The 25 Best Electronic Albums of 2025

25. TOKiMONSTA – Eternal Reverie (Young Art)

“Lucky U” typifies the overall soundscape of TOKiMONSTA’s Eternal Reverie: lushly synthesized house and pop hybrids that have the flourish and sheen of contemporary electronic music while subtly harkening back to dance music’s forebearers. Lune Rouge and 2020’s Oasis Nocturno contain mostly uncluttered, conventionally structured pop songs. These albums skirted any studio indulgence that didn’t bolster the guest vocals. 

Eternal Reverie keeps the same format – pop songs with guest vocalists – but differs in decisions, blending TOKiMONSTA’s penchant for pop jams with the eccentric touch of her early beats. If there’s any disappointment to be felt, it’s from wanting more of a good thing. There are no duds on Eternal Reverie. – Kyle Cochrun

24. Ninajirachi – I Love My Computer (NLV)

Niajirachi’s I Love My Computer is a fitting love letter to technology from a generation that spends ten times as much time with their devices as they do with other humans. It’s as chirrupy and relentless as any hyperpop, which means it might put you in a sugar coma if you’re over 25, but it’s saved from becoming a gimmick by rock-solid beats and some genuine heart in the helium vocals. This is dance music for those who know how to surf the vaporwave. – J Simpson

23. DJ Koze – Music Can Hear Us (Pampa)

What’s that you hear? A dental drill? Is that Vocaloid Damon Albarn giggling? Is this vibe heading towards “Woody Woodpecker” or an “ayahuasca retreat?” But most often, you’ll ask: Have I heard this sample before? Maybe you have, perhaps you haven’t, but that’s beside the point. DJ Koze thrives on a sense of déjà vu, reshaping sound fragments, reversing melodies, warping tempos, and layering unexpected textures to create something new.

Across 64 minutes, he challenges every preconception about what should sound good. Think nu-metal is dumb? Then why is “Brushcutter” (featuring Marley Waters) so fun in all its gritty, neon-colored glory? Do you think “Chipmunk Soul” is played out? Then why do the spiraling, sped-up vocal swirls of “Wie schön du bist” (featuring Arnim Teutoburg-Weiss and the Düsseldorf Düsterboys) hit so close to the heart? – Emily Votaw

22. Bicep – Chroma 000 (Chroma)

For the last two years, Belfast’s Bicep have been releasing a series of high-concept, high-style singles that beautifully illustrate their unique blend of crisp, precise breakbeats, thudding techno, and sci-fi futurism. Chroma 000 collects them all in one beautiful, lavishly designed package, offering an opportunity to hear the variety and creativity contained across these ten releases. Simply put, Bicep are some of the most striking talents working in drum ‘n bass today. – J Simpson

21. Clark – Steep Stims (Throttle)

Steep Stims is a return to form for Chris Clark. After numerous fascinating detours into art pop, arty IDM, and soundtrack work, Clark synthesizes all he’s learned into an album of taut, tight dancefloor epiphanies that bristle with energy and imagination. It’s so tight and seamless it could be a DJ mix, producing the rarest gem: a cohesive electronic album that’s also chock full of singles, equally at home on headphones or the dancefloor. – J Simpson

20. Headache – Thank You For Almost Everything (PLZ Make It Ruins)

Despite so many aspects of the decade coming back in style, the 1990s feel like an unreachable continent. It’s difficult to conjure the euphoric sense of optimism, the loving embrace of technology, the anything-goes mentality, or the inevitable sense that we’re tilting towards a fairer, more just world. British producers Headache resurrect this sunny, shadowy, inexplicable world with an album of slice-of-life spoken word vignettes over downtempo beats and lush, progressive synth pads. It’s like the Orb scoring a concept album for the Sleaford Mods on an up day. – J Simpson

19. Mark Pritchard – Tall Tales (Warp)

On Tall Tales, Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke obliquely navigate a fragile world constantly on the edge of collapse. From opener “A Fake in a Faker’s World”, they create an aural collage of existential dread using sparse electronics augmented by Yorke’s unmistakable falsetto. Beginning as a collaboration at the height of COVID, you can sense the uncertainty, detachment, and isolation of that period throughout the tracks. As a result, it’s an often unsettling collection but one that soon becomes wholly immersive.

