1. James Holden - Imagine This is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities
Beautiful, evocative work which combines Holden’s lengthy period of freeform experimentation with his sharply honed ear for the rhythms and timbres of dance music. A work greater than the sum of its parts, and a shining example of what I have come to call pointillist electronic, joining the likes of Barker’s Utility in establishing a new palette for boundary pushing electronic music. Dense with meaning, but defies explication, so surrender to an attentive listen.
2. Maara - The Ancient Truth
Maybe the finest LP of its kind. Maara creates a world of warm atmospheres dripping with a hypnotic, woozy quality. While there are a couple dance tracks, the LP really shines in the downtempo tracks which offer a rich vein of a sound that is more elusive than it appears: druggy breakbeat that instantly evokes 4am in the long forgotten chill out rooms of underground raves, with bodies sprawled across each other, massages, doses, and conversation flowing in unexpected directions.
3. LA Priest - Fase Luna
Another stellar LP from one of our finest working musicians. Fase Luna explores some of the more melancholy tones of 2020s Gene, with delicate constellations of guitar nestled in a body moving miasma of syncopated percussion on a bed of burbling basslines. Heartfelt, rending, and cohesive to the extent that it can be difficult to distinguish individual tracks (though No More and It’s You shine nevertheless). It just so happens LA Priest is one of our finest working live performers, effortlessly delivering his idiosyncratic sound with remarkable vocal ability, guitar tone, and a charming handmade backing band in a box, all with an immediacy and stage presence that make for an unforgettable show.
4. Andrea - Due in Color
While Andrea’s last LP Ritorno impressed, his latest stuns with a collection of glittering landscapes overflowing with optimism, well suited to soundtrack long drives, late mornings, or leisurely strolls. Deploying his considerable mastery of the technical aspect of electronic production in service of a certain strain of positive introspection, Andrea has provided a beautifully produced companion for awe inspiring views. Deftly avoiding the navel gazing quality that often accompanies such technically skilled producers, Due in Color finds Andrea putting his skill to good use.
5. Nico Georis - Cloud Suites
After encountering Nico Georis live at Leaving Records’ monthly Listen to Music in the Daylight Under a Tree series, I was taken with his approach to piano. Taking full advantage of the ease of access to all the notes of the scale, as well as the pianos twinkly timbre, Nico Georis uses the instrument to imitate a brook shimmering in the sun, rainbow sparkles refracted in a cherished memory. While I was enamored of his previously released Desert Mirror, Cloud Suites belongs among the great works of instrumental music. From the first notes, the heart melts, evaporates, and drifts along cradled by the precise actuations of Georis’ melodic expression. A sense of natural beauty, wonder, and gratitude shine through the 43 minutes of bliss, inspiring the listener to consider their own approach to living. One of the great works.
6. ML Buch – Suntub
This is one of those records whose cover became ubiquitous among some of the twitter folk whose music tastes I respect immediately upon release. A cover image of a guitar stock sparkling in the sunshine of a field of dry grass, obscuring the face of the long-haired musician primes a traditional folk exercise. Buch manages to deliver that experience, while simultaneously exploring sounds and textures that reference new age, trip hop, downtempo, and electronica. Buch reassures the musical omnivore with a style that reflects a knowledge of the terrain of modern experimental music, building on it, and establishing a sonic landscape of her own. Technics aside, her songwriting is what makes the project work, with reassuring vocal melodies resting on bedazzlingly configured instrumental beds. I wonder if your Carole King loving mother would be as entranced by this record as I am, but I think one day my kids will show me some daft exercise in experimental folk because they think their ML Buch loving father might understand it.
7. MIKE – Burning Desire
The latest LP from off kilter hip hop pioneer MIKE is his best yet. Winding between the kind of abstract mood pieces he elevated to the alternative rap canon, more straightforward beats, and heavy experimental club fare, MIKE’s voice remains clearly focused. An uplifiting quality persists throughout, even when it contrasts with the textures of the underlying music. It’s nice to see MIKE produce a clear entry in the canon of classic hip hop LPs after his profound influence on the direction of Earl Sweatshirt’s work.
