Best electronic albums of 2020: please do not throw these special mentions off a cliff

Throughout this countdown, there will be many albums that didn't make the final list but still deserve to be festooned with garlands and cocaine and fresh puppies. Welcome to the first selection of 'special mentions'.

Firstly, I try not to include compilations in my Best Albums list, but I have to give a tip of the hat to the blistering Alterity from Houndstooth. In a piece of especially quality journalism, I described this album in Electronic Sound as sounding "like a bunch of synth modules being chucked off a cliff. Like, properly chucked with a run-up and everything." That was meant to be a good thing.

Another compilation worth a nod is PlanetMµ25. The sauciest thing to ever come out of Worcester, Mike Paradinas's Planet Mu celebrates its silver anniversary with some of my favourite artists, including Ital Tek, Gábor Lázár and Bogdan Raczynski. Right good treat.

Back to artist albums. Here are some dark, dubby delights that deserve a special mention despite not making my final 25. Following rereleases of his early albums, it was great to get some glorious new glitch from Pole in Fading (Mute). This was utterly hypnotic, as was Recondite's haunting Dwell (Ghostly International), an album which took one minimal monotone and turned it into something as immersive as falling into a pool of Diet Pepsi (I really like Diet Pepsi).

Let's also not forget Life Cycles (Cultivated Electronics), a lively collection of old rusted electro from the archives of Orbital’s early label-mates The Advent (1995's Elements of Life is still worth a listen). Finland's Morphology achieved a vintage feel too on the echoing electronics of Horta Proxima (FireScope Records). I'm amazed this didn't make my final 25. And finally, I loved the haze that emanated the smoked-out techno knees-up going on at the heart of Matt Karmil's ace STS371 (Smalltown Supersound).

More special mentions to come. And more countdown to come. Stay tuned.

 

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Blaming my weirdness on music that happened in the 90s

Last night, with my head deep in the bowels of YouTube, I realised how much of an island I was.

YouTube is probably one of the most common ways to listen to music. That compression must really bring out the bass. Ahem.

I decided to playlist my evening with a whole bunch of 90s YouTube techno, from The Advent to Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia. I even remembered the Genaside II project which the Prodigy would apparently sample for Firestarter (although on a quick listen, I can’t hear it myself).

And then I realised that I was the only one listening to this stuff. Among my friends, that is. The ones I hang-out with month-in, month-out. I feel like I’m the only post-rave kid in town.

Everyone else is either eighties post-industrial electronic music with its awkward lip-synching chart crossovers or they’re from that post-Kid A world where computers became so ubiquitous for so many types of bands, dance music was no longer a political and musical protest against the norm.

There’s a longer article in this. I may write it for Electronic Sound.

I guess I’m just blaming my weirdness on knowing that there was a third part to Orbital’s Lush 3-1 and Lush 3-2, or that Fish & Chips wasn’t just a seaside indulgence but was one of the 90s’ most blistering acid workouts.

People need to know this stuff. It should be on the citizenship test.

What do you know about 90s dance music that makes you feel like a little island of knowledge? Leave a comment or tweet me.