90 best electronic music albums of 2021: The Bug, Calibre, Clark, Fatima Al Qadiri & Floating Points

Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents five more brilliant albums:

The Bug – Fire (Ninja Tune) 

The Bug is back! Not an actual bug. I get loads of them all the time, trying to climb on my knees and stuff. No, Kevin Martin has returned and he's angry. "You'd better run from me," go the vocals amid teeth-gnashing bass and barometer-blowing heated atmospherics. The speaker-wobbling badboy loops brilliantly match the sheer ferocity of the ragga and dancehall vocals – take a bow, MC Irah. As good an expression of our pressure cooker society as anything else on this list, and rightly already topping other people's best-of-2021s. 

Calibre – Feeling Normal (Signature Recordings) 

Despite the chirpy dubstep and sassy half-step rhythms, this is Calibre in a mood. He's drum ‘n’ bass royalty, but this 16th album (!) is among his slowest, the BPMs reigned in to produce one his more introspective works. As I wrote in Electronic Sound magazine: "Dominick Martin delivers an umpteenth album of coffee-table drum and bass that’s a smooth as a buttered puppy.... ever-decreasing circles of frowning, thoughtful electronica." Not what I expected at all, in a good way.

Clark – Playground In A Lake (Detusche Grammophon) 

It has been fascinating watching the career of this Warp alumnus, er, warp into something totally new, moving from his barnacled techno beats into something much more neoclassical. This is a "concept" album, whatever that means these days, and is his first appearance on classical label Deutsche Grammophon. Clark's 12th album isn't just classical, though: it's folk and weird horror, with vocals from Clark himself, Afrodeutsche and a choir boy. As atmospheric as heck and very much following on from his Daniel Isn’t Real original soundtrack.

Fatima Al Qadiri – Medieval Femme (Hyperdub)

You can always expect something special from this Californian Kuwaiti. On Medieval Femme, we find ourselves somewhere between ancient Arabian history and some far-flung future chill-out night. Sung vocals hang lazily amid heavy reverb, an elegiac organ melts against misty half-beats, harps hang in the air quivering with anticipation. The Middle Ages meets the Middle East. This is possibly Al Qadiri's most accessible album to date, so consider it an excellent starting point. 

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra – Promises (Luaka Bop)

This is a biggie. Sweep everything else off the table, cancel the milk, hang up on grandma. Floaty, as I like to call him, has always been classical adjacent, his shuffling house beats always feeling grand. He's got his own electronic "ensemble", for goodness sake. Here, he teams up with the LSO and jazz saxophonist Sanders for what might be his grandest project to date. It's slow and bluesy and a little too jazzy for my tastes, but still, its a landmark release whatever you think of stupid saxophones.

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

Also-rans: demons, Durban, WWWINGS and weapons

Mind if I dump this dark weird stuff here? Okay, thanks. Here are some strange, experimental albums that didn’t make the final cut.

For example, Elysia Crampton’s critically acclaimed Demon City (Break World Records), which was deeply unsettling in a pleasing, genre-bending way. Maybe it was all that demonic laughter she kept dropping in. No, really.

I think I called Antwood’s Virtuous.scr (Planet Mu) “throbbing innards” for Electronic Sound. But in a good way. There’s also the twisted grime of WWWINGS’s PHOENIXXX (Planet Mu). If you want sparse, try the angry Fatima Al Qadiri’s Brute (Hyperdub) or Lucy’s industrial Self Mythology (Stroboscopic Artefacts).

I’m not meant to be covering compilations, but the throbbing Durban breaks of Gqom Oh! (GQOM OH) scared the life out of me. As did the crumbling white noise of Ceramic TL’s Sign Of The Cross Every Mile To The Border (Halocline Trance). Finally, the legend that is Roly Porter was back with some classical noise on Third Law (Tri Angle), there was a mega triple bashment LP from (deep breath) Alix Perez, Chimpo, Fixate, Fracture, Om Unit, Sam Binga and Stray (phew) in the shape of Who Is Richie Brains (Exit Records).

Oh and I have to mention the debut album just out from Seattle’s Homemade Weapons. The precision-engineered Negative Space (Samurai Music) seemed to point towards something interesting and new for drum ‘n’ bass.





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