Best electronic music albums of 2025: saw waves, queer life, and a steamy greenhouse

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

Here are some experimental highlights of 2025, and you can tell these albums are experimental because their titles contain words like "vortex" and "tranquilizer". This next bit will only make sense after you've read the text below. Altogether now: Bring our your dead! Bring out your dead!...

Aleksi Perälä – Vortex 1–4 + Cycles 0 (AP Musik)

If you ask Google how many albums Aleksi Perälä released in 2025, Google will explode. Fact. On New Year's Day, he released the understated Cycles 0. Then in the second half of the year, he released 15 albums all called Grace. The series mapped an electronic geography, from simple saw waves to Indian percussion. The whole thing was enchanting and you need Perälä in your life.

Dale Cornish – Altruism (The Death of Rave)

"Bring our yer dead! BRING OUT YER DEAD!" This disconcerting drawl is an uncomfortable start, which is good, because this is not a comfortable listen. Cornish gives us an album that is DIY in production and intention. The nihilism of its broken and rusty half-rave music is bravely undercut by his lysergic vocals full of truth about queer life.

Hieroglyphic Being – The Sound Of Something Ending (Mathematics)

In anyone else's hands, this would have been a deep house album. The Chigaco producer quickly sends things sideways with electro-jazz, horn-laden microhouse and psychedelic EBM. It feels like he's commandeered a studio, planked over the doors and windows, then poured boiling oil on anyone else who dare approach its boundary. Entertaingly original.

Holden & Zimpel – The Universe Will Take Care Of You (Border Community)

Border Community's James Holden is always up to something, like a disobedient child or a naughty poodle. He goes all kosmiche on this partnership with folk musician Waclaw Zimpel. This builds on their Long Weekend EP from a few years ago, and it's jazzy, loose, carnivalistic and earthy. What will he get up to next? Someone keep an eye on him.

Los Thuthanaka – Los Thuthanaka (self-released)

What did I just listen to? Bolivian-American brothers reimagine music of the Andes. The result is uncategorisable: it's scratchy and shuffling, but also epic and hysterical. Someone called it a trance album, but that's true only in so far as its exuberant clattering and deceptively subtle dynamism will induce a kind of psychosis.

Oneohtrix Point Never – Tranquilizer (Warp Records)

Mr Never is back doing his thing, this time plumbing sounds pulled from ancient sample CDs and CD-ROMs featured on the Internet Archive. Tranquilizer drags us into a steamy greenhouse of organic sounds, bursting with heady colours and with frequencies sprouting all over the place. It's all so precise, though, and intoxicating throughout.

rRoxymore – Juggling Dualities (!K7 Recordings)

This latest selection of 2025 albums have defied categorisation, and rRoxymore's third album is no exception. Opener Am I Human? could have been lifted from Global Communication's 76:14, while elsewhere it feels like motorik Detroit techno, library music, or jazzy coffee table electronica. She never takes an eye of melody.  

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

Happy 30th anniversary, Warp Records

Warp Records has been celebrating its 30th birthday - it's the same age as Taylor Swift, Daniel Radcliffe and the twins who played Carl Gallagher in Shameless.

The first Warp track I heard was LFO's LFO, quickly followed by Tricky Disco's Tricky Disco. Both were UK top 40 hits - I know that because I taped the charts religiously every week: both songs would have degraded gloriously as I tape-to-tape copied them onto successive home compilations. Aside from loving the electronic simplicity of the records, having eponymous songs seemed weirdly rebellious.

Then came the Artificial Intelligence compilations, my musical fulcrum from which everything spewed, which featured Polygon Window, The Black Dog, Beaumont Hannant and B12. Warp also gave us some incredibly beautiful artist albums, most notably from - of course - Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, Autechre and Richard H Kirk. You already know this.

I remember Warp's tectonic plates shifting when they moved to London. A bit like when Boddingtons shut down their Manchester brewery. They widened their electronic remit (Warp, that is, not Boddies), bringing in acts like Anti Pop Consortium who sounded wonky and wild. And now they rule the world with artists like Flying Lotus, Plaid, Bibio, Kelela and Oneohtrix Point Never. You can catch a stack of the label's 30th anniversary broadcasts here.

