Top 20 electronic music albums of 2022: Daphni – Cherry

     

Here's another one of my top 20 favourite electronic music albums of 2022. One blog post per album, sorted alphabetically by artist until we get to the grand Top 10. This one is my least favourite flavour of Coca Cola.

For those following my live blogging, this is my last post of the day. We'll resume early tomorrow, climaxing with the number one album of the year around 6pm. Tally ho!

See the full countdown here.

Daphni: Cherry (Jiaolong)

Electronic Sound: “Bish, bash, bosh. That’s what people say when loosely lobbing ingredients into a recipe, isn’t it? Mozzarella. Bash. Chilli power. Bosh. This is Dan Snaith’s third album under his clubbier pseudonym, a decade after his Daphni debut. And like someone concocting punch after drinking half the punch, these short, snappy tracks are designed to be tipped into DJ mixes with wild abandon. The album itself would blend brilliantly…. Turn up the kitchen stereo, throw in some spice: the Caribou lad will be your DJ tonight.” 

I suspect I was busy burning a Hello Fresh delivery to a cinder while writing that review. Brilliant album, though, especially if you’re keen on Bonobo, Bicep or Four Tet. 

From another website: A tour de force of dancefloor intuition and emotional release, it has no point to prove; pleasure is the chief, perhaps the only, concern.. (Pitchfork)

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

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

Blog-rolling back the years: my 2010 writing awards

It's a full decade since I won the Manchester Blog Awards, the world's most prestigious accolade after the Booker Prize, the Nobel Prize and the Darwin Award.

The story goes like this. I gave up my telly to allow more time on this blog. Better writing, a more frequent posting schedule, a few design bells and whistles. Less than a year later, I won at the blog awards. The resulting networking, fizzed with euphoria, cemented a bunch of new friendships that led me into a life of writing and performance. The win was a big kick up my ego's bum.

I won the category of Best Writing and then jointly-won the overall Best In Show prize (shout out to my co-winner Love Levenshulme). I was an extremely happy puppy. According to this account of my win ten years ago, in my acceptance speeches I apologised to James Blunt and namechecked Venetian Snares.

On the back of that night, I ended up prancing around Manchester's spoken word open mic scene with increasingly ambitious and silly props. This led to three Edinburgh Fringe shows and a crazily fun theatre commission from the Lowry Theatre. I produced two collections of my own short stories, and co-edited a third with a bunch of writing friends. I ended up hosting a leading spoken word night and, ultimately, the wacky world of literature events became my main source of income.

I'll forever be grateful for my blog awards win: I cannot overstate how much confidence it gave me, almost as if I needed that permission to take my creativity seriously. I'm also grateful to Caribou's Sun for being the anthem for my drunken celebrations that night. Listen to the radio edit of Sun below.

Here I am a full ten years later, and life couldn't be more different in a Covid-curtailed 2020. I've spent seven months cancelling literature events and spending an awful amount of time not seeing those friends who'd made the last decade so amazing. No shows, no silliness, no props. Just me sitting in a dark room writing this, my 1,394th blog post, reminiscing about the good old days when men were men, sheep were sheep, and blogs had readers.

I'm not sad, though. The elapsed time means nothing because the feelings are still so immediate in my mind: the announcement shocking me so much it felt like an arrow to the forehead, walking up to the stage in slow motion while trying not to fall over, the awkwardness of the unprepared speech, and that woozy drunken glow for a long time afterwards. And a whole decade of amazing collaborations and friendships. Proper grand.

Sun, sun, sun, sun...

Further Fats: Hammer time for Fatty Bumchops – how to blog properly (2011)

Further Fats: Blogging highlights 2004-2014 (2014)

New music: Caribou, Wajatta & Grimes

Sometimes people release albums. I can't stop them, no matter how hard I try. Seriously, I attempt to catch as many as I can before they reach the general public, oh, no, another album got through my homemade anti-album filter, dammit.

Anyhoo, here are some new and upcoming February releases that got through my sausage net. I really should stop making nets out of sausages.

