Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: bassoons, neuroscience and fine-tuned Lynyn loops

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

Lynyn: Ixona (Sooper Records)

Despite all the letters of complaint, my 2025 album series continues. Only a few more entries to go, and then we can start our 2026 properly. 

Lynyn’s first album Lexicon was in my 2022 end-of-year list. My review for Electronic Sound magazine called it “the brain half of braindance”. Intelligent beats and all that. And now, like a very good football team scoring two goals in the space of three years, he’s back in my end-of-year list.

It’s still brainy. Lynyn is one of those clever people. He’s a proper academic and probably has, like, all 26 letters after his name. And some Greek ones too. He’s classically-trained in composition, plays guitar in an avant-jazz band, and knows a lot about bassoons and neuroscience. No really. He knows a lot about bassoons and neuroscience.

However, this second album, released by Sooper Records based in his hometown of Chicago, is a spookier affair. Gloops of haunting ambience. Pin-point drum clicks. He gets the big guns out on Versilitude, a grizzly roller that, still, finds itself entangled in a web of intricate, cocooning electronics. It’s like Burial covering Squarepusher. Squarial.

As inspiration for Ixona, he listened to dub techno pioneers like Pole and Basic Channel. Pole was first featured on this blog in August 2007, dontcha know. An especial inspiration was the speckled static of Jan Jelinek’s 2001 masterpiece Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records. That would be a great companion listen to Ixona.

The closing piece Pad 4 U is a lovely palate cleanser. A trombone skips merrily over a beanbag-flopped dubstep rhythm. Is there anything this man’s brain can’t do?

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: E's aren't good – Clark is back at his best

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

Clark: Steep Sims (Throttle)

Can I please get something off my chest? In their write-up for this album, Boomkat compare one of Clark’s tracks to “his namesake Vince Clarke”. This is wrong. Clarke cannot be a namesake for Clark, nor vice versa. One has an E and the other doesn’t. It’s like saying Iain and Ian are the same name. Absolutely not. Iains with two i’s are salt of the earth, their hearts pure. Ians with one solitary i are all sub-human scum. Namesake indeed. Pah.

Clark had this album without fuss and in record time. He relied on a Virus synthesiser for a dancefloor feel – you’ll know its sound: think of the Prodigy in full techno mode. The result is Clark at his most ravey and most rebelliously bleepy.

The start is brilliant: on Gift And Wound, ghostly chords glow as the rave synths line-up for a full-on assault. The words bumps and goose come to mind, not necessarily in that order. The middle is brilliant too: on Globecore Flats, a fussy breakbeat leads the saddest detuned rave in history. And the end is brilliant: the fuzz of Micro Lyf is Clark at his most emotional.

No rich soundtracking or obtuse electronics here. Clark has gifted us perhaps his most in-your-face work on Steep Sims. Reducing his toolbox of available gear has clearly worked. He says his Virus synth was awkward to program, as a lot of old gear would be. You wouldn’t think it. This is Clark-with-no-e at his natural best.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: the Arrakis spice is strong with Nadah El Shazly

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

Nadah El Shazly: Laini Tani (One Little Independent)

Who agreed to writing this blog series over five whole days? I’ve not been out, not been to the shops, not got any fresh air. I’ve been hunched over my laptop eating cheese strings and bashing my face at the keyboard until blog posts accidentally appear on my screen. What a life.

For this latest entry in my Top 20 Bangers of 2025, we’re looking east and west, for the Egypt-born Canada-based Nadah El Shazly. As long as you don’t try to look at the two places at the same time, you’ll be fine.

Her second album combines acoustic and electric experimentalism with Arabic vibes. The title of the album, Laini Tani or لاقيني تاني in Arabic, means something like “meet me again”. It’s about longing for home. In fact, the whole thing feels like longing.

Let’s start with the vocals, sinewy and sweltering, sounding like Natacha Atlas if she had been left in the baking hot sun. The sound simultaneously mournful, as if lamenting into the void, and richly hopeful and significant.

The singing foregrounds compelling organic electronics. Listen to the heart-tickling slow drum procession of Kaabi Aali with that waterfalling synth tones. The floor-shattering bass drop on Dafaa Robaai. The bourgeoning clamour of Ghorzetein, sounding like an army of Bjorks.

That latter comparison isn’t entirely fair – she is nothing like Bjork – but the instrumentation on this album is addictive, like Arrakis spice. I have a feeling that Bjork producer and LFO bleepist Mark Bell would hear this album and smile.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Call Super would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids

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

Call Super: A Rhythm Protects One (Dekmantel)

I have a policy of not featuring compilation albums in my end-of-year lists. Otherwise my lists will be full of Ibiza Classic Choons Volume 92 or Now That’s What I Call Breakcore (Unplugged). No compilations. That’s the rule.

The next album in my Top 20 Bangers of 2025 is a compilation from London techno experimentalist Call Super. He has gathered the greatest names in crepuscular micro-techno for a blockbusting collection of pristine, wonky beats.

There’s Call Super himself with the caffeinated bossanova garage of Waterways. Conny Slipp turns up for the Blue Sun pairing: a bluesy clarinet heats up a snuffling scatter-beat. Louis Lupin gets all spacey on Lululu. A defiant Eye Gritt treadmills his machines into a flurry on Same Battles.

