Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: The Black Dog becomes Orange And Yellow Oblongs Dog

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

The Black Dog: Loud Ambient (Dust Science)

I’m dead arty, me. I own a watercolour set, and I have a pair of Mondrian-themed socks. I lied about the watercolour set. I appreciate a mooch around a gallery, and so it’s the art world we will turn for the next entry in my Top 20 Bangers of 2025.

The geometric work of the 20th century’s leading square pusher Mark Rothko was an inspiration for The Black Dog’s Loud Ambient. They used Rothko’s colour fields as the building blocks for the album’s varied tones. The Black Dog becomes Orange And Yellow Oblongs Dog.

As a result, their usual brutalist aesthetic has become, as visual metaphor, brilliant. Murky flows of befogged gloom are replaced by sunlit synth cycles. Several Rituals lays down a house beat with roof-raising claps. They Came For My Head is Global Communication surfing a rainbow.

They say they fell back in love with fall back in love with the 707, 808 and 909 while making this album. That’s a series of Roland drum machines, all with slightly different tones. The TR-707 is especially happy in tone, and has been used in italo-disco gubbins.

They did release another album this year, My Brutal Life 2, a continuation of their architecture-themed ambience. But it was this album that added colour to my 2025. 

I don’t want to make a habit of this, but I should also acknowledge the upsetting death of The Black Dog’s founding member Ken Downie. Robin Rimbaud, the musician better know as Scanner, put it best in a social media post. I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting him here:

“As a founding presence within The Black Dog, Ken helped carve a language that refused easy spectacle, and his passing leaves a quiet, resonant space in electronic music—one shaped by intelligence, restraint, and an unwavering belief that machines could think, feel, and remember.”

A quiet, resonant space indeed. RIP Ken.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

1990s techno just trended on TikTok

Latest news from TikTok land. A user has posted about a misprinted vinyl edition of Taylor Swift's Speak Now (Taylor's Version). Instead of the dulcet tones of Pennsylvania's favourite country music escapee, it played the album Happy Land: A Compendium Of Electronic Music From The British Isles 1992-1996 Vol. 1. Quite the surprise.

I have to admit something. I know nothing about Taylor Swift's music. I have a good working knowledge of a lot of pop acts – Girls Aloud, Lil Nas X, Pet Shop Boys, Years & Years, Kylie Minogue, Crazy Frog. But Taylor's music leaves me cold, with her being my least preferred speed-themed music star after Rush, Fast Food Rockers and Hurry Styles. (Sorry.) 

TikTokker Rachel Hunter was the victim of an anomaly, like buying a packet of porridge and accidentally getting a vortex to an alternative universe in which glow sticks and tie-dyed t-shirts are the norm. She accidentally found herself listening to:

Xeper's Carceres Ex Novum, produced by the bloke from The Black Dog and featured on the first Trance Europe Express album.

Soul Vine (70 Billion People) which found Cabaret Voltaire embracing 90s techno while sampling TV show The Outer Limits.

Thunderhead's 11-minute acid ambient dub monster True Romance. This also appeared on Holistic Recordings' Paul Smith EP, which I don't think has anything to do with the similarly named lead singer of Maxïmo Park.

And more. There's Matthew Herbert, Aphex Twin, and Happy Land by Ultramarine starring the melty vocals of Robert Wyatt.

The original TikTok video is great. She focusses on a sinister Cabaret Voltaire sample. "There's 70 billion people on earth, where are they hiding," says the voice. Fair point. My local Spar is always dead so they're definitely not in there. Where are they? Inside the freezer cabinet? Hiding under the frozen peas? Good question, CabVol.

I once bought an album called Anthology by the 1990s techno act Pentatonik (listen to Green here). A lovely vinyl edition bought from an underground independent Manchester record shop, the name of which escapes me. I was gutted to find two sides were identical: clearly a misprint. I never got it replaced. I've still got it somewhere – it's probably worth, oooh, at least £5.24 now.

Big up to Above Board Distribution, who I hope will sell loads more copies of their British electronica compilation. I didn't expect 1990s techno to be trending on TikTok. That's like a penny farthing competing the Tour de France. Us old timers will never win, but, y'know, it's nice to be noticed sometimes.