Tracks like “Bugging Out Again” and “The White Cliffs” feel devoid of time and space as they pull you into their orbit. Incredibly, the pair have crafted an elusive, abstract world in which sounds and words merge like indistinct reflections in a deep pool. Even the more glitch pop of “Gangsters” exists in its own indeterminable world. There are also moments of almost devastating beauty. The standout, “This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice”, rides stuttering, syncopated beats as Yorke stands alone contemplating his own alienation.

These immediately identifiable moments give the album its heart. At the same time, there are plenty of examples of Yorke’s sardonic take on the world, such as the oompah-band stomp of “Happy Days”, which incongruously frames his bleak refrain of “Death and Takes”. Overall, Tall Tales is the sound of two artists inspired by each other’s willingness to guide themselves into unexplored sonic territory. – Paul Carr

18. Modeselektor – DJ-Kicks: Modeselektor (!K7)

Modeselektor’s contribution to !K7’s DJ-Kicks series is not a flashy record. This is no big room Essential Mix for peaktime Saturday Night. It’s an absolutely all-killer/no-filler DJ mix that’s as elegant as it is energetic, as eclectic as it is cohesive. No matter how many times you listen, it remains a thing of mystery how Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary manage to mix the South American bounce of KITSCHSELECTOR’s “Permit Riddim” into the steely forward-thrusting futurism of their own “MEGA MEGA MEGA.” It’s a refreshing throwback to a time when DJ mixes were about more than exclusive edits and celebrity remixes. DJ-KICKS: Modeselektor is rooted in classic DJ culture while still sounding fresh and now. – J Simpson

17. Death in Vegas – Death Mask (Drone)

Death In Vegas made his reputation out of blending the pop charts and the dancefloor, which is a big part of what makes Death Mask so legitimately surprising. Instead of chasing the Big Beat highs of Fatboy Slim or the Chemical Brothers, Richard Fearless turns in nine tracks of genuinely unhinged industrial techno – as streamlined as a V2 missile and twice as deadly. It’s the perfect soundtrack for a world on fire. – J Simpson

16. Harvey Sutherland – Debt (Clarity Recordings)

On Debt, Australian DJ and Producer fine-tunes his sound on a vibrant groove-infested second album. Taking minimal house as the blueprint, he adds in layers of funk-infused bass and disco synths. From the outside, “Chop Chop Movie Boy” delights with breezy beats and funky keyboard runs while “Cigarette” playfully toys with strutting acid techno. “Flash!” ramps up the funk with layers of clapping percussion and a synth bass line that could electrify any dancefloor.

It’s a joyously colourful blend of styles showcasing his ability to deliver dopamine hit after dopamine hit.  Elsewhere, he calls on collaborators to take the sound to somewhere new. In “Remember”, Vicky Farewell adds lilting, affecting melodies to a shimmering slice of minimal house, while Julian Hamilton filters in cool vibes on the slinky electropop of “Body Language”.

However, it’s the stunning “Running House” that deserves to be the breakout tune as Florida hip-hop duo They Hate Change spit rhymes over fresh beats and twinkling pianos. Debt is a fun, giddy record that rides the rainbow to take the listener to a delightfully colourful place. – Paul Carr

15. Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones (XL)

R&B is often unfairly left out of conversations about electronic music, which feels unfair given that artists like Prince, Janet Jackson, and Whitney Houston helped familiarize multiple generations with the sounds of drum machines and synthesizers. It also creates a false dichotomy: music can either be romantic and sensual or linear and cerebral, which makes everything feel more boring.

On Nourished By Time’s highly-anticipated follow-up to 2023’s Erotic Probiotic 2, Baltimore’s Marcus Brown drags us into his truly singular soundworld, broadcasting bizarre bedroom pop into the ether like some long-lost late-night radio program. It’s raw, ragged, and rough-around-the-edges in all the best ways, made by an unfettered imagination and a pure heart. – J Simpson

14. Marie Davidson – City of Clowns (DEEWEE)

City of Clowns found Marie Davidson going back to her electronic roots after the more pop-oriented experimentation of 2020’s Renegade Breakdown. Sonically, it’s a natural progression from the sound of her 2018 album Working Class Woman, as she pulls in everything from Italo disco to electroclash, all with plenty of European techno thrown in. However, while Working Class Woman was a more personal, reflective album, City of Clowns sees her focus her attention on external targets.

One of the main issues is technology and its penetrating influence on every aspect of our lives. From the outset, she questions whether technology will gradually erase our collective sense of humanity (“Validations Weight”). In largely instrumental “Statistical Modelling”, the chilly, techno textures encapsulate the theme of our reliance on technology to boil the future down to cold, processable numbers. That’s not to say she doesn’t cast her sardonic eye on herself entirely. 

