House music also-rans: The Field, Gold Panda, Trus'me and other things that'll make you sweat

Here are some more also-rans. A bit more of a house music flavour amid the techno this time, so four to the floor, here goes…

Just missing out on my final list is the fifth album from The Field. The Follower (Kompakt) is a splendid assembly of spiralling techno. Gold Panda is always a nice listen, so the travel-inspired Good Luck And Do Your Best (City Slang) didn’t disappoint.

I enjoyed Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald / Borderland's Transport (Tresor) for two reasons: firstly, its unwavering commitment to solid house music, and secondly because I managed to shoehorn a C+C Music Factory reference into an Electronic Sound review of them earlier this year.

I enjoyed his debut Workshop 19, so it was a welcome return for abstract technoist Kassem Mosse with Disclosure (Honest Jon's Records). Meanwhile, Matt Karmil released two albums of note: the dubby IDLE033 (Idle Hands) followed by the throbbing gritty house of ++++ (PNN). I preferred the latter. The dark, spacey Planet 4 (Prime Numbers) by Manchester’s own Trus'me is worth a look in too.

House Of Dad’s House Of Dad (House Of Dad) samples a toilet flush and has a loo seat on the cover. It’s much better than it sounds, honest. Finally, there were the deep, otherworldly rhythms of Dorisburg’s Irrbloss (Hivern Discs), and, for those with a bit of time on their hands, you should check out Prince Of Denmark’s magical and engaging 23-track 8 (Forum) if you can find anywhere selling it.





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

Chosen Words: J is for Juan Atkins

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Juan Atkins and his chums in the Detroit techno scene are true pioneers of electronic music.

Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick 'Strings Of Life' May experimented with early synthesisers and, inspired by the likes of Parliament and Kraftwerk, came up with soulful electro that took the world by storm.

The closest the UK has had to a Detroit scene is in Sheffield, the birthplace of Warp Records and home of a number of scowling eighties synth pop bands. The violence of the mid-80s Detroit club scene, however, was imported to the UK by Manchester.

It is not known if Juan Atkins has ever been to Sheffield, although he had success under the recording name of Model 500, while Sheffield still has lots of Fiat 500s, so YOU do the math.

Atkins' first synthesiser was a Korg MS10, a chunky two-and-a-half octave knob-tweaky machine that, by night, morphed into a nine-legged cybertronic monster that raped wall sockets and stroked kittens to death.*

*[citation needed]

Top five calamities for which Juan Atkins and his mates are responsible:

- Endless crappy house versions of Strings Of Life
- the acceptance of jazz into the electronic underground
- Balearic
- 2 Unlimited
- the Atkins diet (probably)

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Oh to be torn up by wolves and fed, bit by bit, through an old lawnmower

While I'm busy with radio things, there are a few gramophone releases you and I ought to catch up on.

AGF's fourth album Words Are Missing is a dizzying array of shattered sound and industrial ambience. The harmonies come from vocals torn up by wolves and fed through a lawnmower. The fragments that remain are alluring but ever-so-slightly unsettling.

Harmonic 313 is a side project from Mark Pritchard, better known as one half of Global Communication. His EP1 is a triumphal throwback to the early days of techno, when it was all about Detroit. So yes, it sounds all a bit Juan Atkins without the smoothness, but it works for me.

A whole manbag packed full of Thom Yorke remixes have been released in the last couple of months. Meddling with the lazy-eyed Oxford boy's music are Burial (unfairly labelled as a 2step Massive Attack), Four Tet, Christian Vogel and Newport Pagnell's DJ Surgeon.

The utterly ironic thing about electronica remixes of Radiohead's frontman is that, whatever you do, you just end up making it sound more like Radiohead. Which is a good thing, and you should sniff them down in record shops now.

Finally, Clark is breathing fire again on his new offering, Turning Dragon. He has put all niceties to one side, has walked into the Women's Institute (electronica sub-committee) meeting, and machine-gunned everyone to death with bad-tempered percussion and ADD-level techno.

Listening to his album is like trying to nail gun exploding fireworks inside the Crystal Maze dome. It's hyper, blunder-bus propeller-injected fun and is a real treat from start to finish. Have a listen to Volcan Veins from that very album.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: CLARK'S TED