I've just found The Black Dog at the back of my sock drawer

When I compile my albums of the year, I always worry that I'll miss something obvious. Like Mo Farah forgetting his running shoes or Tom Daley forgetting his swimming trunks.

I've gone and done it. Lo and blimmin' behold, I missed The Black Dog from my 2018 round-up. I knew they'd released albums, I'd listened to those albums, but my brain put them at the back of my sock drawer and forgot all about them.

The Sheffield soundsmiths popped out a pair of contrasting works. Black Daisy Wheel was mellow, like a swan enjoying a summer's day, and Post-Truth was a bit perkier, like, er, a slightly more perky swan enjoying a summer's day. Both were informed by the dystopia of disinformation in which we all wade.

The Black Dog have been techno legends for 52 decades, and they still remain as active as ever: their website is bursting with things to listen to. It's silly to have missed them because Post-Truth got plenty of play from me this year, in the same way that Tom gets plenty of use out of his trunks. I presume he's got more than one pair, although I suppose they kind of wash themselves.... I'm getting side-tracked.

Have a listen to some of it below. The album, that is, not Tom Daley's pants.



Further Fats: Please spell Freeland versus Daft Punk. "OBAMA." You are correct (2009)

Further Fats: Dramatic PowerPoint Slide: performing in Sheffield (2015)

Best electronic albums of 2018: one

1 –Rezzett – Rezzett (The Trilogy Tapes)

London duo Rezzett have been parping out sounds on The Trilogy Tapes for a few years, but this is the first time they've done the full toot and produced an album.

They were on the edge of my radar along with other double-z bands like ZZ Top, Yazz and We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It. But with this self-titled Rezzett album they land squarely in my sights. Distorted tech noise and rusty ambience? Yes please, thank you Mrs Music. (Not a real person.)

Rezzett is fuzzy, like an unshaven face or a neglected slice of bread. It's frequencies leak into areas they shouldn't, like a naughty paddling pool. It sounds off, like these similes. It's a scuffed-up science-fiction film set, but with Luke Abbott instead of Luke Skywalker: no JJ Abrams CGI lens flare here.

It's techno and ambient and jungle and bass music all at the same time. When you think the album has settled into a pattern, it throws something deeply satisfying at you. Listen to how the skippy snares of Tarang beckon in a chord sequence ripped straight out of a power pop anthem, and yet it all still holds together. It's perfection.

And most of all, it's properly curated. An album with shape, from the faded glows of Hala, to the dirty deconstructed house of Sexzzy Creep, to the whip-sharp junglism of Worst Ever Contender. Way to end an album.

I haven't even started on the cover artwork. Congratulations Rezzett, you slightly anonymous duo, you are my bestest favourite album of 2018.

I've thought of another one: Johnny Hates Jazz. Ooo, and Gazza!

Happy new year to you, dear reader, and I'll see you in 2019 for much more of this complete and utter garbage. If you think I'm brilliant and I deserve paying for this, then treat yourself to a subscription to Electronic Sound magazine where you'll read my monthly column and numerous other words in a different order.

In the meantime, thanks for reading this blog. Here's to its 15th anniversary in 2019. Blogging! In 2019! Who'd have thought!





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Best electronic albums of 2018: two

2 – Autechre – NTS Sessions 1-4 (Warp Records)

In the same way Aphex Twin turned on the tap and flooded us with music, Autechre have been gushing their pipes everywhere. Exai was two hours long, elseq 1–5 was four hours, and here are the NTS Sessions weighing in at eight hours.

There’s Autechre on the ceiling. There’s Autechre on the toaster. There’s Autechre on the cat. There’s Autechre in those hard-to-reach places that you can only really clear with a toothbrush taped to a coat hanger.

This is a month-long radio residency captured in multi-album form. I described this in Electronic Sound a few months ago as “an Ibiza beach bash hosted by daddy longlegs” while noting at how melodic it turned out to be.

More importantly, it’s hella long but remains engaging, each individual idea held within its parameters with masterful knob-twiddling. It's hardly a three-minute pop song, but they've achieved something amazing here. Gush into my ears, Autechre, I’m yours.

