Cover me bad: Block Rockin' Beats by the Chemical Brothers

Yesterday, I decided to form a cover band. It didn't go well. I've literally had billions of messages accusing me of cruelty to the clergy. So ignore yesterday's blog post. I've decided to try again, properly this time.

I still reckon I could pick any random track in my record collection, and I could perform a brilliant cover version. I am, famously, as talented as Mozart at doing music things, with the added bonus that I can play the kazoo way better than him.

So let's pick a tune and see how we go. I've got my record box in front of me, wedged between my thighs. Eyes closed. Let's choose!

Artist: Chemical Brothers
Track: Block Rockin' Beats
Year: 1997
Reviews: "One, two, three, goodbye!" 1-star Amazon review translated from Spanish

Crikes. This is a tough one. The first thing to note about Block Rockin' Beats is the really tight drum rhythm. They sampled this from a Bernard Purdie drum solo, so I suppose I could sample something as well. Let me just fill my washing machine with coat hangers and put it on fast spin. There we go. A lovely sound.

The next main thing is the screechy sirens bit. Sounds like constipated horses alarmed at a particularly aggressive cow. I haven't got a horse or a cow. Can you buy them off of the internet? Crikes, there's one website that says people drug horses at auctions so they appear calm. Nope, I'm not buying a horse. Let's compromise. Let's find a cow, get it constipated, and wait until it makes a noise. From either end. Sorted.

The final main bit of the song is the voice that goes "Back with another one of those block rockin' beats." Apparently this is a sample of Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D, who narrated Aqua Teen Hunger Force and played a big part in inventing gangsta rap. Simple. All I need to do is become a gangsta rapper, and I've completed my cover version of Block Rockin' Beats,

A Gangsta Rap
by Fat Roland

Roland Fatty Fats is bustin' down your door
So back up otherwise I'll, erm, do a poo on your floor
Gimme the microphone and make sure it's plugged in
Compton and Long Beach, they are places I've never bin
Dibbly bop a-wah-wah-woo
Insert something about g-thangs, although I'm not quite sure what they are
Put a glock on your, um, AK-47
And then put it back again because you don't know where it's been
Inglewooooood!

So there you go. That's my Chemical Brothers cover version done. Got a bit side-tracked there with rapping a different song, but let's not question the artistic process.

Please send complaints to the usual address.

Dance music fans, I have bad news about Christmas

Every now and then, mega cool dance music dominates the charts.

Yeah, I said "mega cool". Deal with it, kids.

Like the time the Chemical Brothers' Setting Sun topped the charts in 1996, the same year the Prodigy took the top spot twice. Or the moment Kraftwerk knocked Shakin' Stevens off number one. Or 21st century bangers breaking past a mush of identikit dance records such as Mint Royale's Singin' In The Rain or Kiesza's Hideaway.

The bad news is that Santa is having none of this. He hates dance music. He's your crusty old grandpa banging on the ceiling with a walking stick, or in his case, an elf. There has never been a mega cool dance hit as Christmas number one.

There must be some Christmas chart toppers with dance elements, right? A pearl among the oysters, a bit of gristle amid the constant stream of watery gravy, something credible besides Jimmy Osmond, Cliff Richard, all the Band Aids and Shayne flipping Ward.

Wait. Yazoo's Only You was Christmas number one in 1983. Vince Clarke! Alison Moyet! Synths! Except this was the a cappella version by The Flying Pickets: not dancey at all. Dammit.

What else? Not much. Mr Blobby's self-titled 1993 Chrimbo chart-topper was a dance music track, with its horrendously outdated Stock Aitken Waterman rhythms. But it can't count: it was a children's singalong with a bunch of kids who deserved to be sent up t'chimneys.

Apart from one track I'm yet to mention, that's it. Everything else is ballads, charity singles or people singing about sausage rolls. If Christmas was a nightclub, it would have been long bulldozed to make way for an Asda. I believe in the power of redemption, such as celebrity chefs doing interesting things with the long maligned sprout, but there is no hope here: the Christmas chart topper will never be a mega cool dance hit.

Except...

There is a pure, club-thumping dance track that made it to number one. It had samples, a roof-raising build-up and key change, and a pretty nifty breakbeat. That's right. Bob the Builder's Can We Fix It? is the most danceable festive number one in history.

