2008 Top Long-Players
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Claro Intelecto – Metanarrative (Modern Love, 2008) Quiet sounds for midnight brooding bleed into crisp 4/4 classics made for the darker corners of the warehouse. Unfurling like one 40-minute song, it’s a stunning arc built from a minimal palette – and it’s one of electronic music’s most thoughtful moments in recent memory. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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M83 – Saturdays = Youth (Mute, 2008) Anthony Gonzalez remains the king of full-tilt stadium anthems for wiping away your tears and running through sunny meadows. Not quite as epic or paranoid as Don’t Save Us from the Flames, Gonzalez gives us something better this time: proper pop songs that stick in your head without sacrificing M83’s trademark maximal sound. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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DJ Sprinkles – Midtown 120 Blues (Mule Musiq, 2008) Terre Thaemlitz is one of the few producers capable of pushing electronic music into the political realm without retreating into platitudes about how everybody’s dancing. His work & persona are a constant challenge and on Midtown 120 Blues, it sounds better than ever. The press release describes the album as “the rhythm of empty midtown dancefloors resonating with the difficulties of transgendered sex work, black market hormones, drug & alcohol addiction, racism, gender & sexual crises, unemployment, and censorship.” That’s a tall order for any album and in Midtown 120 Blues, you actually hear it. DJ Sprinkles – Ball’r (Madonna-Free Zone) Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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Move D & Benjamin Brunn – Songs from the Beehive (Smallville, 2008) Listen to the first two-minutes of “Honey” and you know you’re in instant-classic territory. The best features of electronic music are all here: the squelchy synth melody, insistent drums, and washes of fuzz and noise that transform the mechanical into the human. It’s this last part that makes “Song from the Beehive” stand out – the quiet hiss and drawn out tones make this epic living-room music. Move D & Benjamin Brunn – Honey Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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The Mole – High as the Sky (Wagon Repair, 2008) Look past the goofy name, album title, and cover art. Colin de la Plante’s music is complex, sophisticated, and full of soul. High as the Sky picks up the baton from last year’s catchy “Conscience Down By The Tracks Near The 80″ and runs pretty far, cementing a distinct brand of narcotic techno-disco lit up with nostalgia. The Mole peppers his tracks with crowds cheering and people whooping. In the hands of most producers, this is a presumptuous effect – in the case of the Mole, he’s just underscoring the obvious. The Mole – Hey Girl (I Feel So Good) Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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Andy Stott – Unknown Exception (2005-2008) (Modern Love, 2008) This is razor-blade precision – a reminder that techno is physical music, even when it’s not beating you over the head. You can feel it when a few carefully positioned pings open up to a startling bass groove or a searing chord flies across a stark field of high hats. Stott has a knack for reaching back into history, finding the best stuff, taking only what’s necessary – the bold tones of classic Sahko 12″s, the breathing space of a vintage dub plate, and Chain Reaction’s underwater drums – and reshaping it into something new and timeless. Andy Stott – She’s Gone Wrong Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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Quantec – Unusual Signals (Echochord, 2008) Quantec’s inspiration is surprisingly blatant: Chain Reaction’s trademark metallic dub-techno (esp. Substance and Vainqueur) plus Deepchord’s spacey hiss. There’s not much else to add to the equation. Earning these comparisons, however, takes talent – and there are several moments when he out-dubs the masters. Although Quantec doesn’t reinvent the genre, he brings it into sharper focus, expanding the relatively small canon of a deceptively simple and perfect sound. Quantec - Amanita Muscaria Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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Heartthrob – Dear Painter, Paint Me (M_nus, 2008) Heartthrob produces sinister tracks filled with emotion – I can’t tell if it’s a wink, a grin, or a scowl, but there’s definitely a warm heart somewhere beneath all those drums and synthesizers. It’s in the gutsy arrangement: dropping that ridiculous bass into the middle of “Slow Dance” or the head-ringing melody that bursts through the end of “Signs.” But I put this album at #3 simply because “Future’s Past” delivers the best beat of the year: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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Extrawelt – Schöne Neue Extrawelt (Cocoon, 2008) The cover of Schöne Neue Extrawelt shows you exactly what you’re about to hear: some dark and wicked thing ripping through empty space. This is music to test the low-end of your speakers and rattle your baseboards. Arne Schaffhausen and Wayan Raabe’s melodies sputter and crackle, always threatening to come unglued – but they remain strapped to some of the greatest basslines produced this or any other year. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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Minilogue – Animals (Cocoon, 2008) Minilogue’s drums pack a wallop and their livewire synthesizers race up to you, grab you by the shoulders and plant a big one on your cheek before bounding off in some other direction. Animals is filled with a madcap energy that bounces between the academic pretensions of minimal techno and the hands-in-the-air kitsch of the most saccharine dancefloor tune. The result is a clever and polished sound. More importantly, it’s big fun. Minilogue – Hitchhiker’s Choice Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. |
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Additional comments powered by BackType
My favourites of your list are Quantec and Andy Stott.
But my über-favourite electronic music album is The Black Dog’s Radio Scarecrow. It’s a wonderfull “comeback” for these guys. Good IDM techno, and still that dark, mysterious side…
The new M83 disapointed me: too “poppy” for me. His ‘Dead Cities,…’ stays my fav. And I can recommend his ambient release from 2007, ‘Digital Shades’: the sound of those synths is marvellous…
Btw, check out Quantec’s recent limited release ‘thousands of thoughts’ (here on this great blog: http://basic-sounds.livejournal.com/107754.html).
I’ve enjoyed reading your blog,
so I wish you further inspiration for the coming year