Top 50 electronic music albums of 2022: Kuedo, 96 Back, Robert Ames & Ben Corrigan

   

Let's get into the top 50 bestest favourite electronic music albums of 2022. Although they're not presented in any particular order, this next series of blog posts feature albums inside my top 50 but outside the top 20. The kind of chart position that would have been disappointing for Lisa from Steps, but would have been brilliant for H from Steps. I'll blog a few at a time. Here goes!

See the full countdown here.

Kuedo: Infinite Window (Brainfeeder)

I’m not sure an infinite window would work. Where would you put the walls? Despite its architectural impracticality, Jamie Teasdale delivers a stunning selection of keyboard wizardy. From beatless synth shininess to bass-heavy slo-mo electro, this first Kuedo album in six years crosses the full spectrum from noon-bright prog electronics to, er, more noon-bright prog electronics.

96 Back: Cute Melody, Window Down! (96 Music)

I always thought 96 Back was some moody anonymous geezer, until I saw him in Manchester recently and he chatted excitedly between tracks like a wedding DJ. Lovely guy. He follows a productive 2021 with further forays into synth fun. An ever-inventice collage of beat-bustin’ bangers and Lorenzo Senni-style synth noodles. Plus a more responsible attitude to windows.

Robert Ames & Ben Corrigan: Carbs (Nomad Music Productions) 

There’s a touch of Kiasmos to this collaboration between two esteemed contemporary classical composers. Or perhaps Rival Consoles or Max Cooper. It’s a synth album, but these graceful pieces could easily have been played on a church organ. Listen to the swells, the emotion, the rich dynamics that could only come from a couple of classical kids. Gorgeous.

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2022. Read it all here.

Full-on also-rans hysteria

Almost there. Here's a bunch of solid techno albums that didn't make my final list.

I didn't want to deal with old stuff, so no space in my top 20 for the newly polished-up classic Mike & Rich's Expert Knob Twiddlers (Planet Mu). That also goes for Altern 8's Full-On Mask Hysteria (Bleech) which carries the only design in the world I'd have tattooed on my face. And no space either for the hugely pleasing 1995 (Skam), an ancient Jega album found on an old tape somewhere.

Here are three names I was sad not to include, including two names in my best-of-2011. I liked the sprawling soundtrack styles of Kuedo's Slow Knife (Planet Mu). And Illum Sphere's Glass (Ninja Tune) had a kind of echoing subterranean vibe that made me want to live in a techno submarine. Meanwhile, Surgeon kicked up an evil disco with From Farthest Known Objects (Dynamic Tension).

On a lighter housier note, it may be worth looking into the airy jazz-tinged electronics of Steven Julien's Fallen (Apron Records), the '90s bleepery of A Sagittariun's Elasticity (Elastic Dreams) or how about Shinichi Atobe's World (DDS), all sprightly beats and dubby ambience.

Only one more of these 'also-rans' round-ups left while the main top 20 marches on. Who will be the number one album of 2016? Get to William Hill and place your bets now (minimum stake: 2p).





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

Best electronica albums of 2011: numbers 10 to 8

Welcome to my annual review of the best electronica albums.

I must start dear reader, with an apology. I got it wrong last year: Luke Abbott's Holkham Drones (Border Community) languished at number three on 2010’s list, but repeated plays makes me think it should have taken the top spot. Oh well. Mount Kimbie ain’t giving their crown back.

So no pressure then. This year’s best electronica list is, if I may say so, utter brillsocks. Every album featured I love to bits, have slept with several times and have moved into a bungalow with. Before we lap up the goodness, let’s see some of the tracks I spat out. After that, we’ll crack on with the top ten.

[This is part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part three. Click here for part four.]

Some also-rans

Walls were darlings of the ambient community in 2010, so they went and ditched the driftiness and took up dance beats instead. Their album Coracle (Kompakt) was closer to techno and therefore closer to my heart, but it wasn’t enough to make the list.

Bibio scored highly in my best electronica review two years ago but 2011’s Mind Bokeh (Warp) seemed confused: their sub-Orson rock song Take Off Your Shirt was, well, like Orson. Meanwhile, Tycho's Dive (Ghostly International) was lovely, Zomby’s Dedication (4AD) didn’t quite do it for me, while I got Dave Monolith’s Welcome (Rephlex) for Christmas and haven’t had time to absorb it yet.

10 - Falty DL - You Stand Uncertain

You Stand Uncertain (Planet Mu) is such a complete world and yet, by all rights, it ought to be a disconnected mess of rave, house, r’n’b and techno samples.

Take Lucky Luciano. It starts with some slow-motion rave riffery, hypes it up with some breakbeat samba and “oooh yeah” vocal samples, throws in some frenetic funky drummer-ness and suddenly we’re in a watery world of 808 State techno followed by some drill’n’bass-lite. The fact that this one track holds together is a miracle, never mind the album as a whole.

I’m less keen when it gets too far down the garage path and I could do without the female vocal tracks: they feel too much like a bid for radio play. You Stand Uncertain works better in the abstract as repeated melodies work their way into your brain and hang around for the rest of the record, or when a new opposing theme drifts into the music as if uninvited and the whole records hangs beautifully in the delicate, titular uncertainty.

9 - Machinedrum - Room(s)

If Travis Stewart was an actual machine, he’d be a bit rusty around the wingnuts because he’s been in service now for ten years as Machinedrum, Sepalcure, Tstewart and Syndrone.

A brief flirtation with Glasgow’s Lucky Me record label oiled his creativity as he left behind his glitchy past in favour of more upfront electro. Room(s) (Planet Mu) is the full-flexing realisation of that change: swirling vocals and complex breakbeats abound.

In fact, that’s pretty much the motif of Room(s). Busy rave rhythms agitate echoing soul vocals, such as the “for real” refrain of Now U Know Tha Deal 4 Real, the auto tuned U Don’t Survive or the people wailing at the choppy synths in The Statue. A highlight is the additively repetitive She Died There. And with a lot of the tracks coming in at the four or five minute mark, Mr Drum knows how to structure things so that nothing outstays its welcome. Pitchfork wrote off this album as “devoid of its creators voice” – they couldn’t be more wrong.

8 - Kuedo - Severant

Three Planet Mu albums in a row: crikes.

I never thought a Carly Simon sample would end up in my annual album reviews, but it’s happened thanks to the fifth track on Kuedo’s debut album which sees the famous “la de dah de dah” refrain from the ‘80s songstress go to battle with a helicopter or at the very least, a synthesiser that dearly wants to be a helicopter. Next up, Burial doing Coming Around Again on a hovercraft?

Kuedo is a new name around these parts, but most will recognise him as remixer and producer Jamie Vex’d out of, um Vex’d. There is not much comparison, however. While Vex’d The Duo snarled and growled like some crazed darkstep killing monster, and Jamie Vex’d The Soloist sounded like Ninja Tune down a k-hole, the new Kuedo project has a different flavour.  Severant (Planet Mu) sounds like a Vangelis remix album. It is a landscape of yearning 1980s chord sequences (Truth Flood), cinematic analogue ambience (Salt Lake Cuts) and delicate melancholia (Visioning Shared Tomorrows). This album will pluck your heart strings until they shimmer.

[This is part one. Click here for part two. Click here for part three. Click here for part four.]