No embedded content for this one, I'm afraid. You'll just have to buy the whole lot and hope for the best.

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Best electronic albums of 2018: Bruno Brookes eat your heart out

It's a bit weird writing all these side-bars amid a top 20 countdown. It's a bit like Bruno Brookes wandering off to his knitting circle in the middle of Top Of The Pops.

Anyways, here is the final bunch of electronic noodlers that didn't quite make my final list.

A jazz pianist and a cellist might not be natural territory for techno behemoth R&S, but Djrum’s Portrait With Firewood (R&S Records) produced some bass music on an epic scale. Elysia Crampton found a clattering joy in the balance between found sound and world music on Elysia Crampton (Break World Records). Mark Pritchard’s The Four Worlds (Warp Records) was worth it for the likeable washboard shuffle of Circle Of Fear. And Marquis Hawkes raised the flipping roof on The Marquis Of Hawkes (Houndstooth).

DJ Koze created a deserved fuss with Knock Knock (Pampa), a collection of twitchy house music but not as you know it. I was perhaps less keen on its folky elements. Chris Carter, of Throbbing Gristle repute, managed to funnel several decades of electronic music into the excellent Chemistry Lessons Volume 1 (Mute). Astonishingly, Mr Fingers dropped his first album for 24 years in 2018: Cerebral Hemispheres (Alleviated Records) was as soulfully slick as you'd imagine. HVL’s Ostati (Organic Analogue Records) revived many memories of old raves and armchair techno listening.

German glitchmeister Alva Noto gets his own paragraph. He brought us a minimal masterpiece with Unieqav (Noton) earlier this year, but he didn't stop there. His rare Newcastle live recording Live 2002 (Noton) with Ryoji Ikeda and the late Mika Vainio seemed to have its audience hair-spun with static. Also worth looking into is the architecture-inspired Glass (Noton) with Ryuichi Sakamoto: the pairs last work was The Revenant soundtrack with Leonardo DiCaprio getting jiggy with a bear.

That was the tenth and final lot of also-rans for this 2018 countdown. I'll probably remember something I wanted to include, but forgot – I'll include it in this blank space here: _________________.





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Best electronic albums of 2018: three

3 – Rival Consoles – Persona (Erased Tapes)

I have listened to
the Rival Consoles album
that was on
the Spotify

and which
reminded me of
Jon Hopkins
and Clark

You should listen
Persona is delicious
so sweet
and so warm



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Best electronic albums of 2018: four

4 – EOD – Named (BBBBBB)

Rephlex Records introduced me to many great things. Bogdan Raczynski. Monolith. Bochum Welt. Salted caramel ice cream. µ-Ziq. The combustion engine. I think I may be getting confused with some of this.

Rephlex also taught me that squiggly was good, and that your brain was meant for dancing. This debut from former Rephlex artist EOD is a must for anyone into Aphexian squiggles.

Really shouldn’t have mentioned the ice cream. I want ice cream now.

The influences on Named are clear. R’ley and ‘sblood Thou Stinkard are Squarepushian in their mayhem and melody. But there’s something solid in this IDM, as testified by the mid-paced Asenath and Blasted Heath. And dig those warm hugs of chords in Wilbur.

Stian Gjevik's work as EOD is as close to the musical heart of this website as you can get in 2018, and thank Bogdan for that.

Do Ben & Jerry’s have an emergency helpline? I’m gasping for a tub.



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Best electronic albums of 2018: getting into the top 20 is a fragile path

Hold on to your monocle: this is going to be a longer-than-usual summary of albums that didn't quite make the final best-of-2018 list. They're all house music, or influenced by house music, or have once been in a house with some house music.

A choir from Hackney added a whole new direction for Simian Mobile Disco on Murmurations (Wichita) which led me to produce an alarmingly introspective review for Electronic Sound magazine ("Life is a fragile path that sometimes leads us to thin places we’d rather avoid"). There was solid house action on Specter’s Built To Last (Sound Signature): extra points for the insistent piano riff on Not New To This. I enjoyed the clean house stylings of Invisibility (Sushitech) from Romanian duo SIT – minimalism with sheen.