Further Fats: Tiny promises that get me through (2016)

Further Fats: Are number one singles getting shorter? (TL;DR: #1s shorter Y/N?) (2022)

Bang-on electronic music releases in January 2023

Hello, you. You're looking wonderful today. I love that tartan eyeliner, and those designer galoshes really compliment your knee pads.

It's 2023, and if the progression of previous years is anything to go by, we'll be swallowed by burning lava or eaten by locusts within weeks. Still, there's lots of music to enjoy, and I am going to bang on about some of that music now.

All these January 2023 releases are proper bang-on.

The Black Dog: Music For Dead Airports (Dust Science, EP, pictured above)

These four tracks are atmospheric spatial electronics, at least in part recorded in Sheffield airports. The work is inspired by Sheffield's troubled history with airports, including the doomed Sheffield City Airport which had a runway too short for popular budget airlines. Also Sheffield's really hilly and planes hate hills. Music For Dead Airports is released alongside the band's 2010 field recordings album Music for Real Airports.

Rian Treanor & Ocen James: Saccades (Nyege Nyege Tapes)

A remarkable listen, this. Arising from a residency in Kampala, Rotheram's Rian Treanor produces folk techno with Acholi fiddle player Ocen James. Think super rhythmic Ugandan techno using real instruments. This follows 2020's Treanor album File Under UK Metaplasm, which I described previously as "a rave in the middle of Mike Teavee's fractal transfer in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory".

Oceanic: Choral Feeling (Nous'klaer Audio)

We've had an artist from Rotherham. Now let's have one from Rotterdam. For this debut album, Oceanic asked his friends to sing for him. Simple. The resulting vocal melee is mesmerising, with the rhythmic vocals sounding fully human yet so alien. The repetitive and blossoming Sunshine, Dear is a banger. Oceanic is not to be confused with the early-1990s rave act signed to Cheshire's Dead Dead Good Records.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: 12 (Milan Records)

No Bandcamp preview for this one. This is a selection of musical sketches to mark the revered composer's 71st birthday. He's approached it as a kind of diary, and it tracks a long battle with cancer in which he found himself "reaching for the synthesiser". The track titles are all numbers, and look like a Sudoku grid has glitched because Elon Musk sacked all the puzzle setters. There's a super minimal album teaser on YouTube, although it doesn't give much away. I'll bang on more about this album in Electronic Sound.

Eat Static: Abduction (Planet Dog) 

And finally, look out for this reissue of a 1993 ambient trance classic by the Ozric Tentacles offshoot. It's on double vinyl and comes with added John Peel session tracks. Psychedelic trance that is very druggy, very snappy, and very Planet Doggy.

30 best electronic music albums of 2021: 96 Back, Anz, Basic Rhythm & The Black Dog

The Top 60 becomes a Top 30. The excitement! Fat Roland's Best Electronic Music Albums of 2021 presents four more brilliant albums:

96 Back – 9696 Dream (Local Action)

Sheffield's Evan Majumdar-Swift has turned in a corker of a rave album, and there's barely a phat drop in sight. This is techno written in neon and hydrogen. Lines of melody have all the woozy weightlessness of waking from sleep, and even when it slaloms into a steady groove on, say, Freepass For Them, it still feels light on its feet. Incidentally, this was mastered by Warp Records founder Rob Gordon, so there's some serious heft behind the buoyancy. Hat doff to his other works this year, including the move into vocals on the compelling Love Letters, Nine Through Six.

Anz – All Hours (Ninja Tune)

Another EP has sneaked its way onto my list. Whaddaya gonna do? Report me to the list police? This unashamedly poppy collection of bass music feels like that moment in a movie when all is resolved and the protagonists just need to let their hair down. Stereo on, disco ball spinning, and let's not think too much about granny whose storyline was left unsolved. Did she escape the kidnappers? Who cares. Let's boogie to the glistening r&b, the funky electro jams, the gentle acid, the shuffling wub-wub techno. This is a Ninja Tune debut for this Manchester producer: the world is watching. Maybe granny was one of the bad guys. We'll find out in the sequel. Roll credits!

Basic Rhythm – Electronic Labyrinth (Planet Mu)

I've been watching East Man's output with interest, so it's pleasing to see Anthoney Hart's other alter-ego drop such a compelling album. As suggested by the East London landscape of the album cover, his second album under this name for Planet Mu, this is tower-block tough. Hunch-shouldered rhythms provide a base for a series of tributes to his pirate DJ days on Rude FM. Beats crumble, basslines bend, and euphoric rave lines are subsumed into the grittiness of it all. Hayward Road soars the highest, but its freewheeling arpeggio belies the fact that we barely leave the basement of modern UK bass music. Proper.