Has Bob fixed it? Yes, he has. Have a listen: that's a proper skippy breakbeat right there. Even better, he knocked Westlife off the top of the charts when he became the Christmas chart-topper in 2000. Santa Claus is squeezing down your chimney, and he's armed with a cartoon wrench and Neil Morrissey dressed a reindeer.

Thank you, Bob. Or should I call you Robert? You truly are the most mega cool king of Chrimbo.

*publishes blog post*

*fast-forward to later that night*

*Fat Roland's bedroom, a rattle of chains in the darkness*

FATS: Whaaa? What's that? Who's there?
GHOST: Wooooah. It's me. The ghost of blogs past.
FATS: What do you want? Is it money? Lard? Take the lard! I only keep it on my bedside table for comfort.
GHOST: Whooaah. I'm here to tell you off about that blog post you did. The one about Christmas. Wooooaaaah!
FATS: Since when did ghosts get internet?
GHOST: You didn't mention the Pet Shop Boys Always On My Mind and the Human League's Don't You Want Me. Woooah.
FATS: Can I go back to bed? I've not finished making my Christmas candle and I need to break into my neighbour's first thing to get more earwax.
GHOST: Woooah. You deliberately missed out two of the biggest electronic music hits of all time to make some vapid point about dance music and Christmas. Seriously, dude. It renders your whole point moot. Woah.
FATS: Listen here, matey, get back inside that wardrobe. I'm going to push you back inside that spooky flipping wardrobe.
GHOST: Yikes! Do you always dress like that for bed? That's going to chafe, surely.
FATS: Hey, if it's good enough for Noel Edmonds, it's good enough fo—

*cuts to black*

Pictured above: Glasgow Sound Control's window display at Christmas taken by Agent Banana

Further Fats: Fat Roland's number one album chart death rant (2010)

Further Fats: If it goes bleep, it may or may not be EDM (2013)

On my mind: The Guardian's 100 greatest UK No 1s

The Guardian's 100 greatest UK No 1s had some pretty good selections. It's hard to go wrong when you're picking 100 highlights from fewer than 1,500 songs, most of which are hogwash. Take a random year as an example: 1999 number ones by Chef, The Offspring, Boyzone or the Mambo No 5 bloke were hardly going to trouble the list.

Pet Shop Boys' topped their poll, which is entirely the correct choice. Their take on Elvis's Always On My Mind has an incredible energy, like a firework exploding in the boot of a car – I've always considered this the best Christmas number one, so I'm happy to extend it to the best chart topper of all time. Sadly, the Guardian opted for West End Girls as the greatest number one; any fool knows that the other PSB number ones, Heart and It's A Sin, are better than 'Girls. Pfffrt. Just you wait till I get you home, The Guardian.

The Chemical Brothers were just inside their top 50, while the Prodigy soared into their top ten, troubling the likes of Michael Jackson and the Human League. Steve 'Silk' Hurley's Jack Your Body was also in the mix, with it being labelled as "the most minimal No 1 of all time". Black Box and Daft Punk were included, although the latter's only number one song is hardly their best.

Killer made it into their list, with the Guardian praising its perfect design, as did I just last week. Kraftwerk's The Model is also in there, with a welcome shout-out to its brilliant flip-side Computer Love. And while we're doing k-words, the KLF's 3am Eternal made it quite high up the list, proving the ancients of Mu-Mu still have some mojo. This made me sad that Last Train To Trancentral never got to number one. Still, all of these were great to see.

They chose Snap!'s Rhythm Is a Dancer, which I'm sure they were as serious as gout about, but I would have probably have gone for Snap!'s other number one, The Power. That track was so strange and discordant, confusing my head at the time before my heart fell in love with it. The Power knocked Beats International's Dub Be Good To Me off the top spot – another missed contender in this list.

They should have included Pump Up The Volume by MARRS, which incidentally stands for band members Martyn, Alex, Rudy, Russell and Steve. They're like ABBA but with less knitwear. The band didn't get on, and it was a miracle they ever released anything, never mind create a chart-topping acid house classic. And how on earth The Guardian missed The Shamen's Ebeneezer Goode, I have no idea.

There were some outsider choices I would have like to have seen, and would have no doubt made a top 200. For the 1990s, I love the indie spirit of White Town's pin-sharp Your Woman ("So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways, just use me up and then you walk away"), while I mourn the exclusion of Flat Beat by Mr Oizo, which was a blow to yellow puppets everywhere.

