Best electronic albums of 2020: special mentions to make you go mmmm

Alright. I can see that you're tense. There are even more special mentions on the way, but it's stressing you out. Here, lie on this sofa. Let me fluff up these cushions. Put on this soothing face cream. Let Igor give you one of his aggressive massages.

And now let's listen to the ambient-flecked sounds of some more albums that didn't quite make the final Top 25.

The Soft Pink Truth's Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? (Thrill Jockey) had critics raving, and I can see why, with its ambient house tantalisingly preserved in amber then washed across a million tides. A less intense and more synthy version of this could be found with the hypnotic Erratics & Unconformities (The Leaf Label) from Craven Faults: its 17-minute opening loop Wacca Wall was a giddy trip.

Com Truise dug out a bunch of old, sepia-washed tracks for In Decay, Too (Ghostly International), a follow-up to a similar retrospective back in 2012: let that fuzzy neon tickle your analogue taste buds. If someone switched Com Truise off, and all we had was a momentary glow of what had been before, then we'd have The Spectral Isle (Castles in Space) by Field Lines Cartographer – an ambient masterpiece that had the best textures of 2020 and was also the year's best phantom island-themed album.

While we're in an ambient mood, it's worth listening to Eartheater's Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin (PAN), a gorgeous swell of classical ambience workshopped at an artistic residency in northeastern Spain. Or if you want to get really spaced out, then opt for the short choral apparitions of Healing Is a Miracle (Ninja Tune) by Julianna Barwick.

And finally let's lift things up again with John Beltran's brilliant The Season Series (Delsin Records), which takes ambience as its starting point but then spreads wings fashioned from shards of Detroit techno and crystalline percussion. Mmmm, feels relaxing. HARDER, Igor, HARDER.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

No mood for sniffing: five September 2020 electronic music album recommendations

Here are five different flavours of album due for release in September. Think of this as an ice-cream cone stacked with five scoops. Better gobble it down quickly before your hand becomes a drippy mess.

There's a line on Marie Davidson's album Working Class Woman which goes “I want to smell you, even from far away”. On her new single Renegade Breakdown, she's in no mood for sniffing: "I feel disgraceful whenever you're around." Her new band, called Marie Davidson & L'Œil Nu, is quite the change in direction, with DIY pop influenced by Fleetwood Mac and Kraftwerk. Have a nosy at the album, also called Renegade Breakdown, here.

Berlin-based RUI HO (pictured) mixes Western dance music with Chinese melodies, and has built a reputation as a DJ and purveyor of futuristic sound collages. Her debut album Lov3 & L1ght takes a typically leftfield move into glittery EDM-tinged autotuned pop. Not for everyone, but the production is really on fleek, as the cool kids say.

Tricky seems to be back on form for the first time since, well, Victorian times or something. Fall To Pieces is his 14th studio album: that's as many albums as the Prodigy and Oasis combined. He's got a great new(ish) vocalist called Marta and it's got some pretty mournful vibes.

Field Lines Cartographer took inspiration from an elusive island for The Spectral Isle – it's full of UFOs or ghosts or Westlife fans (I might be wrong about that last one). If you want big fat soundscapes to make your ears tingle, then this is the album for you. The vinyl is 'seafoam' which means you can play it with a fish.

And finally, a quirky 1990s album is getting a fresh rerelease. Help was a hastily-assembled War Child charity compilation and featured tracks from Blur, Orbital, Portishead and Massive Attack. It had early OK Computer material, the first post-Richie Manics appearance, and a bizarre return by the long-deleted KLF under the pseudonym The One World Orchestra featuring The Massed Pipes and Drums of the Children's Free Revolutionary Volunteer Guards. The album's available to stream again in all its quirky glory.

Further Fats: My greatest idea once more crumbles to dust like a great big crumbly bit of dust (2010)