The Black Dog – Music For Photographers (Dust Science)

Brutal. No, literally. Dusty legends The Black Dog spent two years photographing Brutalist architecture, and this compendium of deep, hazy ambience has an intention as cemented as the structures that inspired it. "It should be played in full when visiting any location," say the Dogsters. So whip out their Brutal Sheffield book, Google Map your way to one of the buildings, and let this album consume you in situ. Chords are elongated, beats are reigned in, and bulldozers put on hold as we celebrate a quickly disappearing aspect of UK cities. A window into some serious concrete soul.

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

Best electronic albums of 2020: these thoughtful special mentions are a dream(ies)

Let's look at some more "special mentions", that awkward category of album which I profess to love but I still excluded from my Top 25. It's like saying you love your cat, but you eat all the Dreamies yourself. Tasty.

Let's start with Shadow of Fear (Mute), the first album for 26 years from Cabaret Voltaire. This newly solo incarnation had corroded industrial teeth: apparently the H in Richard H Kirk stands for Hardcore. Incidentally, read me raving about Kirk's Virtual State album, although I make it sound much cuter than it is.

This clutch of albums is among notes labelled "thoughtful". I swear I was on meth when I made these lists. I suppose there was something thoughtful in the sound of Req, who made his comeback with Calypso Dark (Seagrave), spinning out deeply beaty trippy sound-soups. Even more introspective was the dub-heavy sound system vibes of Al Wootton's infectious Witness (TRULE). A wonderful listen. "Come!"

Robert Hood has been pumping out the tunes these past few years, and he outdid himself on the metronomic assault that was Mirror Man (Rekids). His muscular minimalism is always produced with thought, but there was an extra frisson of meaning in track titles like Nothing Stops Detroit, Fear Not and Ignite A War. Speaking of minimalism, The Black Dog never seem to stop producing, and it was nice to see them taking a more simplistic approach for their Patreon-produced Fragments (Dust Science). Ambient abstraction with a tonne of heart.

Roy Of The Ravers is usually know for his sprawling acid workouts, so the distinctly non-acid retrospective White Line Sunrise II (Emotional Response) was an atmospheric, reflective, ambient treat – Bounc Erec is the softest of anthems. And if you need even more atmosphere, Clark's Daniel Isn’t Real OST (Deutsche Grammophon) had sotto piano in severe distress alongside apocalyptic strings worthy of its horror film source material.

Is that the end of the special mentions? Nope. Loads more to come. Flipping loads, mate.

 

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Best electronic music albums of 1995: The Black Dog versus Carl Craig

Three weeks ago, I began a battle to determine the best electronic music album of 1995. That battle is still going: this is heat seven of eight, after which we get to the quarter finals. See the series so far here, and see the 16 albums I started off with here. "But Fats, this is going to take many more weeks if you keep posting this slowly." Considering the current climate, that is no bad thing

I fired up my trusty random number generator to pick today's pairing. Remember, only one of these will survive through to the quarter-finals. The choice is between:

Spanners by The Black Dog
Landcruising by Carl Craig

This is a fascinating match. In one corner, we have a seminal British IDM act clearly influenced by Detroit techno. And in the other corner is a bonafide Detroit techno album debut. Good job there is no chance of messing up this contest with comparisons that blabber on about biscuits and cute animals, huh.

Criteria one: which album would make a better biscuit?

The Carl Craig album would be a cookie rather than a biscuit. This is because Americans have funny words for things. They also call herbs 'erbs, pavements sidepavements and aluminium aluminiminimum. Spanners by The Black Dog is such a wonky take on recognisable techno, it would be an unusual biscuit like Mr Kipling Viennese Whirls or those pink wafery things. That said, Carl Craig wins because The Black Dog's techno biscuits would be so loaded with e-numbers, they'd make your eyes pop out of your bum-hole.
Winner: Landcruising

Criteria two: which album has more bangin' choons?

