Top 50 best electronic music albums of 2022: Bonobo, John Tejada, Zaliva-D

     

My countdown of my 50 most liked electronic music albums of 2022 continues. I'm splurging out a few albums at a time, so expect a lot of blog posts. It's all pretty much written on the hoof, such is my commitment to journalistic quality. That was sarcasm. Right, here are some more listenings for you.

See the full countdown here.

Bonobo: Fragments (Ninja Tune)

“Simon ‘Bonobo’ Green’s seventh album marks 20 years since he signed to Ninja Tune. That’s half the lifespan of an actual bonobo ape… Gentle clubbiness akin to a desaturated Bicep. What’s different here is the orchestration… This middle-aged ape has indeed orchestrated something glorious and listenable with strings and strings for miles.”

John Tejada: Sleepwalker (Palette Recordings) 

You know the drill. Breathless house music, precision engineered to produce exactly the right quantity of joyous ecstasy. I’ve enjoyed his lively Wajatta work with the ever-entertaining Reggie Watts, but it’s nice to be reminded of the slightly more serious synth functionalism of Tejada’s music. Like the city life that clearly inspired it, this album is busy, bustling and full of humanity.

Zaliva-D: Misbegotten Ballads (SVBKVLT)

This is a special one. This fourth album from Beijing beatmakers Zaliva-D includes: (a) ritualistic gonging rhythms, (b) industrial steel pan electro, (c) bouncing, warping drone work and (d) cartoonish vocals that sound like Cleveland from Family Guy. Didn’t expect that last one, did you? Misbegotten Ballads is a perfect title: if Chinese punks had a fever dream.

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2022. Read it all here.

Electronic Sound 85: blowing my alpine horn

In issue 85 of Electronic Sound magazine, I do a deep dive on the new Bonobo album. Meanwhile, in my column I take on cancel culture while my fictional self blows a horn. All pretty normal, nothing to worry about here.

The Bonobo review is the lead review in this latest edition, which is always a nice spot to be in as a writer. You'll have to read the magazine to find out what I think, but I can tell you it contains the phrase "frozen fish aisle". I also review the latest album by Pan Daijing ("a forest of startled birds") and Arca's new clutch of albums ("witches and queerness").

This month's column has me getting outraged about cancel culture. "Are you telling me I can’t prance around as glam-rock Brian Eno, complete with unbuttoned motorbike jacket and feather shoulder-pads, while hooting Van McCoy's ‘The Hustle’ on the alpine horn?" And yes, that ended up being my illustration for the column, with added conkers for eyes. It'll all make sense if you read the column. Probably. Ahem.

Elsewhere in the mag, in gubbins that wasn't written by me, there's a piece about the Hacienda's design, a chat with Suicide and their "battered old keyboards", Tim Hecker talking about writing soundtracks, and a piece about the ace new electro-pop project Telefis. And loads more.

85 issues, 85 columns. Good grief. Incidentally, Erasure's Oh L'amour only got to number 85 in the charts when it was released, only surpassed by Dollar's cover version in 1987 and Erasure's slightly weedier remix many years later. All the best things are number 85.

Further Fats: Fat Roland's out-of-context March 2018 supercut (2018)

Some January 2022 electronic music releases: Bonobo, wintertime cities and generous wildebeest

What is the sound of January? Is it the noise of Christmas trees being fed into a woodchipper? Is it the noise your uneaten Christmas dinner being fed into a woodchipper? Is it the noise of a woodchipper being fed into a woodchipper because that's all you got for Christmas and you already had one?

No. It's none of the above. January actually sounds like these four interesting records, all due for release at some point this month.

Here are my January new electronic music recommendations.

Bonobo: Fragments (Ninja Tune)

Seventh album from the jazzy techno man (pictured), inspired by his forays into the California wilderness. It's dead orchestral, but is also one of his more dancier outings. The Otomo collaboration with O'Flynn revives the giddy breakbeat vibes of the likes of Way Out West. One for the clubbers, and a bunch of soulful vocal tracks for the mainstream crowd too. A sunny antidote to this virus-ridden winter.

Telefís: a hAon (Dimple Discs)

This is going to be ace. Irish producer Jacknife Lee and singer Cathal Coughlan combine to make an album of snappy electro pop celebrating and satirising Irish pop culture, all with a retro / library music feel. They've got Jah Wobble on remix duties AND a track called Archbishop Beardmouth At The ChemOlympics.

Burial: Antidawn EP (Hyperdub)

I've never seen Burial and Lorraine Kelly in the same room at the same time. Coincidence?! Everyone's favourite enigma goes ambient for this new EP, as he invites us into a "wintertime city". Imagine entering Narnia where a fawn offers you a big fat blunt and never tells you its name. Like that. But spookier.

Soichi Terada: Asakusa Light (Rush Hour)

Deep house producer Soichi Terada dug out a bunch of 1990s synths for this first album in 25 years. It's Bleep's Album of the Week and I can see why. Its bright metronomic beats sit somewhere between Shinichi Atobe and early Grid. Imagine being garrotted by a furious wildebeest because you didn't appreciate the woodchipper it bought you for Christmas. This album is the exact opposite of that, i.e. it's proper nice.

That's it. Have a listen to all of that, please. Now move along before I call the police.

This Bonobo / Kiasmos video is definitely better than "weird and trippy"

I've not had much time to post this month, so have some hold music.

It's a Bonobo remix of Blurred by Kiasmos. I've woofed on about Kiasmos before: you can read about the original release of Blurred here. And Bonobo did a good video a while back which I called "weird and trippy" because I was short of words that day.

This Blurred video came out a couple of months ago, and sets the rousing remix to a Faroese love story. The directors Arni & Kinski did a load of stuff with Sigur Ros, including Hoppipolla, so you know the vibe before you even put a donk on that play button. You'll want to hit repeat - it's wonderful.

2017 can't carry on without me posting this trippy video

Stop 2017. I've forgotten something. Or rather, I was so busy banging on about this in Electronic Sound, I forgot to mention it here.

Watch the Bonobo No Reason video below. When you have finished watching the video, please fetch a pair of sharp scissors and cut out the video from your screen. Blue-tac the video onto your wall. Ensure you leave enough space on the wall to write a message. The message should be written in green marker pen, and it should say the following:

"This video was posted onto the world wide web in January 2017. Several months have passed and Fat Roland hasn't yet included that amazing Bonobo video on his website. Fat Roland is an idiot. This is one of Bonobo's best tracks, and even better, the video is weird and trippy. Repeat, Fat Roland is an idiot."

Okay 2017, you can carry on now.



Further Fats: Watch the video for Oneohtrix Point Never's Animals (2016)