Best electronic albums of 2016: one

Thanks for reading this albums list, if indeed you've been following it so far. I guess I now know what the week after Christmas is for. Four days of solid blogging. And it's all been leading to this: the best electronic album of 2016 according to me.

1 – Bwana – Capsule's Pride (LuckyMe)

"What the hell is this?" this album asks of itself 1 minute 32 seconds into The Colonel's Mistake, The Scientist's Regret.

It's a remix. Of a soundtrack. Of a manga classic. At number one.

Why would you use a cheesy English dub of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira movie for your remix album? Because awkward works. When the soundtrack was released on vinyl, Canadian Berliner Nathan 'Bwana' Micay shoved the whole thing through an Ableton mincer. What he produced was astonishing.

Capsule's Pride could have been a straight tribute album. A tribal Kaneda's theme set to a techno beat, perhaps. But Bwana rebuilt everything from the ground up. Things are chopped, accelerated, reverbed.

So Kaneda's theme becomes a snappy melodic pulse following its own tune. The corny "it's the cops! what shall we do?" dialogue from the bike chase scene morphs into a tense climactic moment in the addictive title track.

In one sense, this is a 1990s-infused house music album through-and-through. However, Bwana's liberal use of samples and melodic themes from an idiosyncratic source is so judiciously targeted that he builds a complete new world. A gawky world where you're never far away from someone shouting "Kaneda!" or "Ah! Ki! Ra!" to remind you where you are. It's wonderful.

This swings from ambient noir to dancefloor brilliance. I've never known the energy of manga expressed this way before. I'm not especially a fan of anime. And that's the genius of Capsule's Pride: since this was released free via a brilliant microsite (try it on your mobile), I feel I've got to know Tetsuo and his universe. I'm almost longing for World War III, dystopian governance and being ambushed by Clowns.

Speaking of which, here's to 2017. Arf! See what I did there? It's funny because it's true. Sigh.

Thanks for reading my website this year. It's been a relaunch of sorts: follow me on Twitter for more updates. I appreciate you lending me your eyes in 2016. Sorry, you're not getting them back.

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Best electronic albums of 2016: two

2 – Plaid – The Digging Remedy (Warp Records)

I was the first person to review the new Plaid album, right here on this very website. Well, sort of. It was more of a guarded comment so I didn't spoil my full review in issue 21 of Electronic Sound - in which I lauded the work having "more hooks than an angler’s tool box". Still, the Plaid chaps noticed.

@FatRoland Wow, thanks ! 😊 This is the first feedback we've had on the album as a whole other than from friends. Seen this @thebeedrones ?

— Plaid (@Plaid) May 30, 2016

Bless their, er, plaid socks. The Digging Remedy is more accessible than most of their previous 11 albums. The scratchiness is still there, as are their trademark chord sequences. You can recognise Plaid's sound a mile off. But it's smoothed out, all guitar-glistened and melodic. This is Plaid at their cheeriest, yet still, closer Wen made me well up.

To be truly understood, Plaid have to be seen live. At their Manchester gig earlier this year (pictured above), they became the absence of triangles in one of the cleverest visual set-ups I've seen for a while. As they were in the middle of their cute-as-a-button Melifer, the bloke next to me exclaimed "I didn't know they did songs like THIS."

"THIS" being an older Plaid, more thoughtful, but still willing to kick it out of the park with the towering Yu Mountain and the trippy confidence of CLOCK. This album was my companion throughout my short Edinburgh Fringe run. A proper friend. And their best album since their early days.

Stream Do Matter here.

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A final bunch of also-rans: all the way from Aa to Zomby

Before I reveal the toppest top albums atop the album top table, here are a final few names that didn't make the top 20 but are well worth a mention.

