Best electronic music albums of 2025: deeply dubby about Neapolitan ice cream

This summary is part of a series, posting between 30th December 2025 and 3rd January 2026

My 2025 highlights continue. Here are bunch of albums I have categorised under "experimental", which is a cop-out way of saying "assorted genres but let's not get too hung up on labels, yeah?". Despite my laziness, it is still an excellent summary, and you should get these albums down your ears.

Adrian Sherwood – The Collapse Of Everything (On-U Sound)

Despite its apocalyptic title, Sherwood's first solo album since 2012's Survival & Resistance is an uplifting affair. It's got lashings of deeply dubby delights, more than a few jazzy soiree moments, and Brian Eno pops up on production duties for one track. The most fun moment is Spaghetti Best Western, which I guess is better than a Brown Rice Britannia.

Barker – Stochastic Drift (Smalltown Supersound)

It's nice to have Barker back for a second album. His music is sometimes called "post-club", which means chilled dance music rather than an enthusiast organisation dedicated to the Royal Mail. He keeps thinks clean and minimal, shifting and shiny, and thoroughly emotional throughout. The very definition of a headphone listen.

In Transit: In Transit (Felt)

Oh hello there. Dave Huismans appeared in two previous end-of-year blog posts: as his alias A Made Up Sound in 2016, and as 2562 way back in 2019. Nice to have him back. This album has only just come out, and develops his ex_libris work into an even deeper, duskier ambience. You'll get lost in the smokiness and the speckles of it all.

Josef Tumari – Dubovaya (DSL System)

All the way from Tashkent comes a killer collection of ambient dub, slamming house and spiritual breaks. Sublimation Collective's Josef Tumari gives us a real pick 'n' mix here, but that's part of the charm:. Once a groove lock in, it's truly transportive: his sounds and vocal use is never less than hypnotic. I'm off to check some Uzbek playlists.

Lyra Pramuk – Hymnal (7K!)

Techno, folk and classical music collide in a tasty Neapolitan ice cream mix for Pramuk's second album. The building blocks for this album are wild: a German classical music quartet, the poet Nadia Marcus, the I Ching, the artist Jenna Sutela, slime moulds, and some nifty CDJ work. Yes, I said slime moulds. Yet again, her vocal work is on point.

Powell – We Do Recover (Diagonal Records)

We do indeed recover. This album was collated over an eight-year period, finally achieving form after Powell lost a friend to suicide. This tragic loss forms one of the themes here, and it feels like an experimental producer working things out in real time. There are moments of contemplation, of grief, of darkness, of wonky piano and broken circuits.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic albums of 2020: eat these special mention woozy foods

Let's visit some more special mentions: albums which didn't make the top 25 but are well worth a listen. "But Fat Roland," you wibble, "I've not finished the special mentions from yesterday." Well, it's not MY fault you filled up on leftover mince pies instead, IS IT. Now eat your special mentions. No, you may not borrow the ketchup.

I had this bunch filed under "woozy", and although I don't think that's an accurate description, they certainly transport us somewhere interesting. 

Actress's Karma and Desire (Ninja Tune), featuring vocals from Mercury winner Sampha, saw the beat-wobbler in a more ambient mode: the smoke rising from the nightclub vents rather than the club itself. The return of Darkstar with Civic Jams (Warp) placed us squarely under the stage lights, their burning siren songs feeling as elemental as ever, thrumming with (Wu) life. 

The bouncing bass and smokin' electronics of Fritz von Runte's The Last Album (Marshall Records) brought a cracking space jam to 2020, so fresh and so clean: it had Graham Massey and Bill Drummond on audio and word duties respectively. An album with a similar quirky independent feel was Magic Oneohtrix Point Never (Warp) from, you guessed it, Oneohtrix Point Never. However, I was less convinced by the weird processed nature of Oneohtrix's ninth album, especially those vocals. One-y needs to borrow some guest vocalists from Fritz.

Speaking of vocals, Lyra Pramuk's voice on Fountain (Bedroom Community) was processed to heckery, and to tremendous effect. Comprising only her vocals, Fountain was an engrossing and unique work, and it feels like a crime to not include this in the Top 25. Seriously, give it a listen. Not so much in-the-club as outside the club listening to the queue chatter but slowed down a thousand times.

What's left in this little pile? Ah yes, there was Matmos's epic The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form (Thrill Jockey), which was three hours of bizarre 99bpm electronics with 99 collaborators, including Matthew Herbert, the aforemented Oneohtrix and Andi from Mouse on Mars. As PC Danny Butterman once said, this is "off the fricking chain". And finally, let's get back to woozy: Beatrice Dillon debut album Workaround (PAN) embraced the obscure, the minimal beats existing in some otherplace: not so much a nightclub as a cubist impression of a nightclub.

There are plenty more special mentions to come. Gobble them up. Gobble them right up.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020