Best electronic albums of 2020: a steady special mention, special mention, special mention

Throughout this countdown, I have herded many albums into a pen labelled "special mentions". Here is the final lot of special mentions for you to ogle longingly at. Oh and my notebook tells me the following selections are labelled "pop / chart".

I've always had a soft spot for Moby, and although it got mixed reviews, I enjoyed All Visible Objects (Mute), especially its nod to his younger rave days. Speaking of feeling young, there was a fresh energy to Disclosure's third album Energy (Island), all chart-friendly and chirpy and cheesy smiles. 

I've never fully got Sparks: the quirkiness is lost on me. That said, there was a lot to admire in A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip (BMG), with my Electronic Sound review praising their wryness, lyricism and "earworms with moustaches". Another duo I got to review in 2020 was Erasure. Their eighteenth (!) album The Neon (Mute) was a "glittery cannon of anthems", in which the "neon flickers with regret".

I always love a Pet Shop Boys album. Early in the year, they released Hotspot (x2), revisiting subtler melodies and giving us the prophetic stay-at-home anthem I Don't Wanna. Nice to see Years & Years making an appearance (the band not the television programme) (obviously) (duh).

Another bunch of old party-heads releasing an album in 2020 was The Orb. Abolition of the Royal Familia (Cooking Vinyl) was a likeable jumble of soulful pop and dubby ambience, and featured the usual gang (Eno! Youth! Hillage!) alongside tributes to Stephen Hawking and Jello from the Dead Kennedys. This was, by the way, only their seventeenth album. I can hear Erasure's mocking laughter.

Finally, pop-pickers, there's this wacky pairing. Eccentric knob-twiddler and Sigur Ros collaborator Dan Deacon gave us Mystic Familiar (Domino Recordings), his first album since 2015. It had DIY songwriting, crashing drums, wonky electronics, and an anthem or three. And eccentric sample-fiddlers The Avalanches were back with We Will Always Love You (Astralwerks), which they said was an “exploration of the vibrational relationship between light, sound and spirit” although was much more straight-laced than that.

I think that's it for my special mentions. I've probably missed something. Tom Vek did an album, didn't he? Too late. I need to publish this in about 60 seconds. I really am writing to deadline – cor blimey.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

A Full On Guide to Full On: Megatonk's Belgium and Frendzy's Can't Stop (these are real tracks, honest)

I've been blogging my way through the 1990s house music compilation Full On: Edition One. But then I stopped for a bit. I had to take a break. 

I've been living a slightly isolated life during the whole coronavirus thing. No partner to say good morning to, no elderly relatives to mouth greetings at through a window, and no Fat Roland clones in my basement lab, not since they escaped. I can spend days locked in my own head.

Which means my mental health ebbs and flows, like the tide of an ocean, only with less seaweed. Sometimes I need to step away from things to allow myself to be a bit mentally quieter. Hence not blogging for two weeks.

Let's get back to the 1992 Deconstruction compilation, which most of you won't remember, but which all of you can look up on Discogs.

Megatonk's Belgium is a perky house track with sampled diva vocals that were the staple of Moby tracks back in the 1990s. Have a listen here.

Megatonk was one of the many aliases of Charles Webster, a remixer and label owner who once engineered for the likes of Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson. 

There's not a huge amount to say about Belgium. The track appeared in a mix by Sasha at the Universe club back in 1992, blended in with Lil Louis's Club Lonely. The two tracks work nicely one after the other. On an Azuli Classics compilation a number of years later, DJ John Digweed would mix into Belgium from an INXS track, which sounds terrible but I'm sure worked just fine. Probably.

A more interesting track, in my humble opinion, is the next Full On tune: Frenzy's Don't Stop. I'm pretty sure that echoing saxophone sample is from a Grid track. Have an earful:

The track's actually called Can't Stop and the act seems to be actually called Frendzy, but let's not let a wonky CD listing get in the way of a good tune. This track is deep and hypnotic and everything good about house music in the 1990s.

I can find naff all information about Frendzy, a name which sounds like a failed social network. Production was by Hari, a long-time DJ fixture at Glasgow's Sub Club, and Shug Brankin, who has remixed Apache Indian and, if my googling is correct, once got a load of college kids to make balloon hats.

What can we conclude from these two tracks? One reminds me of Moby and the other reminds me of The Grid. No bad thing.

More Full On faffing to come.

Read the Full On series in, er full.