I once praised The Black Dog's Barbola Work because it was "one of the few classic 90s techno tracks that makes you cha-cha-cha". It's easy forget now how alien and amazing their work was when it first appeared. Carl Craig's got the tunes, though: Einbahn is Autobahn on rollerskates, and the sheer 80s drama of Mind Of A Machine is enough to crack a smile on a bloodhound.
Winner: Landcruising

Criteria three: which album's track titles better remind me of cute animals?

Carl Craig's debut album falls down badly here. There are no animal references in his track titles. I'm not saying he hates animals so much that he sneaks around back alleys baseball-batting weasels to death: that is for you to decide. Looking at The Black Dog's titles, Pot Noddle is definitely the name of a crime-fighting pig and Nommo is its sworn warthog enemy determined on wreaking destruction all across the pig sty. Oh and they're both dressed in tutus, so they're still cute.
Winner: Spanners

Criteria four: which of the two would Jesus listen to?

When the UK lockdown is over, pop into your local church. Who's the vicar? Oh look, it's Carl Craig. And the church organist? Carl Craig again. Who's that little old lady running the coffee bar? It's Carl Craig in a dress. Now pop to your nearest Buddhist centre. Look at all those little fat statues of Carl Craig! Saint Craig is so spiritually connected on Landcruising, he simply has to be Jesus's favourite. The Black Dog feels more like a crusty old geezer collecting sign-ups for a humanist society round the back of Aldi car park.
Winner: Landcruising

Criteria five: which is the better album to sing songs about eggs to?

It's not often I type this sentence, but neither album really screams eggs. The Black Dog album suggests Starburst sweets, odd-shaped leeks and an interesting purple mould that's taken hold at the back of the fridge. The Carl Craig album suggests oysters served on a lattice of spun caramel drizzled in the finest liqueur. What wins this category for The Black Dog is the chattery voice in transitional track Bolt1 which definitely sounds like someone yabbering on about Tesco's running out of eggs.
Winner: Spanners

Criteria six: which album has the better cover design?

Landcruising is brilliant driving music, and its cover logo is clearly a nod to Detroit's automobile industry. The three-headed CGI beast on the cover of Spanners is more confusing. Is it a dog gone wrong? Is it a fancy paperweight? Is it a hallucination and I really should stay off the Windolene? Of the two, the strange black dog is the more memorable.
Winner: Spanners

Criteria seven: miscellaneous and worryingly random

This final area of judgement takes as its cue Wikipedia's random page function. Here goes. Which album is the most moist? Detroit gets five inches more rainfall per year than Sheffield, so Craig has it. Which album will win you the lottery? The Black Dog because of the track Utopian Dream. Which album is a heavy assault tank? Carl Craig because he be landcruisin'. Which album is a novel nanomaterial? Carl Craig's album is a debut, so it's novel by default. Which album has stout, sparse tentacles like the white sand anemone? The Black Dog, obviously – dogs are famous for their tentacles. Three-two to Craig.
Winner: Landcruising

Overall winner and going through to the quarter-finals: The Black Dog are so central to my love for electronic music, that I'm chalking this win as a surprise: it's Carl Craig's Landcruising that cruises (geddit?!?!?) through to the quarter-finals. Well deserved: it's a cracking album, despite the weasel thing.

There is one heat left in this first round, so stay tuned: the battle to find the best electronic music album of 1995 will continue. See all the original riders and runners here.

Further Fats: See the whole Best Albums Of 1995 series here.

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.

I've just found The Black Dog at the back of my sock drawer

When I compile my albums of the year, I always worry that I'll miss something obvious. Like Mo Farah forgetting his running shoes or Tom Daley forgetting his swimming trunks.

I've gone and done it. Lo and blimmin' behold, I missed The Black Dog from my 2018 round-up. I knew they'd released albums, I'd listened to those albums, but my brain put them at the back of my sock drawer and forgot all about them.

The Sheffield soundsmiths popped out a pair of contrasting works. Black Daisy Wheel was mellow, like a swan enjoying a summer's day, and Post-Truth was a bit perkier, like, er, a slightly more perky swan enjoying a summer's day. Both were informed by the dystopia of disinformation in which we all wade.

The Black Dog have been techno legends for 52 decades, and they still remain as active as ever: their website is bursting with things to listen to. It's silly to have missed them because Post-Truth got plenty of play from me this year, in the same way that Tom gets plenty of use out of his trunks. I presume he's got more than one pair, although I suppose they kind of wash themselves.... I'm getting side-tracked.

