1 – Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra- Promises
This is a stunning collaboration between three very different artists, and guess what? not much happens. I know that’s not exactly a hard sell, but it’s true. This collection of flowing pieces is all about understatement. Sam Shepherd crafts an elaborate, but extremely low-key environment for Pharaoh Sanders to lay some warm saxophone over. And that’s all there is to it. That’s all there needs to be. It’s wonderful.
2 – The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings
No strangers to making magisterial anthems, The Besnard Lakes pull out all the stops and serve up the best work of their already marvellous careers. Jack Lacek’s falsetto vocals are the perfect foil to the band’s slow-build dynamics and by the time the towering crescendo fades into tempest winds your heart is on your sleeve, in your mouth, and still thumping away in your chest.
3 – La Femme – Paradigmes
What a find this was. Cool Colorado is the coolest track you’ll hear this year – and the catchy indie-dance maneuvers that accompany it are absolutely loads of fun. I like a lot of the music coming out of France right now and this is some of the best.
4 – The Vendetta Suite – The Kempe Stone Portal
Best known as David Holmes’s studio wizard, The Vendetta Suite steps into the limelight in a big way with this belter of an album of electronic exploration. It’s kind of a love letter to lots of forms of music, from rave, to dub, to disco and more. You can feel the joy oozing out of the music.
5 – Low – Hey What
Low has been making superb records for a long time now and something like thirty years into their careers they have never sounded more exploratory and radical. Here they play with their restrained guitar-led rock by simply caving the sound in, removing it totally in places, and reducing it to a crumbled memory of sound in others. So it sounds amazing, the songs are always amazing, and it just works wonderfully.
6 – Aesop Rock & Blockhead – Garbology
Once you’ve become addicted to deciphering the extraordinary detail of Aesop’s flow every other MC feels kind of dull in comparison. He’s worked with Blockhead from early on in his career but this joint effort features some of the most exploratory beats and out-there sonic adventures. And the words, ah, the words, what a treasure trove.
7 – Cid Rim – Songs of Vienna
Superbly inventive, this. Skittering beats are topped by the warmest synths to produce a joyfully exuberant electronic treat.
8 – Nick Cave And Warren Ellis – Carnage
On the face of it, this album might seem a little slighter than their other work, but its sparse arrangements and lovely strings draw you in on repeated listens. It takes experience to take things out until all that is left is what is needed. These boys have that in spades. This is less intense than Ghosteen (what isn’t?) but it shares that album’s sense of fascination and wonder.
9 – Light Conductor – Sequence Two
Superbly strange long-form meanderings from this excellent group. Everything is built around transcendent synth tones that just grow and grow on you.
10 – Vanishing Twin – Ookii Gekkou
One of the very best bands around right now drops another slab of wonderfully weird jazz-pop-psych-library goodness. They’ve dropped some funk in there this time, too, which sits just right.
11 – Andy Bell, Pye Corner Audio – The Indica Gallery EP
OK, just an EP if we’re being tedious – but Pye Corner Audio’s remixes of five tracks by Ride guitarist Andy Bell (and one he did himself) are something special. He turns what were already great tracks into blissed-out club anthems, chock full of bubbling synth-work.
12 – Papiro – La finestra dentata
This Swiss-Italian musician revels in conjuring up imaginary creatures and environments with his playful and wonder-filled compositions. It’s a collection of live and studio pieces that sit together perfectly and drop you somewhere you’ve never been before.
13 – King Buffalo – The Burden of Restlessness
Absolutely top-drawer stoner psych. Great songs, massive riffs. If you have any kind of love for heavy guitar music then get on this lot.
14 – Beautify Junkyards – Cosmorama
Portugal’s Beautify Junkyards are ploughing an adjacent furrow to the excellent Jane Weaver. This is bright poppy psychedelia with a hint of library music to it. It’s warm and weird.
15 – Tony Allen – There Is No End
For what turned out to be his last record, Tony Allen laid down live beats for a whole host of different hip-hop artists. It sounds bloody amazing. A master at work, bringing life and vibrancy to the work of others.
16 – Jane Weaver – Flock
Jane Weaver has found her perfect place with this fusion of psych-dance-kosmiche.
17 – Para One – SPECTRE Machines of Loving Grace
A mysterious and delightful collection of smoky dubs, choral chants, voice samples, and breezy electronics. It comes as no surprise that Jean-Baptiste de Laubier is also a film director since this is a gloriously cinematic journey.
