30 best electronic music albums of 2021: µ-Ziq, Posthuman, Proc Fiskal & Proswell

Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents four more brilliant albums:

µ-Ziq and Mrs Jynx – Secret Garden (Planet Mu) 

Melodic IDM of the highest order. Please insert a smiley face emoji here. Inspired by the death of their parents. Please replace the smiley face emoji with a sad cry emoji. Gorgeous bubbly acid, feather-light electronic rhythms, hammock-lazy melody lines, glistening synth perfection, AND tracks called The Ballad Of Darth Vader and Philip Steak. Please cross out all existing emojis, replacing them with a crazy eyed emoji listening really hard to tiny headphones. This collaboration between an IDM legend – head of the Planet Mu label, no less – and a fully respected Manchester music maker paid off in buckets. All the happy faces.

Posthuman – Requiem For A Rave (Balkan Vinyl)

I don't often quote PR blurbs, but get a load of this. "We’re of the generation that saw the Criminal Justice Bill force the raves from the fields into the clubs, we caught the tail end of the convoys soundtracked by cassette recordings of pirate radio stations from far-off London and beyond. Every week a new musical discovery, every mixtape a revelation." From the rude boy shoutouts, to the choppy synth lines, to the car-speaker busting bass, this glow-stick guzzling dancefloor workout does what it says on the tin. Throwback? No way. This is a fast-forward because the spirit of rave lives on hard with Requiem.

Proc Fiskal – Siren Spine Sysex (Hyperdub)

Apparently, Proc Fiskal's family was big in folk music. Not, like, giants. They didn't have to use massive guitars or anything. But, like, there's a real heritage there. It's an interesting historical note because of the use of vocal samples in this super-glazed second album of tingling and detailed electronica. It rather sounds like he's grabbed an acapella folk band and spiralised them all over his music. Or maybe just meat-minced a carolling choir. In a gorgeous way. "Like Elizabeth Fraser cut into a UK Garage lilt," says the blurb. The result is enchanting: never has Gaelic sounded so futuristic.

Proswell – People are Giving and Receiving Thanks at Incredible Speeds (Central Processing Unit)

A veteran Chicago producer and format experimentalist nails his first album for Sheffield's CPU Records. Am I going to cut and paste from one of my Electronic Sound reviews again? Of course I can. I'm writing everything at breakneck speed in an attempt to keep ahead of my blogging schedule. So... This album "throws us into an imaginary computer game where the pixels are broken and the only glow in the distance is a low-battery light." This is Rephlexian IDM on happy pills. And it must get a bonus point for one of the best album ack titles of the year. "Game over," I wrote. "Play again? Most definitely yes."

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021. Read it all here.

A pressing problem: trouble at t'mill for vinyl production

The vinyl production industry is in meltdown. Which could be a good thing if melted vinyl records made crude oil or liquorice. But it doesn't. This means trouble, with Mixmag saying the industry is in "a state of chaos".

I'm planning on buying my mates 37 copies of Ed Sheeran's new album for Christmas. That's 37 vinyl copies to each friend of Ed's =. That's his album name, by the way, not a typo. My pals are going to love me, especially as each one will be individually wrapped in three rolls of toilet paper.

However, there's trouble at t'mill. Are records made in mills? No idea. Anyway, due to extreme weather, staffing shortages, a lack of raw materials, and vinyl now outselling CDs for the first time in history, it's taking longer than ever to get a record pressed. Especially if you're a small label in a queue behind a mass-producing major label. Vinyl production seems to have more delays than a dub reggae remix of the band Delays. 

This means consumers may be waiting a long time for their vinyl. A bunch of mums aren't going to get their Abba or Adele for Christmas Day, leaving weird Uncle Derrick to recreate entire albums on the spoons.

It's really unfortunate for small independent labels, who pride themselves on high quality product that's now in an endless queue behind some dreary Pink Floyd special edition. And with Brexit making Bandcamp sales to EU customers uneconomical, they're having to work harder than ever to make any money. 

Sorry, that last paragraph was all serious. Erm. Sausages. Clowns. Cats falling off tables. Phew, saved it. 

The Mixmag article suggests solutions might be found in an increase in pressing plants, the revival of dubplates, and a more creative approach to physical releases. However, electronic music duo Posthuman seem to have a more pragmatic handle on things, saying the whole thing will burn out soon:

"As soon as it isn’t profitable, [the major labels] will jump ship just like they did before. There has to be a saturation of Led Zeppelin and Elton John B-sides where the public will just say ‘enough is enough, we’re not buying any more’. I don’t think this crisis will last for much longer.”

I'm off to record a cover version of Ed's album on my cassette player. Piano, Casio keyboard, trumpet, kazoo. No spoons. I'll copy it across on the tape-to-tape bit of my old hi-fi unit. If I set it to double-speed, I'll easily have a load of toilet-rollable copies done by Christmas. Sorted.

Further Fats: A creative meltdown means horrible bowls and don't you forget it (2012)

Further Fats: Do you remember the first time (with your own money)? (2019)