Baauer fiiiiinally dropped a debut album: Aa (LuckyMe) was full of scrunchy bangers to shake yer Harlems and much more besides. A grimier, stronger brother to that album is Skepta's Konnichiwa (Boy Better Know), with Novelist guesting on both those albums. Incidentally, this is not a hip hop list, but while we're on an MC tip, get yourself And The Anonymous Nobody by De La Soul (AOI Records).

Machinedrum bogged off to California to turn out his poppiest long-player yet, Human Energy (Ninja Tune). The rambling Callus (Warp Records) saw Gonjasufi in as psychedelic a mood as ever before. DJ Earl brought in Oneohtrix Point Never for his delightfully dizzying footwork experiment Open Your Eyes (Teklife). And Mala took in some Peruvian inspiration (and panpipes) for the bass-heavy and beguiling Mirrors (Brownswood Recordings). I was less convinced by Zomby's Ultra (Hyperdub) which seemed to float by unnoticed.

On EARS (Western Vinyl), Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith did some wonderful things with voice on an unusual and captivating album. These Hidden Hands did some weird things to my brain on the woozy and surreal Vicarious Memories (Hidden Hundred). Lakker did strange, dark things on the theme of water with Struggle & Emerge (R&S Records). And finally, Matmos did some unspeakable things to a washing machine on Ultimate Care II (Thrill Jockey). No really. The whole album is constructed from washing machine samples.

That's the last of the rejects. Over 100 albums mentioned... and just two to go in the final top 20 countdown. Coming up: a big number two followed by a big number one. You'll enjoy that, won't you? You disgust me.





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Best electronic albums of 2016: three

3 – Moderat – III (Monkeytown Records)

All the best things come in threes: magic numbers, Christmas ghosts, wishes, world wars. The completion of Apparat and Modeselektor’s Moderat studio album trilogy has led to their best work yet for Monkeytown: tune after tune after tune.

If III lacks the depth of II, it’s because they’ve gone for the pop hits. But what hits, so richly produced. The epic breaks of Reminder. The gleaming house of Running. The tragic melancholy of the xx-inflected The Fool. If the chart sounded like this all the time, I’d retract my Bruno Brookes comments.

Yes, it’s bombastic. Yearning. It’s the most unsubtle of the three; the one with the Ewoks. Cor, I'm really damning with faint praise here. At least I'm not still likening them to Steps. But you mark my words: the techniques that make this album so stellar will be cookie-cuttered by producers for years to come. A spellbinding listen start to finish. Three out of three.



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Best electronic albums of 2016: four

4 – Slam – Machine Cut Noise (Soma)

All Slam albums are techno, but some Slam albums are more techno than others. It’s easy to forget Slam used to be a vocal band. Cue memories of Dot Allison’s floaty vocals. Not so here. Machine Cut Noise is an insane assault of planet-sized sonic weaponry.

Each track is unrelenting in its Orwellian disregard of anything approaching humanity. There is no escape from the thundering bass drums, the ominous synths, the hissing snares. I joked in November about a Slam Tent. It’s not a tent. It’s a prison.

Yet, it’s also hypnotising. Liberating. Even exhilarating. It might be Stockholm Syndrome, but you will lose yourself in the metronomic majesty of Slam’s most impressive album yet. If you want a vision of Machine Cut Noise, imagine a bass drum stamping on your face forever. But in a good way.



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Full-on also-rans hysteria

Almost there. Here's a bunch of solid techno albums that didn't make my final list.

I didn't want to deal with old stuff, so no space in my top 20 for the newly polished-up classic Mike & Rich's Expert Knob Twiddlers (Planet Mu). That also goes for Altern 8's Full-On Mask Hysteria (Bleech) which carries the only design in the world I'd have tattooed on my face. And no space either for the hugely pleasing 1995 (Skam), an ancient Jega album found on an old tape somewhere.

Here are three names I was sad not to include, including two names in my best-of-2011. I liked the sprawling soundtrack styles of Kuedo's Slow Knife (Planet Mu). And Illum Sphere's Glass (Ninja Tune) had a kind of echoing subterranean vibe that made me want to live in a techno submarine. Meanwhile, Surgeon kicked up an evil disco with From Farthest Known Objects (Dynamic Tension).

