Best electronic albums of 2020: fourteen

14 – Against All Logic – 2017–2019 (Other People)

Nicolas Jaar, who has previously had two albums mentioned in this countdown, is already known for warping 1970s soul and disco into something thoroughly techno under this Against All Logic guise. 2017-2019, however, takes it to a new level.

He's taken all that lovely dance music you love, then shoved it through a waste disposal, attacked it with a sander, and bashed any remaining bits with a hammer. It distorts, it belches, it scrapes, it thrills. It's the red-peaking bit of early Daft Punk but, y'know, forever.

It's way rougher than you'd expect from a Jaar album. It's like your smooth Uncle Thackery, the one with the Lambo and the winning smile, turning up at your door in a half-open dressing gown, sweet wrappers stuck in his lockdown hair. Not the Thackery you expect, but certainly a Thackery you'll come to like.

2017-2019 also contains... and I'm going to whisper this because we don't want everyone knowing ... it also contains, in opening track Fantasy, the best Beyoncé song you'll hear in 2020. There, I said it. Uncle Thackery, can you please put on some pants? Jeez.

 

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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!

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Best electronic albums of 2016: big-name also-rans

Here are more people that didn't reach my final list.

If you spot holes in this top 20, that’s because some big names are missing. For example, you won’t find Katy B’s Honey (Rinse Recordings) because my usual listen-holes weren't streaming it. Or how about DJ Shadow’s The Mountain Will Fall (Mass Appeal), absent for an entirely different reason. That reason being: a snoozesome meh.

It was a shame not to include Loop the Loop (DEEK) by Bullion with its slices of scrumptious melody. Same for Bibio’s A Mineral Love (Warp Records) who are sounding more than ever like the BeeGees. I also appreciated The Gamble (R&S Records), an addictive noodly number from nonkeen.

And finally some miscellaneous treats for this particular also-rans section – yep, more of these to come. Have a listen to the retro techno disco of Prins Thomas’s Principe Del Norte (Smalltown Supersound), the playful electro of Letherette’s Last Night On The Planet (Ninja Tune), the post-punky Sport (XL Recordings) by Powell, and the one-off pop oddity that is Nicolas Jaar's Sirens (Other People).

There you go. Something for your noise receptors. More to come as the top 20 contines.





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