8. 100 Gecs - 10,000 Gecs
I hated this album on first listen. The eagerly awaited second LP from 100 Gecs sees them exploring pop punk with a hint of nu metal and ska. While adventurous compared to most records, it’s a much more focused sound than that of 1000 Gecs, which saw the Gecs dip into a dozen genres per minute in a scattershot assessment of modern pop production. On my second listen, the album was undeniable, and I found myself playing it over and over again, cranked to the max in the shitty soundsystem of my rental car (much more suitable than the comparably hi fidelity airpods of my first listen). While maybe not the album I was hoping for, it’s an undeniable collection of anthemic earworms. When I saw them at the Palladium, the thousands of young fans moshed relentlessly with a fervor I had never encountered before, and it’s hard to argue with that kind of enthusiasm.
9. Ssaliva – sector6park/counterfeit
No one does the warm embrace of melancholy like Ssaliva. The producer returns with another stellar LP, following up on the also excellent Honeycomb EP released earlier this year. Blown out and chopped up folk textures compete for air with twinkling synth melodies in the record’s stiflingly compressed 38 minutes. The chopped, screwed, and distorted folk of 2020’s God Room & I’m the One with No Soul joins the heartbreaking synth melodies of his release as nevrland on DUMB ME DOWN to make for his most evocative palette yet. Technique aside, the songwriting sets the record apart, conjuring winding roads, forgotten friends, and the struggle of finding comfort in a decaying world. With this record Ssaliva further cements his place as one of electronic music’s most compelling voices.
10. Draag - Dark Fire Heresy
I was blown away by this record. Beautiful songs, beautifully produced, overflowing with heartbreaking vocal melodies. Heavy uplifting shoegazey guitar music with a couple of flirtations with dance structures. Absolutely ideal for soundtracking a sunset drive down Mulholland.
11. Electric / Acoustic - Easyfun
As a PC Music obsessive, even I never really found a way into the music of Finn Keane, and his work as Easyfun. This last year, with the release of Electric, Acoustic, and Thy Slaughter’s Soft Rock, I have finally come to appreciate his sensibility. His sneeringly perfect approach to composition and production borders on unlistenably contrived, but instead manages to be infectous across the companion LPs. On Electric we find Keane chiseling a sonic approach shared only by Doss, with post Sophie splice sonics that are so clean as to be challenging in their own right. The songwriting itself has a similar aspect – with an uncanny algorithmic quality that somehow achieves an effect not dissimilar to distorted guitar, where the strain of the signal tearing at the seams of the medium has a simultaneously abrasive and enrapturing effect. On Acoustic that songwriting sensibility takes center stage as Keane channels his abilities into more traditional pop/rock structures. I find myself returning to Acoustic over and over, finding comfort in what may appear as pristine pastiche at first glance. Over time, his voice emerges, and displays an earnestness unmistakable in a pop landscape almost completely devoid of such expression.
12. Thy Slaughter - Soft Rock
In a more or less surprise LP release, Easyfun and A. G. Cook deliver a slab of pop-rock composed entirely of rough edges. Sharing some sonic qualities with the pop punk by way of experimental pop explorations of 10k Gecs, Slaughter deploys the tones in service of the winkingly heart rending melodies Cook and Fun have been honing for the last decade. The back half of the record is especially strong, but the whole project is a worthy celebration of the decade of PC Music, and potentially a window into what is to come from the lovable lads.
13. Simo Cell - Cuspide Des Sirenes
The experimental bass musician shines in the LP format with an unlikely triumph. Held together by the promise of a narrative involving sirens of some kind, the contours of which play out primarily in the track names, Sirenes winds through various shades of heavy off kilter dance, liberated by the format to explore extended melodic sequences which might harsh the dancefloor vibe.
14. Mikkel Rev - The Art of Levitation
The Ute.Rec mainstay released this LP on Los Angeles ambient / downtempo label A Strangely Isolated Place showcasing his mastery of trance timbres. Across expansive tracks, Rev cements his place alongside Global Communication as a master of the form of introspective chill out, before ascending to trance valhalla on the anthemic Insula. While this LP is easier to point to as it has the contours of an Important Release, Rev’s TRANS10 and TRANS11, released on Ute.Rec sublabel Translusid, are every bit as strong, making for nearly four hours of exceptional electronica in the LP format released this last year alone by the Norwegian. Dive into Ute.Rec and sublabels Translusid, and Sinesis for more from the burgeoning Norwegian trance scene.
15. Anthony Naples – Orbs
On the follow up to 2021’s Chameleon, Anthony Naples bridges the gap between the mellow guitary explorations of that LP and the muscular dance music for which he is otherwise known. Orbs sits gently in the background, pulsing with a warm embrace. It somehow evades consideration, slippery and natural, as if it washed up on the shore. I almost forgot to include it in this list, and routinely forget that it’s one of the great works of mellow electronica. The comparatively dazzling Chameleon draws attention with unique instrumentation and an unabashedly psychedelic cover, but Orbs recedes, deflects, generously directing attention to the present moment in time and space.