On a lighter housier note, it may be worth looking into the airy jazz-tinged electronics of Steven Julien's Fallen (Apron Records), the '90s bleepery of A Sagittariun's Elasticity (Elastic Dreams) or how about Shinichi Atobe's World (DDS), all sprightly beats and dubby ambience.

Only one more of these 'also-rans' round-ups left while the main top 20 marches on. Who will be the number one album of 2016? Get to William Hill and place your bets now (minimum stake: 2p).





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Best electronic albums of 2016: five

5 – Ital Tek – Hollowed (Planet Mu)

The top five I'm about to list each pluck my emotions way more than anything else listed so far. Consider this lot special fried gold. Grilled silk. Battered platinum.

There’s a word I saw used in a review of Ital Tek’s fifth album: “maximalism”. That refers to a day-glo Rustie gloss in which everything is turned up to 92. I think we need a new word for Hollowed, though. Maximum ambient. "Maximbient"? "Ambimum"?

Alan ‘Ital Tek’ Myson (first mentioned here in 2008) tried to rediscover his teenage muse, when his sonic ramblings ran free and wild. As a result, Hollowed is cut from “hours of drones, loops and textures.” Crikes. All I did in my teenage years was tape the top 40. Finger on pause button, trying to cut out Bruno Brookes’s waffling.

The helicoptering Jenova, the fuzzy Clark-ish pulse of Beyond Sight, the snappy assault of Cobra: this is full of light and dark. Things build, crescendo, fall, and tear another glorious hole in your ears. But it's in those between moments, when the static hangs in the air, that the ambimum thrills most. Yeah. Maybe not "ambimum". "Ambaximent"?!



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Best electronic albums of 2016: six

6 – Ulrich Schnauss – No Further Ahead Than Today (Scripted Realities)

When I reviewed this for Electronic Sound, I used words like “sweet” and “saccharine” and “sugar”. I think Mojo likened this to being “like being dosed up with dopamine.” Too much for repeated visits, right? Yet here it is in the top 10 for 2016.

This is the Christmas cake stuck between your teeth. It’s the cheese selection sitting in your belly. It’s every sweet thing that has ever existed. Singing, chord changes, epic swell after epic swell, the perkiest keyboards under the sun. Oh my. I need a lie down.

With A Strangely Isolated Place and Goodbye behind Ulrich Schnauss, this feels like a late-career album. After all, he’s got Tangerine Dream to concentrate on now. Even more impressive then that No Further Ahead Than Today is so technicolour, so smorgasbord, so... everything. And I love it.



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Also-rans: time to kill off some more giants (sorry, Avalanches)

We're not too far from number one, so let's kill off a few more giants.

I really didn't take to The Avalanches comeback album Wildflower (XL Recordings). Way too "kooky" mainstream. And I don't know what Tricky was up to on Skilled Mechanics (False Idols). Oh dear. Let's move on.

I have endless love for Paul Hartnoll but his collaboration with Vince Clark on 2Square (Very Records) was a bit dad-pop in places. Meanwhile, Romare tend to be a little too straight down the line for me, no more so than on Love Songs: Part Two (Ninja Tune). That's also the case with Tycho, whose Epoch (Ghostly International) is as robustly satisfying as Coldplay.

Sometimes albums are great but perhaps don't fit my narrow definition of electronic albums. That goes for the much-lauded and utterly fantastic Anohni's Hopelessness (Rough Trade) and for Jenny Hval's thoughful and engrossing Blood Bitch (Sacred Bones Records).

Finally, a couple of miscellaneous names that didn't make the final selection but are probably worth a nosey. Steve Hauschildt's new agey Strands (Kranky) and the whimsical electronic pop of Motion Graphics (Domino) by Motion Graphics. The latter has a track called Minecraft Mosaic.