Read the Full On introduction explaining what the heck this is all about.

Best electronic music albums of 1995: Quarter Final 2 – Tricky versus Moby

Put down that egg sandwich and pay attention. It's time for the second quarter final in my contest to find the best electronic music album of 1995. No, you may not put it in the fridge. The only thing that matters is this music battle in which I, Fat Roland, play judge, jury and executioner.

There are only a handful of contenders left. I won't spoil the results so far: you can see the whole series here and see the introduction to the quarter finals here. This second quarter final is between:

Maxinquaye by Tricky
Everything Is Wrong by Moby

That's a cracking contest. The difference couldn't be greater: a muttering misery guts versus a happy clappy techno idiot. Fire versus ice. Oil versus water. Cillit versus Bang. There hasn't been a binary choice like this since, er, sorry, I can't think of any controversial votes that have happened in recent years. Here goes. A place in the semi finals beckons...

Criteria one: which album feels too big to fit into a caravan?

Assuming we're talking about a single-axle caravan of no more than six metres nose to tail, the route for entry is usually through a single doorway of no more than 57 centimetres across and 170 centimetres in height. The insular nature of Tricky's sound, forever sounding like an imploding bong trip, guarantees easy entry: it's music made for hunched shoulders. Meanwhile, there's no way Moby's ever getting through that door, not with all that glorious hands-in-the-air star-jumping rave exuberance.

Winner: Everything Is Wrong

Criteria two: which album has the best individual noise?

In audio terms, these albums are poles apart. Moby's noise is based on charming artificiality, with its use of vocal samples and preset-style fake strings. I rather liked the moody "lets" at the start of Moby's Let's Go Free, but for the most interesting sounds, we must turn to Tricky. Slurred lyrics, stoned whispers, scuffed snares, awkwardly tripping loops and, best of all, the depressed, descending tooty sound woven through Suffocated Love. What a treat.

Winner: Maxinquaye

Criteria three: which album makes your record collection look coolest?

Eamonn Holmes is flicking through your records. "Woah, dude," he says, with Moby's blue face staring gormlessly up at him. He continues rifling through your albums. "Like, woooah, dude," he says, looking at the distressed red tones of Tricky's album. You want to ask him which album cover was the coolest, but now he's just sitting on your record player drooling at a crack on the wall. You suspect he thought Tricky was coolest. It's hard to tell these days with Eamonn. 

Winner: Maxinquaye

Criteria four: which album would you play to ward off a tiger?

The trick is to look at the tiger's face. It flinches as I play the thrash metal bits of Everything Is Wrong, but there's something of a Tigger-energy to Moby's pre-Play career, and I can't help feeling that, despite its initial surprise, the tiger's emotionally connecting somehow. On the other hand, it finds Maxinquaye disorienting; there are too many layers, tonal changes and confusing human voices. Look at its left eye twitch. That tiger's not happy.

Winner: Maxinquaye

Criteria five: which album has the sexiest track titles?

With tracks called Overcome and Black Steel, Tricky's album sounds like a sequel to 50 Shades Of Grey; as sexy as a Tory party conference. The sexiness of Moby's titles is much more direct: All That I Need Is To Be Loved, Everytime You Touch Me, Bring Back My Happiness. Lights off, clothes off, rattle the bedposts, showered in time for mackerel for tea. And God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters sounds like a classic next-day-in-the-office sexual conquest boast.

Winner: Everything Is Wrong

Criteria six: Which album would sound best played on the panpipes?

Maxinquaye is a jumble of pitch-shifted sounds and glitches; it defies any normal logic. Everything Is Wrong is the polar opposite: the songs run from A to B, using well-recognised songwriting tropes. If I let Tricky anywhere near my panpipes, he'd probably turn them into a bassoon or an ashtray or a farmstead on the Isle of Jura. Things would be much more straightforward with Moby. A tune is a tune. Panpipes means panpipes.

Winner: Everything Is Wrong

Criteria seven: miscellaneous and worryingly random

This final section is generated using Wikipedia's random page button. Which of the two albums could cause an earthquake? Moby, because he's got God on his side. Which album is most likely to be eaten by moths? Tricky: it sounds pretty bitten already. Which album floats best? Moby, because he's moving over the face of the waters. Which album is the most Senegalese? Tricky's Bristol is slightly closer to Senegal than Moby's Harlem, so Tricky gets this one. Which album is best for soundtracking Asterix comics? Tricky sounds thoroughly dosed in Getafix's potions.

