Best electronic albums of 2020: welcome to my Special Mentions Block Party, whatever that is

Here are yet more special mentions, comprising albums I really liked but couldn't squeeze into my final top 25 despite purchasing several shoe horns.

This selection is themed along the lines of "albums I would play at a block party". 

I have no idea what a block party is. The only parties I've been to are children's, acid house, political and raiding. But let's imagine we're dropping some bangers and the people are going ham. Let's go.

People are arriving at the party: this DJ needs to press play on some tunes. Machinedrum's ninth album A View Of U (Ninja Tune) was one of his strongest, with slow jams and drum machine smashers galore. While the cloakroom cue is bopping to this, I've also popped on Hudson Mohawke's BBHE (Warp), a lively bag of unreleased works that serves as Machinedrum's wackier, dirtier cousin.

To add a unique party atmosphere, I'm now playing Arca's Kick i (XL Recordings), although in typical Arca fashion her work here is not so much bangers as scrapers and writhers and awkwardly diagonal wibblers. Maybe I can save the atmosphere with Tricky's Fall To Pieces (False Idols), his fourteenth album and a welcome return to form due in no small part to his brilliant vocalist Marta. Actually, probably a little dark for a party. Bad DJ choice, but good album.

The partiers are helping themselves to punch. Do they have punch at block parties? Anyway, I'm now spinning Two Fingers' Fight! Fight! Fight! (Nomark) with Amon Tobin in full corrugated-bass mode. Every track is a digitally-decayed dance-off: it's brilliant. Oh no. People are leaving. They want the new Steps album. How about Rian Treanor's second album File Under UK Metaplasm (Planet Mu), which sounds like a rave in the middle of Mike Teavee's fractal transfer in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory? No? Perhaps I can salvage things with upsammy's Zoom (Dekmantel) which takes a mirrorball to IDM and transforms it into an intricate alien sunrise.

No?

Sigh. Stupid imaginary block party.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Best electronica albums of 2012: numbers 4 to 2

We're into the top five of what I believe are the best electronic music albums of 2012. I've wet myself with excitement so many times, I'm having to sit on four layers of towels surrounded by a makeshift wall of mop-heads.

We're into to rock-solid (or should that be bleep-solid) classic territory here. If numbers four to two are this good, my chart-topper is liable to trigger a flood alert.

Inevitably, lots of artists didn't make the top ten. Here are some more also-rans for this year's chart.

[Read other parts of the top ten here: numbers 10-8; numbers 7-5; number 1. Click here for the whole lot.]

Also-rans

Brian Eno's Lux (Warp) missed out on the top ten, as did another big-hitter, Clark. His Iradelphic (Warp) seemed to be Clark-by-numbers to me despite some spine-tingling moments and despite topping my chart three years ago. Shame.

The DJ in me enjoyed I:Cube's mixtape-tastic “M” Megamix (Versatile) and Stunt Rhythms (Big Dada) from my favourite Amon Tobin guise Two Fingers. Also missing out is the noisy improvisation of Carter Tutti Void's Transverse (Mute), an utterly replayable IDM album Steam Days (Border Community) from Nathan Fake and two records from Mouse On Mars: comeback LP Parastrophics (Monkeytown) and follow-up mini-album WOW (Monkeytown).

4 - Grimes - Visions (4AD)

Grimes. Of course, Grimes. I played with the idea of excluding her because she might be too ‘pop’ for the EDM/IDM subculture this blog appeals to. Then I decided only an flipping idiot would exclude her, and although I am an idiot, I’m not a flipping idiot. Because, if you didn’t already know, Visions (4AD) is one of the best albums of the year in any genre.

Among the hazy layered vocals, analogue synth hooks and the light touch that keeps everything in a perfect balance, you’ll find Grimes reclaiming the orchestral stab (Oblivion), bringing back 1980s Prince beats (Colour Of Moonlight) and making a good job of a Mariah wail (Be a Body).

Ah yes. The voice, the voice, the voice. This will make or break the album for you. She’s high, she’s low, she’s delicate and she’s bluesy – almost choral on tracks like Skin. The voice is everywhere, and at its most effective, it is versatile and moving. Tied with such solid instrumentation, if this doesn’t grab you on first play, try it a dozen more times. Deserves to be on as many coffee tables as Moby (ask your grandad).

3 - Actress - R.I.P (Honest Jon’s)

Two years after I excluded Actress’ Splazsh from my end-of-year top ten, here he is making waves in the 2012 list. And what an unexpected treat: Actress has shut his drum machine under the stairs with the hoover, instead producing a collection of loops that take their rhythm from the likes of tape hiss, broken orchestration and eerie rattles. And probably from the hoover too.