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Best electronic albums of 2016: seven

7 – Babyfather – BBF Hosted By DJ Escrow (Hyperdub)

The bleak urban shadows of BBF could be overwhelming: drug dealers, police sirens, relationship breakdowns. “Trust is a luxury I can’t afford.” Oof. This is possibly the most 2016-sounding album amid our terrifying new reality of the far right, Trump, and Bake Off moving to Channel 4.

Thankfully, the execution here is excellent. It’s recorded like a pirate radio station, and is presented by DJ Escrow, a presumably fictional MC with a funny line in chatter and plenty of problems to bang on about. It has the best line about Wiley that’s not on a Wiley record.

The genius behind Babyfather seems to be Dean Blunt, the trickster who this year tried to sell cheese-filled toy cars on Ebay. It wasn’t cheese. The clue’s in his name. Whatever he’s been toking, this Union Flag-emblazoned joint is as disorienting and rewarding as they come.



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Best electronic albums of 2016: eight

8 – Acronym – Entagled In Vines (Semantica Records)

Alright, it’s an EP, but shut up, it’s my end-of-year list and you know where the door is. It’s album-y enough to be here. See this dictionary? See this shredder? I’m feeding this dictionary into this shredder and you can’t stop—dammit, the shredder’s jammed.

I don’t know an awful lot about Acronym. Swedish chap, made his name on the Northern Electronics label, now back on the label he first started with. I once complimented him on his “gloopy intensity”, which I hope he didn’t take too personally. It’s just the way he walks.

Entagled In Vines is a thuddering hypnodrone that keeps your legs endurance-dancing beyond four in the morning. It reminds me of Der Dritte Raum or Analogue Bubblebath with its bouncy acid, dithering harmonics, clockwork trance and more bouncy acid. Cracking. EP be damned.



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Also-rans: demons, Durban, WWWINGS and weapons

Mind if I dump this dark weird stuff here? Okay, thanks. Here are some strange, experimental albums that didn’t make the final cut.

For example, Elysia Crampton’s critically acclaimed Demon City (Break World Records), which was deeply unsettling in a pleasing, genre-bending way. Maybe it was all that demonic laughter she kept dropping in. No, really.

I think I called Antwood’s Virtuous.scr (Planet Mu) “throbbing innards” for Electronic Sound. But in a good way. There’s also the twisted grime of WWWINGS’s PHOENIXXX (Planet Mu). If you want sparse, try the angry Fatima Al Qadiri’s Brute (Hyperdub) or Lucy’s industrial Self Mythology (Stroboscopic Artefacts).

I’m not meant to be covering compilations, but the throbbing Durban breaks of Gqom Oh! (GQOM OH) scared the life out of me. As did the crumbling white noise of Ceramic TL’s Sign Of The Cross Every Mile To The Border (Halocline Trance). Finally, the legend that is Roly Porter was back with some classical noise on Third Law (Tri Angle), there was a mega triple bashment LP from (deep breath) Alix Perez, Chimpo, Fixate, Fracture, Om Unit, Sam Binga and Stray (phew) in the shape of Who Is Richie Brains (Exit Records).

Oh and I have to mention the debut album just out from Seattle’s Homemade Weapons. The precision-engineered Negative Space (Samurai Music) seemed to point towards something interesting and new for drum ‘n’ bass.





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Best electronic albums of 2016: nine

9 – Mark Pritchard – Under the Sun (Warp Records)

Mark Pritchard is a phenomenon. Two of the bestest modern ambient albums of all time (76:14 and Remotion), the man behind Shaft's Roobarb & Custard (yep!) and Harmonic 313, and now this stunning breakthrough– his first solo album as actual real-life Mark Pritchard.

As Under The Sun spreads its Boards of Canada and Eno-isms thinly across a neverending horizon, sometimes it seems we’re caught in a trippy Wicker Man alternative reality, all English gardens and ‘70s haze and folk songs. Space flutes. Quivering organs.