Happy birthday, Warp. I'm glad you're still going strong, and I'm glad you're still putting out music by the likes of Lorenzo Senni, which has all the vital energy as your early stuff. I'll be forever grateful to the label being a beacon of quality techno, and the basis for a lot of further record browsing across a zillion other labels.

If I had one criticism, it would be that there doesn't seem to be much eponymous song titling these days. Just saying. If you want to release Fat Roland's Fat Roland, you know who to call.

Best electronic albums of 2018: thirteen

13 – Oneohtrix Point Never – Age Of (Warp Records)

I once got trapped in a hotel fire exit staircase, with no way back into the main building. I was late for breakfast, and from that point I was the trapped-in-a-staircase guy.

Aside from the fire safety concerns of a chain hotel using locked doors in a chuffing fire escape, that serves as a neat metaphor for Oneohtrix Point Never’s music. It’s difficult to get into because our mental doors are locked: we are trapped in the staircases of our usual music taste, and sometimes we need to smash through the doors of perception and smell Oneohtrix’s fire.

Alright, the metaphor didn’t work. But what does work is Age Of’s bewildering collage of baroque, ballads and black magic ambience. Its ever-morphing sculptures are a treat.

Don’t look for songs. Don’t look for structure. Just let it fill you up, like smoke from an encroaching blaze. Jeez, step away from that metaphor, staircase guy.



Scroll all of the best 2018 electronic albums by clicking here.

Watch the video for Oneohtrix Point Never's Animals

Val Kilmer sits on a bed. Val Kilmer sits on a bed. Val Kilmer sits on a bed. Everyone's like, hey Val Kilmer, why are you sitting on a bed.

And Val Kilmer's all like, shut up, I'm sitting on a bed.

Oneohtrix Point Never's Animals is a track from Garden Of Delete, the fourth best album of 2015. The new video, directed by filmmaker Rick Alverson, full of dramatic tension. And yet...

Future videos will include Gwyneth Paltrow on a couch. Or Tom Hanks on a sideboard. Viola Davis on a pouffe. You get the idea.

Best electronic albums of 2015: four

4 – Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden of Delete (Warp)

The best producers suck in disparate music genres and blurt out a complete vision – take Flying Lotus as an example. Within two minutes of GOD, you can hear 80s soft rock, footwork, soul vocals and epic prog electro. Full of surprises and yet coherent throughout.

This magpie mentality persists throughout: cheesy pop vox on Sticky Drama, pastoral ambience on Child Of Rage, epic EDM anthemming on I Bite Through It. The latter track soon fractals into all sorts of noise – few other people could get away with one second of thrash guitar twenty seconds before the end of a track.

I’ve always respected Oneohtrix in the past, but never fully connected. Perhaps there’s something about GOD that’s more immediate, more logical amid the perplexing palette on offer here. There are moments of beauty and beastliness – just listen to how Mutant Standard breaks down then resolves, or the malevolent yet moving mash-up of Freaky Eyes.

I’m not sure where OPN is leading us, but I'm a convert: he can blurt in my face anytime.

-----> Best electronic albums of 2015 <-----

Top ten best electronica albums of 2010: part two of four

This is part two. Please do read the other parts of this blog post: part one, part three and part four
To read last year's top ten best electronica albums, click here.

7 - Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma

There's something about the great nephew of John and Alice Coltrane that enables him to kidnap heavyweight vocalists with Guru-like ease (Erykah Badu, Thom Yorke, Outkast, Laura Darlington) and yet still beguile the casual listener with the strangest cacophony of polymathic twiddling whilst provoking bemused reviewers into penning juxtapositional metaphors of space travel and smokey 1970s jazz clubs. That and his beats are well phat.

So, among the laidback hip hop of Zodiac Shit, the shuffling funk of Dance Of The Pseudo and the swirling headnodding of MmmHmm, we have a multitude of influences: jazz, garage, hip hop, techno, classical, folktronica and Enrique Iglesias. Despite all of this, I can't help feeling Cosmogramma is an album none of us can quite understand yet and perhaps it should be enjoyed more some time in the distant future, maybe in a smokey jazz club in space.