Winner: Maxinquaye

Overall winner and going through to the quarter-finals: Tricky trundles through to the semi finals. The Moby album is a personal favourite of mine, but Tricky's album is one of the most acclaimed debut albums of all time: it deserves the win. Isn't that right, Eamonn? Hey, Eamonn. He's not listening – He's climbed into the fireplace again. Silly Eamonn.

Stay tuned to this website for another chapter in the saga that is Fat Roland Decides What The Best Electronic Music Album Is Of 1995 While Sellotaping Custard Creams To His Face To Ease The Boredom Of Lockdown. See the introduction to the quarter finals here. See all the original riders and runners here.

Further Fats: See the whole Best Albums Of 1995 series here.

Best electronic music albums of 1995: the Quarter Finals

Back in the onions of history, I started a contest to decide the best electronic music album of 1995. 

16 albums butted against each other in the most brutal battle since Genghis Khan laid siege to Milton Keynes. The Chemical Brothers and Autechre were some of those who fell by the wayside in the first round: it was not pretty. Since I finished that first round, the entire of civilisation seems to have collapsed, and we are left with just eight albums gingerly staggering towards the quarter finals. 

It is now time for those quarter finals. 

The following albums will face each other daily in a battle so apocalyptic, a butterfly will faint on the other side of the universe. The remaining contestants are:

Quarter final 1:

Freefloater by Higher Intelligence Agency

Timeless by Goldie

Quarter final 2:

Maxinquaye by Tricky

Everything Is Wrong by Moby

Quarter final 3:

Post by Bjork

...I Care Because You Do by Aphex Twin

Quarter final 4:

Landcruising by Carl Craig

Leftism by Leftfield

Some heavyweight candidates there. Which would you choose as the best electronic music album of 1995? Who do you think is going to struggle? 

I don't care how you answered those questions. This is because there's a twist in this contest: it isn't open to a public vote. The winners of each bout are decided by a panel of very experienced experts. The panel consists of, in no particular order:

1. Me.

2. Er...

3. That's it. 

That's right. It's a dictatorship. It's a despotic autocracy. It's a flipping con. The first round saw me eliminating albums on the basis of which would make the best biscuit, or which was best suited to egg-themed karaoke.

In the upcoming quarter-finals, there will be some different yet equally unhelpful criteria on which the judging panel (me) will make their (my) decisions.

Expect a quarter final daily over the next four days. Don your marigolds and stuck a broom up your bum: this is going to get messy. In the meantime, see the series so far here, and see the 16 albums I started off with here.

Further Fats: The Best Albums of 1995 series

Best electronic music albums of 1995: Moby versus David Holmes

What's black and white and red all over? I have no idea, so why not ignore that sentence and instead read this continuing contest to find the best electronic music album of 1995. With today's post, we reach the halfway point of the opening knock-out rounds, with each winner going through to the quarter-finals. See the series so far here, and see the 16 albums I started off with here.

I use a random number generator to pick each pairing. Today it is:

Everything Is Wrong by Moby
This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats by David Holmes

Here we have very different producers whose music has worked brilliantly in film and television: Moby in Heat, The Sopranos and Stranger Things, and David Holmes in a tonne of on-screen stuff including Ocean's Eleven and Killing Eve. But which one will stand up to my strict criteria? Let's find out.

Criteria one: which album would make a better biscuit?

The filmic flavour of Holmes' work is brilliantly suited to the rich history of biscuits and its many flavours: ginger, plain, chocolate, a bit more plain. As it tumbles from dirty beats into evocative samples, his debut album bridges the gap between his DJing career and his movie scores. And what is a biscuit other than a bridge between cake and bread? In contrast, Moby is the name of a fish and no biscuits taste of fish.
Winner: This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats

Criteria two: which album has more bangin' choons?

Holmes has a great ear for melody, and the album neatly loops back to the same hazy chords. But Moby's album has screaming rave tracks and angry thrash metal, with brilliant turns by Rozz Morehead for the fast stuff and Mimi Goese for the slow stuff. Bangin'? It's bulldozing down the doors while shooting foghorns out of a cannon.
Winner: Everything Is Wrong

Criteria three: which album's track titles better remind me of cute animals?

