and they're near some telegraph poles and there's something in a box and they're all like "what's in the box, what's in the box" and it turns out to be Chris Martin's head or something?

You'll be pleased to know that has nothing to do with the latest in the Unboxed Brain series of remixed records that span off from last year's Brainbox album from De:tuned. Listen to samples below.

This seventh remix EP has techno heavyweights Kirk Degiorgio, Mark Broom and The Black Dog producing reworks of techno heavyweights B12 and Scanner, while there is a new track from techno heavyweights Future Sound of London.

No wonder its unboxed - it's too heavy to lift.



Further Fats: Saturday night, I feel my brain is getting hot (2012)

Monthly mop-up: top class joy, too many leggings and the theme tune to the Equalizer

Here are some scabby flakes of putrid bloggery that I didn't have time to squeeze into my blog in April.

As a proud Mancunian, I like the look of Top Class Manager. Lesley Gilbert, the widow of music manager Rob Gretton, created this book from notebooks, posters, letters, and studio notes, all chronicling the short history of Joy Division. I think it came out some time ago, but I've only just noticed it - here.

Speaking of the holy land, the Manchester International Festival is approaching fast. Uber-techno-mecha-gods Kraftwerk will appear with Steve Reich, while Elbow will strike up with the Hallé Orchestra. I once performed with the Hallé, but that's for another post. Oh and the Same Teens will be doing one of their gigs for, um, teens. I found myself at one of their events once, and everyone, absolutely everyone, was wearing leggings.

Time for a B12 update. (I feel like I am a TV presenter updating you on the longest marathon in the world.) The legendary techno label is issuing lots of lovely old goodness on a series of Archive albums. I last reported them when they released Volume 3. They're now up to Volume six of seven, which spans 1992 to 1994 - read more about the whole lot at Boomkat.

Finally, I've been working on a piece called Bands From The Last Few Years That Sound Like Orbital But Aren't Orbital. I'm struggling. I'm trying to avoid obvious bands from 'back in the day' like Leftfield that Last FM or iTunes would obviously point out. So I've got Mike Paradinas, Boards of Canada, Plaid, maybe Bola, the Crystal Castles track Untrust Us, and the theme tune to the Equalizer. Long Range doesn't count because it's an Orbital spin-off. It's not a good list, is it? I thought this piece would float, but it seems to be drowning. If you can help, throw me a lifeline in the comments.

The Designers Republic vs B12 Records: are the 1990s dead?

I was sad to see The Designers Republic close its doors last week.

Through work for many bands (Autechre, Aphex Twin, Pop Will Eat Itself, Pulp) and classic video games, they pretty much defined 1990s graphic design for me.

According to a piece in the Creative Review, founder Ian Anderson explained:

“We’d lost a couple of clients, didn’t win a couple of pitches, got a tax bill which should have been sorted out and wasn’t and a major client who didn’t pay the money they owed us – in themselves any of those things would have been fine but when they come all at once there’s not much you can do.”

So sad.  They made a Google image search look sexy.  Their record covers looked like the music, like a kind of creeping Talented Mr Ripley metamorphis.  Wipeout 2097 wouldn't have been the game it was without their abject coolness, and they utterly defined PopWill Eat Itself's image.

They're not wiped out for good (did you see what I did there?) as I'm sure something will rise from the paint fumes.  Speaking of paint fumes, the picture of Designers-style graffiti at the top of this post was taken by John Wardell.  No-one needs Banksy when you have this graf in the basement.

On a more positive vibe, B12 are keeping the 1990s well and truly alive by rereleasing their complete back catalogue in a seven volume Archives series.

Rewind to the early '90s for a moment.  Modern electronica came out of the dregs of rave culture, when a cluster of assorted dredded dancers and smiley pill-poppers wanted music for the head as much as for the body.

B12's Archives series tracks the invention of IDM and intelligent techno, and spans many important moments in post-rave electronica.  It includes tracks used in the Electro Soma and the Artificial Intelligence compilations, the former of which you can hear at the bottom of this post.

Absolute techno nirvana, in seven double-CD chunks.  Volume three is out this week, which largely contains tracks from '91 and '92 and contains four unreleased tracks.  The 1990s may be dead visually, but the beautiful noise lives on.

[THE EMBEDDED MEDIA THAT WAS HERE IS NO LONGER ACTIVE]