Except, it’s not a compilation. It’s a trick. All of these artists are Call Super. Conny is Call Super. Louis is Call Super. This whole album is Call Super in the guise of his various projects and pseudonyms. What a reveal! This is his Keyser Söze / Wizard of Oz / fairground owner out of Scooby Doo moment.

The album includes a mixed DJ set of all of the tracks. Which feels like the point of A Rhythm Protects One. In the days of Spotify’s lug-eared shuffle function, which has the curational integrity of a labrador writing a crossword, mainstream DJ mixes feel like a thing of the past. Call Super is reclaiming the mix CD, albeit it in his usual opaque, tricksy and delightfully entertaining fashion.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: BICEP MAKE THEIR (UPPER) CASE WITH CHROMA

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

Bicep: CHROMA 000 (CHROMA)

If you’ve just started reading, welcome to the list of my 20 favourite electronic music albums of 2025. My Top 20 Bangers. You are welcome here. Just make sure you use a coaster, and stick to using the downstairs toilet unless you’re having a number two. Next on my list: Bicep.

Nearly two years ago, Bicep launched Chroma. It’s stylised in capital letters, but I can’t be doing with that kind of nonsense. Chroma was designed to be a record label, an event series, an audiovisual show, a dry cleaners, a cure to trenchfoot and my drag name. Well. Some of those, anyway.

The music side of Chroma displayed Bicep’s club chops. For example, Chroma 001 Helium, released in January 2024, sounded like a usual catchy Bicep track after it has been shoved into a swamp by a particularly angry crocodile. Snappy stuff.

So here are all the Chroma tracks gathered onto one album. There’s the exhaust-fumed fast pace of Chroma 002 LAVA, the reactionary clamour of Chroma 04 Rola, the sad-emoji breaks and arpeggio redemption of Chroma 005 ALOE, and the uncompromising mechanical samba of Chroma 009 KR36.

It might be the case that Bicep have sacrificed some of their emotion in favour of, as cool clubs kids would say, dropping a phat one. But I love it when my favourite artists step out of their comfort zone, even if they do choose track titles so obtuse, you might think they’re selling Ikea furniture. And yeah, that’s Ikea not IKEA. I told you. I’m not having it.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: Rival Consoles is back, despite my best efforts

 

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

Rival Consoles: Landscape from Memory (Erased Tapes)

Time waits for no man, and blogging waits for no, er, blogger. My 2025 albums list has been going on for days. Thanks for bearing with me. There’s just so much good music to bang on about.

Rival Consoles has made regular appearances in my best-of lists over the years. I wrote about him in 2018 (“so sweet and so warm”), in 2020 (“oh my heart”), in 2021 (“another corker”) and in 2022 (“ah, that Rival Consoles shimmer”). I’ve used the word ‘shimmer’ a lot.

He then hit a creative block. So effusive was my praise that Ryan Lee West got all embarrassed and couldn’t write another note of Rival Consoles music. Probably.

Thank goodness he found his mojo again. Let’s poke some of the tracks and see what sound they make. Catherine leads with an graceful melody that is scattered amongst shuffling half-step. Gaivotas side-chains itself into a gasping melancholia. Tape Loop sounds like Jon Hopkins on a tiny choo-choo train.

Yes, it’s intricate. That’s what Consoles does. But in redrawing his musical landscape, he has straked his cinematic vision with primary colours. Big bold melodies, perhaps more so than ever before.

Before we get too pretentious in our muso talk, it’s worth noting that:

(a) Some of the drum sounds were recorded using his sofa. and

(b) ‘Ryan Lee West’ is an anagram of ‘weeny alerts’.

So let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I like this reinvigorated Rival Consoles a lot. Although I’d better not tell him that: if he gets too embarrassed, there might not be another album for a decade.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025

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

Top 20 electronic music albums of 2025: 160 reasons to like Sherelle's debut album

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

Sherelle: With A Vengeance (Impressed Recordings)

It’s the second day of January. 2026 has embedded itself like a persistent cold sore or the pigeons in your loft. However, I have two more days of blog posts highlighting my favourite 20 electronic music albums for 2025, and you’re not allowed to do any 2026 things until we’re done.

The publicity for Sherelle’s debut album calls it a “rally cry for the 160 scene”, which can mean one of three things. It’s an album bigging up people who are very good but not perfect at darts. It’s an album for users of the New Jersey bus service that runs past the Meadowlands Sports Complex. It’s an album for fans of high-energy electronic music.

Probably the latter. Dancefloor delectation abounds: the rubbery footwork of the defiant Don’t Need You; he rooftop sirens of the filthy With A Vengeance; the twin speed garage and propulsive jungle on Freaky (Just My Type), George Riley’s vocals adding a distinctly sweet flavour.

I saw Sherelle playing at the Repercussion club night a few weeks ago. She was on just after Special Request, another go-to for upfront party junglism. I should have taken notes if I had known she’d end up in my end-of-year list. Oh and shout out to the Leeds couple who had come over especially for the gig.

Where were we? Oh yes. Sherelle. With A Vengeance is the sound of a woman who has mastered her craft. She has previously presented a BBC radio programme about how The Winston's Hey Brother became the Amen Break. She knows what she’s doing regardless of BPM.

See all of my Best electronic music albums of 2025