60 best electronic music albums of 2021: Alessandro Cortini, Andy Stott, Arca, Caro C & Cid Rim

The Top 90 becomes a Top 60. Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents five more brilliant albums:

Alessandro Cortini – SCURO CHIARO (Mute)

The Nine Inch Nails keyboardist custom built his own synthesiser for this solo album. Quite frankly, that's just showing off. It's a droning, peaceful work in which synth lines follow simple paths before building into something more intense: the micro-rhythmic climax of Corri, the buzzing swarm of Sempre. A pleasing listen, and no doubt benefitting from his recent work with the analogue master Daniel Avery. Custom built? Pffrt. Couldn't just get a Casio from Argos like a normal person, could he?

Andy Stott – Never The Right Time (Modern Love)

Is Andy Stott is rhyming slang for (a) beats so hot, (b) techno hotshot, or (c) Westlife he's not. Answers on a postcard to the usual address. Always innovative, this Manchester-based producer strikes a perfect balance between the ethereal and the electronic. Cocteau Twins wooziness against metronomic percussion. Dusted Autechre-isms against heavenly chords. Ghostly vocals courtesy of Alison Skidmore. And every album cover in black and white to match the industrial brutalism of his music. I like this a lot.

Arca – KICK ii (XL Recordings) 

Bjork’s favourite experimentalist released, like, a billion KICK albums at once. KICK i was last year's lockdown album. And now we have four more (slightly less than a billion, sorry). KICK ii does a kind of sun-bleached reggaeton. KICK iii is full of Spanish vibes. KICK iiii is all ghosts and witchcraft. And KICK iiiii does the hushed ASMR thing that sets my teeth on edge. I'm letting number ii get a place in my list because it's surprisingly accessible considering the contorted audio of her previous work. Also it's got a pretty impressive collaboration with Sia.

Caro C – Electric Mountain (self-released, I think)

Caro's fourth album was inspired by rock climbing – keen-eyed audience members will spot the use of a rock xylophone and carabinas in her live performances. In Electronic Sound, I called this a "cosmic space boogie", and it really is as uplifting as that sounds. "Motivational vocals add a maverick attitude, declaring 'we are magnificent!' and 'you are mighty like mountain'. This is no stock Insta-inspiration: Caro delivers the vocals like melted cheese over a toasted bed of ever-loosening percussion." Definitely worth a peak-- er, I mean, peek.

Cid Rim – Songs of Vienna (LuckyMe)

Previous album Material was lauded for its day-glo instrumentals, so it's a brave move for Cid Rim to switch to a more mainstream direction. Well. Kind of. This mix of gently psychedelic pop and club-friendly floor fillers are funk-lite, full of joyfully weaving synth lines and Animal Collective-happy songsmithery. Cid Rim is still having fun in the studio: tracks like Purgatory have LuckyMe style rhythmic drops, and there's pumping bass a-plenty. As radio friendly as ever: no bad thing.

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021. Read it all here.

Rare as a green-- oh, look, there's one now

I have spent most of this week being slapped around by bacteria and being threatened by mutated microorganisms with phrases such as: "Nice bowels. Shame if somethin' were to... happen to 'em..."

Which means I'm catching up on all the wonderful blogness I would have bestowed upon you if I hadn't been as feverish as a the cast of Saturday Night Fever after they've caught scarlet fever from listening to Kylie Minogue's classic 2001 album Fever...

This is an ever-so-slightly Manchester-centric post. There was a great Rare As A Green Dog's night at the Royal Northern College Of Music last week.

The nutty but wonderful Barbara Morgenstern gaily set her grand piano on a Kaoss pad, while asbo-technoist Caro Snatch made some quite frightening noises at spoken word artist Lisa B and soprano Jenny Kosmowsky.  DJ Paizan teamed up with nimble-fingered VJ Digital Donut to provide a rhythmic contrast to the ethereal strains of Peterloo Massacre. A cracking night.

Lisa B's new collection Resonant Frequencies, set to the bold, dirty effects of Caro Snatch, will be released at Nexus Art Café in Manchester next Monday, December 8th, 8pm.  It's free to get in, but only a tad over 100 copies of the album will be available on the night.

And now for something totally un-Manchestery.  The hypnotic animation Waltz With Bashir (pictured, with my green-ness added) boasts one of those soundtracks that swoops up the film and flings it to new heights.  Let your earholes be as seduced as your eyeholes .Go see the film, before I set my infected microbes on you.