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

Ambient also-rans: from Panthers to Planet Earth

Ambient music never went away. It just ended up in this also-rans section of my 2016 countdown.

Just because I preferred Pye Corner Audio to Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein’s Stranger Things (Lakeshore Records), it didn’t stop that programme and its soundtrack being a glorious highlight of 2016. Alas, not in my final list though.

There are plenty more ambient works that didn’t make the top 20. COW / Chill Out, World! (Kompakt) saw The Orb at their most floaty, while Sir Brian of Eno spiced up a Velvet Undeground cover with the voice of Peter Serafinowicz on The Ship (Warp Records). Yes, you read that right.

Clark’s The Last Panthers (Warp Records) seemed dark and interesting, but it was soundtracking a TV series I hadn’t seen. Brooklyn’s Julianna Barwick spooked us with Will (Dead Oceans), clearly taking some of her inspiration from Oneohtrix Point Never.

Digging down into the experimental bucket, I have three final ambient works to mention. Norway’s greatest export Biosphere used Ukrainian and Polish folk music on Departed Glories (Smalltown Supersound). Black Merlin trekked to some far off places for the field recordings on Hipnotik Tradisi (Island Of The Gods). And Crotaphytus’s Acanthosaura (Further Records) came across as some kind of ketamine Planet Earth.





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