Best electronic music albums of 2025: new bowels, my uncle's moustache, something about Berghain

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

Blawan – SickElixir (XL Recordings)

I have seen Blawan live a few times, and on each occassion, I had to contact the NHS and order new bowels. SickElixir has rightly been lauded for its distortion and bass badness. It's powerful beyond belief. It's like one of them grime acts have done a big dump not only over your home speakers, but over reality itself. I suspect it's going to be much copied.

Daniel Avery – Tremor (Domino Recording Co)

When my Uncle Augustus grew a moustache, I hardly recognised him. With a gang of vocalists leading the charge, including Alison Mosshart from The Kills and Walter Schreifels from Rival Schools, this is almost unidentifiable as an Avery album. I'm not entirely convinced, although it's very well done, and my fictional Uncle Augustus loves it.

Djrum – Under Tangled Silence (Houndstooth)

I wasn't expecting this. Djrum's third album leads with flowing piano, melodic ambience and a generous splatter of sinuous drum programming. I mean, he's plonked the piano before, but this is giving Kiasmos-levels of classical music energy. He's still got the grimy bass and acidic techno, but this is pushing the piano up the staircase more than before.

FKA Twigs – EUSEXUA (Young)

Here comes the new album from FKA Twigs or,  to give her her full name, Felicia Kenneth Alabaster Twigs. It's a reliably entertaining mix of airy electronica and pop vibes. She gains electronic music points because the influence of producer Koreless is evident – in fact, Koreless did the production on Drums of Death while flying to Berghain. Hardcore.

Nazar – Demilitarize (Hyperdub)

It's over to Angola for a truly unsettling album inspired by pandemic illness. No, wait, it's better than it sounds. This is a singular sound comprising what I assumed had been confident r'n'b tunes before they were smothered in a gauze of audio unease. The muttering. The scuzz. The broken production. It's like a glitzy dancefloor covered in insects... in a good way.

Polygonia – Dream Horizons (Dekmantel)

Going out of the house naked, flying naked through the air, fighting naked ninjas while naked – we've all had vivid dreams. On this latest album, Polygonia lays out a series of dream sequences with playful and pin-sharp techno. The staccato percussion tickles, and at one point a clipped vocal loop looks set to hypnotise you into unconsciousness. 

Surgeon – Shell~Wave (Tresor Records)

YES. Finally. An album with a tilde in the title. Do you know how long I have been waiting for this? Praying to Santa every morning for a tilde album. Never mind the mathematical symbols, Sheeran, what about the chuffing tilde? Anyhoo. This is Surgeon being brilliant Surgeon. Rowdy bangers, razor-sharp machinery. Even the ambient Dying feels like it's going to tear your face off. Delicious.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

The alternative, picky version of the Mercury music prize

The Mercury Prize is the best metal of prize. Much better than the Wrought Iron Prize, the Tin Prize and the Ytterbium Prize. Yes, I just looked that up.

In advance of the Mercury shortlist being announced later this week, my friends at Picky Bastards have cobbled together a pretty impressive alternative list of Mercury Prize nominations

FKA Twigs is hailed as a genius, there's praise for the warm analogue tones of Michael Kiwanuka, and Ghostpoet offers a "masterclass in restraint". One album is called an "uncompromising, apocalyptic triumph" but you'll have to read the article to find out which album it is.

I've also made a suggestion: 808 State's Transmission Suite. "808 State’s first album for 17 years wasn’t just a triumph in techno," I write. "It was a brilliantly realised celebration of old electronics." Have a read of all of our alternative Mercury albums here.

While you read that, I'm going to learn about ytterbium. It's named after Ytterby in Sweden, which is a bunch of houses built on a haunted mine. Apparently Ytterbium has a "molar heat capacity" , which I can only assume is to do with setting your teeth on fire. You shouldn't put ytterbium in your eyes, which, to be fair, you can say about most things.

Have you finished reading that Mercury piece? Good. I can stop reading about ytterbium now: it's really dull.

While I'm lazily researching things, here's something else. Wikipedia tells me the Mercury Prize is named after their original telecommunications company sponsor Mercury Communications. When Technics took over as sponsor in 1998, they kept the Mercury name, even though the Technics Prize would have loads more cred because of the whole turntable thing. 

Maybe the Technics Prize can be a dance music version of the Mercury, which would make me very happy. Someone set that up, please, thank you.