Best electronic albums of 2019: thirteen

13 – Konx-om-Pax – Ways Of Seeing (Planet Mu)

Konx-om-Pax used to hang out with Hudson Mohawke on the tough streets of Glasgow. Recently he's been hanging out with Hudson Mohawke at HudMo's swanky LA residence. Somewhere inbetween comes this, his glorious third album.

The reviewers have waffled a lot about light when writing about Ways Of Seeing, and they're spot on. Its like Konx has opened all the windows and sun-bleached his murky sounds. The darkness is still there (the sudden declaration of "overdose!" on LA Melody), but these are shadows in daylight rather than shimmers in the night.

The album's also informed by Konx (his real name is Tom) moving to Berlin, and there's something notably European about the smooth flow of Nightwave collaboration I'm For Real. He also spent some time in Clark's studio, and I think some of the giddy looseness of the production could be testament to that.

This has proper cheered me up, sitting here in my Manchester living room with all this LA-inflected beatsmithery drumming into my ears. I'm off to put the big light on.



Scroll the full best-of-2019 list here.

Konx-om-Pax's new confection has me sulking about sweets

I knew this world was going to pot when I realised there were two kinds of Refreshers: the sugary discs in pastel colours and the chewy bars that take your teeth out.

You can't have two sweets with the same name. We don't have a Mars Bar that's made of sickly goo and a Mars Bar made from liquorice razor blades. There's only one type of Mars Bar, albeit in different shades. And there should only be one type of Refresher.

Not that I'm totally going to hold that against Konx-om-Pax, whose new EP Refresher is a welcome follow-up to last year's Caramel. The confectionery-consumed knob twiddler leads the EP with the cheery Cascada. Love that ploddy bass drum. Listen below.

Listen: Konx-om-Pax on Planet Mu is a whole pile of hearts

Konx-om-Pax's Caramel album is pretty much beatless, like a suburban street on New Year's morning or a pile of hearts torn from a legion of losing marauders.

Have a listen to the fuzzy and warm title track here. Looking forward to this one. Pre-order it and Planet-Mu will let you download this track now.