There are some 21st century outsiders I'd liked to have seen: Rihanna's Diamonds (they chose Umbrella); Duck Sauce's Barbra Streisand; David Guetta's epic Titanium; Tinie Tempah's Scunthorpe-namechecking Pass Out. Nothing much interesting to say about them – I just like the tunes, dammit.

Like I say, it's an easy list to generally get right, even for people like me who find it difficult to focus on anything before 1987. And not a single mention of Lou Bega's fifth Mambo, despite its remarkable lyric "It's all good, let me dump it, please set in the trumpet". Pardon?

Further Fats: Delirious' bid for number one: the rock delusion? (2010)

Whatever happened to the cheeky New Year number one? (2013)

Best electronic music albums of 1995: Goldie versus the Chemical Brothers

Here is the second round of my all-singing all-dancing contest to find the best electronic music album of 1995. See the series so far here, and see all 16 featured albums here.

A random number generator tells me the next two contestants are:

Timeless by Goldie
Exit Planet Dust by The Chemical Brothers

Lawks. Only one can get through to the quarter-finals. Fire up the chainsaws!

Criteria one: which album would make a better biscuit?

Here we have two critically acclaimed debut albums released within a month of each other in 1995, each one a shining example in its field. But which one goes better with a cup of Tetley's? The tone of these albums is wildly different: the Chemicals with their floor-stomping rafter-shaking beats, and Goldie with his complex rhythms and symphonic satellite sounds. Biscuits are basic: it has to be the block-rocking Brothers.
Winner: Exit Planet Dust

Criteria two: which album has more bangin' choons?

On one hand we have the "brothers gonna work it out" refrain alongside contributions from Beth Orton and the fringe guy from the Charlatans. On the other hand, we have the epic Inner City Life: feel your spine shiver with that opening "tiiimeleeeeess" from Urban Cookie Collective's Diane Charlemagne. Since these albums came out, we have endured terrorism, recessions, riots and fascism. Which tune echoes through the ages? Tiiimeleeeeess...
Winner: Timeless

Criteria three: which album's track titles better remind me of cute animals?

I'm going to ignore the fact that Goldie was obviously named after a famous Blue Peter dog. Timeless's first disc ends with the track Jah The Seventh Seal, which means this album must contain six other seals. The Chemicals have the track Three Little Birdies Down Beats. So what's better: three little birdies or seven blubbery seals? The birdies have it.
Winner: Exit Planet Dust

Criteria four: which of the two would Jesus listen to?

Goldie's album starts with Saint Angel and ends with Jah, while his track This Is A Bad sounds like a precis of Jesus banging on about good trees bearing bad fruit. It certainly sounds heavenly with all its extended chords, while Exit Planet Dust has chemicals and swearing and a song to evil singing birdwomen the Sirens. No offence, Chemical Brothers, but you are definitely going to hell.
Winner: Timeless

Criteria five: which is the better album to sing songs about eggs to?

A couple of moments on the Chemicals album proved successful. On Life Is Sweet, I managed to sing "I'm boiling my eggs soft, but I forgot to set the timer" and on Alive Alone I could fit the lyrics "I'm an egg, aren't I, I'm an egg, oh no". It's all pretty negative about eggs though. On the Goldie album, I not only could warble a chandelier-smashing "tiiimeeeer", I could also sing "Om-el-ette, oh those yolken eggs is what I wanna eat, sprinkle cheeeese, I need to be, I need to be your oooeuuuuuf". Speggtacular.
Winner: Timeless

Criteria six: which album has the better cover design?

The Brothers chose a photograph of a 1970s hippy couple possibly walking home from a music festival. The soft-hued picture has been flipped, so a clearly American car is driving on the wrong side of the road. It's an Instagram photo 15 years before Instagram. The Goldie design is impressive, with the Metalheadz logo embedded into some kind of robotic cloaca, but it lacks the resonance of its rival.
Winner: Exit Planet Dust

Criteria seven: miscellaneous and worryingly random

This final section contains criteria guided by Wikipedia's random article button. The album most likely to defeat the eye of Sauron? The aggressive rolling beats of Goldie. The album best made into a cheesy motivational kitchen sign? The Chemicals and the text would be In Dust We Trust. The album best used as a life raft? The Chemicals because it would placate the Sirens. The album filled with the most gas? Obviously Goldie: the album is mostly air. Album most likely to be found in the National Helicopter Museum? With his graffiti lifestyle and gold teeth, Goldie would definitely own at least six of their helicopters.
Winner: Timeless

