Top ten best electronica albums of 2009: part three of three

This is part three.
For part one, click here. 
For part two, click here.
 
1 - Clark - Totems Flare

Readers of this blog know I make little secret of my love for Warp Records. So it's no surprise that one of their mob finds itself as the absolute Fat Roland favourite for 2009.

But this album is justified in being number one.

Chris Clark began with Warp in 2001, releasing a succession of albums and EPs that seemed to get better as the decade strolled on. His sound was firmly entrenched in Aphex-style 'IDM' electronica; it was muckier behind the ears without being too unpleasant.

If electronica fans in dark corners started whispering that Clark had lost a little of his sheen with 2008's Turning Dragon, they needn't have fretted.

The tentative first notes of Outside Plume on his 2009 album Totems Flare sounded like robots getting up in the morning and wondering what was in store for the day ahead. To be honest, it probably represented Clark's waking realisation that he had to step things up a gear: more of the same was not an option.

So the day ahead for those yawning robots was a torrent of yelping synths, snares that sounded like a hundred people clapping, themes piling on top of themes, melodic progressions that will chime a bell for any Orbital fan, and furiously grumpy electro workouts.

An mp3 of Growls Garden preceded the album, and is the second track here. It starts with vocals about sunbeams before ripping into the nastiest piece of pop perfection you've ever heard: a catchy choon with a full-on dance beat, all bathed in an insistent brown fuzz. It is the most startling and pompous electronica tune of 2009.

The bobbling beginning of Rainbow Voodoo ends up sounding like Front 242 in a Benny Hill video. And this one gets nasty too, all scratches and farting machines, before switching all the lights on and becoming something Mario would mushroom-dance to.

But if I'm painting this album as a nasty, snarling beastie, I'd be doing it a terrible service. There is straight electronica too, like the understated Luxman Furs, the acid house of Look Into The Heart Now, and Primary Balloon Landing's sweeping interlude.

And that's not all. There is beauty in bucket-loads on Totems Flare.

The speed junglism of Totem Crackerjack careers into a tinkling melody and a wibbling synth solo that would warm the frostiest of frowns. Suns Of Temper is a low-down, driving techno track that floats into a thin, heavenly chorus before descending into a bombastic drum anthem smothered in chords that wail like the titular Wild Things in Spike Jonze's recent film.

Future Daniel returns to the crunchiness of the first few album tracks before leading us down a crazy-paved path of a ever-so-slightly eighties tune, while Talis, another vocal piece, is melancholic and mega and would sit comfortably with the simple guitar-led closer of Absence.

Clark's Totems Flare was a bold statement. You can not only produce uncompromising electronica that rips at your speakers while at the same time swathing you in gentle melodic bliss: you can even add vocals to it and not sound like a tosser.

And so Mr Christopher Clark finishes the decade in style. If you want to know what my favourite track title is from Totems Flare, see this post. In the meantime, listen to Growls Garden and buy the best electronica album of 2009 from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

This is part three.
For part one, click here. 
For part two, click here. 

Top ten best electronica albums of 2009: part two of three

This is part two.   
For part one, click here. 
For part three, click here. 

5 - DâM-FunK - Toeachizown

80s boogie anyone? See if you can guess why I never featured this album on my blog before: he was a Warren G session musician, his album is full of smooth chord changes and all-out soul, and he runs nights in California called Funkmosphere (!).

So why number five? It's an electronic album that gets under your skin. The insistent boss drum, the spiralling synth themes, the genius tweaking of a filter here, the acid flare-up there. It's got a simple funk veneer, but scrape that away and you have an album of staggering inventiveness, bustling with analogue synths and vintage drum machines.

Quality *and* quantity... and it's a debut album. Listen to this YouTube sampler.  Buy the album from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

4 - Hudson Mohawke - Butter

Turntablist-turned-aquacrunker Hudson Mohawke had one of the most anticipated releases of the year when Butter came out in October. But even though I said it would be "massive than a horse explosion", it seems the preceding Polyfolk Dance EP got more plaudits in 2009.

Butter was a dizzying mix of the low-fi and the futuristic, taking something as old fashioned as turntablism and making it sound synthetic, forced but accessible. Was it rave? Was it hip hop? Was that Prince?! No-one knows, but there was no doubt this was the defining sound of electronica in 2009.

Wrap your ears around ZOo00OOm. Buy the album from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

3 - Dan Deacon - Bromst

Bromst was Dan Deacon's umpteenth album but only his second professionally released on Carpark Records. It's probably not bleepy enough for this blog, but it didn't stop me calling Bromst a cacophonous bliss in April.

I might have overstated the brilliance of the album back then, but hark ye at the frantic arpeggios of Red F, the stamping over Susumu Yokota's legacy with the woodwind backing in Paddling Ghost, and the hypnotic, shimmering Surprise Stefani. It's a perfect companion to that Animal Collective album you've no doubt got.

Simply glorious. Listen to Paddling Ghost. Buy it from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

2 - Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue

Pull up a campfire and marvel at this stunning debut for Warp Records. Bibio's summery rustic guitars could have sat firmly in the folktronica camp, something I'm not a huge fan of, but instead it ran hurtling around the borders of techno and produced the mind-blowing Ambivalence Avenue.

If you don't buy this, you are stupid, You should know that, because I told you in June. The pop psychedelia of Jealous Of Roses or the delightfully catchy refrain of Haikuesque (When She Laughs) was enough for a great album, but then you get the Prefuse 73-friendly beats of Fire Ant or the kick drum of Sugarette punching holes in your record decks.