Glorious first single, “Sexy Clown”, is a rollicking, minimal synth-disco number that sees her break down what it means to be a female working mainly at night in the music industry. The phenomenal “Contrarian” takes all the best bits of 1990s electronic music and mixes them in a cavernous, techno pot. It’s the kind of tune that will quicken the step on any morning commute.

The thundering “Y.A.A.M” is a giddy mix of all the things that make her great. The bassline that writhes, serpent like, through the whole thing, the layers of elastic beats, all framing her clever jabs at modern culture (‘”Fake positivity is as cringe as it gets / You wanna suck me? / Screw your fucking brand,”) Lyrically, the album is full of these caustic couplets to match the acid techno that she delivers in her own delightfully deadpan way. City of Clowns may deal with some big, heavy themes, but it’s all delivered in such a unique way by an artist who has lost none of her ability to enthral. – Paul Carr

13. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – GUSH (Nettwerk)

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s music lies at the intersection of new age, pop, ambient, and everything in between. Her body of work is defined less by genre than by a common theme—the musical resonance of the body. On GUSH, her latest LP, Smith‘s music is more body-centered than ever. That is evident from the album’s promo photos, which depict Smith stretching and contorting her body into various poses on a motorcycle. GUSH is her dance record, to be exact, but it embraces pop hooks without eschewing any of her characteristic weirdness. It’s full of electronically-treated vocals, stop-and-start polyrhythms, and hypnotic modular grooves. The Buchla music easel—her trademark—is back in complete form here. – Parker Desautell

12. Weval – Chorophobia (Technicolour)

For Chorophobia, the Dutch duo of Harm Coolen and Merijn Scholte Albers made it their mission to get people onto the dancefloor. It’s a record that found them keeping their immersive, melancholic tendencies to a minimum as they did their best not to overthink themselves. Criss-crossing genres, upping the BPM and finding room for those big club-ready drops, Weval abandoned themselves to the unconstrained freedom of the dancefloor.

In the gloriously kinetic “Movement”, breakbeat percussion provided the backbone for a delirious surge of synth lines that led the listener straight to the heart of the action. Musical ideas tumbled out of them as they rushed seamlessly into the gorgeous “Just Friends” before the barnstorming “Head First” matched the momentum. “Open Up That Door” came across like a Young Fathers/ Kendrick Lamar collaboration, which, in a just world, should have been a crossover hit. As it stands, it was one of many standouts on an album that trained its gaze firmly on the dizzying, heady energy of the dancefloor. – Paul Carr

11. Oklou – Choke Enough (True Panther)

On her debut, French avant-pop producer Oklou performs an act of impeccable pop alchemy, transforming the hyperactive novocaine hyperpop of Sophie, PC Music, and GFOTY into a silky smooth downbeat meditation that feels intimate and personal yet universal enough for mass appeal. Oklou’s going to be one to watch in the next few years, mark our words. – J Simpson

10. Maribou State – Hallucinating Love (Ninja Tune)

There are a few clues on the album, but Hallucinating Love was born from a very dark place for British duo Maribou State. Serious health issues derailed the group, forcing them to cancel numerous gigs and take an extended break from the thing they love. It would be understandable then if their latest record were a morose, introspective affair, detailing a time lost to melancholy. In fact, it’s a joyous listen from a band who clearly needed their music to act as the light at the end of a particularly dark tunnel.

It’s best exemplified by the stunning “Otherside” with its tight, springy rhythms anchored by a popping funk bassline. It’s longtime collaborator Holly Walker who turns into something breathtakingly beautiful with her gift for a soaring melody. Elsewhere, songs such as “Bloom” and “All I Need” float by on a chilled-out wave of gently massaged synths, all sprinkled with their signature jazzy guitar. Even on more dancefloor-focused tracks such as ‘Eko’s’, the harder edges are softened by gliding strings and shimmering synths.