Have a listen to some of it below. The album, that is, not Tom Daley's pants.



Further Fats: Please spell Freeland versus Daft Punk. "OBAMA." You are correct (2009)

Further Fats: Dramatic PowerPoint Slide: performing in Sheffield (2015)

What's in the Unbox? Techno remixes and new Future Sound of London

You know that film where there's a couple of cops and a bad guy and they're near some telegraph poles and there's something in a box and they're all like "what's in the box, what's in the box" and it turns out to be Chris Martin's head or something?

You'll be pleased to know that has nothing to do with the latest in the Unboxed Brain series of remixed records that span off from last year's Brainbox album from De:tuned. Listen to samples below.

This seventh remix EP has techno heavyweights Kirk Degiorgio, Mark Broom and The Black Dog producing reworks of techno heavyweights B12 and Scanner, while there is a new track from techno heavyweights Future Sound of London.

No wonder its unboxed - it's too heavy to lift.



Further Fats: Saturday night, I feel my brain is getting hot (2012)

Instrumental electronic floof for your creative ears

Here are some old instrumental albums I've been using as a writing soundtrack recently.

They're all pretty much of an era and style, and they're scuzzy YouTube rips, but if you need something for your (un)conscious mind to surfboard on, dive in.

There's one that's not featured below, and that's B12's Electro Soma (band pictured above). It's non-embeddable, but you can click through to it here.

Go listen. Then buy the albums because they're right cracking, they are.









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Pitchfork's 50 best IDM albums - the Fat Roland edit

Pitchfork's top 50 IDM albums of all time is not too bad a list. I know this because Warp Records said so.

Not too bad a list 😉 https://t.co/2acEPnAM6V

— Warp Records (@WarpRecords) January 24, 2017

Instead of picking apart the list, bemoaning the lack of Future Sound Of London or Orbital, I shall accept the list as fact. This is now the top 50 forever. Anything else is fake news.

Taking only the albums chosen in that top 50, here is my reordered top ten. I've tried to avoid duplicating artists, although I've given Aphex Twin (pictured) a free pass on Polygon Window.

Pitchfork's 50 best IDM albums boiled down into a Fat Roland top ten...

1 - Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92. Because this is the don. Because it crept into my speakers and never quite oozed clear again. Because of Willy Wonka.

2 - Jon Hopkins - Immunity. Because it's 'played with precision and paced to perfection'.

3 - The Black Dog - Spanners. Because its diagonal beats dislodged something in my brain and I liked it. Because without these guys, much of this list won't exist.

4 - Polygon Window - Surfing on Sine Waves. Because Aphex went organic and shimmery. And then super techno. Because of If It Really Is Me.

5 - Autechre - Amber. Because I didn't think they could better Incunabula and they did: what a pair of albums.

6 - Flying Lotus - Los Angeles. Because oh-my-crap-what-is-this-noise and oh-help-my-ears-are-robots-now.

7 - Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children. Because it's one of the greatest debut albums of all time. Because it changed music. And it sounded sad.

8 - Various Artists - Artificial Intelligence. Because there isn't enough Warp in this list already. Jeez, Warp, if I like you so much, why don't you marry me?!

9 - Plaid - Not for Threes. Because of Kortisin. Because of their rhythm section. Because Plaid have appeared in my best albums of the year lists three times.

10 - µ-Ziq - Lunatic Harness. Just because.

Further Fats: Chosen Words: W is for Warp (Obviously) (2010)

Further Fats: Chosen Words: E is for Ecstacy (2010)

Best electronic albums of 2015: nine

9 – The Black Dog – Neither/Neither (Dust Science)

There’s sometimes an air of portent to The Black Dog’s work. They’ll chug along all frowny – business as normal for these Sheffield techno gods – then a lonesome chord will unsettle the living daylights out of you. And the best thing is, when that happens, you can feel the weight of this band's incredible history.

Thankfully, there’s plenty of that on Neither/Neither. The title track feels airy but check that Boards of Canada feel with its shaking cymbals and the thrilling drop after the two-minute mark. The thumping Commodification holds all its power in its gasping bass end.

The vocals add welcome personality here too, sporadic as they are: the conversational samples in the short filler tracks (mostly variations on the name “Phil”) or the hypnotic female voice loop on Platform Lvl 6.

