Best electronic albums of 2020: ten

10 – Ital Tek – Outland (Planet Mu)

We start the top ten an act I called "ambimum" in my 2016 top ten and compared to Stockport in my 2018 top ten. With yet another top ten entry, Ital Tek has done it again – and may well have scored higher than previous years if there hadn't been such competition in 2020. Not that this is a competition. Ahem.

Outland starts quietly, like a boxing match with a baby tiger. "This is easy," you think, as the baby fur flies. Soon the snarling begins; the muscles flex, and before long you have a furious tiger and/or pulsing analogue synths sitting on your face.

This is his most accessible album despite some naaaasty bass moments. Such is the analogue perfection, it really does feel like you're being destroyed by something cute. The apocalypse has never sounded so graceful.

Outland has the grimy thump of Clark cushioned by the murky otherworld of Stranger Things; it has the crowd-hyping drops of Jon Hopkins or Hudson Mohawke almost completely flattened into a biophilic Bjorkian fuzz. So good.

No baby tigers were hurt in the writing of this blog post, apart from the one I fired out of a cannon, but that was just for fun.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Best electronic albums of 2020: please do not throw these special mentions off a cliff

Throughout this countdown, there will be many albums that didn't make the final list but still deserve to be festooned with garlands and cocaine and fresh puppies. Welcome to the first selection of 'special mentions'.

Firstly, I try not to include compilations in my Best Albums list, but I have to give a tip of the hat to the blistering Alterity from Houndstooth. In a piece of especially quality journalism, I described this album in Electronic Sound as sounding "like a bunch of synth modules being chucked off a cliff. Like, properly chucked with a run-up and everything." That was meant to be a good thing.

Another compilation worth a nod is PlanetMµ25. The sauciest thing to ever come out of Worcester, Mike Paradinas's Planet Mu celebrates its silver anniversary with some of my favourite artists, including Ital Tek, Gábor Lázár and Bogdan Raczynski. Right good treat.

Back to artist albums. Here are some dark, dubby delights that deserve a special mention despite not making my final 25. Following rereleases of his early albums, it was great to get some glorious new glitch from Pole in Fading (Mute). This was utterly hypnotic, as was Recondite's haunting Dwell (Ghostly International), an album which took one minimal monotone and turned it into something as immersive as falling into a pool of Diet Pepsi (I really like Diet Pepsi).

Let's also not forget Life Cycles (Cultivated Electronics), a lively collection of old rusted electro from the archives of Orbital’s early label-mates The Advent (1995's Elements of Life is still worth a listen). Finland's Morphology achieved a vintage feel too on the echoing electronics of Horta Proxima (FireScope Records). I'm amazed this didn't make my final 25. And finally, I loved the haze that emanated the smoked-out techno knees-up going on at the heart of Matt Karmil's ace STS371 (Smalltown Supersound).

More special mentions to come. And more countdown to come. Stay tuned.

 

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Best electronic albums of 2018: six

6 – Ital Tek – Bodied (Planet Mu)

The opening to Bodied, a track called Adrift, is pure Blade Runner. A city vista. Lights twinkling in the darkness. A craft glides across the sky. The skyscrapers sweep away to the horizon.

And then something terrifying happens. The second track Become Real starts fizzing at the two-minute mark, and the static shock never quite leaves. Something has awakened. This is not a city. This is a creature.

I don’t know what’s possessed Ital Tek, but this is a frightening album, all portent and doom, fully ambient yet as emotionally percussive as all heck. His continued journey away from the dancefloor has produced his best album yet.

The rising sun illuminates the city and the darkness curtains away. The grey buildings show themselves to the new day. This is not Los Angeles 2019. This is Stockport. Dammit. A milk float rear-ends a bollard.



Scroll all of the best 2018 electronic albums by clicking here.

Best electronic albums of 2016: five

5 – Ital Tek – Hollowed (Planet Mu)

The top five I'm about to list each pluck my emotions way more than anything else listed so far. Consider this lot special fried gold. Grilled silk. Battered platinum.

There’s a word I saw used in a review of Ital Tek’s fifth album: “maximalism”. That refers to a day-glo Rustie gloss in which everything is turned up to 92. I think we need a new word for Hollowed, though. Maximum ambient. "Maximbient"? "Ambimum"?

Alan ‘Ital Tek’ Myson (first mentioned here in 2008) tried to rediscover his teenage muse, when his sonic ramblings ran free and wild. As a result, Hollowed is cut from “hours of drones, loops and textures.” Crikes. All I did in my teenage years was tape the top 40. Finger on pause button, trying to cut out Bruno Brookes’s waffling.

The helicoptering Jenova, the fuzzy Clark-ish pulse of Beyond Sight, the snappy assault of Cobra: this is full of light and dark. Things build, crescendo, fall, and tear another glorious hole in your ears. But it's in those between moments, when the static hangs in the air, that the ambimum thrills most. Yeah. Maybe not "ambimum". "Ambaximent"?!



Scroll all of the best 2016 electronic albums by clicking here.