I cannot praise this album enough: it has been a very good friend to me since the summer. Listen to Fire Ant. Buy it from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

Not quite in the top ten (part two)

Why I chose a top ten rather than a top 97, I don't know. But it does mean that some musickers didn't reach the dizzying heights of my top ten, despite deserving plaudits.

Moderat, the hugely impressive collaboration between Apparat and Modeselektor, didn't quite punch me in the face enough. Neither did Prodigy's Invaders Must Die, which blew the speakers but not my mind. And Jega's Variance, with all its Aphexisms, wasn't quite enough either. The spacey IDM of Nosaj Thing's Drift is definitely worth a look in too, despite being missed off.

This is only an album top ten, so the following artists missed out on a technicality: Floating Points produced some gorgeous EPs, while Bullion's Young Heartache EP took Hudson Mohawke's cut-up style to a new level - and what a shame not to include the eminently loveable track Until There is No End by Lorn.

This is part two.   
For part one, click here.
For part three, click here. 

Top ten best electronica albums of 2009: part one of three

This is part one.   
For part two, click here. 
For part three, click here. 

10 - Telefon Tel Aviv -  Immolate Yourself

This band started 2009 with two momentous events: the death of Charles Cooper and the release of this third studio album. Such tragedy overshadowed a great album full of 1980s analogue confidence - and curtailed what would have been a fascinating future for the pair.

I called Immolate Yourself "insubstantial" back in January, but you have to lie back and let yourself be overtaken by it. One moment it is channelling the ghost of the Pet Shop Boys, while the next moment it could be Brian Eno in a cavern or the Human League on GHB.

It was unashamedly pop: check the new wave joy of Helen Of Troy. Buy it from Bleep or Boomkat.

9 - Lone - Ecstacy And Friends

My computer speakers can't cope with Lone's new album, as I mentioned here just a few weeks ago. Maybe my old cobwebby PC just has a function in it that cannot cope with anyone who grabs Boards Of Canada, rubs them up against Bibio and produces a beats album that gave Hudson Mohawke a run for his money.

This was Nottingham boy Lone's difficult third album: a lush, poly-rhythmic long player that, t'be honest, struggled to be heard amongst all the other rhythm-reapers of 2009. It's difficult to exorcise the washing repetitions of Waves Imagination, or to brush off to smooth, silkiness of the future party track To Be With A Person You Really Dig.

Get some good speakers, then listen to Waves Imagination (Goldies Timeless without the d 'n' b, anyone?) Buy it from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

8 - Lukid - Foma

Luke 'Lukid' Blair's sophomore long-player took the foundations laid by Autechre and Eno and blew them wide open. Foma was this year's first essential electronica album, and it sounds even better knowing what albums came after from other artists in 2009.

This is utterly in the vein of classic electronic music (it is the sound of a man playing with his machines into the wee hours of the night). The crunchy wooziness seemed to stretch it out into something new, until the sound was more ambient than a dialling tone. The buzzing anticipation of the first 30 seconds of Slow Hand Slap are better than most albums this year.

Have a listen to Fall Apart, and while you're doing that, buy it from Boomkat or Piccadilly.

7 - 2562 - Unbalance

Dubstep inspired by Detroit techno? This was the unlikely starting-point for 2562, whose Unbalance was a rhythmic, deep follow-up to his much acclaimed 2008 debut Ariel. Of course, dubstep is a tired genre, and this album was in danger of being swept under the dancefloor. Indeed, I didn't even feature it on this here website.

But listen! The pounding Flashback was a nuclear missile aimed squarely at your feet, while the reverberating saw bass of Like A Dream or the snapping loops on Yes/No reminded you this was music for the head too. How could you ignore it? 2562's Unbalance was a triumph.

Have some trippy Love In Outer Space. Buy Unbalance from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

6 - Harmonic 313 - When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence

More than most on this list, Harmonic 313 succeeded in carving out a very particular furrow this year. By the time When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence came out at the start of the year, Harmonic 313's solid techno sound was already recognisable.

Don't get distracted by the Speak and Spell novelty value: there is true feeling here. I rather pretentiously described Harmonic 313 as a "siren song of a cyborg" calling from some distant shore. It's not. It's just great subwoofer-friendly dance techno (check the bass on Cyclotron!) churned out by one of the best ambient producers of the past 20 years

Quandrant 3 is quite lovely and brilliant. Once you've listened to that, purchase the LP from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

The top five will be on this site from tomorrow...

Not quite in the top ten (part one)

I never claim this blog to be comprehensive, even though it is subtitled 'From AFX to Yokota'. So here is what missed the list for no reason other than, well, I didn't put it on the list.

I didn't include Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest, even though I loved Two Weeks. It just wasn't electronic enough for this top ten run-down (same for the wonderful Animal Collective long-player Merriweather Post Pavilion). Other albums just passed me by, so there's a severe lack of Zomby's Nintendo-nudging One Foot Ahead Of The Other, nor is there Jon Hopkin's compelling Insides album.

I kinda got bored with Venetian Snares, so that's why Filth isn't featured. And this is an album top ten, so what a shame I couldn't mention some great tracks from 2009: Burial's expansive Fostercare, Kode 9's excellent Black Sun (well done, Hyperdub, for a great year), or a definite classic, Mount Kimbie's Maybes.

This is part one.   
For part two, click here. 
For part three, click here.