There is much beauty too: the building tension of Control Needs Time, the rising strings of Them (Everyone Is A Liar But), the twinkling melancholy of The Frequency Ov Thee Truthers. Welcome back to my top ten, doggies. You belong here.

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

The Black Dog / Balil's 3/4 Heart

"If you remember the 60s, you weren't there."
"Music was just better in the 80s."
"I so got bogus on alcopops at the Britpop disco last night."

Yeah, I hear your conversations, you wrinkled dinosaurs living in the past. It's pathetic. I listen to new music all the time, while you close your ears off because your ear wax is made of nostalgia and one day you will drown in it.

Haaaaving said that...

I love this old track from The Black Dog, performing here as Balil (below).

Their Bytes album expanded my world. In this one track, you can hear trip hop, Orbital's Snivilisation and LTJ Bukem's atmospherics. Except this was some time before any of that came out, assuming we're dating trip hop to a couple of years later in the 90s.

This is truly forward thinking futuristic futurism right here, and definitely not me wallowing in techno nostalgia.



(Incidentally, The Black Dog's Sound of Sheffield volume 3 is out this week, including the bass-heavy Fraction Slide.)

Some dogs are better than others

I hate dogs.

Many breeds of dog are vile and potentially dangerous. I do not understand a world in which it is normal to domesticate creatures that are capable of savaging and killing.

I don't think it's cute when friends post pictures of their dogs on Facebook. Oh look, here's Buster dragging his bum across the baby's face, how cute. Eeeugh. And no, I don't want to say hello to your dog when I meet you neck-deep in the brown stuff on a poo-strewn pavement.

There should be a dog licence which includes training for owners in pack mentalities and dog behaviour. Most of my dog bites - and I've had a few, believe me - have been from mutts that "wouldn't bite". Of course they bite, you silly owner, it's what they do.

You're waiting for the punchline, aren't you? You're waiting for the moment I spin this around and say I meant clogs and sorry for the typo.

There's no punchline. There are two exceptions, though.

Firstly, The Black Dog (pictured) are quite unvile and lovely. Their influential early albums showed me that dance music could be emotive and intelligent: Temple of Transparent Balls and Bytes were a deep and involving antidote to the two-dimension dance smash of the same year, No Limit by 2 Unlimited.

What's great is they're still making amazing music. The Black Dog are a good dog. Here, have a bone.

Secondly, my next-door neighbour's dog Wilf loves me. Even if I am miles off, he goes insane at the sight of me. His tail tells me in impatient semaphore that I am the best thing that has happened to his day. He only does this with me and one other neighbour. He doesn't even show the same level of shuddering, dribbling uber-joy for his actual owners, the duplicitous wee beastie. Wilf is great.

Wilf and The Black Dog are exempt. All other dogs can go to their basket and think about what they have done.

Further Fats: Temple Of Transparent Balls and the black, brooding Book Of Dogma

Bleep Years day two: Plaid's Get What You Gave (2003)

Here is the second part of Bleep Years, in which I trawl through two decades of tunes that sum up, in an entirely and unfairly arbitrary fashion, whole years of my life. Today's randomly-chosen year is...

2003: Plaid's Get What You Gave

2003 was a big year for pop music. White Stripes enlisted their Seven Nation Army, Beyonce was Crazy In Love and Kelis had a line of dairy products that was proving popular with her male fans. Plaid. though, were calling back to a whole different era.

Having released records for over a decade, by 2003 Plaid were already an amazing band. Their insistent, spiralling tunes were a nod to their origins as members of The Black Dog, a leading pioneer of intelligent, brain-driven techno. Plaid's album this year, Spokes, was hailed as a return to those roots.

The debate continues as to whether Spokes is one of their better albums. One thing it did do was confirm their status as uber-ultra-lords of all electronica (official title). What I loved about the eighth track on the album, Get What You Gave, was the sheer simplicity: like steel drums on a Sunday drive along the rings of Saturn.

This track is still one of my most DJed. The track acts as a very simple study in repetitive melody, with all manner of spikes and whirrs peppering proceedings from start to finish. There was no other song from this year that got under mys skin more, that slowly and carefully spread its tuneful darkness. Get me tipsy on a few of Kelis' milkshakes and I may even start raving that this is the number one anthem from electronica's number one band.

Blood sugar synths felines: some almost-recent tracks worth your attention

The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Didn't expect that, did you? Red Hot Chili Peppers. There, I said it again.

