Also-rans: time to kill off some more giants (sorry, Avalanches)

We're not too far from number one, so let's kill off a few more giants.

I really didn't take to The Avalanches comeback album Wildflower (XL Recordings). Way too "kooky" mainstream. And I don't know what Tricky was up to on Skilled Mechanics (False Idols). Oh dear. Let's move on.

I have endless love for Paul Hartnoll but his collaboration with Vince Clark on 2Square (Very Records) was a bit dad-pop in places. Meanwhile, Romare tend to be a little too straight down the line for me, no more so than on Love Songs: Part Two (Ninja Tune). That's also the case with Tycho, whose Epoch (Ghostly International) is as robustly satisfying as Coldplay.

Sometimes albums are great but perhaps don't fit my narrow definition of electronic albums. That goes for the much-lauded and utterly fantastic Anohni's Hopelessness (Rough Trade) and for Jenny Hval's thoughful and engrossing Blood Bitch (Sacred Bones Records).

Finally, a couple of miscellaneous names that didn't make the final selection but are probably worth a nosey. Steve Hauschildt's new agey Strands (Kranky) and the whimsical electronic pop of Motion Graphics (Domino) by Motion Graphics. The latter has a track called Minecraft Mosaic.





Scroll all of the best 2016 electronic albums by clicking here.

Warp Records present the BBC Radiophonic Workshop?

A dusty tape among scores stored in an attic has just blown apart the entire history of dance music.

Among the possessions of Delia Derbyshire (pictured), knob twiddler for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, was the recording of an experimental dance piece that simply should not exist.

It sounds like the sort of thing you would expect from Aphex Twin, Massonix or Sabres Of Paradise, yet it was recorded in the late 60s.

As a piece of production well ahead of its time, it has the same woo factor as Pink Floyd's On The Run, or The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows.

And yet it's more advanced than those pieces, as though some beardy electronica fellow is messing about with a TARDIS and not telling us.

"That could be coming out next week on Warp Records," bleeps ex-Orbital man Paul Hartnoll, who, incidentally, did a cracking cover version of the Workshop's Dr Who theme tune.

Decide for yourself - jump to Delia Derbyshire's experimental 'dance' track on this BBC news piece.

Reviews: Massonix, Paul Hartnoll & Reload

Artist: Massonix
Title: Subtracks (album)
Label: Skam
[site] [listen]
Suitably for a new year post, have a fattening dollop of nostalgia. 808 State's Graham Massey has splurged out a full album of his aquatic-themed side project and it sounds like, um, 808 State. It boasts the same analogue complexity and rolling, melodic scrumptiousness - not a million miles from Two Lone Swordsmen. It's like being back in the 1990s except without James Bond films and Teletubbies.


Artist: Paul Hartnoll
Title: Patchwork Guilt (single)
Label: Kids
[site] [listen]
This may be on a minor label, but this is one half of collosal uber techno monster Orbital taking his baby solo steps. Minimal and slightly absurd, this is confident melodic electro that sounds like, um, Orbital. It's reminiscent of In Sides, but not as smashing. Maybe we need a full album before Hartnoll can un-doff his Orbital hat. This is like being back in the 1990s, but without Friends and dial-up internets.

Artist: Reload
Title: Various titles (EPs)
Label: Evolution
[site]
Before music was invented, Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard helped birth modern electronica with their Evolution label. These re-releases remind us how radical, raw and revolutionary the Middleton / Pritchard partnership was. This is simple, unpretentious old-fashioned techno. It's just like living back in the 1990s, except without the corporate takeover of raves and the bloody Star Wars revival.