With track titles like When It's Cold I'd Like To Die, Moby's album isn't focused on cute animals. Many critters enjoy the cold, such as baby seals, baby penguins and all those baby spiders secretly hiding in your fridge. Holmes's track titles evoke a grizzly bear tearing through an orphanage, particularly with Got F***ed Up Along The Way and Slash The Seats. All in all, a disappointment for both albums. Moby scrapes a win because of the track name First Cool Hive: bumble bees are fuzzy.
Winner: Everything Is Wrong

Criteria four: which of the two would Jesus listen to?

The melancholic claustrophobia underpinning This Film's Crap feels more like purgatory than a heavenly place, despite the clanging church bell that ushers in the album. It's this uneasiness that made it such a remarkable work. On the other hand, Moby gives us rousing anthem after rousing anthem ("take me away!") that could easily be hollered from a pulpit. Everything Is Wrong is the sound of a coked-up church revival meeting. No wonder his early albums included the credit "Thanks to Jesus Christ".
Winner: Everything Is Wrong

Criteria five: which is the better album to sing songs about eggs to?

The best I could do with Holmes was "she don't even yolk" which isn't even a verb. Meanwhile, after the chorus in Feeling So Real, Moby has a sample that sounds like a truncated "eee-ee-eeggs". In other songs, I found myself singing "every time you touch me, I feel like I'm being boiled" and "I am white albumen, poaching forever, I fry into the blue" and on Bring Back My Happiness "these hard eggs let you go". So much fun. Another win for Moby.
Winner: Everything Is Wrong

Criteria six: which album has the better cover design?

An album called Everything Is Wrong and there's Moby looking depressed on the cover with a sad blue face? It's a bit on the nose. A metaphorical nose, that is, not Moby's nose. Stop thinking about Moby's nose. The montage that comprises the cover to David Holmes's album isn't particularly memorable: what do a few rips, a couple of hands and a big knife represent? Gordon Ramsay making whoopie? Yeesh. Don't think about that: think about Moby's nose instead. Holmes wins it because at least it looks like the cinematic layerings of his music.
Winner: This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats

Criteria seven: miscellaneous and worryingly random

This final selection of judging criteria comes to you courtesy of Wikipedia's random page function. Which album is most like a Bulgarian footballer? Holmes because he looks like he can dribble along a touch-line. Which album would make a great motto on a commemorative coin? In Brexit Britain, that would definitely be Everything Is Wrong. Which album should have represented Ireland in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest? David Holmes is from Belfast, so he's the closest. Which album's hindwings are whitish with an orange subbasal fascia? Moby has the most orange and white on his album cover so, er, that. Which album is scaaaaandalous (said in a RuPaul voice)? The seat-slashing David Holmes, obviously.
Winner: This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats

Overall winner and going through to the quarter-finals: This felt like a pretty easy win for Moby. Although he'll be mostly remembered for 1999's Play, selling 12 million units to Wrong's 250,000, it's nice to honour 90s raver Moby with this little success. Everything Is Wrong goes through to the quarter finals.

Stay tuned for another head-to-head battle to find the best electronic music album of 1995 as decided by a jury of one: me. See all the riders and runners here.

Further Fats: See the whole Best Albums Of 1995 series here.

Thousand

This is it. This must be the end.

Welcome to my 1,000th blog post. It has taken 12 years, two months and 22 days to get to this point. When I posted "watch this stain" in 2004, I was in black and white, and all I wore was a petticoat. These days it's all skateboards, telephones and haircuts.

There have been huge musical milestones while this blog has been online. Band Aid 20. Downloads. Ed Sheeran. YouTube. Band Aid 20. Smart phones. Biebermania. Band Aid 20.

But it's the world of electronic music that has been most turbulent. This website has survived Burial dubstep, Skrillex dubstep, witch house, chillcore, the 80s revival, the 90s revival, autotuning, sidechaining, two Orbital splits, the Harlem Shake, the Technics relaunch, and Mr Aphex Twin opening the nozzle and then some.

Because of the millennium bug, there is no way a blog can continue beyond a thousand posts. So this is the last ever-- wait, hold on, the phone's ringing.

Hello?
...Yes, this is he.
...It can? That's not what the blog authorities told me.
...What do you mean I have to continue? On whose authority?
...Oh I see. Yes, they ARE a very important person.
...I am a bit annoyed, yes. I'd planned a retirement.
...What? Yes of course bloggers retire. I'll have you know, I earned money.
...Huh? Well, about 75 quid, I think.
...No, not per year. Since 2004. Why are you laughing?
...Now you're just being rude. I'm putting the phone down. Twazmuppet.
...
...Yes, I'm still here-- Hey! You just hung up on me. Dammit.