18 – Steve Moore, Bluetech – Liminal Migration
A wicked collaboration from these two electronic adventures. This is perfectly programmed retro techno. Warm and pristine and lovely to listen to.
Other stuff I’ve loved
10000 Russos – Superinertia
If The Fall had been a psychedelic band they would have sounded like this excellent Portuguese band.
Altin Gun – Yol
This Turkish by way of Amsterdam band make disco-friendly funky psych, which they term ‘Anatolian Rock’.
AMOR, LEMUR – Amor, Lemur
Fascinating, and hard to pin down. This is a collection of jazz-flecked singer-songwriter stuff that sounds like Talking Heads in places and Pengun Cafe Orchestra in others.
Andres Y Xavi – Sounds From The Secret Bar
Warm guitar-based summer music, this. Mainly instrumental but featuring The Woodentops’ excellent Rolo McGinty on a couple of tracks.
Arabrot – Norwegian Gothic
Sweden’s most thoughtful noise-rockers sound like nobody else at this stage. Fiercely industrial in places, and quite beautiful in others. Never anything but totally compelling.
Armand Hammer, Alchemist – Haram
Wicked left-field hip-hop. Murky urban beats in places and skronking jazz in others.
Arushi Jain – Under the Lilac Sky
Beautifully pastoral analog-synth experiments that marry traditional Indian music and modern(ish) technology.
Bass Clef – Magnetic Chapters
Takes the building blocks of dance music and deconstructs them into a fairly mellow, largely beatless landscape that is welcoming and intricate.
Bell Orchestre – House Music
This super modern jazz album has to be played all at once, and then it builds into an intimate and deeply individual world.
Big Brave – Vital
Slow. Quiet/Loud. Riffs like depth-charges and one of the most expressive voices around. Super intense stuff from these Canadian Southern Lord signings.
Blurry The Explorer – Blurry The Explorer
The blurb says “a fearless new project lead by the experimental composer, drummer, photographer, and world-traveler Jeremy Gustin”. That’s spot on, really. This music draws in all kinds of world music to create a deeply mysterious sound tapestry.
Caterina Barbieri – Fantas Variations
A collection of widely varied remixes of her own work. These tracks take in fierce techno, jazz, ambience, and a ton of other stuff.
Cheval Sombre, Sonic Boom – Days Go By / Time Waits For No One
With the help of Sonic Boom, the deceptively simple singer-songwriter compositions of Cheval Sombre take on a beautiful and mournful shimmeringly psychedelic edge.
Circuit des yeux – io
Hayley Fohr has a simply stunning voice that can be used to wound and also to heal. These intricate and delicate songs are worth basking in for a while.
Colleen – The Tunnel And The Clearing
A gently twinkling electronic album that sounds best late at night.
Comet Control – Inside the Sun
Quality Canadian space-rock that does exactly what you want it to.
Courtney Barnett – Things Take Time, Take Time
Courtney’s back to her best with this collection of poppy compositions, all of which display her considerable gift with words.
Cult of Dom Keller – They Carried The Dead In A U.F.O.
Where some bands get cleaner and more produced over time this lot has resolved to go the other way. This is messy, scouring stuff – get it down you.
DARKSIDE – Spiral
Dave Harrington and Nicolas Jaar return after an eight-year break. ‘Inside is out there’ is one of the tracks of the year, full of delightful moonlit charm for nearly nine minutes.
DJ Muggs – Dies Occidendum
Nice to see Cypress Hill’s, DJ Muggs getting down with the horrorcore. This is just as scary and funny as you’d hope.
DJ Seinfeld – Mirrors
Impeccably produced house-based grooves.
Dntel – Away / The Seas Trees See
Ambient soundscapes that draw you in, and in.
Emma-Jean Thackray – Yellow
Yorkshire’s Emma-Jean Thackray is one of the unsung heroes of modern British jazz. This exuberantly inventive collection should give her more recognition.
EMS Synthi 100, Soulwax – DEEWEE Sessions, Volume 1
Super bouncy analog synth stuff.
Erika de Casier – Sensational
Meticulously-produced modern r&b, so bright it gleams.
FYI Chris – Earth Scum
Inventive and exhilarating dancefloor fillers.
Gacha Bakradze – Obscure Languages
This Georgian producer starts with IDM and spreads his wings into an open and cinematic sonic landscape.