Essaie Pas's ominous New Path (DFA Records) was "enough to make you gleefully afraid of your own shadow" (Electronic Sound again). There was a masterclass in shrink-wrapped drum programming on Konduku’s Kıran (Nous'klaer Audio). Russian artist Evgenii Fadeev sounded restless on Litie (Gost Zvuk), turning up those bpms for his AEM Rhythm Cascade persona. And on my notes for Beta Librae's Sanguine Bond (Incienso), I've just got the word "hypnotic". So it must have been hypnotic. Ahem.

I liked rapper’s Galcher Lustwerk’s inconsequential chatter amid the smooth house of 200% Galcher (Lustwerk Music). RAMZi’s Phobiza Vol. 3: Amor Fati (FATi Records) was a heady mix of hazy house music. There was a dark urgency to Neville Watson's house breaks album The Midnight Orchard (Don't Be Afraid). Phew. Is this section over yet? It's going on a bit.

Shinichi Atobe sounded perkier than usual on Heat (DDS), not least in part because of his perfectly ratcheted snares. Underground favourite DJ Bone spilled a load of bright Detroit bangers this year on A Piece Of Beyond (Subject Detroit) – expect the trilogy to complete in 2019. And finally I utterly overlooked SCNTST's Scenes And Sketches From The Lab (Boysnoize Records) despite a previous album of his being in my 2013 top ten. I only just spotted it now. Blast. Maybe I should have been listening to that instead of writing this. Scandal. *drops monocle*





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Best electronic albums of 2018: five

5 – Skee Mask – Compro (Ilian Tape)

This album has been well covered by better-known top ten lists, so I won’t go into information overload with this one. Also it’s nearly 1am when I’m writing this and I’m tired. Pfffrt.

Compro will be best remembered for its techy rollers, its nu-school breaks, but at its heart is a precision-controlled ambient album. Indeed it’s nearly ten minutes before a proper beat lands, and even then it’s all tickled with twinkles, like that little glint in a hippo’s eye when it wears its first tutu.

50 Euro To Break Boost is a hands-down classic: just the right amount of decay and delay, and a theme of crumbling structures echoed in its falling, shimmering chords. Beautiful.

The fact that this is only at number five in this list just shows the strength on offer this year. Good work, music makers. Nice tutu, hippo. Where did that hippo come from? Crikey, I need some sleep.



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Best electronic albums of 2018: six

6 – Ital Tek – Bodied (Planet Mu)

The opening to Bodied, a track called Adrift, is pure Blade Runner. A city vista. Lights twinkling in the darkness. A craft glides across the sky. The skyscrapers sweep away to the horizon.

And then something terrifying happens. The second track Become Real starts fizzing at the two-minute mark, and the static shock never quite leaves. Something has awakened. This is not a city. This is a creature.

I don’t know what’s possessed Ital Tek, but this is a frightening album, all portent and doom, fully ambient yet as emotionally percussive as all heck. His continued journey away from the dancefloor has produced his best album yet.

The rising sun illuminates the city and the darkness curtains away. The grey buildings show themselves to the new day. This is not Los Angeles 2019. This is Stockport. Dammit. A milk float rear-ends a bollard.



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Best electronic albums of 2018: I still want to smell these, even from far away

It's time for some more also-rans, and there are some big names here. I'm like David with his pea-shooter, and a couple of these are like Goliaths or the Good Samaritan or something, I dunno. Let's get on with it.

Almost making it into the final list was Marie Davidson, whose acclaimed fourth album Working Class Woman (Ninja Tune) had some of the best house tunes of the year –  ‘So Right’ and ‘Work It’ are so sparky (“I want to smell you, even from far away”). felicita’s hej (PC Music) mixed gentle piano with frequency-destroying digitalism: a curious mixture. Gender inequality and the refugee crisis informed the uneasiness on the ethereal club vibes of Deena Abdelwahed’s Khonnar (InFine Music).

