Best electronic albums of 2020: you 'wooden' believe these special mentions

It's time for more special mentions: albums that didn't make it into my final 25, but definitely still deserve their own pool room with a dart board and one of those wheelie drinks trolleys that looks like a globe.

I don't know what's gone wrong, but in the grand shuffling of my final list, Caribou's Suddenly (City Slang) fell out of the Top 25. I suppose it's quite floaty at times, but that's the point. It's Animal Collective meets Four Tet with an inflated head like Mr Mackey.

Pantha du Prince did his twinkly organic thing on Conference of Trees (Modern Recordings): his best album for some time bolstered by his use of wooden instruments (poor trees!). I almost missed Lee Jones's Down Into Light (Mad As Hell), which would have been a shame because there's real emotional heft in his classical-infused minimalism. If Lee Jones is heaven, Luke Abbott is hell: Translate (Border Community), his first solo record for ages, had his trademark analogue smudges (even some laser zaps!) with his fat synths sounding like he was raising dark spirits. Lovely.

There was much to admire in the splattery electronics of Call Super's third album Every Mouth Teeth Missing (Incienso), its chirrupy found-sounds adding an aural kaleidoscope in places. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's The Mosaic of Transformation (Ghostly International) sat somewhere between soft shoegaze and gentle process music, and was released as a peon to electricity. Finally for this section, ambient composer Nicolas Jaar released two albums, Telas (Other People) and Cenizas (Other People). They were rich and atmospheric and grand. Also, Jaar will get a lengthier mention later in this blog series.

More special mentions on their way. I'm off to chop me some trees into instruments. Whack!

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

New releases: Houndstooth, Bullion and Pantha Du Prince

Here are three forthcoming releases that may be worthy of your ears.

To mark their third birthday and slow transition into long trousers, the Houndstooth label (logo pictured) will release a compilation this week called Tessellations.

Houndstooth is partly run by Rob Booth of Electronic Explorations, who's kind of a don round these parts. The album should be good, and features loads of their artists including the compelling Call Super and the incredible junglist Special Request.

On the same day, Bullion plopped out his debut album Loop The Loop. This electronic popster was first mentioned on this blog seven years ago and it's nice to see him release a long-player.  It seems his influences include Can, Devo and Thomas Dolby.

Not to be left out, the ridiculously influential Pantha Du Prince has just announced his first album for six years. His previous one, Black Noise, was my fifth favourite album of 2010, and all of its haunting tinkles have stayed with me ever since.

Listen below.





And an old one from Pantha Du Prince:

Ghost written: podcasts, music, Buffy and emails

I'm going to blog more even if it kills me.

Dammit. It has killed me.

I am a ghost.

At the moment, Ghost Fat Roland is listening to a whole load of podcasts: Lore for its storytelling, Richard Herring's interview and snooker podcasts, Comedian's Comedian and, recently, the Black Tapes Podcast. Ghost Fat Roland got rid of his telly a few years ago, and podcasts somehow seem like a healthier way of consuming media.

Ghost Fat Roland has been listening to Call Super's compelling Migrant EP and the gentle strains of HVOB. Here Call Super and HVOB (suitably ghosty) to nuzzle right here right now:





Ghost Fat Roland watched Buffy for the first time ever. It's surprisingly good, despite being massively dated. Ghost Fat Roland loved a crucial plot point that pivoted around an inability to use a phone if someone's on the internet.

Ghost Fa-- wait, I'm going to stop this, it's annoying. I threw Tony Wilson's 24 Hour Party People across the room because he kept referring to himself in the third person: please don't fling this blog post across the room.

Finally, I'm trying to build up a mailing list for Bad Language, the spoken word night I co-run. Do join if you want: click here. I promise to make the emails entertaining for those interested in live literature in Manchester.

That's it for now. My next blog post will have loads of music in. Ghosts hate music. TRUE FACT.

Best electronic albums of 2014: eight

8 – Call Super – Suzi Ecto (Houndstooth)

This is probably the only record in the top ten on which the artist’s dad has tooted a clarinet.

Suzi Ecto is Call Super’s debut album, and it’s full of drifting, organic pop-length explorations with real world sounds and real instruments. There is experimentation, for example the chirrups fighting with biting synths on Rosso Dew or the stuttering chimes on Fold Again At Last.

But amid the hisses and the crunches, amid the wooziness, there is more to grab onto than is first apparent. This album left me feeling we’re in a new classic era of ambient techno. Actually super.

[Click here for the full top ten]



Some also-rans

A couple of Call Super labelmates didn't make the cut, specifically the heavy production of the songs on Throwing Snow's Mosaic (Houndstooth) and the low-rolling bass notes of Second Storey's Double Divide (Houndstooth). Vessel chopped up bicycles to make Punish, Honey (Tri Angle), but the results weren't as techno as I'd hoped. There was much to like with the precise electronics of Thug Entrancer's Death After Life (Software Recording Co.). Brilliant grimester Wen missed out on the top ten by a millimetre with his excellent Signals (Keysound) - he's probably 11th on the list. Luke Vibert was back with Ridmik (Hypercolour), showing you 303 ways to manipulate a 303. I always expected Plastikman's live album EX (Mute) to be in the top ten, but this expansive and epic LP ended up at about the 15 to 20 mark. And bless him, but Tycho's Awake (Ghostly International), his follow-up to 2011's memorable Dive, was too caught between being accessible post-rock and something you could sing Coldplay to.

[Click here for the full top ten]