The album also benefits from the pair’s desire to collaborate. British electronic artist North Downs adds warped breaks in “Dance on the World”, while  Sudanese singer-songwriter Gaidaa adds soulful R&B to “Bloom”. However, it falls to Andreya Triana to deliver the album’s standout, as her neo-soul vocals prove the perfect fit for the sublime “All I Need”. These collaborators bring out the best in the group by challenging themselves to think differently and broaden their sound. While it may have come from a dark place, Hallucinating Love may be Maribou State’s brightest and most uplifting work to date. – Paul Carr

9. Paul St. Hilaire – w/ the Producers (Independent)

The history of dub techno cannot be told without Paul St. Hilaire. Ever since he pioneered the genre alongside Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald (of Basic Channel fame) in the 1990s, Hilaire’s vocals—subdued yet reassuring, peaceful yet sinister—have lent humanness and warmth to a style of music known for being cold, foggy, and impenetrable. W/ the Producers continues in this vein while still breaking new ground. It’s a work of mind-bending, soft-focus radiance. It hisses, crackles, and glitches, but also sings, breathing life into the nether regions of dub. 

Perhaps what sets Hilaire apart is that he understands dub techno is, at its core, rooted in dance music. Tracks like “Free Your Mind” and “Let the Night Start” have a real club-like energy, distilling dance music down to its barest essence. This is dance music’s bones and ectoplasm, if you will, at once incredibly bleak and skeletal yet rich and teeming with life. Listening to it makes you feel like you’re submerged ten thousand feet underwater, yet you don’t mind—all you want to do is dive deeper into the murk. – Parker Desautell

8. Daniel Avery – Tremor (Domino)

After pushing himself to a creative high on the previous album, Ultra-Truth, British electronic DJ and producer Daniel Avery felt the need to return to the idea of collaboration. The need to be with other musicians and just create. The result is a new record, Tremor, unlike any other Avery has produced before. Inspired by everything from director David Fincher to the abstract work of painter Mark Rothko, it pulls from the darkness. What sets it apart, though, is the collaborative element, as Avery brought together a whole raft of collaborators to guide the listener through the shadows.

In “Rapture in Blue”, Cecile Believe’s dreamy vocals sink into the subconscious while “Haze” sees Wolf Alice frontwoman Ellie Rowsell take on the role of rock goddess on a super-sleek, electro-rock monolith.  In “A Silent Shadow”, Bdrmm’s driving, sonic pulse wonderfully complements Avery’s textured electronics as the two co-pilot the track to a fresh, exciting place.

Every collaborator brings something fresh and exciting, from the nursery-rhyme vocals of Singaporean singer Yeule on “Disturb Me” to the Kills’ Alison Mosshart, who, rather shockingly, goes full death-metal troll. Tremor feels like the start of a brand new chapter for Avery. While he paints with many familiar colours, he also uses many new shades. Clearly, collaboration brought out the best in him. – Paul Carr

7. Blawan – SickElixir (XL)

Rarely does crushing distortion sound so good. Overdriven audio is often used to suggest aggression and overwhelm – needles buried deep in the red analogous to a nervous system on the edge of collapse. Less frequently, it’s meant to soothe, burying you alive in crushed velvet and opium. On SickElixir, Blawan submerges his knotted, gnarled grooves; pounding, thudding beats and club vocals in a shroud of obliterating distortion, similar to the rough industrial techno of Regis or Surgeon.

While those artists often feel like waking up in a serial killer’s dungeon, however, SickElixir feels more like a joyride through an endless go-kart track spiralling through time and space. It’s the soundtrack for letting go, giving in, letting the sheer maximalist overload of modern living break over you like a tsunami. – J Simpson 

6. Sudan Archives – The BPM (Stones Throw)

With her new album, Sudan Archives wanted to make “movement” her mission. After realising at one of her shows that both the crowd and the artist were too static, she decided to make music that would electrify the listener. The result was a high-tech, futuristic odyssey, full of heaving, sweaty, dance-floor-ready anthems.

Dynamic and restless, tracks like “DEAD” and ‘COME AND FIND YOU” find her pushing herself to create music as high-energy as possible. Finding a niche somewhere between Detroit house and glitchy R&B songs like “A BUGS LIFE” and “THE NATURE OF POWER” fizz and pop, while the title track “THE BPM” is a riotous, rave-up replete with its own slogan in “The BPM is the power.” The BPM is also a profoundly sexy record, with her throwing herself headlong into intimacy on “TOUCH ME” and delighting in sex in all its glorious forms on “MS PAC MAN”.

The BPM is a cybernetic force of nature that introduces a new Sudan Archives to the world. This new version is sometimes silly, sometimes spiritual, occasionally vulnerable, but always engaging. It’s an album that’s constantly in motion with each musical idea turned up and tested to the absolute limit. If movement was her mission, then mission accomplished. – Paul Carr

5. Guedra Guedra – Mutant (Domino)

Guedra Guedra, the moniker under which producer Abdellah M. Hassak crafts energetic electronic landscapes, invokes a specific scene in and of itself. Among Amazigh groups indigenous to Hassak’s native Morocco and other parts of North Africa, the guedra is a dance and a cooking pot that can be converted into a drum, embodying music, movement, and life.

