Best electronic albums of 2014: ten

10 – Untold – Black Light Spiral (Hemlock Recordings) 

Sonic destroyer Untold prowls the basement of the music scene. Sometimes he pops up to work with the likes of LV, Roska and R&S Records, but he mostly prowls the sewers picking up scraps of dubstep and fashioning them into spiky, confident bass music such as his 2009 work for Hotflush Recordings.

His long-awaited debut album was, therefore, a curveball. Who knew that underneath the sewers were darker, more dangerous paths? On Black Light Spiral, we hear distorted electrocution (Strange Dreams), steamrollered reggae (Sing A Love Song) and Babadookian house horror (Doubles).

All confidence gone: just introversion and overwhelming malevolence.

[Click here for the full top ten]



Some also-rans

There are so many albums that didn't make the top ten. I'll attempt to list most of them.

Untold's other album Echo in the Valley (self-released) was a bit too experimental to be in the top ten. It was released on a USB stick y'know. I enjoyed the spectacularly-named Hieroglyphic Being And The Configurative Or Modular Me Trio's The Seer Of Cosmic Visions (Planet Mu), and part of me was in awe his second moniker I.B.M and the dense Eat My F*ck (Mathematics). More no-fi than lo-fi. Russell Haswell's noisy 37 Minute Work Out was inspired, it seems, by Paul Morley (Diagonal). Vladislav Delay returned to ambient on Visa (Ripatti Label), as did Function & Vatican Shadow on Games Have Rules (Hospital Records), although in a more industrial way. There was more claustrophobic murk on Ital's Endgame (Planet Mu), while labelmate Ekoplekz's Unfidelity (Planet Mu) may have had my favourite track title of the year ("Robert Rental") but its metallic noise didn't entirely click with me. Finally, I disqualified A Winged Victory For The Sullen 's Atomos (Erased Tapes) for being too classical, which is ridiculous because one of the top ten albums to come is definitely more than a little bit classical. Silly Fats.

[Click here for the full top ten]

No Burial was harmed in the making of this blog post: new tracks from LV, Actress, Pantha Du Prince

Time to find out what noises people have been making and say to them OI YOU LOOK AT YOUR NOISE.

LV and Untold

LV and Untold's track Beacon is so minimal, I'm not sure it exists. It's a terrifying slab of stretched-out, bass-whomping clicks and pokes, but it seems to nestle in a cold ether that exists neither here nor there. It's reality drawn out: the sound of loose cartilage if Burial's bones were all broken.

I like this for the Mount Kimbie remix because it achieves a staggering feat. It smears a load of choppy rave chords over the dubbiness of the original track and manages to make it sound more desolate, more textured, and more like Burial not only with broken bones but with his mealeable body stretched out like uncooked dough.

Actress

If running Werk Discs (Lone, Lukid, Zomby) gave his twiddly-knob hands enough to do, it's not showing because futuristic funkster Actress is busy churning out some massive music on Nonplus Records.

Machine And Voice is his latest, all broken funk and manufractured(TM) staccato bleeps, and not for the first time on this blog, I've found the real gem by flipping over to the b-side. Loomin' does what it says on the tin
(Nonplus Records) and is the highlight here because of the ferocity of the whirring robotics.

Pantha Du Prince

I'm delighted Pantha Du Prince's stand-out track Stick To My Side has not only got a single release, it has also got its own video that seems to mix two filmic moments from last year: the enthusiastic nightime dancing in Where The Wild Things Are and the eerie visit of the dybbuk in A Serious Man.

It's a smashing track that mixes clubbiness with curious off-tunes and it comes on this single with a thumping remix from Efdemi, an all-too-busy workout from Four Tet, and, on the digital version, a heavenly choirs and bells retake from Walls. As I've said before on this blog, I'm discovering house music again.

House music and really big eskimo hoods: some recent singles

Pantha Du Prince's dreamlike house haze on his spanking new album Black Noise has got me in the mood for some four-to-the-floor action. Never mind all that cut-and-paste broken beat crap. This week, I want my beats fixed up and looking sharp. Here are some recent house singles.

Raffertie

Raffertie (pictured) is Planet Mu's top drawer dance guru, beloved of grungy club types as well as the glossy hacks of Mixmag magazine. Recently, he's been getting some big-time snogs from Huw Stephens, Rob Da Bank and Dame Mary Anne Hobbs. Which is nice.

7th Dimension is Raffertie's newest single, and while the title is not as classic as last year's Wobble Horror!, there is ample to restrain your thumbs from twiddling. It's a whooping high-energy flare of rave house, convulsing from snare stab attacks and swirling, persistent vocals.

The b-side, String Theory, sounds like a melancholic Way Out West experimenting with a wobble-board for a bassline. 7th Dimension is the better cut, and reminds me a little of Hospital Records' more zealous moments - without the junglism.

Floating Points

His bubbly 2-stepper J+W Beat enjoyed more than a play or three on my phone last year, so unfurl the bunting because electronic polymath* Floating Points has dropped a brand new track called People's Potential.

He's not just torn a leaf from Luke Vibert's book: he's photocopied way beyond the legal limit to produce a thumping, nagging acid work-out with wailing synths and both hush puppies planted solidly on the dance floor.

Track it down if you can, but I warn you, it's a limited edition one-sided white label. And they're harder to find than Lil Wayne's self-respect.

The XX

I've saved the best for last: a superb cacophony of remixes of one of the best indie bands of the past 12 months. There are several remixes of The XX track, Islands. And they're all fab.

Untold culled the coldness of The XX, secreted it in an igloo somewhere north of Alaska, hurled it into Heston Blumenthal's deep freezer, and fashioned a dubstep remix so startlingly chilly, your ears will ice over at the mere notion of listening to it. Pardon? Exactly. It's tribal, like Zulu, but in eskimo hoods, really big eskimo hoods.

The Blue Nile's version of Islands shimmers and ripples, simple piano and electric guitar adding a nagging theme to the sparse vocals, while Nosaj Thing interprets the track as astral ambience. Delorean flings us back to the warm world of 90s intelligent techno, and, finally, Falty DL makes it sound like Tricky's record player's broken.

Okay, I veered away from house music at the end, there, but I don't like my beats too neat: if it ain't unfixed, I'm gonna broke it. You can quote me on that. (Please don't.)

* I only call him this because he can play the piano too.