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.

Nightwave knocks the fluff from your brain

Here's a track that should knock the fluff from your brain. It's called Wavejumper by Nightwave, and it sits somewhere between street-corner grime and teeth-gnashing techno.

You're not reading this, are you? You're either scrolling Trump's stream-of-consciousness poem, otherwise known as his Twitter feed, or preparing yourself for the most intensive six-week bunfight in history as Britain goes the polls. Sigh.

You should pay attention. Nightwave is, as the young people say, da bomb. She's a Glasgow producer who's run all-female production workshops in Glasgow. I first came across her when she released G41 under her previous pseudonym 8bitch. She's way more interested than politicians, right?