It suits Hassak’s music on the new Guedra Guedra album Mutant, a breathtaking record filled with thoughtful assemblages of field recordings, digital and analog beats, and some of the year’s most luscious dancefloor melodies. It’s scintillating work from an artist deeply invested in every sound he touches. – Adriane Pontecorvo

4. Djurm – Untangled Under Silence (Houndstooth)

Felix Manuel has established a reputation as one of electronic music’s biggest iconoclasts, mainly thanks to his genre-/death-defying, anything-goes DJ sets, in which three turntables whip through a head-swirling mixture of techno, hip-hop, and new age faster than even the savviest trainspotter can hope to track. This same anarchic, idiosyncratic spirit can be heard on Under Tangled Silence, with Djrum turning his attention to blissed-out piano textures. Somehow, Manuel goes from Keith Jarrett-worthy solo-piano sublimity to crisp, sleek IDM to new-age synthesis without missing a beat. Djrum is pointing us towards a future less defined by marketing trends and instead guided by heart, imagination, and creativity. – J Simpson 

3. Yeule – Evangelic Girl Is a Gun (Ninja Tune)

With their latest album, Evangelic Girl Is a Gun, Yuele has both feet on the sidewalk. Flirtations, rejections, bipolar leanings, crushes, heartbreaks, all the boons and fallouts of craving and impermanence are present. Lyrically, they may still be trying to reconcile any number of impulses, terrestrial and extraterrestrial, but they’re garbed and psyched for pop primetime.

With Evangelic Girl, Ćmiel completes a trilogy: “orbit” (Glitch Princess), “atmospheric entry” (softscars), and, now, “assimilation”. That said, you can remove the princess from outer space, but you can’t remove outer space from the princess. Yuele has come a long way from their early years traveling distant galaxies. Now a committed earthling, they’ll hopefully never forget where they came from. – John Amen

2. FKA Twigs – Eusexua (Young and Atlantic)

FKA Twigs’ third album, EURSEXUA, can justifiably lay claim to being the sexiest album on this list. Every single song drips with the sweat of desire as she explores her most carnal urges. At the heart of it is a pervading sense of sexual freedom from the pleasure-seeking “Girl Feels Good” to the uncomplicated coupling on “Perfect Stranger”. Twigs achieves that rare feat of making songs about sex sound actually sexy. Inspired by the club scene of central Europe, the record began life as a celebration of the dancefloor before becoming much more personal.

As a result, these songs play out like a bold sonic statement from an artist boldly straddling the apex of personal and musical liberation. Throughout, FKA Twigs uses dance music as a balm employing techno, trip hop, and house to ameliorate the soul. In “Keep It, Hold It”, she unpacks a past relationship but refuses to let it define her, while “Striptease” sees her letting go of her inhibitions and embracing her vulnerability. EURSEXUA is an exhilarating testament to the healing power of music while surrendering to the joys of intimacy. – Paul Carr

1. Barry Can’t Swim – Loner (Ninja Tune)

For British electronic artist Barry Cant Swim, the stakes could not have been higher. After a stunning debut, When Will We Land? saw him shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize and garnered critical acclaim across the music press; any follow-up had to cement his place as an artist in it for the long haul. Consequently, Loner is a snapshot of what happens when an artist suddenly gets shot into the stratosphere.

It finds an artist taking stock of where they are and where they want to be. Thankfully, it’s also full of grade A bangers. “Different” is a whirling mix of quick-fire beats and ambient breaks. The pumping acid techno of “About to Begin” should be the dance soundtrack for Gen Z, while uber-confident “Still Riding” is the kind of anthem that a host of his peers would kill for.

However, there is also plenty of diversity on show. The twinkling piano breaks, the perfectly chosen vocal samples, and the warm, evocative synths of “Kimpton” take it to somewhere wondrous. Similarly, “The Person You’d Like to Be” is a bold artistic statement that frames Scottish Poet Seamus’s abstract poetry over blaring car-alarm synths. Despite the pressure, Loner reaches the highest heights without any artistic compromises. In turn, it cemented him as one of the most exciting new talents in dance music. – Paul Carr