Jlin’s Autobiography (Planet Mu), written as a soundtrack to a ballet, sounded more introspective than usual, complete with piano ballad. The twisted electronics of Amnesia Scanner’s Another Life (PAN) put the ‘anger’ into ‘bangerz’. See what I did there? I am such a clever writer. Spiritflesh’s Spiritflesh (No Corner) was an industrial street-fight of gloomy mechanics.

With track titles like Tunnel Stalker and Final Mercy, DJ Richard’s Dies Iræ X erox (Dial Records) was hardly going to be a bundle of laughs, but the lurking EMB-driven beats held their own dark optimism. The weaponised techno of Ancient Methods’ The Jericho Records (Ancient Methods) sounded like it had buried its way out of the earth’s core like some kind of mixing desk-tweaking mole, assuming you could get hardware that could work while encased in soil, which I don't think you can, got to be realistic about these things. *Such* a clever writer.





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Best electronic albums of 2018: seven

7 – Martyn – Voids (Ostgut Ton)

Martyn last appeared in this top ten in 2011, when the only thing we had to worry about was people rioting and tearing our city centres apart.

Since then, something really significant happened. Martyn had a heart-attack. Yet instead of playing chess with a tall boke holding a scythe (ask your grandparents), he made this album.

Voids is shuffling and dark, like a skellington in a closet. The chords on Nya are dour, and the suspended note on World Gate is unnerving. Yes, I said ‘skellington’.

The highlight is Manchester, Martyn’s tribute to drum 'n' bass artist Marcus Intalex: “deep deep down, we’ve lost a big one”. Intalex’s name was encased in Manchester’s modern electronic music history like black pudding in a Manchester egg.

Actually, staying on that theme for a moment… Manchester’s most characterful areas are currently being torn down by developers, in a more corporate reflection of the destruction of 2011.

Progress isn’t wrong: we just need to remember what’s important as things move on. In a personal way, this album is a testament to that.



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Best electronic albums of 2018: eight

8 – Ceephax – Camelot Arcade (Waltzer)

This might be the first time Ceephax has made my top ten. Well, fancy that. Arise, Sir Ceephax, and take your steed, whatever a steed is.

Camelot Arcade is a whole theme park of fun. Thrill to the cheery chords of Trusthouse Forte! Woosh to the acid disco of Life Started Tomorrrow! Smile for the camera at the smooth 4/4 ride of The Green Night!

Like most UK theme parks, there is a tinge of sadness here: there’s less happy acid and more thoughtfulness. He’s allowed the paint to peel in the damp weather, and let the bolts of the safety harnesses rust up a little. It’s a richer experience as a result.

I still don’t know what a steed is. I’m going to ask at the candy floss stall. I’ll meet you at the tea cups in half an hour. Cheers.



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Best electronic albums of 2018: off-grey paste

Here is yet another collection of brand-spanking new audio presents whose batteries ran out before reaching the much-coveted top 20 best electronic albums of 2018. I hope you kept your receipt.

JK Flesh took great delight in pneumatically drilling our brain to an off-grey paste on New Horizon (Electric Deluxe). “This is my extravagant entrance for my show” boldly announced the scuzzed club anthems of Peder Mannerfelt’s Daily Routine (Peder Mannerfelt), a claustrophobic journey into a self-styled temporary psychosis. Demdike Stare’s Passion (Modern Love) was a pulsating patchwork of noise and jungle and nasty breaks.

FORMA’s Semblance (Kranky) gave us some beautifully building arpeggios with a cosmic classical bent, while I held a candle or three for the slow-burning debut album from Bruce, Sonder Somatic (Hessle Audio). Rather less forgiving were the gorgeously grit-teethed beats of Chevel's Always Yours (Different Circles).

Lorn discovered sobriety to produce a wonderfully dark new album Remnant (Wednesday Sound). Objekt moved away from techno for Cocoon Crush (PAN) into a world that seemed equally organic and robotic – it has been compared to Future Sound of London’s Lifeforms, and I can see why. And the post-club fuzz of Anthony Naples’s Take Me With You (Good Morning Tapes) included a beautiful dubby smoker’s version of John Barrys Midnight Cowboy.