R.I.P (Honest Jon's) is a dirty affair, but he allows space for the crackles and nastiness by keeping it simple. Actress has dug down into the essence of each track, finding the trashy distortions and frequencies then ditching anything else that doesn’t fit the groove. It’s puffy, fuzzy but not fussy.

Tracks like Raven are so smothered in hiss, it takes a while to find the rhythm. Somewhere amid the hissing loops of Marble Plexus, I hear a bass drum: I almost write a letter of astonishment to the Telegraph. Serpent has a shaky Splazsh-style rhythm but it’s bedded beneath layers of strings – in the true orchestral sense – and is the best example of why there's no other album like this in 2012. R.I.P is deep, metallic and, erm, dead good.

2 - Orbital - Wonky (ACP)

You wait eight years for a new Orbital album and one comes along at once. It is an unwritten rule of music criticism that comebacks should not work. Chinese Democracy. Free As A Bird. Dark Light*. They often give you the feeling you've been cheated. And yet Wonky (ACP) was Orbital’s best album since the mid-90s, leaving sweating fans everywhere throwing deep shapes of relief.

The throw-back moments are here, for example the Satan remix or the Belfast-style old tape loop reused for Stringy Acid, or indeed in the cut-up vocals starting One Big Moment or the skipping Distractions snares. But Orbital don't rely on these production details: instead they choose to rack up their live punch front-and-centre. New France is stadium dance music at its most euphoric, while title track Wonky is all build-up and build-up designed to wear out the soles of your disco crocs.

The two 2012 gig tickets in my pocket prove I am an Orbital junkie, so maybe I shouldn’t be placing them so high up in this top ten. But comeback albums of this quality are rare, and to top that, this album has a live anthem with as much potency as Chime and as much catchiness as Impact: album closer Where Is It Going equals their absolute best. They couldn't have done this better - and if you need one more reason for the Satan-bringers appearance in this top ten, this just so happens to be my 666th blog post on Fat Roland on Electronica. Even a top blog gives the right number etc etc...

[Read other parts of the top ten here: numbers 10-8; numbers 7-5; number 1. Click here for the whole lot.]

* You remember Dark Light, right? No?
Further Fats: Best electronica albums of 2011

Top 20 electronica tracks of 2010 (kind of) so far (sorta)

YouTube playlist time, kids!

I'm currently doing time in comedy-prison for impersonating a Michael McIntyre fan, so I decided to use my spare time in the yard (full of people making inane observations) to see where we're up to in this ubiquitous block of time we call "2010".

Here are the 20 best tracks of 2010 so far. I've done this before, and again most of the choices are mine. I spiced it up this time by asking some of my musical chums and contemporaries to include their own favourite tracks.

If you want to play all the choons at once, I've fashioned together a YouTube playlist. Here are the Top 20 electronica tracks of 2010 (kind of) so far (sorta) in their entirety. If I was you, I'd jump straight there. (Edit: you can also see the list in MASSIVE CLICKABLE WORDS, thanks to a link sent to me by Cameron Reed. Ta!)

Here are the individual tracks with their youTube links. Let's go!

- Girl Unit: Shade On from the I.R.L EP.

- Instra:mental: No Future (Skream Remix)

- Africa HiTech: Blen, recommended by DJ / producer the 8Bitch. She also wanted to go for Ramadanman's Glut or a bit of Subeena or Brackles, but instead ended up plumping for the first single from the rather exciting Steve Spacek and Mark Pritchard collaboration.

- Flying Lotus: Do The Astral Plane from his latest album Cosmogramma.

- Gonjasufi: Ancestors, produced by Flying Lotus and taken from the Warp debut A Sufi And A Killer.

- Caribou: Jamelia, recommended by Cameron Reed, a.k.a. Babe Rainbow who wanted "something off the Caribou album". Glad to oblige.

- Pariah: Detroit Falls, recommended by Yer Mam. He also wanted to go for Brooklyn's Pursuit Grooves.

- Lorn: Cherry Moon (link updated), who is bringing the Brainfeeder sound to the UK with his essential album Nothing Else.

- Ikonika: Idiot from the Hyperdub album Contact, Want, Love, Have.

- Son Lux: Break. Isaac Ashe's Sound Advice threw several recommendations in my direction, so I chose a Son Lux track. But he'd also like you to listen to Bass Clef, Bonobo and Massive Attack. Actually, I feel guilty for not including Massive Attack on my final list.