Listen to Ital Tek's Beyond Sight: tingling up your spine nice and good

See this video here? Turn up your volume and play it full-screen. Play it on the biggest screen you can. Display it on the side of a building. Project it onto the moon.

Even with YouTube compression, it'll tingle up your spine nice and good.

Beyond Sight is the moment on Ital Tek's fifth album Hollowed - available to stream in full here - that the ambience gives away to Clarkesque dirty beats.

This is quite a departure for Alan Myson. The clues for his fatter, more free direction were always there - just listen to the fuzzy bassline of Babel on 2010's Midnight Colour album.

But put this against the clinical footwork of 2013's Hyper Real and you'll realise something quite new's happening here. I like it.

Further Fats: In a post about Merzbow, the first time I fell in love with an Ital Tek track (2008)

Listen: Ital Tek's Cobra

I'm going to start posting new choooons as and when I hear them. Quick and dirty, not much editing needed: I get to blog more, you get more new music. Sorted! One condition: I will only post things that properly excite me in some way - no filler. Here's Ital Tek's utterly poisonous Cobra. Love it. Taken from the Hollowed LP. #choon

Teebs, Babe Rainbow and Ital Tek tattooed onto a pop star's innards

I barely wordpuke about electronic jams in this here netspace, even though the whole reason for this website is to delare the word of the beat, of the resonance filter, of the wob-wob-wob.

Instead, I'm either banging on about pop music (OMG JUSTIN BIEBPIPE GOT A TATTOO OF POL POT ON HIS LARGE INTESTINE OMG) or simply not posting at all. This, lovely reader, is not good enough.

So what has been performing syncopated rhythms on my ear drums?

Teebs (pictured) has joined Soundcloud, which is about bloody time because I'm fed up of searching for the deadlocked skate dude on there and not finding him. Seriously. Just last weekend, I couldn't find him so had to punch Soundcloud in the face yet again. His first track posted there is about a year old, but it's sunny and dancy and deserves an embed below.

Anchor Steam by teebsio

Speaking of ambient jams that wouldn't look out of place spread over Brian Eno's bald head, I do believe I haven't told you about Babe Rainbow's Set Loose from his Endless Path EP.  It's simple and sad and deserves repeat clicks.

Babe Rainbow - "Set Loose" taken from Endless Path EP - OUT NOW by Warp Records

Also, Brighton's Ital Tek (or iTAL tEK or iTaL tEk or whatever his shift key is doing on any one day) has teamed up with London's Om Unit. Mr Unit, as it's only polite to call him, has been known to make music in the back of an RV before now. His pairing with Ital Tek is a persistent little bugger: a remix of Mr Tek's War Of The Ants. I'm having those tiddlywink snare effects tattooed on a pop star's pancreas.

Ital tek - war of the ants (om unit remix) Coming Soon (Atom River) by omunit

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.

Merzbow makes crap an art form (that's meant to be a compliment, by the way)

Merzbow used to construct art from rubbish before he pioneered Japanese noise music.

If you don't know, Japanese Noise Music is Japanese, it just sounds like noise, and some people think it's music. I'm not sure where the name comes from.

Anyhoo, now Merzbow makes art from the unwanted noises we often cast away: static, radio fuzz, analogue glitches and machine hums. Still art from rubbish, then.

It's a sound that has served him well: he has a discography that's as long as your arm, but only if you're some long-armed freak who's spent too much time on the rack in your Uncle Cranford's secret torture chamber.

The latest ambient addition to that discography is an album called Higanbana, which literally translated means "you told me this was like Sigur Ros, I want my money back." If you're the sort of oddbod who hears music in the urgent clatter of a train or enjoys scratched muzak CDs stuttering over the speakers in Poundland, then you need this album. If, on the other hand, that sort of thing sounds like an audio atrocity, I'll never be able to persuade you that this extreme, experimental, harsh landscape is actually quite a nice place to visit.

Onto other things. Brighton's Square Records is the new home for iTAL tEK, and thank bigbeat for that because the eponymous title track from his new Deep Pools EP is my track of the week. If I did a track of the week. Which I don't.

A slow moving, spacious take on dub techno, with wheezing synths and heroin-flattened echoes of William Orbit's Water From A Vine Leaf, this record drips with the sort of hope lacking from his darker material previously offered on parent label Planet µ.

Like spacious? Klimek's Dedications is brooding and filmic, which make sense with titles like For Stephen Speilberg And Azza El Hassan. This mile-wide ambience is more suited to the plains of America than its home in Germany, and will appeal to fans of Deaf Center. (You can download a Klimek video by clicking here.)

And finally, a bit less minimal and slightly the worse for it is Vessel's Pictureland 01. It's lovely to have a chill-out album that doesn't have a picture of bloody Ibiza on the cover, but I don't think this release will change the fact that Vessel will eventually kick the bucket and his epitaph will be "'im off the Pet Shop Boys' Back To Mine complilation".

It's a fine way to remembered, but not as fine as making art out of a binful of crap.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: ENO GUITAR, REVIEWS MASSONIX