90 best electronic music albums of 2021: Ripatti, Robert Ames, RP Boo, Sarah Davachi & Sedibus

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

Ripatti – Fun Is Not A Straight Line (Planet Mu)

Vladislav Delay, real name Sasu Ripatti, joins Planet Mu for some fearsomely frantic footwork beats. "Ever shoved a rapper through a mincer?" said my review of the album in Electronic Sound back in the summer. "Vladislav Delay cleaves hip hop into stuttered vocal shards, pelting them with frenetic drums... rushes of glorious techno, underpinned by bass deep enough to blow your mincer’s electrics. Dissected dopeness of the highest order." Dizzying and fragmentary, yet it all makes sense.

Robert Ames – Change Ringing (Modern Recordings)

What a CV. Co-founder of the London Contemporary Orchestra. Conducting for Jonny Greenwood and Little Simz. Playing strings for Frank flipping Ocean. It's remarkable, then, that this rich ambient classical album is Ames' debut. Think Sigur Ros filtered via Philip Glass. Amazingly, he recorded a bunch of music, slowed it down, then annotated the slower version on sheet music for the purpose of rerecording. A proper old-school approach to something that turned out symphonic and distinctly sistine.

RP Boo – Established! (Planet Mu) 

Let's get one thing out of the way. Yes, that's a sample of Phil Collins' voice on All Over. You know what? It works. This is the only acceptable use of Phil Collins ever. maybe with the exception of Luke Vibert's I Can Phil It. The fourth solo Planet Mu album from this massively influential Chicago producer explores his early experiences with footwork and ghetto house. The result is an accessible collection of vocal slices, choppy rhythms and stuttering beats: a great primer on Boo even with the Collins.

Sarah Davachi – Antiphonals (Late Music)

I always thought a mellotron was something you could eat. Turns out its a mini-keyboard that operates with magnetic tape. The instrument was a key component in this latest work from Canada's favourite electroacoustic experimentalist. From horns to harpsichords, Davachi uses all the skills in her musical arsenal to come up with an ethereal collection of ambient meditations. It almost sounds like the echo of folklore past: stories of ancestors drifting on the wind. And it's definitely not edible, so don't chomp it.

Sedibus: The Heavens (Orbscure Recordings) 

Alex Paterson teams up with his old Orb mate Andy ‘Ultraworld’ Falconer for a debut release on his new Orbscure label. "Welcome to a wonderful evocation of classic-era Orb," I said in Electronic Sound. "Over four sprawling tracks, liquid chords curl around portentous piano, then rise into post-club euphoria that would make Sabres of Paradise proud." It's dead Orb-y. No, really. Cut it in half, and you'll find ORB written down its middle. Enjoy this adventure right back into the ultraworld.

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

Best electronic albums 2018: this lot can't have their ambient cake and eat it

Here, you word-munching fool, is a selection of ambient albums that didn't make my final list, but I still like-ish them all as if they were my step-children.

If you like dark and rich, check out the chocolate-flaked gateaux of ambience from Gas’s Rausch (Kompakt). Or try a birthday cake instead: ambient artist todos produced an engrossing 10th anniversary mix on Ten Years of A Strangely Isolated Place (A Strangely Isolated Place) that's well worth your attention. Meanwhile, Huerco S iced our ears with plenty of low-fuelled drones on Pendant’s Make Me Know You Sweet (West Mineral Ltd).

I really need to know when to stop with a metaphor. Anyhoo... Brian Eno wrote Music For Installations (UMC) for people ogling sunflowers and melty clocks in art galleries. Meanwhile, house music seemed a key influence on the worldly ambient rhythms of Vakula’s Metaphors (Leleka). Spot the Apocalypse Now moments on Nmesh / Telepath’s ロストエデンへのパス (Dream Catalogue)

Guitar was the driving force by Aussie ambientist Eleventeen Eston on At The Water (Growing Bin Records). I reckon Sarah Davachi’s achingly serene Let Night Come On Bells End The Day (Recital) could be a great going-to-sleep album, but in a good way. Although equally ambient, Grouper’s Grid Of Points (Kranky) was rather more rousing thanks to Liz Harris’s whispery vocals.

If you're following this blog live, we're about to get into the top ten best electronic albums of 2018. Oh come on, show more enthusiasm than that: yawning's just rude.





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