Is there anything this man can’t do? Astronauting, maybe. Fine art. Advanced haberdashery. Deep sea oil exploration. Dog surgery. I’m sure he can’t do any of these. Tennis coaching. Atom splitting. The Macarena. Speaking Welsh. Jeez, can Pritchard do ANYTHING? I mean, really.



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Best electronic albums of 2016: ten

10 – patten – Ψ (Warp Records)

Welcome to my top 10 electronic albums of 2016. Yay, we made it!

My Autechre radar first went off around patten two years ago when their last album ESTOILE NAIANT turned heads. On Ψ (psi), they’ve tightened up everything. Now it sounds like early Autechre made for the dang dancefloor. Well. Maybe the basement below the dancefloor.

Hark: the stark percussion of Sonne; the footwork claustrophobia of Blade or Epsilon; the ambient chords washing underneath Used to b, the broken melancholia of Cache, with its Nintendo bleeps trying to break through the track.

This is a refreshed patten, boosted no end by the monotone mutterings of new member A. Yep, they comprise two lettered people: he's called D, she's called A. With her vocals never far away and yet as distant as Alpha Centauri, this cold techno sounds strangely warm. Their live visuals are reportedly breaking new ground: there's evidence here that their audio is too.

Watch the video for the brilliant Sonne by clicking here.

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House music also-rans: The Field, Gold Panda, Trus'me and other things that'll make you sweat

Here are some more also-rans. A bit more of a house music flavour amid the techno this time, so four to the floor, here goes…

Just missing out on my final list is the fifth album from The Field. The Follower (Kompakt) is a splendid assembly of spiralling techno. Gold Panda is always a nice listen, so the travel-inspired Good Luck And Do Your Best (City Slang) didn’t disappoint.

I enjoyed Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald / Borderland's Transport (Tresor) for two reasons: firstly, its unwavering commitment to solid house music, and secondly because I managed to shoehorn a C+C Music Factory reference into an Electronic Sound review of them earlier this year.

I enjoyed his debut Workshop 19, so it was a welcome return for abstract technoist Kassem Mosse with Disclosure (Honest Jon's Records). Meanwhile, Matt Karmil released two albums of note: the dubby IDLE033 (Idle Hands) followed by the throbbing gritty house of ++++ (PNN). I preferred the latter. The dark, spacey Planet 4 (Prime Numbers) by Manchester’s own Trus'me is worth a look in too.

House Of Dad’s House Of Dad (House Of Dad) samples a toilet flush and has a loo seat on the cover. It’s much better than it sounds, honest. Finally, there were the deep, otherworldly rhythms of Dorisburg’s Irrbloss (Hivern Discs), and, for those with a bit of time on their hands, you should check out Prince Of Denmark’s magical and engaging 23-track 8 (Forum) if you can find anywhere selling it.





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Best electronic albums of 2016: eleven

11 – Autechre – elseq 1-5 (Warp Records)

The godfathers of difficult techno Autechre could not be outdone by Aphex Twin, who’s been vomming out tracks like a cat in the hairball Olympics. So here we are: a mega five-album release to top Autechre’s 129-minute Exai from 2013. Quantity is now king.

Even when they sounded nice, Autechre were awkward: for example, track seven on their 1994 album Amber is called Nine. So while this is unlikely to return X Factor to its long-lost Christmas number one dominance (PLEASE enter X Factor, Autechre), once you hook into Ae's advanced noise, so much makes sense.

elseq is quite quaffable. c16 deep tread is hip hop covered in floor fluff. The slow-paced pendulu casual is Massive Attack caught in the middle of a sneeze. The resonating harmonics of the 24-minute mesh cinereaL are Mariah Carey in a faulty tumble dryer. Difficult? No. A development. And a Rochdale duo at the top of their game.

Stream the album here.