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Best electronic albums of 2018: nine

9 – Ross From Friends – Family Portrait (Brainfeeder)

I think if I was to pick a nuclear family off the shelf, as if I was shopping at some kinda trafficking Ikea, I would pick:

(a) a robot child who would do all the washing up and chimney sweeping;
(b) a robot grandad who would puff a pipe all day long and grumble about what’s on telly;
(c) a robot creepy uncle who I would just keep in a corner with his hands where I could see them;
(d) a robot elephant who would—

Hold on, I’m getting sidetracked. What was I doing? Oh yes. The countdown for the bestest electronic albums of 2018.

Ross From Friends digs into his familial history to add heart to his debut album. It’s a wise move that lifts Family Portrait above the glut of usual house music albums.

The Knife sounds like Burial transplanted into a future century. Thank God I’m A Lizard, named after it’s opening bedtime prayer, is a wafer-thin house beat that lifts into heavenly jazz.

He allows vocal sprinkles to humanise the Four Tet-snappiness, whether that’s a soulful song or spoken snippets, and he’s not afraid to let a track break down into introspection.

It’s a grower. Like a robot family equipped with mechanical reproductive organs, let your love for this album multiply over time. And stop thinking about android willies. Stop it.



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Best electronic albums of 2018: ten

10 – Vester Koza – loader mither (Houndstooth)

“This shed business -- it doesn't really matter. The sheds aren't important. A few friends call me Two Sheds and that's all there is to it.”

That, my readers, is a quote from the Monty Python sketch Arthur 'Two Sheds' Jackson, and indeed the creaking sound on arthur two sheds on Vester Koza’s debut album could indeed be a rusted shed door.

There’s also a nod to Squarepusher’s My Red Hot Car in my well crap car – mardy mix. This Cheshire producer isn’t taking things too seriously.

Why top ten? loader mither quickly became go-to ear-food for me, especially the hollow percussion of taped over the courtyard mix: it's got a kind of giddiness that became a personal theme for me in the latter part of this year. The whole album is ear-worm after ear-worm.

“Get your own arts program, you fairy!”

Alright, calm down.



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Best electronic albums 2018: this lot can't have their ambient cake and eat it

Here, you word-munching fool, is a selection of ambient albums that didn't make my final list, but I still like-ish them all as if they were my step-children.

If you like dark and rich, check out the chocolate-flaked gateaux of ambience from Gas’s Rausch (Kompakt). Or try a birthday cake instead: ambient artist todos produced an engrossing 10th anniversary mix on Ten Years of A Strangely Isolated Place (A Strangely Isolated Place) that's well worth your attention. Meanwhile, Huerco S iced our ears with plenty of low-fuelled drones on Pendant’s Make Me Know You Sweet (West Mineral Ltd).

I really need to know when to stop with a metaphor. Anyhoo... Brian Eno wrote Music For Installations (UMC) for people ogling sunflowers and melty clocks in art galleries. Meanwhile, house music seemed a key influence on the worldly ambient rhythms of Vakula’s Metaphors (Leleka). Spot the Apocalypse Now moments on Nmesh / Telepath’s ロストエデンへのパス (Dream Catalogue)

Guitar was the driving force by Aussie ambientist Eleventeen Eston on At The Water (Growing Bin Records). I reckon Sarah Davachi’s achingly serene Let Night Come On Bells End The Day (Recital) could be a great going-to-sleep album, but in a good way. Although equally ambient, Grouper’s Grid Of Points (Kranky) was rather more rousing thanks to Liz Harris’s whispery vocals.

If you're following this blog live, we're about to get into the top ten best electronic albums of 2018. Oh come on, show more enthusiasm than that: yawning's just rude.





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Best electronic albums of 2018: eleven

11 – Gábor Lázár – Unfold (The Death of Rave)

Hungarian sound-sculptor Gábor Lázár ambushes rave, throws it into the trunk of his car, drives into space, grabs it by the scruff of its neck and hurls it into another galaxy.

