Best electronic albums of 2020: you 'wooden' believe these special mentions

It's time for more special mentions: albums that didn't make it into my final 25, but definitely still deserve their own pool room with a dart board and one of those wheelie drinks trolleys that looks like a globe.

I don't know what's gone wrong, but in the grand shuffling of my final list, Caribou's Suddenly (City Slang) fell out of the Top 25. I suppose it's quite floaty at times, but that's the point. It's Animal Collective meets Four Tet with an inflated head like Mr Mackey.

Pantha du Prince did his twinkly organic thing on Conference of Trees (Modern Recordings): his best album for some time bolstered by his use of wooden instruments (poor trees!). I almost missed Lee Jones's Down Into Light (Mad As Hell), which would have been a shame because there's real emotional heft in his classical-infused minimalism. If Lee Jones is heaven, Luke Abbott is hell: Translate (Border Community), his first solo record for ages, had his trademark analogue smudges (even some laser zaps!) with his fat synths sounding like he was raising dark spirits. Lovely.

There was much to admire in the splattery electronics of Call Super's third album Every Mouth Teeth Missing (Incienso), its chirrupy found-sounds adding an aural kaleidoscope in places. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's The Mosaic of Transformation (Ghostly International) sat somewhere between soft shoegaze and gentle process music, and was released as a peon to electricity. Finally for this section, ambient composer Nicolas Jaar released two albums, Telas (Other People) and Cenizas (Other People). They were rich and atmospheric and grand. Also, Jaar will get a lengthier mention later in this blog series.

More special mentions on their way. I'm off to chop me some trees into instruments. Whack!

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

A final bunch of also-rans: all the way from Aa to Zomby

Before I reveal the toppest top albums atop the album top table, here are a final few names that didn't make the top 20 but are well worth a mention.

Baauer fiiiiinally dropped a debut album: Aa (LuckyMe) was full of scrunchy bangers to shake yer Harlems and much more besides. A grimier, stronger brother to that album is Skepta's Konnichiwa (Boy Better Know), with Novelist guesting on both those albums. Incidentally, this is not a hip hop list, but while we're on an MC tip, get yourself And The Anonymous Nobody by De La Soul (AOI Records).

Machinedrum bogged off to California to turn out his poppiest long-player yet, Human Energy (Ninja Tune). The rambling Callus (Warp Records) saw Gonjasufi in as psychedelic a mood as ever before. DJ Earl brought in Oneohtrix Point Never for his delightfully dizzying footwork experiment Open Your Eyes (Teklife). And Mala took in some Peruvian inspiration (and panpipes) for the bass-heavy and beguiling Mirrors (Brownswood Recordings). I was less convinced by Zomby's Ultra (Hyperdub) which seemed to float by unnoticed.

On EARS (Western Vinyl), Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith did some wonderful things with voice on an unusual and captivating album. These Hidden Hands did some weird things to my brain on the woozy and surreal Vicarious Memories (Hidden Hundred). Lakker did strange, dark things on the theme of water with Struggle & Emerge (R&S Records). And finally, Matmos did some unspeakable things to a washing machine on Ultimate Care II (Thrill Jockey). No really. The whole album is constructed from washing machine samples.

That's the last of the rejects. Over 100 albums mentioned... and just two to go in the final top 20 countdown. Coming up: a big number two followed by a big number one. You'll enjoy that, won't you? You disgust me.





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