Caribou – Suddenly (City Slang)

It's a good job Caribou is Canadian producer Dan Snaith and not an actual caribou. If you let a caribou into a studio full of recording equipment, it would crap everywhere and snap all the knobs with its hooves. We can only assume Snaith doesn't do this, although I've never been in a studio with him so your guess is as good as mine.

Caribou (not the animal) is back this month with another album of summery pop called Suddenly. Single You And I is really good: half melancholic grief song and half broken bass banger. Never Come Back has a similar shimmery vocal vibe to his classic Sun. It's all sounding very promising indeed.

Wajatta – Don't Let Get You Down (Brainfeeder)

Here comes the second album from loop-pedal peddler Reggie Watts and house master John Tejada. You'll know Reggie from his television appearances and pop-parodying beatboxing. Go on, have a delve on YouTube: you won't regret it.

"Wajatta" is, by the way, a combination of their names and the j is pronounced as an h. In the same way that if I teamed up with Justin Bieber, we would become Jat Rober. Or Fatin Biebland. And the e would be pronounced as a q. Words are fun.

Grimes – Miss Anthropocene (4AD) 

And that's what I think of the fifth album of bleepy tunes from the headline-grabbing popster Grimes.

What? There appears to be some text missing from the above paragraph? Ah, that's because I typed the letters at the speed of light, in tribute to Grimes calling herself c (the symbol for the speed of light). You have to read it at the speed of light otherwise you won't be able to read it. Sorry about that.







Further Fats: New music – Squarepusher, Dan Deacon & Phase Fatale (2020)

Daphni, the house music stripper with a heart of gold

You remember Daphni from Neighbours, right?

There was Kylie Minogue the curly-haired mechanic, there was Mrs Mangel and her invisible husband, and there was the amiable couple Des and Daphni.

Turns out Daphni has just released her second album Joli Mai, which is made up of a bunch of rejigged tracks from her recent Fabriclive appearance. From what I've heard so far, there's a nice loose feel to the house tracks here, although what Bouncer the dog makes of it, I have no idea.

What? Pardon? Daphni is nothing to do with the Neighbours soap character Daphne Clarke, the "saucy stripper with a heart of gold"? Dammit.

Listen to Daphni's Carry On here. You'll know him better as Caribou.

Harder Better Faster Fats: Blogging a.k.a. spurting your eyes, blood-style

Last week, I revealed my unease about 2013. I said I'd blog my way through that unease, because if blogging isn’t about opening a vein and spurting liquid innards into the surprised face of the reader, then what is it for?

Before we get stuck into this week’s execrable navel-gazing, here’s a track you should listen to.



I neglected this blog last year partly because of my entirely worthy work with Electronic Sound and Now Then Manchester (you should read both). The latter published an interview I did with The Orb. Lawks! Meanwhile, this site shrivelled

A METAPHOR.

Here’s a metaphor.

Imagine a hugely promising contestant on The Voice. Week after week, the contestant soars and thrills to the delight of the judges.

In one fateful week, the contestant comes on naked, covered in peanut butter, and riding miniature unicycle circles on top of Tom Jones’ sturdy hair. No-one would enjoy it. Not even me. Everyone would say, “I liked it when Fats was clothed and singing.”

Last year, my blog stopped singing and instead it donned the peanut bu-- wait, is this metaphor working? Should I put my clothes on? Sit STILL, Tom.

THE MEANING OF IT ALL.

Although my non-blogging work continues to be fun and exciting, I missed blogging here.

I don’t know whether it’s the instant validation of comments and stats, whether it’s the therapeutic nature of structured writing, or whether it's because have a massive ego and if it was the 1700s, I’d be building follies instead. I just know that I like writing in this format.

Listen to that track. Caribou’s Sun is a track frozen in my memory as playing over Deaf Institute speakers into my drunken brain after the Manchester Blog Awards in 2010. A focus amid the haze.

Blogging feels like that focus. Amid the chaotic, diagonal leglessness of life, it's that little, repeated thing that keeps me grounded.

"Sun, sun, sun," I slurred while dribbling into my beer.

RELAUNCH.

My first move this year was to relaunch this blog for a ‘world wide Buzzfeedernet’ (broadsheets, you can have that phrase). Shorter paragraphs, more

white

space, and a posting schedule that saves

Friday for fluffier, more visual stuff.