So I suppose I'd better continue, typing into the void, my keyboard spinning through the deadness of space. Thank you for reading any one of the previous 999 posts. If you want a more serious take on blogging, firstly WHY, secondly have a look at my blogging tips from 2011. Or read my decade nonsense from 2014.

And thank you to Blogger for remaining pretty much consistent all this time, even though your spellcheck still doesn't recognise "bloggers".

Take it away, Moby. I've been waiting YEARS to post this.

Chosen Words: P is for Personality (Lack Thereof)

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Personalities are an anathema to quality electronic music.

Faceless nobodies are what keeps techno and electronica going. Many artists use multiple recording names and minimal artwork to ensure anonymity.

Throughout musical history, artists have hidden behind many things: face masks (Altern8), cars (KLF), lack of lighting (Autechre), guest MCs (LTJ Bukem), industrial dystopia (Front 242), headlamps (Orbital) and virgin sacrifice (Royksopp (probably)).

Electronic music producers know personality can get in the way. Just look at Moby. No, seriously, look at him. He's there in the corner eating the boiled potatoes he's had in his pockets for the last six weeks. Tragedy, really.

You wouldn't recognise Luke Slater from Luke Vibert even if you bumped into them in a sauna and they showed you their tattoos with their names on. This is good. Anonymity lends techno, IDM and electronic experimentalism an aura of mystery and exclusivity.

When in fact, there's no enigma at all. It's just a musical land populated by nobodies who don't have the social dexterity to become "personalities" because they've spent far too much of their life sweating over a bassline for fourteen hours at a time in cluttered, dust-filled bedroom studios.

And thank goodness for that because from lonely obsession, great bleeps are made.

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chipmunk warning: this blog may self-destruct

I'm not sure what's going to happen to this blog on Saturday.

For a while now, a message warning me that 'FTP publishing will be no longer available after 01 May 2010' has been screaming from my blog main page.

Without getting too technical, I seem to have no way of switching off FTP publishing. Blogger's 'migration tool' (which sounds like a massive catapult for geese in the autumn) doesn't work. I've contacted their support service, but so far their responses have been (a) blank reply, (b) "we're looking into it" and (c) blank reply.

So several things may happen to this blog on Saturday. It may possibly explode, go into overdrive, wither, carry on as normal or perform the musical equivalent of one of the following:

- speed up until everything becomes a blur as in Moby's Thousand (still technically the fastest song ever);

- become pretentious, overblown and annoying like The Darkness / Queen / the Glee cast (oh come on, you have to admit the sheen has worn off);

- turn into Chipmunk.

If I stop posting from this weekend, I would recommend you keep an eye on my tweets for futher news. You could even follow me, because if you like the crap here, then there's a lot more crap there.

Snurvive the snowpocalypse with snowtronica

Fat Roland would like to advise listeners of serious disruptions to music due to the severe weather conditions, which are likely to continue tomorrow. Electronica listeners are advised not to listen to or make tunes except for the most essential artists.

These are those essential artists:

- Anything by The Avalanches (via Stuart Durber)

- Anything by the Chemical Brrrs (geddit? via Isaac Ashe)

- Anything by Max Tundra (via Dirty Protest) 

- Biosphere: Polar Sequences (via Dial)

- Digitonal: Snowflake Vectors (via Dan Brearley)

- For delayed journeys, Faithless: Take The Long Way Home or Miss You Less See You More (via A Strangely Isolated Place)

- Herrmann and Kleine: Catch A Snowflake (via Dan Brearley)

- Joy Electric: Walking In A Winter Wonderland (via John Mark Cullen)

- Leftfield: Melt 

- Mike and Rich: Mr Frosty (via LUDD)

- Moby: Snowball (via Ben Edson) 

- Modeselektor: The White Flash (via Daniel Stirling)

- Monolake - Infinite Snow (see forthcoming album review, prob'lee on Saturday)

- The Orb: Little Fluffy Clouds (of snow. Via Stuart Durber)

- Trentemoller. (While The Cold Winter Waiting, I reckon. Via Isaac Ashe.)

- Various: Tribute To Antarctica (via Mrcopyandpaste)

- Wisp: Frozen Days (via Smucker)

Do add your own snow-themed electronica / IDM in the comments below. Or tweet it and tag it #snowtronica. Together, we can get through this if only we listen to the right music.