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Best electronic albums of 2016: twelve

12 – Lone – Levitate (R&S Records)

“I’d try to go to sleep and I’d be hearing these mad rave tunes form in my head,” said Matt ‘Lone’ Cutler of the fever that inspired his second album for R&S. Echoes of Aphex Twin’s apocryphal lucid dreaming stories?

In any case, this lush technoist has turned hardcore. Levitate is his junglist hymn to Good Looking Records and Goldie, to the softer end of Stu Allen warehouse raves, to a time when clubbing was easy, messy and devoid of big name brands maxing out the price of a pint. I can smell the sun-drenched weed between the beats.

I get the impression he doesn’t spend long in the studio. These are quick cuts where the rhythm is locked in: more colour than depth. The junglism is a welcome twist, but the core is still the same. And as long as he holds onto the lush 808 State-isms that are on display beautifully here, Cutler will keep returning to my top album lists.



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Also-rans: techno tryers making all the right noises

Still awake?

Not all techno can make it into my final list: it’s the taking part that counts, right? Here are some more also-rans as we count down the best electronic music of 2016.

Maybe I should have given more time to the sonic harsh-tronics of Andy Stott’s Too Many Voices (Modern Love), him being a former chart-topper round these parts. There was also some storming techno from A Made Up Sound’s A Made Up Sound (A Made Up Sound) – band, album and label nicely uniform there. Thug Entrancer moved from footwork to acid on the likeable Arcology (Software), and JK Flesh moved my bowels with the dirty jackhammer techno of Rise Above (Electric Deluxe).

One of my most listened albums of this year was Death In Vegas’s 1997 album Dead Elvis. Which is a shame because it overshadowed his comeback album Transmission (Drone). It didn’t quite transmit enough for me.

I enjoyed the paddy techno of Roman Flügel’s All The Right Noises (Dial Records). Prolific Icelander Bjarki put out three techno collections on the Trip Label: too much for me to absorb for this list. And I liked Abstract Division’s dancefloor-ripping Contemporary Spaces (Dynamic Reflection). This was technically an EP but it felt very much album-esque. An excuse I will use again, controversially, later on in this album countdown…





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Best electronic albums of 2016: thirteen

13 – Kowton – Utility (Livity Sound)

When Joe ‘Kowton’ Cowton shook off the grimier elements of his sound, he was probably going against the grain. Instead of kowtowing (see what I did there) to the bass-crushing street sound scene, he produced Utility: put simply, an album no-frills techno.

This ain’t clever: no Snares McSnareface tomfoolery here. Get a basic loop, throw in some percussion, let the machines do the work. The sound is not varied: indeed album highlight Loops 1 could be a remix of album highlight Some Cats.

But that’s the charm. It’s simple and it positively zings out of the speakers, I remember listening to Drum Club back in the day. They weren’t afraid to let a mechanical bass drum sit on its own, thwum thwum, pacing in isolation. A drum pad for the sake of a drum pad. I’m shivering just thinking about it. This, exactly this, is what draws me to Utility.



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Best electronic albums of 2016: fourteen

14 – Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool (XL Recordings)

Hello, is this Thom Yorke? I was told to call at 2pm. “Miaow.” Great. Thanks for agreeing to speak to me, Thom. And congratulations on making my top 20. “Miaow.” So kind of you to say, Thom. If you had a blog, I’d read it too. “Miaow.”

You’re in this list because Radiohead have been an electronic music band since the turn of the millennium. That time you guys rocked a Kaoss pad on the Amnesiac tour. Can you talk me through your process? “Miaow. Miiiaaaoow.” Amazing. And here we are in 2016 with one of our most listenable albums for ages. “Miaow.” No, thank YOU.

A Moon Shaped Pool is a beautiful work. Less dense somehow. There’s not much more I can say that hasn’t been said in a million column inches elsewhere, hence this phone call. “Miaow.” You keep saying miaow. Are you sure you’re Thom Yorke? “Mioaw.” And not his cat? “Puuuurrr.” Oh for flip’s sake.



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