It's going alright. Fat Roland on Electronica was tied to a pre-EDM outlook. Netloafer has loosened things up. It's already earned a plug from MC Hammer on his Twitter feed (hello to my new readers: sorry it's not that hip hop).

This was a rather whimsical blog post. My fiction writing is tighter than that, honest.

Which, incidentally, will be the subject of the next instalment of Harder Better Faster Fats.

(Pictured: Caribou)

Battles at the Apollo: A gaping hole where Imelda Staunton should be

Apart from the odd blog thing and a number plate I once won at secondary school, I don't tend to get many prizes.

So when I won tickets to Battles and Caribou at the weekend, courtesy of Now Wave and Chimp Magazine, I was somewhat made up.

It came on the back of getting a story into an anthology for the first time. You can read it if you want to. The tale will be especially pleasing for people who like speedboats, Lenor or guttering.

Anyhoo, Battles were superb, what with their complicated rhythms and unreasonably-constructed high-cymballed drum kit. It took me back to 1926 when I first discovered post rock, back in the days when music had to have subtitles because it was still all silent.

Manchester blogging legend The Pigeon Post got a shout-out from Star Slinger, which was lovely because it felt like "one for the bloggers". And I ended the night at the Greenroom for one last hurrah as that brilliant venue was finally mothballed.

It was strange, then, that there was a sour taste to the night. For that taste, we have to look to a curious no-show from one of the support acts: Actress.

You cannot underestimate the hugeness of Actress. He co-founded Hyperdub and through his Werk label has brought us Starkey, Lukid and Zomby. I called his Splazsh LP an "essential album for 2010". I was looking forward to his set more than the others.

Despite the hype (NewsicMoos pick of the week, for example), Actress forgot to put the date in his diary. He simply didn't turn up. It's not the first time, of course: he also failed to show at Deviation and Eastern Electrics' bank holiday bash in London a week ago.

My views on artists that don't do their jobs has been made crystal clear on these blog pages before now.

I'm not sure how to react. I can't tweet him because he's deleted his account. And he hasn't updated the Werk Discs website for a couple of years.

There's only one thing for it. I'm boycotting all actresses.

I now dedicate my life to the following:

- an entire absence of Nicole Kidman;

- approximately zero amounts of Michelle Williams;

- no Greta Garbo;

- not a single Halle Berry: not even one;

- a gaping hole where Imelda Staunton should be;

- no Whoopi Goldberg, although to be honest...;

- Grace Kelly? Not on your nelly;

- I'm even boycotting Frances McDormand. Don't try and stop me.

Actress has driven me to this. I'm prepared to unleash a torrent of similar boycotts, so watch out - especially Zomby, Deadboy and Border Community's Lazy Fat People.

Top ten best electronica albums of 2010: part one of four

This is part one. Please do read the other parts of this blog post: part two, part three and part four
To read last year's top ten best electronica albums, click here.

10 - Lorn – Nothing Else

Marcus 'Lorn' Ortega teased us with the track Until There Is No End on Fat City Records some time ago, a deeply moving slice of apocalypto-funk. Clark, the recipient of my Best Album Of 2010, then went on to master his debut album Nothing Else. You know it because every city in the UK has been plastered top to bottom with stickers promoting the record. In the process, the Brainfeeder sound (crunchy cut-paste J Dilla beats) was quickly knocked several days left of Tuesday with the label's first signing outside of Los Angeles.

It was also Brainfeeder's second album proper, and with Lorn quoting Milton all about the place, you knew it would be something special. Before now, I have praised his testosterone retro and made comparisons to Animal Farm and Bladerunner. The album sounds like Knight Rider having a breakdown: maybe it takes itself too seriously, but Nothing Else soaks you like tears and rain with a sound defined by no-one else but Lorn.

Embrace the synth melancholy. Buy Lorn's Nothing else from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

9 - Venetian Snares - My So-Called Life

Like a naughty boy, Aaron Funk ventured away from his natural home at Planet Mu and set up Timesig Records for the (arguably) 22nd studio album from his interior decor / percussion-inspired moniker. Because it was recorded quickly - Snares sees this more of a diary entry than a year's work - My So-Called Life shifted the game somewhat. Well. Slightly. Its still a (detri)mentalist cavalcade of dirty junglism.