No, I'm not talking about the tongue-busting offspring of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanasomething-or-other. I'm talking about the wiley shirtless guitar plodders who appear to have gone afro pop.

Actually, I'm taking about John Frusciante, who dumped the Chilis in 2007 but has now turned up as one part of Speed Dealer Moms with legendary bass-driller Venetian Snares. This is a live experimental project consisting of those boys, Chris McDonald, a bunch of drum machines (gear, pictured) and, in the band's words, "many cats".

Their first release is the Speed Dealer Moms EP, a short and bitter chunk of tapping distracto-grooves recorded as-live in 2010 that will frighten Chili poppers but may sound somewhat familiar to Snares followers.

While I'm perusing recent tracks (mainly from the end of last year), I've been addicted to Rafferties's Rank Functions EP. The title track is a 2step tech stormer on his own Super label that turned my pants brown, but check those warm chords in His Counting House or the out-and-out house snap of Horse Flesh. Suddenly, I feel Raffertie has "arrived" in that really pretentious way some people say "arrived".

Meanwhile, The Black Dog's latest offering is Subject To Delays. That's not an announcement for tardiness, but rather the name of their latest EP in their Music For Real Airports project which features rolling house and drifting ambience in equal measure.

Picture: modified from a Universo Frusciante snap.

My greatest idea once more crumbles to dust like a great big crumbly bit of dust

Once in a mauve moon, I come up with an idea so eyeball-shatteringly amazing, I literally spend 24 hours patting myself on the back like some goggle-armed freak.

I include some of my radio ideas in that (such as inventing the name Fryer Tuck Shop and conniving with my radio co-presenter Lee to come up with a game based on it). I also include the Formula One Losers League in that (which I hope to resurrect next year).

So I was quite excited about my idea for a music comparison site that went beyond the pathetic attempts by Amazon and iTunes to hopelessly recommend Cascada to Aphex Twin fans*.

Music comparisons. How hard can they be? This is like falling off a blog. Dead easy. Like pissing on a duck. Let's test my big new idea with a basic comparison question:

If you like Orbital, what else do you buy?

Here is my list of bands that sound like Orbital, or at least, music you may want to listen to if you haven't the foggiest about electronic music but you happen to have bought an Orbital album or two. The list includes suggestions from other people given to me when I first started researching this 361 frickin' days ago.

Remember. This is the start of my Big New Idea. I am a genius, so this cannot possibly go wrong.

If you like Orbital, try...

- µ-Ziq. He has that melodic thing going on along with a crunchiness of rhythm that Orbital fans like.

- Boards of Canada and Bola. Both artists ooze with Orbital-style melancholy and are both fairly accessible.

- The Black Dog and Plaid. Experimentalism meats warm analogue techno goodness.

- Kruder and Dorfmeister. Maybe, although I'm not quite sure.

- Photek. Feel the darkness. The complexity in the rhythmic structure. No? Next!

- Crystal Castles, but only their track Untrust Us.

- Long Range. This is the guy from Orbital. This list is useless.

- Lemon Jelly. Oh now come on, that's taking the Michaelangelo.

- Mannheim Steamroller? Trans Siberian Orchestra? Nah. Pentatonik! Closer with that last one, although it's the old techno band not the more recent rock band.

- The theme tune to the Equalizer. Well, actually, now you come to think about it...

- Lowfish. And the second track from Wahn's Alt.binaries. Hello? Is anyone still reading?

Well, that was a pile of hairballs. It's my worst list since I listed Orbital's albums by colour.

Scrap that idea. I'm off to draw up blueprints for my next brilliant scheme, which will involve (in no particular order) the chair George Clooney made in Burn After Reading, the complete works of Dan Brown, a blowtorch and sixty-two gallons of bathtub gin.

*Actually, they're a lot better these days, but iTunes used to be shiiieeeeet.

Mixin' ma tunesies: Flying Lotus, Rustie and The Black Dog

I've had a strange mixture of two songs stabbing my eardrums all day. The first is Getting Away With It, the melancholic Pet Shop Boys-sprinkled pop song from Electronic. The second is My Humps, the paean to road calming measures by the Black Eyed Peas.

The result is an insistent and disturbing image of Johnny Marr rubbing me all over with his strangely misshapen mammaries. Like being tickled with rubber bags full of gerbils, only in a bad way.