Unfold takes rave's gurn-face and turns into art. Alongside the synthetic electro of Squeeze, there’s strangled rave sirens (Elastic) and drunkenly wandering chord stabs (Repeater), all of which points towards club culture – yet far beyond it too.

It has the overdriven aesthetic of Rustie and Errorsmith, with all the buttons turned up to red, and the minimalism of Lorenzo Senni, with all the buttons turned down to, er, a low-level colour. White? Black? Not brown. Let's not talk about brown again.

Most remarkably, and this has probably not been said before, Gábor Lázár can drive a fricking car into space. Shove that down your submarine pipe, Elon Musk.

If you're following this blog live, that's it for today. I'm going to take a nice rest, then fire up the countdown again at 9am tomorrow, with the top ten best electronic albums of 2018. Yes!



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Best electronic albums of 2018: twelve

12 – Jon Hopkins – Singularity (Domino)

Jon Hopkins is no stranger to this website. In 2013, he won album of the year. I declared him to have one of the best music tracks of the decade, and I once promised not to torture him.

Considering Singularity can only ever live in the long shadow of its predecessor, the ground-breaking Immunity album, this is an astonishing achievement. Just listen to Everything Connected. Now listen to it again.

Hopkins’ greatest achievement is balancing artistry with crowd-pleasing. Balancing pin-sharp production, as delicate as a snowflake, with fat filters and pyjama-pooping bass.

A bit like me, really. I think of this blog as treading a fine line between snowflakes and pooping. Brown snow. That’s what this blog is. You’re reading brown snow.



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Best electronic albums of 2018: this bit mentions a monkey and belly-dancing

I hope you're enjoying my countdown of the best albums of 2018, and that you're bitterly resenting these constant interruptions of albums that didn't make the final 20.

I missed a couple of old reissues. Smith & Mighty reminded us of how good they were on Ashley Road Sessions 88-94 (Punch Drunk). And following the rerelease of his classic classic ‘If You’re Into It, I’m Out of It’, covered elsewhere in these blog posts, Christoph De Babalon’s brought us some drum ‘n’ bass rarities with Exquisite Angst (A Colourful Storm). Listen to that awkward drum loop of Are You Talking To Me? – no wonder Thom Yorke counted himself as a fan of De Babalon’s work.

Now other stuff. The summer vibes were strong in the laid-back Detroit cuts of Jay Daniel’s Tala (Watusi High), while I enjoyed the wonky jazz of Palanquin Bearing Monkey on Yoshinori Hayashi’s Ambivalence (Smalltown Supersound). Ooo yes, and I can't forget the mystical ritualism of Aisha Devi's DNA Feelings (Houndstooth) – a strange but fascinating listen.

Also not quite making the cut were the belly-dancing beats of TSVI’s Inner Worlds (Nervous Horizon), which mixed Sufi percussion with grubby grime rhythms. Finally for this section, the caustic sound of Renick Bell’s Turning Points (Seagrave) led the charge for code-based algorave, while Tadd ‘Dabrye’ Mullinix had the entire history of rave on his mind when making X-Altera’s X-Altera (Ghostly International), throwing a lot of jungle and techno at the wall, making the wall sound really good.





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Best electronic albums of 2018: thirteen

13 – Oneohtrix Point Never – Age Of (Warp Records)

I once got trapped in a hotel fire exit staircase, with no way back into the main building. I was late for breakfast, and from that point I was the trapped-in-a-staircase guy.

Aside from the fire safety concerns of a chain hotel using locked doors in a chuffing fire escape, that serves as a neat metaphor for Oneohtrix Point Never’s music. It’s difficult to get into because our mental doors are locked: we are trapped in the staircases of our usual music taste, and sometimes we need to smash through the doors of perception and smell Oneohtrix’s fire.

Alright, the metaphor didn’t work. But what does work is Age Of’s bewildering collage of baroque, ballads and black magic ambience. Its ever-morphing sculptures are a treat.

Don’t look for songs. Don’t look for structure. Just let it fill you up, like smoke from an encroaching blaze. Jeez, step away from that metaphor, staircase guy.



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