Gajanas – Čihkkojuvvon
This is a fascinating mix of traditional Sapmi music from Scandinavia and prog. Think of a psychedelic version of Cranberries.
Gloria – Sabbat Matters
Lovely accessible psych-pop with superb vocal harmonies.
Goat Girl – On All Fours
Post-punk is a starting point but this album throws in electronics, pop, and psychedelia in one of the year’s best indie outings.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!
The world’s best post-rock band continues to make brilliant music with heart and passion.
Hannah Peel – Fir Wave
I think this got a mercury prize nomination? But don’t worry, it’s really good. Hannah Peel got to work with radiophonic library compositions from some of electronic music’s pioneers and turned them into some wicked modern electronic music.
Hooverii – Water for the Frogs
Warm and fuzzy psych, perfect for a sunny day.
Howie Lee – Birdy Island
China’s Howie Lee combines classical Chinese music with gleeful electronic tomfoolery. An infectious mix.
Jonquera – DARKOS
Difficult to describe this French artist’s work in a sentence. Medieval, spiritual, electronic atmospherics?
Kevin Richard Martin – Return to Solaris
This is inspired by Tarkovsky’s cinematic masterpiece, which is in turn inspired by Stanislaw Lem’s classic of thoughtful science fiction. This is superb spacey atmospherics – headphones are a must as you contemplate the nature of, well, everything.
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard – Butterfly 3000
I’m reassessing this lot after this excellent and inventive collection of blissed-out psych-pop. I was put off by the progginess of some of their other stuff (and that stupid name) but since there’s, like, a million albums there must be some other stuff like this.
Kiwi Jr. – Cooler Returns
Splendid indie rock. Pavement is a touchstone. There are wonderful lyrics, hummable tunes, and all kinds of left turns.
Koreless – Agor
Meticulous sound design on this long-awaited LP from Koreless. Cutting edge modern electronica. Virtually beatless, but you don’t really notice because so much is going on.
Lana Del Ray – Chemtrails Over The Country Club / Blue Banisters
Old Lana’s definitely found her niche and these two records carry on her fine vein of form.
L’eclair – Sauropoda
This Swiss band recorded this album live in the studio so it’s impressive just how smooth and polished these jazz-funk grooves are.
Leo Almunia – Minor Circle
Starting from a guitar base Leo Almunia crafts Balearic beats, house, and disco into a lush soundscape. This is one of several albums on this list recommended by me old pal and Radio Guesthouse collaborator Brother Mark, and it is wicked.
Lingua Ignota – SINNER GET READY
Not for the faint-hearted. This ain’t exactly cheerful, but boy does it pack a punch. Folk music with experimental metal at its heart. And that astonishing voice.
Lone – Always Inside Your Head
Another electronic standout from this producer. You can tell it’s inspired by The Cocteau Twins with its choral surges and elegant atmospherics.
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Low Khey – Never Trust a Cyborg
The press release calls this experimental bass music. It’s an album that considers machine intelligence, channeling Ellen Ripley in the title.
Luke Sanger – Languid Gongue
A delightfully warm collection of shifting electronic landscapes.
LUMP – Animal
A second fruitful collaboration between Laura Marling & Mike Lindsay
Manif – Small Steps
A synth-heavy, beat-driven collection of adventurous ambient techno and house.
Mano Le Tough – At the Moment
This Berlin-based Irish producer has made an impressively varied album that skips through all kinds of genres to form a cohesive, slightly mournful whole.
Marisa Anderson, William Tyler – Lost Futures
Two of the best guitarists working today get together for a country-tinged collection of instrumentals. Something will come is a standout.
Marriane Faithful – She Walks in Beauty (with Warren Ellis)
Marianne’s weathered and expressive voice reads out some classic poetry over an elegant and understated Ellis.
Marshall Watson – Sunsets on Larkin parts 1 & 2
Proper good Balaeric sunset gear.
Martin Gore – The Third Chimpanzee/The Third Chimpanzee
Ex-Depecher makes an EP of steely industrial electronics. Modern luminaries like Jlin remix them into a beast of an album. Tasty.
Mas Aya – Máscaras
Contemplative instrumental music with an international feel and a real uplifting atmosphere.
Masma Dream World – Play at Night
Do play it at night, when the ritual chants and murky low-speed dub atmospherics are at their best.