All of which is distracting me from some important record releases about which you, my newly disturbed reader, should know. Each of these feature remixes and are 47% more successful than anything offered by an Electronic / Peas combo.

Last year, Flying Lotus was basking in the glory of his album Los Angeles when he offered us a 12" of strange remixes. If you're quick, you can still pick up copies of Shhhh! It includes, among others, a dirty snare-smacking version of Mr Oizo's Stunts ($tunt$ is the most immediate track here), a drastic scratch mix of J Dilla's Lightwork and a seriously widescreen bass-wobbling Promiscuous Girl by queenzilla of the perfect pout Nelly Furtado.

Rustie's Bad Science EP (Rustie pictured above) is further evidence this young whipperbleeper should be a lot more famous than he is. Bad Science offers up bubbly 8-bit hip hop mentalism, including a reconfiguration of one of the best tracks of 2008, Zig Zag, while still being breathy and prowling like a robot stalker. The whole thing pretty much sounds like Zig Zag, so if you've got that, get this.

And finally, there's an EP from The Black Dog called We Are Sheffield which pours remixes over your speakers until you'll be mopping up massive basslines, glitch techno and warm mellowness from your newly shampooed carpet. It's worth it alone (sadly alone, if I'm honest) for the epic yet moody Autechre remix.

Hey, Bleep dot com, whatcha been up to?

"Well, Dave, you can hear an Autechre remix of a track by scarecrow-baiting technistos The Black Dog on our site here.

Thanks, Bleep dot com. My name's not Dave, by the way. What else have you got?

"You might want to check out Antoni Maiovvi's Shadow Of The Blood Stained Kiss. It sounds like a slasher movie and it's got titles like Witchcraft and the onimously monikered They Return. You'll like that, Dave."

That sounds interesting. I'm not Dave. What's Kent electronic mentalist label Planet Mu up to?

"I'm glad you asked, Dave. We asked Planet Mu to come up with a six quid collection of some of their best stuff. It's called The Mu School."

Stop calling me Dave. Seriously. It was funny on League Of Gentlemen, but it's not funny here.

"How about an afro electro collection called Horse Meat Disco, Dave? It's like robots oiling up for an old fashioned disco."

Stop the Dave thing. I know it's a comedy construct to disguise the fact all I'm doing is just re-typing up a blanket email from Bleep, but it really is chafing my watermelon, man.

"Hey, Dave, check out this uber-swish white label remix of Goldie's Timeless--"

Right, that's it, I'm leaving the blog. *slam*

Top of the bleeps: what's hot and banging bad-style right now

Topping the downloads list on electronic music's answer to the Arndale Centre, Bleep dot com, is Clark's Totems Flare album. I've got it cranked to the gills as I type; it's a brilliant analogue wig out designed as much for the tootsies as for the cranial glue.

The second most downloaded album is a debut LP from Bibio. Ambivalence Avenue has been covered here before: click the Bibio link at the bottom of this article. Bleep says it's like a lost 70s folk record.

Here is the rest of the top ten on Bleep:

3. Clark - Growls Garden (track). Marvin The Paranoid Android malfunctions at an 80's disco.

4. Tim Exile - Listening Tree. Another debut album and probably Warp Records' only gabba opus.

5. The Black Dog - Further Vexation. I'm pimping their previous album Radio Scarecrow a lot right now, but this record is darker, frownier and more techno.

6. Battles - Mirrored. An old one but a classic, described by Pitchfork with this trio of scintillating sentences: "Marc Bolan is dead. But Battles can rebuild him. They have the technology."

7. Diamond Watch Wrists - Ice Capped At Both Ends. This is Prefuse 73 stretching out his legs and playing footsie with a percussionist. 

8. Floating Points - J & W Beat. Best described as bubbly 2-step. Yes. Bubbly.

9. Bizzy B - Retrospective. A look back at the best of the master of the Amen break. No Bizzy B, no Venetian Snares.

10. Moritz Von Oswald Trio (pictured, photo from Stink Finger) - Vertical Ascent. I don't know too much about this, although I think it's got something to do with AGF.

Damn, this Clark album I'm listening to is good. It's like old Aphex Twin a million years into the future. Meanwhile, the top ten on Bleep has already changed while I've been typing this. Please scrub out this post. You'll find a permanent marker pen under your chair.