Overall winner and going through to the quarter-finals: I did not like two big hitters appearing so early on in this competition. By a whisker, Goldie's Timeless wins this leg of the contest. Congratulations, big dog. Massive apologies to the Chemical Brothers. I'm sure you're gonna work it out. I'm sure you're gonna work it out. I'm sure you're gonna work it out. I'm sure you're gonna work it out...

Two more 1995 albums will go head-to-head in the next couple of days or so. Stay tuned to this blog. See all the riders and runners here.

Further Fats: See the whole Best Albums Of 1995 series here.

Best electronic albums of 2019: four

4 – Chemical Brothers – No Geography (Virgin EMI) 

Of course No Geography's in my top five. Of course! It's the best Chemical Brothers album for ages. It's full of pow-pow and chug-chug and build-build and wooh-wooh and slam-slam and Tian Tian. Actually, that last one might be a panda. You get the idea, though.

It's moment after moment of sheer clubbing energy. The robo-electro of Free Yourself! The power-snare roll on Gravity Drops! The old block-rockin' Chemicals showing themselves on the acidic We've Got To Try! Don your gold pants and get on that dancefloor and/or coffee table.

The album is accompanied by a spectacular live show which has Tom and Ed at their career best. MAH's Network-style rant of "I ain't gonna take it no more!" is all the more powerful because I can picture the big arm-wavy guy from the show. But you don't need the visuals: just on its own, for example, the "you and me" speech on title track No Geography rattled my heart strings.

There are no big guest vocalists: just the pow-pow and the build-build. It's pure uncut Chemicals. See what I did there? That's a drugs reference. Not that I know: the most I can manage these days is an extra spoonful of hot choc in my Highlights. If I know anything, it's how to make my drinks claggy.



Scroll the full best-of-2019 list here.

1997: what the flip was going on?

Someone tweeted about 1997 being an incredible year for music. Can't remember who. (Cool story, Fats.)

And yeah, there was Daft Punk and Propellerheads and Prodigy and Chemical Brothers and Roni Size. You were right, tweety person, you were right. 1997 was a great year for music.

It's good to measure these things so let's get specific. I decided to look at the singles chart exactly 20 years ago. 23rd June 1997. Let's wallow in a memorable year of fantastic tunes, shall we?

1. Puff Daddy's mawkish I'll Be Missing You was number one. Okay. Not so great. But all the good songs get to number two, right?

2. Bitter Sweet Symphony. And there's the good number two. Never did make it to the top of the charts. THANKS, Puff.

3. Mmm Bop by Hanson.  Three flesh muppets talking nonsense. Oh dear.

4. Ocean Colour Scene? Bog off. I'd drain the oceans and watch all aqua life writhe and die before listening to this shambles again.

I'm not convinced this is really working. Let's speed things up. Time to skip some numbers and get to the real meat of this burger of musical joy.

9. Guiding Star by Cast. Possibly the most annoying band of the 90s, and the band I have heckled the loudest. Make them stop.

11. Celine Dion? Crumbs. I'd forgotten about the boat-mouthed siren that was Celine. Ouch.

18. Savage Garden?! Worst S-band name ever. Apart from Shed Seven. And Salad.

22. The Friends theme tune that was in the charts forever. I'd rather have the clap clap clap clap.

This is terrible. This week in 1997 was a travesty. Jon Bon Jovi, Sarah Brightman, Brand New Heavies, Wet Wet Wet. All this chart proves is that 1997 was a verruca on the foot of the 1990s - and even then it's not a foot, it's just some weeping stump on the diseased leg of the 20th century.

No wait. I've found something.

87. The Saint by Orbital. Not their most remembered track, but with 11 weeks in the chart and a high point of number 3, it remains their best charting single. Kept off the top spot in April 1997 by I Believe I Can Fly and Song 2.

Yay! Told you 1997 was good.

Yeesh.

Big beat's gonna work it out, maybe, perhaps not

From grunge to g-funk, from trip hop to Brit pop, there’s one thing you can be sure of about the 1990s: the one forgotten genre might be big beat.