The quick recording process lightened the music by precisely nought-point-seven degrees: for example, pastoral string-picking gives way to a beautifully melodic 8bit 'n' bass on title track My So Called Life. But it's the vocal samples that are leaned on more heavily than usual here - and what horrible vocals. Grossly non-PC Welfare Wednesday contains a hilarious jibe at Planet Mu label boss Mike Paradinas, while Who Wants Cake? and Posers And Camera Phones say things that would make Jerry Sadowitz blush.

The most accessible and disgusting Venetian Snares album for a while. Buy it from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

8 - Caribou – Swim

Caribou doesn't need any more praise heaped on his handsome locks. Resident Advisor has already pronounced Swim as the album of the year (please don't look at that list too much: mine is horribly and coincidentally similar). And Sun's dizzying refrain ("sun, sun, sun, sun...") loomed heavily over 2010.

I have an entirely personal reason for including Swim here. Opening track Odessa was playing in the bar in which I was getting drunk after my blog awards win, and it kind of became my soundtrack. That's not to downplay the rest of the LP though: crisp, driving house music, chiming hypnotica on Bowls and a nod towards indie pop on Kaili. But really, it's all about Odessa and it's all about the Sun. Sun. Sun. Sun. Dammit, there I go again.

Hunt yourself a Caribou: buy Swim from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

Not quite in the top ten (part one)

I will not pretend my list - or indeed any element of my blog - is comprehensive. I also don't think this has been a classic year for electronica, nor that all of these artists are electronica. Crikes. This is like a minefield. Anyhoo, here are some of the albums that didn't pass muster.

I'm astonished at how commercial some of my top ten is this year, although Magnetic Man's eponymous debut album pushed the pop too far to be included, despite MAD and despite it being one of the most important electronic music collaborations of recent times. The same goes for Plastic Beach by the Gorillaz, although that was still a glorious album.

Daft Punk's Tron Legacy soundtrack came very close; maybe it would have helped if I'd bothered seeing the film. I found Darkstar's slow mosh-hopping North difficult to love, while Salem's King Knight didn't tug the earstrings enough for a top placing. Meanwhile, UNKLE bored me to sleep with Where Did The Night Fall.

I was gutted not to include two albums at the opposite end of the electronic sonic spectrum: Ikonika's gamer-baiting Contact Want Love Hate and Brian Eno / Jon Hopkins' Small Craft On A Milk Sea (which is not a great ambient album: it is a great techno album). Any top ten without them would be a crime. It's a fair cop, guv.

This is part one. Please do read the other parts of this blog post: part two, part three and part four
To read last year's top ten best electronica albums, click here.

Ten plaudits Bleeping

Online retailer Bleep.com has hit December running with a series of top tens of 2010.

The other day, they posted their top artists of the year, which included Oneohtrix Point Never, James Blake, Roska and Caribou. In Oneohtrix, otherwise known as Brooklyn's Daniel Lopatin, they saw a "prodigal, prolific exponent of the synthesiser."

And if your order his album Returnal from Bleep, or his other records, you get his exlusive mix CD Objects In Mirrors.

Yesterday, Bleep.com revealed their top ten labels of the year. Their record label of 2010 is Numbers, a Glasgow outfit whose mission to "melt together the seemingly disparate sounds of R&B, techno, electro, house, dubstep, UKF and 80s funk under one glorious groove" was lauded by Bleep. The imprint's output this year included Deadboy, Untold and SBTRKT.

Because they're well chuffed and that with such high praise, Numbers have launched a compilation featuring every bit out output on their label along with a couple of new t-shirt designs.

Over the next few days, expect more 2010 from Bleep in the form of best albums, favourite EPs and most recommended reissues and compilations. I'll try and match them when I do my usual end-of-year round-ups later this month.

Meanwhile in another corner of the internet, Radio Scot Void has released some older tracks for free in a special mixtape that's worth getting simply for Shlohmo's Socks. The track, not the underwear item.