60 best electronic music albums of 2021: SectorSept, Steven Rutter, Stigma, Tristan Arp & Ulrich Schnauss

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

SectorSept – 954 (Gobstopper Records)

Pssst, mate. Don't tell anyone, but technically this is an EP. It shouldn't be on the list. If you tell anyone, I'll slice ya. Anyhoo, Mr. Mitch's Gobstopper label presents this delicious techno, er, album from this UK / Florida producer. The low-slung beats cast a line between UK bass music and smooth US electro, its low-res vocal samples only adding to the urban atmosphere. Not an artist I've encountered before, so I'll be watching keenly for future releases. A real head-nodder. Say nuthin', alright? Nudge nudge, wink wink, flap flap.

Steven Rutter – Riddle Me Sane (FireScope Records) 

Steven who? This is the bloke from legendary Artificial Intelligence act B12. The best thing? He's pretty much doing his B12 thing. Which is all kinds of fantastic. Electronic bloops, skippy snares. dubby bass, gorgeous early Warp vibes. There's a bleepy bit towards the start of the album which I want to either woo into marriage or take on a horrendously dirty weekend away. A melodic treat where, in the vein of classic ambient dub of the Warp variety, the machines truly feel alive.

Stigma – Too Long (Pessimist Productions)

A marching band staggers around the corner. They pound their drums but they're smashed on illegal grog. They stagger into bins, trip over kerbs. The guy at the back, the one with the cymbals, has been mounted by a squid. Welcome to the world of Stigma, the new name for Kristian 'Pessimist' Jabs. Big fat trip hop beats crumble into a pool of post-Massive Attack misery while wiggly bits of electronica splash around at the edges. This damn funk is sliced through with the spirit of Bristol. What a triumph.

Tristan Arp – Sculpturegardening (Wisdom Teeth)

Arp, who counts Arca as a former classmate, created this lilting electronic album during lockdown in Mexico City, a time when many of us were solo-journeying into nature. Sculpturegardening was inspired by Alan Titchmarsh. Oh, hold on. Not Alan specifically. It was inspired by gardening generally, and has a natural, dappled feel thanks to its wavering harmonics and soft cello sounds. Considering the generative processes he used, the result is remarkably pretty. An album for stopping and smelling the Alans. Roses, I mean. Smelling the roses.

Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters – Destiny Waiving (Bureau B) 

"I’ve never been massaged by puppies on a bed of candy floss," I wrote in Electronic Sound magazine, "but these serene sounds probably come close." I praised the album's "neon pink hallucination of bright open guitar chords and chains of blissful harmonics" before having second thoughts about my opening image. "Maybe not puppies. Kittens, perhaps. Really fluffy ones." Oh dear. Anyhow, this is all jolly and cheerful because it's Schnauss and you know what you're getting with Schnauss. "Possibly turtles?" I wrote. Blimey. Shut up, Fats.

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

Best electronic albums of 2020: nineteen

19 – Dangerw*nk – Your Card Has Been Declined (Salmon Universe)

I've starred out part of Dangerw*nk's name because I'm pretty sure Blogger still has some unforgiving filters. Which is a shame, because the only danger here is listening to this album then exploding with sheer electronic joy.

Your Card Has Been Declined was the leftfield surprise of the year. In Electronic Sound magazine, I called this "Ulrich Schnauss for an Instagram generation". Bright electronic anthem after bright electronic anthem. I even liked the saxophone.

And what anthems. Woman Laughing Alone With Salad is a chocolate-sprinkled Sakamoto. An Attractively Priced Two Bedroom Flat In A Sought After Location is a new-born Plone, full of possibilities for the future. And yes, those are the real titles.

I do wonder if this album stayed under the radar for some people because of the ungoogleable name. Which would be a pity because this is an absolute d*light, a bright shining st*r in a dark year. Listen to it, you f*ckers.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Best electronic albums of 2016: six

6 – Ulrich Schnauss – No Further Ahead Than Today (Scripted Realities)

When I reviewed this for Electronic Sound, I used words like “sweet” and “saccharine” and “sugar”. I think Mojo likened this to being “like being dosed up with dopamine.” Too much for repeated visits, right? Yet here it is in the top 10 for 2016.

This is the Christmas cake stuck between your teeth. It’s the cheese selection sitting in your belly. It’s every sweet thing that has ever existed. Singing, chord changes, epic swell after epic swell, the perkiest keyboards under the sun. Oh my. I need a lie down.

With A Strangely Isolated Place and Goodbye behind Ulrich Schnauss, this feels like a late-career album. After all, he’s got Tangerine Dream to concentrate on now. Even more impressive then that No Further Ahead Than Today is so technicolour, so smorgasbord, so... everything. And I love it.



Scroll all of the best 2016 electronic albums by clicking here.

Listen (and cry) to Ulrich Shnauss's Love Grows Out Of Thin Air

Crikes. Ulrich Schnauss is now a member of ancient electronic totums Tangerine Dream. I suspect that passed a lot of people by with the death of the group's founder Edgar Froese.

Next month, Schnauss will release his first solo studio album since joining the Dream.

No, that's not a good shortening of their name. The Tange. TanDr?

Anyway, it's called No Further Ahead Than Today and Thump just premiered a cut from that album called Love Grows Out Of Thin Air. You can watch it above.

I'll warn you now. The video is heartbreaking. Props to its director Sean James Garland. It's the life sequence from Up; it's the garbage incineration scene from Toy Story 3; it's the wacky banter between the M&Ms in the cinema adverts.

Wait. No, not that last one.

I've just penned a review of Schnauss's album for Electronic Sound magazine. Love Grows isn't the best track on the album, but it's pretty typical of its sweet euphoria.