- Starkey: OK Luv, the opening track from Ear Drums And Black Holes.

- Four Tet: Angel Echoes, recommended by Isaac Ashe's Sound Advice.

- Shlohmo: Spoons from the woefully overlooked Shlomoshun Deluxe album on the Friends Of Friends label.

- Babe Rainbow: Shaved. Speaking of Babe Rainbow, here comes another of his recommendations...

- James Blake: CMYK, recommended by Babe Rainbow and by Borland. Borland also like a bit of Gold Panda and are busy producing their own gubbins (see my post last weekend.

- Autechre - See On See from their first album of 2010, Oversteps.

- LV And Untold - Beacon (Mount Kimbie Remix)

- Pantha Du Prince: Stick To My Side from the hypnotic album Black Noise.

- Floating Points: People's Potential, recommended by Yer Mam.

- Kourosh Yaghmaei: Gol-e Yak, an older track recommended by a superbly exasperated Two Fingers, one of whom said he was too skint to be buying music all the time, but "on the plus side, I pretty much hate everybody. So I could pretend to like the shitty thrill-free dubstep etc that this generation farts out, but I'm not going to." That's rather refreshing, methinks. And he sounds like half my mates.

A massive thank you to everybody for collaborating on this piece. And again, here's the whole playlist in one playable list which enables you to play it as one big list of playness, entirely without listlessness.

Two Fingers drops seven shades of gangsta

Hip hop experimentalist Two Fingers has "dropped" a "phat" one.

As I explained in this post in January, Two Fingers is blunted beat bossman Amon Tobin and fellow Brazilian beat-botherer Doubleclick. Their debut album, also called Two Fingers, hit the "streets" in April.

And it's a right cracking listen. Er... I mean... it's a "sick" record.

The presence of MC Sway (pictured above with Doubleclick and Tobin) and grimesters like Durrty Goodz leads you to think this could be a two dimensional hip hop offering. In the hands of the Tobin, however, that was never going to happen.

Instead, among the lightning rhymes, the Two Fingers album is a glistening techno monster that tunnels to the scuzzy depths of synth buggery (on Keman Rhythm and Bad Girl, for example) and claws its way to the hilly heights of progressive big beat (on That Girl) and ketamine-drenched Timbalandia* (on Not Perfect).

It feels like we've got back the Amon Tobin of old, apart from two inescapable factoids.

Factoid A: Amon never went away. Factoid B: it's not old Tobin at all. Thanks to Doubleclick, this album is truly modern, gloriously harsh and beautifully experimental. Or, in the dialect of the "hood", it's somewhat "brap", seven shades of "gangsta" and it most certainly has got "da goods".

Innit.

* noun. In the style of producer Timbaland.

Fingers, fists and big squelchy buttons: new singles from Amon Tobin, Syntheme and HudMo

If I stuck two fingers in your face, you'd quite rightly twaz me round the chops with your broomstick.

But if I stuck Two Fingers in your face-- note the capitalization-- you'd quite rightly hold me and squeeze me and call me George.*

That's because Two Fingers is a collaborimification between smoke-hazed Ninja Tune sample king Amon Tobin (pictured) and electronic artist Doubleclick.

The first digital single of that partnership hit like a freight train this week.  What You Know has been hailed as Blade Runner played out in Tottenham.  If the streets of London are strewn with paper unicorns after this post publishes, you know why.  The single fuses hip hop and drum 'n' bass, as a twitchy nod to the early DJ Food era of Ninja Tune Records.  Mercury nominee MC Sway grimes things up good and proper with an angry rant on racial stereotypes, and it's entertaining to see Tobin make room for the vocals by stepping back from the wall-of-sound big fistedness he's known for.

The Two Fingers chaps will drop an album, which I believe will be titled eponymously, closer to Easter. 

Also out this week is Syntheme's daringly titled 12" Syntheme Vol 2.  The key word here is "squelch".  She gets a Roland TB-303 Bass Line synthesiser and pummels it until it's squelchy.  She recreates a banging acid rave in a basement by pressing a big red button labelled 'squelch'.  She squelches like no other: a fine 12" from Planet Mu Recordings.

Hudson Mohawke's new EP Polyfolk Dance is out today(ish).  He's been banging out tracks for ten years, and since he's only 22, that makes me sick.  In fact, I'm already fed up with him, so I'm not going to tell you about him justifying all the hype, about how your ears will find him outrageously addictive, and about how he's working on The Best Album Of 2009 Maybe (which will be fawned over extensively on this site - stay tuned).

*one of my favourite Looney Tunes quotes, from 1961's Abominable Snow Rabbit.