16. Purelink – Signs
Perfumed air drifts over dense roots in this exploration of ambient dub. Tracks give the illusion of being frozen in time, establishing themselves and recurring, not static, but without propulsive force. It has been a challenge to make time for this record, as it refuses to sit gently in the background, drawing the listener in with its combination of heavy bass and barely there atmospherics. It is that recursive, arresting quality that mystifies me most, seemingly reversing time itself. Play this in any space and it becomes an immersive art exhibit. A deceptively challenging release worthy of consideration.
17. Simo Cell - Cuspide Des Sirenes
The experimental bass musician shines in the LP format with an unlikely triumph. Held together by the promise of a narrative involving sirens of some kind, the contours of which play out primarily in the track names, Sirenes winds through various shades of heavy off kilter dance, liberated by the format to explore extended melodic sequences which might harsh the dancefloor vibe.
18. Dinamarca - Soñao
Establishing himself with his latin club interpretations of trance classics on 2017’s Himnos, Dinamarca has continued to explore a blend of latin club rhythms and melancholic, euphoric melodies (trance is almost always both). This is his finest work yet, with wistful synths drifting between heavy syncopated drums. Minute long tracks with melodies worthy of extended epics give the breezy 21 minutes of soñao a density that rewards repeat listens.
19. Jeans – Meng
After years of sparse releases, Jeans released Meng, the 22 track 152 minute epic spanning techno, experimental, and downtempo on his own recently established label Oracle Bones. The record contextualizes Jeans heavy, esoteric techno among beautifully rendered ambient explorations and chill out cuts with the sensibility of a DJ set, which is often missing from pure downtempo artists’ output. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that perhaps my favorite example of techno in the LP format comes in the form of a 2h30 release, as the genre really needs room to show its potential. The closing track has the only feature of the record, mystic techno breakout Spekki Webu, and the pair flex their ritualistic prowess across 12 minutes of 164 bpm kicks. The title Meng, an I Ching symbol meaning youthful folly, demonstrates the same kind of layered inventiveness present across the 150 minutes of the record.
20. Beta Librae – Daystar
This record was my introduction to Beta Librae. I was enticed by a feature from James K, who also features on Scorpio, maybe the best track of the last year, so I strapped in for a listen in the car. The first couple of songs on Daystar welcomed me in with precise breakbeat downtempo cloaked in warm atmospherics. As the record goes on, it adds chugging four on the floor with skittering percussion and psychedelic flourishes to the palette. By the record’s end, you are left with an experience not unlike an instrumental playlist but with a cohesive energy that conjures a distinct psychic atmosphere. Well suited for psychedelic excursions in your local park or living room.
21. Khotin - Release Spirit
The latest from Khotin is a WoW inspired LP that is maybe my favorite from the Canadian whose consistency is easy to take for granted. Still present are his melancholic gestures and lofi textures, but with a propulsive force sometimes missing from his previous work. I waffle on the value of such easy listening, lofi beats adjacent material, but his live av performance reassured me that the depth I perceive in his work is really there, as his music was contextualized among nostalgic camcorder footage of malls, suburban architecture, vhs crystals, and mystical cg castles. In that context what could easily be mistaken for algorithmic fodder was shown to be thoughtfully rendered explorations of liminality, human connection, and cultural decay.
22. Moufang & Czamanski - Recreational Kraut
Lured in by a sprawling 21 minute atmospheric piano piece, the nearly two hour Recreational Kraut unfurls as an exploration of electronica spanning house, tripped out jazz, downtempo, and challenging experimental atmospherics. Those familiar with Moufang’s work as Move D on Fax in particular will be at home here, as will those familiar with Czamanski’s work as Jordan GCZ or Jordash. A gentle foggy late morning sensibility runs throughout and makes the record a worthy companion.
23. V/A - Rift Two
YEAR001’s second in a series of V/A compilations kicked off 2023 with a wide-ranging assessment of the state of electronic pop. Including acts like RIP Swirl, Mechatok, Thaiboy Digital, TDJ, Ecco2k, Snow Strippers, ssaliva, Himera among a slew of acts unfamiliar to me, Rift Two is an overture for the next decade of electronic pop. Teasing out a shared sensibility from disparate scenes, Rift Two reflects the emotional landscape of a global constellation of emerging artists. Can’t wait for the next entry in the series.