FlyLo isn't just a comedy airline created by Matt Lucas and David Walliams. Buy Cosmogramma at Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

6 - Autechre – Oversteps

The Wills and Kate of Manchester electronic music produced three records in 2010. 3 Telepathics Meh In-Sect Connection was a banana-themed collaboration by Sean from Autechre, Move Of Ten was technically an EP (although it's longer than the Flying Lotus album, above), while the release featured in my top ten, Oversteps, gave notoriety to Altered:Carbon who dressed their own LP as Autechre.

Listening to Oversteps is a bit like cuddling up to your favourite hedgehog: it's sharp and awkward, yet you're allured by the familiar scent. I don't get the detractors who write this off as difficult. known(1) has harpsichord, qplay is as delicate as my tummy after a night on the rohypnol, whilst see on see and Treale (oh NOW they use capital letters) are bonafide Autechre hits. Kind of. Warmer than Quaristice, this is music that spikes the bloodstream.

Buy Autechre's Oversteps at Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

5 - Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise

Arriving on Rough Trade Records like a supercharged Sosumu Yokota, Pantha Du Prince produced eleven minimal techno masterpieces that were so fluid, so organic, they could only have been harvested as they were literally dripping from the trees. Minimal techno often bores me, so why on earth is this several leagues above places six to ten on my list?

Maybe it's the snarling acid on Behind The Stars, the heavenly rave chords of Satellite Snyper, or the clanks and bells and feedback and heavenly choirs of synthdom that eddy and whirl around crisp beats that couldn't beat more crisply even if accompanied by a Walkers advert starring Gary Lineker being thumped to a pulp by sixteen heavily-armed packets of Seabrook. I'm not sure if Black Noise can be topped, but there are four albums on my list that have done just that. Stay tuned.

Bring the Noise: buy Pantha Du Prince's album from Bleep or Boomkat or Piccadilly.

Not quite in the top ten (part two)

I'm pleased with my top ten, although excluding any amazing album is a bit like shepherding your ten favourite sheep into the pen then shotgunning the rest into blasted pulps of smoking mutton. Here are more lambs that have been silenced.

Gold Panda's glitchy Lucky Shiner (pictured) probably got bumped because a couple of artists in my top ten are doing similar things. Massive Attack's Heligoland probably got bumped because, although the album was an improvement, it still sounded like veterans keeping the life support going. Also on a mainstream tip, I never quite connected with LCD Soundsystem's swansong This Is Happening.

A notable omission from my top ten is Squarepusher's Schobaleader One project, but I couldn't separate how he could make some tracks on d'Demonstrator sound like Royksopp and then not expect to be compared to Royksopp. He's excluded because he sounds like Royksopp. There, I said it. Squarepusher sounds like Royksopp. Royksopp's funnier the more you say it.

Actress' Splazsh is an essential album for 2010, and I feel pained to exclude it. Oneohtrix Point Never received major acclaim for Returnal and again was a close call. And Starkey's Ear Drums And Black Holes, bringing ballads and grime to Planet Mu Records, also just missed the cut.

This is part two. Please do read the other parts of this blog post: part one, part three and part four
To read last year's top ten best electronica albums, click here.

Ten plaudits Bleeping

Online retailer Bleep.com has hit December running with a series of top tens of 2010.

The other day, they posted their top artists of the year, which included Oneohtrix Point Never, James Blake, Roska and Caribou. In Oneohtrix, otherwise known as Brooklyn's Daniel Lopatin, they saw a "prodigal, prolific exponent of the synthesiser."

And if your order his album Returnal from Bleep, or his other records, you get his exlusive mix CD Objects In Mirrors.

Yesterday, Bleep.com revealed their top ten labels of the year. Their record label of 2010 is Numbers, a Glasgow outfit whose mission to "melt together the seemingly disparate sounds of R&B, techno, electro, house, dubstep, UKF and 80s funk under one glorious groove" was lauded by Bleep. The imprint's output this year included Deadboy, Untold and SBTRKT.

Because they're well chuffed and that with such high praise, Numbers have launched a compilation featuring every bit out output on their label along with a couple of new t-shirt designs.

Over the next few days, expect more 2010 from Bleep in the form of best albums, favourite EPs and most recommended reissues and compilations. I'll try and match them when I do my usual end-of-year round-ups later this month.

Meanwhile in another corner of the internet, Radio Scot Void has released some older tracks for free in a special mixtape that's worth getting simply for Shlohmo's Socks. The track, not the underwear item.