Best electronic music albums of 2025: poking my eyes out with a stick

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

I hope you're enjoying my end-of-year blog posts. There are a few more summaries to come, and then we can get into the Top 20 Bangers. This selection can be loosely labelled IDM, or armchair techno, or Braindance, or whatever the heck you want to call it. Oh and some of it is electro, not IDM. And some of it is... oh never mind, just get reading.

Blackploid – Cosmic Drama (Central Processing Unit)

German producer Blackploid has had a lot of fun with his latest album. Flirty drum machine patterns get hot and sweaty with growling basslines, with plenty of digital dramatics, Imagine a bunch of robots short-circuiting on the dancefloor. A touch of Drexciyan humanity in the enjoyably robotic world of Central Processing Unit.

Bogdan Raczynski – Slow Down Stupid (Disciples)

He's featured multiple times in my end-of-year lists. This is meant to be a slowed-down version of his 2024 album You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever. So skippy noodlings become woozy soup, and everything becomes a bit of a ketamine entity. It's how I felt in my maths exams. Weirdly enjoyed learning the numbers and stuff, but the exams turned my brain to mush.

The Flashbulb – Papillon (self-released)

Let's pop Stateside to see what The Flashbulb is up to. This short album is a rather fluffy addition an otherwise intricate catalogue of works. The beats skip merrily, the synth lines dance about t he keyboard, and the nu-jazz vibes style it out with confidence. It's neat stuff and probably a good entry point for people wanting to get into IDM stylings.

µ-Ziq – 1979 & Manzana (Balmat)

These pair of Mike Paradinas albums were released a week apart, so I'll deal with them with one entry. This is µ-Ziq in contemplative mode, in with his signature melting-clock chords are even drippier than normal. Manzana in particular has some serious heroin haze, and if some of this work isn't used in horror soundtracks, I will poke my eyes out with a stick. Or a µ-Ztick.

Ship Sket – InitiatriX (Planet Mu)

In music's underbelly is the belly button itself: it's moist and mucky, and exactly where we find Manchester producer Ship Sket's debut album. Frequencies collide in this dark mix of grime, shattered techno and distended footwork. Listen to Casting Call's caustic EBM collapse into a circuit-bent piano disaster. You want to look away but you can't.

Wagon Christ – Planet Roll (De:tuned)

Hallelujah! Christ has returned! It's classic Luke Vibert, which, for those new to his formula, consists of party beats, end-of-the-pier synth wibbles, and a phalanx of playful vocal samples. "Bitch!" say the samples on Bitch. It's doesn't break new ground, but why should it? Vibert doing Vibert is a joy, and mid-album track Acid is up there as one of his bestest ever tunes

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Best electronic albums of 2020: eighteen

18 – Wagon Christ – Recepticon (People of Rhythm Records)

Wagon Christ used to be everywhere. He'd spout his daft block-rockin' beats, and us disciples would follow in his sandals, witnessing his miracles, lapping up his communion wafers, er, nuzzling his Jesus beard, um, I think I've lost control of this metaphor.

Recepticon is the long-awaited return of Luke Vibert's experimental moniker, which was originally a Rising High ambient project but quickly became the go-to name for accessible experimental dance music. It gave me instant flashbacks to my DJing days in the 1990s: the speed breaks of 1998's Lovely were a delight to mix.

So we have wonky downbeat, loping grooves, fat acid, party samples ("Hello, everybody!") and self-referential track titles like Boogie Serious and Special Designer Song. He throws it all into the bag then empties out a rag-tag jumble of retro fun. It's Wagon Christ at his best.

Come O Wagon Christ. Fill us with your loaves and fish. Let us exalt you by, erm, signing up to the church newsletter. Let us do something with a hassock even though we're not quite sure what it is. Crikes, these Jesus metaphors really are adding nothing.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

The big beaters are back: new Wagon Christ and Prefuse 73 albums ahoy

Wagon Christ is to wheel out new material in the autumn.

Ninja Tune are planning a 20th anniversary compilation called XX, and have been giving away free music on this site as a free bone for all the barking music bloggers.

When they gave away an old Wagon Christ mix (the label never released it because of uncleared samples), Ninja Tune revealed September's anniversary compilation will contain a new Wagon Christ track - and they promised a new long-player too.

Wagon Christ is the 17-year-old alter-ego for acid artist Luke Vibert. Christ helped define electronic music in the 1990s before getting caught up, to some extent, in the big beat revival and the cut-and-paste chic of Ninja Tune.

As far as I can remember, the Christ the wheeled wonder hasn't released a jot since his Sorry I Make You Lush LP in 2004.

Meanwhile, beat-splicer Prefuse 73 is working on a female-voiced album and has given a shout-out to TyBo on this blog post about the new project. His collaborators will include experimental rocker Zola Jesus, Angel from the Bjork-collaborating Dirty Projectors and Trish from Warp Record's dreamy Brummie band Broadcast.

The sharper-goggled readers among you will note none of this is terribly new news, but I have an awful lot of catching up to do - and anyway, I haven't finished drinking the bromide from my Manchester blogmeet write-up the other day.

Original photo: Stuart Holt

Audio lampposts: Luke Vibert straightens up his Rhythm

A four-day break in blogging? Pah. I may as well throw my computer into the sea.

I've been rather busy, though, with an unusual project for an electronic music writer. For the past 48 hours, I have been dipping a tentative toe into the whale-infested waters of Christian radio.

We play some cool (and some not-so-cool) music by Christians, from the likes of Sufjan Stevens, Demon Hunter and Richard Swift, and sometimes we smash things up with a hammer in the name of God. You can follow my exploits on the Theatre Of Noise website, where you will also find a link to the programme's Twitter page.

While you wait for normal service to resume, why not amuse yourself with an old favourite of mine. As I said in this post last week, acid funboy Luke Vibert (pictured with Jean Jacques Perry and a Moog) has tidied up his beats somewhat for the hip hop sounds of Rhythm.

Rhythm brings together a handful of EPs released on Japanese label Sound Of Speed. It's the sight of an electronic genuis very much not throwing the rattle out of his pram. The beats are straight and orderly. Like rhythmic lampposts.

"Is this important?" declares a very serious sounding robot on Sparky Is A Retard. No, not really. It won't go down as Vibert's best album: file this album next to those MoWax-type breaks compilations you used to collect when you were learning to scratch.

Or indeed, file it next to your favourite Wagon Christ discs... which might well go down on Christian radio, now I come to think of it.