Meemo Comma – Neon Genesis Soul Into Matter²
Her last album was a particularly freaky freak-folk adventure and this time she’s gone deep into glitchy electronics suffused with ambient synths, chants, and breakbeats. A truly talented and singular artist.
Microcorps – XMIT
If computers made music for androids it would sound like this. But it’s really the serial sonic adventurer Alex Tucker, trying on another hat, which fits, of course.
Mildred Maude – Sleepover
Well-mannered and pleasing long-form shoegazey workouts from this new English band. Very promising
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Monolord – Your Time to Shine
Sweden’s monolithic monsters Monolord return to crush me under their doom juggernaut.
MWB – A Place Both Wonderful & Strange
Again the title describes this perfectly. It’s a fascinating and involving adventure in experimental electronics. Ennio-a-gogo is one of the tracks of the year.
Nala Sinephro – Space 1.8
A nice immersive collection of sweeping Jazz in a vaguely similar style to the Floating Points album at #1.
Nathaniel Rateliff (And The Night Sweats) – The Future
Soul and R&B done in a classic style. Doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it’s lots of fun.
New Pagans – The Seed, The Vessel, The Roots and All
Sharp-toothed early 90’s-influenced indie rock. Cracking songs, great spirit.
Ngod – La Mort Du Sens
Ngod ask for no quarter, nor do they give any. They’re angry because, guess what, there’s loads of things to be angry about. Fierce psych-sludge epitomised by the 12-minute pummelling that is Giro Day.
NYX, Gazelle Twin – Deep England
A perfect marriage of experimental electronics and pagan freaky folk music.
Ocean Moon Group – Ripples
A wonderful wash of hazy ambiance. Like giving your brain a massage.
Om Unit – Acid Dub Studies
An absolute belter of modern dub. Superb production and cracking tunes prove that despite the passing of the mighty Lee Perry dub is in safe hands in 2021.
Part Chimp – Drool
Part Chimp is one of the best noise-rock outfits currently sandblasting your ears.
Pauline Anna Strom – Angel Tears in Sunlight
Pauline Anna Strom hadn’t released any music since 1988 but this superb collection of ethereal synth ambience took right up where she left off. Sadly she died shortly before its release.
Polo & Pan – Cyclorama
This French duo epitomises the super-cool tropical disco-pop coming out of France right now that I’ve spent so much of the year enjoying. Massive in their home country and virtually unheard of elsewhere, I suggest you give them a listen.
Polypores – Shpongos
This is a mushroom–themed collection of analog synth explorations. Warm and enveloping.
Rebecca Vasmant – With Love, from Glasgow
This excellent modern Jazz shows that London doesn’t have exclusivity in the nu-jazz stakes.
Richard Norris – Hypnotic Response
A livelier sort of ambience than much of Norris’s recent work. There is plenty of trance-like arpeggiated goodness to be found here.
Richard Spaven, Sandunes – Spaven x Sandunes
A terrific collaboration between a British producer and an Indian musician. Drums and synths combine to produce something surprisingly free-flowing and organic.
Rob Frye – Exoplanet
Excellent synthy space-jazz.
SAULT – NINE
Feels more like a mixtape than an album, but after such a prolific couple of years from one of the best groups working today, it still contains plenty to love, especially the wonderful Bitter streets.
Sei Still – El Refugio
Sei Still’s last album was a very good Neu record. This is a very good Joy Division record.
Shackleton – Departing Like Rivers
Shackleton is out on his own in modern electronic music. His strange long-form works are truly surreal and bear comparison to little else. It’s just off its nut, really.
Shawn Rudiman – Flow State
A double-album of chilled and austere electronic ambient music.
Skee Mask – Pool
Beats scramble all over the place, and everything else follows, in a good way.
Spelljammer – Abyssal Trip
Treacly psych/doom/sludge. Downtuned and ever so, ever so, slow.
Steve Roach – Tomorrow
Bright long-form ambient electronics (again, I know). This time it’s very upbeat and warm, using twinkling arpeggiated synth tones brilliantly.
Sufjan Stevens And Angelo De Augustine – A Beginner’s Mind
The best thing from old Sufjan for years. In Angelo de Augustine he’s found another singer-songwriter who compliments him perfectly.
Sunjunkie – Two Decades (Masters)
We’re deep into Balaeric sunset territory here and this album is a lovely summer soundtrack. Arise is an absolute belter.