Everyone knows the artists. The Chemical (Dust) Brothers blasted the roof off the place with Brother’s Gonna Work It Out, Fatboy Slim had a party in his head with Gangster Trippin and even if people don’t know the band name, they may well recognise Bentley Rhythm Ace (pictured).

But as a name, I reckon there’ll be a lot of younger people who don’t know “big beat”. The label kinda got swallowed up by the cool Britannia thing. Or perhaps it shed its identity when it went massively mainstream: see the Prodigy’s Firestarter or The Propellorheads’ History Repeating.

Maybe it just became known as video game music. Maybe, as Acid Ted suggests, it just got a bit embarrassing.

Not that labels matter that much, but big beat acted as a useful curatorial guide when picking tracks in my early DJing days. For example, there was a great block rockin’ underground in the shape of Brassic Beats and Heavenly Social, with the likes of Req, Cut La Roc, Monkey Mafia and the Skint Records founder Midfield General.

There’s a longer piece in this, and I may well pen something for Electronic Sound. In the meantime, to test my theory, I’m going to be shaking teenagers by the shoulders until they name all the 1990s music styles.

Who knew “let go of me, Fats, you idiot” was a genre?

The Chemical Brothers - Sometimes I Feel So Deserted

This track (see below) feels like all build-up, but that's no bad thing considering it's the opener to the Chemical Brothers' new album. Sometimes I Feel So Deserted could have done with a pneumatic drop at that three-minute mark. Still, it's acidy and deep and bodes well for their first studio album for five years.

I recently wrote up a review of Leftfield's first album in 16 years. You'll have to wait for the next Electronic Sound for thoughts on that one.

Bleep Years day ten: Chemical Brothers: Galvanize (2004)

These Bleep Years years are randomly chosen, but most of them seem to be landing in the noughties. Anyhoo, hey boy blog reader, hey girl blog reader, here we go...

2004: Chemical Brothers: Galvanize

I consider the Grammy-winning Galvanize to be a great pop record, combining snappy vocals with the Chemicals' club aesthetic. It followed the duo's Singles 93-03 greatest hits album and it turned out to be their biggest hit of the decade.

It's one of those tracks I didn't stop listening to, and its blatantly commercial bent has no doubt been an influence on the short tracks I've been producing as Hounds Of Hulme. I pushed my own button in 2004 (oo-er missus) when I left the comfort of my bookshop in Manchester for a new challenge managing a shop in Macclesfield. One of the downsides was that commuting stifled a lot of DJ opportunities, and eventually led me to drop the 'DJ' bit from 'DJ Fat Roland'.

My time in Macclesfield, whilst spent with lovely people, stripped me to the bone on an emotional level. Other posts in this series will allude to more of that experience. I returned to working in Manchester spurred into action, ready to be myself again - very much, dare I say it, galvanised. See what I did there?

I also have fond memories of the band's blistering sets in the 1990s when they didn't so much as rock the beats' blocks as pin the beats up against a wall and kick them to death. Galvanise links the joy of the 1990s with my recovery from difficult times in the late noughties. In short, it's better living through Chemicals.

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

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

4 - Four Tet – There Is Love In You

Kieren Hebdon's strongest album had 2010 skipping to the dancefloor while it was still in short trousers. It is probably the only album in my list that has nudged the top 40, a deserved success after he lit the Burial touchpaper with the Moth / Wolf Cub 12-inch last year. In the modern parlance of today's youth, this album is definitely double-rainbow.

I had been lazy writing off Four Tet as coffee table electronica for people too afraid of Venetian Snares. There Is Love In You is sardine-full of outstanding tracks (the fractured vocals of Angel Echoes, the soaring simplicity of Circling, the thundering energy of Plastic People), but it works best an emotional journey start to finish, especially when topped with heartbreaking Bibio-like finisher She Just Likes To Fight.

A ten-out-of-ten for Four Tet. Buy There Is Love In You from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

3 - Luke Abbott – Holkham Drones

Is it really four years since Luke's stupendous 8-bit single b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b? Holkham Drones is Abbott's first album and appears to be named after a posh place in Norfolk. Even though it appears to be the Border Community label's only album release of 2010, it arrived on the electronica scene with less of a fanfare, more of an enthusiastic trumpet fart (check my own fartings here).

Holkham Drones needs to be rediscovered immediately. Taking its cue from basic frequency modulation, the cymbals hiss and the bass rings hollow and the whole thing appears as if it may fall over any second. But as the beat grabs you by the badgers, your mind is transported into a grey fluffy analogue world belonging to Boards Of Canada and Cluster (the band not the cereal). This meditation on ambience through repetitive beats is the greatest noise since early days of techno, or since I knocked on Timmy Mallett's door for a solid week because he owed me a fiver.

The best Abbott since, um, Diane Abbott. Buy Holkham Drones from Bleep or Boomkat.

2 - Gonjasufi – A Sufi And A Killer

A Sufi And A Killer sounds like Mark E Smith, Timothy Leary, Seasick Steve, George Clinton, Marc Bolan and Flying Lotus using their teeth, yellowed from chewing tobacco, to rip open time itself, then having a jolly good toke on apple tobacco in a shisha cafe. This is a debut album, don't forget. Despite its dizzying array of influences, this is as complete a sound as you're ever going to get.

"You came with weapons: I came with God," says Sumach, and you don't doubt him. The billion or so tracks on the album buzz with a shamanic intensity: the eastern impact of Kowboyz And Indians, the vintage jam of She Gone or the imposing beats underpinning his fragile vocals (an ancient Method Man?) on Ancestors. I don't know where he's coming from or where he's going to, but Sufi, so good. Sorry.

An incredible achievement for Warp and Gaslamp Killer and the rest. Buy Gonjasufi's Sufi And A Killer from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

Not quite in the top ten (part three)

My top ten is chock full of artists who have embraced the 4/4 rhythm, something which I wouldn't have done a year ago. And so it's a shame to lose Lone, whose Emerald fantasy Tracks evoked the spirit of classic Detroit. Shame to lose Underworld's Barking too. Matthew Dear's Black City didn't dance its way into the top ten either.

The Chemical Brothers got back to techno basics on Further, but it wasn't enough, while One Life Stand from Hot Chip was quite good but, frankly, a bit annoying. iTAL tEK's detailed Midnight Colour was definitely in my top half of the long list, while Susumu Yokota's Kaleidoscope didn't see its way into the final reckoning.

Dan Le Sac, Teebs, The Orb and Kode 9 (he did a DJ Kicks) also didn't make the cut. I was disappointed with Skream's chart-baiting Outside The Box. He needs to start thinking outside the, um, yeah, anyway. Royksopp's Senior had early retirement in the reckoning for this list.

And finally, some artists were excluded because they were probably too guitar-y and not electronica enough,. They include Denis Jones' Red + Yellow = (you must see him live), the Klaxons' Surfing The Void (and yes it was a good album cover) and the electrifying Nerve Up from Lonelady.

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

Snurvive the snowpocalypse with snowtronica

Fat Roland would like to advise listeners of serious disruptions to music due to the severe weather conditions, which are likely to continue tomorrow. Electronica listeners are advised not to listen to or make tunes except for the most essential artists.

These are those essential artists:

- Anything by The Avalanches (via Stuart Durber)

- Anything by the Chemical Brrrs (geddit? via Isaac Ashe)

- Anything by Max Tundra (via Dirty Protest) 

- Biosphere: Polar Sequences (via Dial)

- Digitonal: Snowflake Vectors (via Dan Brearley)

- For delayed journeys, Faithless: Take The Long Way Home or Miss You Less See You More (via A Strangely Isolated Place)

- Herrmann and Kleine: Catch A Snowflake (via Dan Brearley)

- Joy Electric: Walking In A Winter Wonderland (via John Mark Cullen)

- Leftfield: Melt 

- Mike and Rich: Mr Frosty (via LUDD)

- Moby: Snowball (via Ben Edson) 

- Modeselektor: The White Flash (via Daniel Stirling)

- Monolake - Infinite Snow (see forthcoming album review, prob'lee on Saturday)

- The Orb: Little Fluffy Clouds (of snow. Via Stuart Durber)

- Trentemoller. (While The Cold Winter Waiting, I reckon. Via Isaac Ashe.)

- Various: Tribute To Antarctica (via Mrcopyandpaste)

- Wisp: Frozen Days (via Smucker)

Do add your own snow-themed electronica / IDM in the comments below. Or tweet it and tag it #snowtronica. Together, we can get through this if only we listen to the right music.