Suss – Promise
Their Bandcamp listing calls this ‘cosmic Americana’, and that’s a perfect description of this bleached-out landscape of sparse country.
Suuns – The Witness
Like LIARS Canada’s Suuns are always challenging themselves and trying to come up with something new. Here they’ve harnessed the power of quiet, rather than loud. This is an intricate and meticulously assembled fascination of an album, and truly unique.
Sven Wunder – Natura Morta
Sweden’s Sven Wunder is a prolific artist always striving for reinvention and change. Here he’s taken an almost baroque, European folk style and injected it with his characteristic funkiness, to great effect.
Tambores En Benirras – Orbe Dotado lp
Ultra-chilled Balaerics. Cheers once again to brother Mark – I enjoyed this one a lot.
The Bug – Fire
Your speakers will weep since earthquakes have less bass than Kevin Richard Martin. This is a collection of dancehall bangers featuring vocalists as varied as Moor Mother and Flowdan. Loads of fun to be had in the dark.
The Hardy Tree – The Fields Lie Sleeping Underneath
Pleasingly weird folktronica. Plenty of crackle and hiss and library overtones too.
The House in the Woods, Pye Corner Audio – The Spectral Corridor
The press release says, “A doom infused set of stygian sludge drone that calls to mind the faded hinterlands of early electronic music infused with modern menace”. It’s exactly like that.
The Liminanas, Laurent Garnier – De Película
An unusual but exuberant combination as old Laurent does his best spoken-word Serge Gainsbourg impression over the top of some banging tunes.
The Notwist – Vertigo Days
Germany’s ever-interesting Notwist serves up a thoughtful and introspective collection of slow-burn songs. ‘San Soleil’ is just gorgeous.
The Weather Station – Ignorance
I nearly missed out on this since I was ignoring it because of all the hype. Lesson learned (maybe). Intimate and heart-wrenching songs from the very top drawer.
Throwing Snow – Dragons
Still one of the best producers around, the ever-reliable Throwing Snow serves up more of his high-concept sound designs. It’s more fun than that sounds though.
Trees Speak – PostHuman
TreesSpeak makes eerie and thoroughly modern electronica that pays its dues to library music but looks forward too. Sounds like some of the best stuff on Ghost Box.
Turnstile – GLOW ON
Kind of like a hardcore version of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Vague Imaginaires – L’île D’or
Full of animal sounds and field recordings this relaxing and enveloping record mostly drifts along in a delicious haze but occasionally kicks up its heels a bit.
Valentino Mora – Underwater
An inventive ambient electronic record that really does sound as if you’re underwater.
Veik – Surrounding Structures
This French trio mix analog synths, krautrock drive, and electronics into a heady brew.
Veslemes – Apolithoma
This Greek band is as cool as you like. Loungey modern electronics with a big hint of jazz and some club-friendly bangers.
Viagra Boys – Welfare Jazz
Funniest band around? I reckon so. Proof that post-punk doesn’t have to be super serious to matter.
W. H. Lung – Vanities
Named after my favourite Asian food wholesaler in Manchester, this lot simply must be good. Bright and breezy, danceable psych-pop.
Warren_Hampshire – Language of The Birds
Warren Hampshire’s beautiful and pastoral modern classical music is wonderfully enveloping. This stuff draws you into a magical place. If that sounds a bit hippie-ish then I challenge you to play it and disagree, man.
Writhing Squares – Chart For The Solution
Driving beats, in-your-face synths and a healthy dose of jazz skronk make this a wildly entertaining ride.
XVARR – Echoes of Time / Transitional Being
If there’s such a thing as mellow techno then I reckon that’s what this is. Superbly inventive and delightfully warm.
Yu Su – Yellow River Blue
This Chinese-born, Vancouver-based musician produces music that’s a bit low-key for the dancefloor, but takes its cues from house, dub, and synthpop.
…These all reached me too late for this list but they’re sounding pretty damn good
Bicep – Isles
DJ Format – Devil’s Workshop
Arooj Aftab – Vulture Prince
ILUITEQ – The Loss of Wilderness
Ovlov – Buds
Roisin Murphy – Crooked Machine
Space Africa – Honest Labour
Spirtczualic Enhancement Centre – Carpet Album
Witch Fever – Reincarnate
John – Nocturnal Moueuvers
Rival Consoles – Overflow
Saint Etienne – I’ve Been Trying To Tell You