Sasu Ripatti's first Vladislav Delay album in six years, Rakka, is his shortest and most brutal, tying his electronic music legacy to his metal roots.
Electronic music is a huge tent with so many diverse approaches, and it's more international than ever with producers around the globe pushing music forward. The year's best albums featured returns from established talents, as well as ground-breaking newcomers, and a host of women changing the old boy's club of electronic music.
Following a series of fantastic EPs, Bristol-based Giant Swan produce a work of exquisite hard hitting techno, while calling upon their hardcore punk roots.
To say Underworld's Drift Series 1 is an immersive experience is an understatement. It's an album that invites you to pitch a tent in it and hunker down for a month. Both Rick Smith and Karl Hyde sound inspired.
Floating Points' Crush is an album of profound contrasts. For every track designed to electrify the dancefloor, there is a gentle sweeping orchestral piece.
Cabaret Voltaire's Richard H. Kirk talks about two new collections of the legendary post-punk band's early music, an upcoming new album, and how he prefers to listen to music.
On Ways of Seeing, electronic producer and visual artist Konx-om-Pax moves away from dark ambient and rave to melodic electronica, alluding to the roots of Berlin techno.
Two recent videos from Rammstein and Hatari offer a study in contrasts and speak loudly to the challenges involved in authentically confronting colonialism through popular music.
Prolific electronic artist and label head, Carl Craig reflects on his most recent work, the state of music today, and his illustrious career.
Experimental electronic producer Burnt Friedman documents the musical melting pot of Berlin and Central Europe generally on his latest album. Watch his new video for "Supreme Self Dub".
Zoospa finds producers Machinedrum and Jimmy Edgar finding plenty of shared musical ground, laying charges, and then detonating them.
Brits in Hot Weather features five of the best new British songs. In this edition, we have trap-infused indie from 13XL, the compelling electronics of Le Module, anthemic indie from the Polarity, barrelling post-hardcore from Cagework, and sunshine filled house from Disciples.
Peter Ibbetson strips away the more soulful electronic elements and softens the edges of Harlequiin's "Eat Me Up Astoria", immersing the track in a hazy, digital mist.
On his debut album ATAXIA, Rian Treanor has mastered a whole new sonic vocabulary that gradually destabilizes and erodes existing principles and practices of electronic music to create something wholly unique.
Bjarki's Happy Earthday can be understood as a reflection of the artist who made it, as a representation of the power and majesty of nature, or simply as a brilliant, intricate electronic album.
Silk Road Assassins use sci-fi sound design as a means of exploring the minimalist structures of trap and grime on the magnificent State of Ruin.
Brainfeeder X is an important collection for those who are new to the label's output and for those who want to revel in its glories. A worthy celebration of a genuinely groundbreaking label.
The first taste of BeatLove's forthcoming Gorilla EP is the shadowy, beat heavy "Train", an electronic track with a post-dub vibe.
When the Prodigy boil their sound to its core, base elements, the results are explosive on No Tourists.
Austria's prolific, three-piece instrumental outfit Elektro Guzzi add horns to their sound with the daring, dynamic new album, Polybrass.
Austria's Elektro Guzzi have made their name as a live techno group that create their music through a blend of analog instruments and electronics, and interestingly, they don't use computers to compose or loops to drive the music.
Matthew Dear has written an album in Bunny that wholly reflects the person he is now, and it's the best record of his career.
In this edition we have Krautrock infused pop from Fröst, warm, ambient techno from Peter Ibbetson, shadowy post-punk from Vulgarians, spacious dream-pop from Dahlia Sleeps, and finally some kicking house from the returning Freddie Frampton.
On his latest EP, Aphex Twin abruptly pulls the rug from under your feet, turning his nostalgic IDM perspective into an etude on electronic music deconstruction.
Phil and Paul Hartnoll reunite as Orbital for a second time to sculpt another career highpoint with Monsters Exist.
Dark, dangerous, and wrapped in anarchic black leather, ADULT. return with a stunning record that matches the feverish spirit of 2003's Anxiety Always.
On Burn Slow, Chris Liebing creates a dark techno world where the music oozes more than trips out of the speakers. There's a syrupy sense of primal life.
On Bodied, Ital Tek frees himself from the limitations of time and place, creating atemporal, amorphous tracks that exist somewhere wholly new.
In this edition we have swaggering rock 'n' roll from Sisteray, shadowy trip hop from Alpines, classy contemporary pop from RuthAnne, intricate ambient techno from Inland, and life-affirming pop-punk from the Run Up.
In this edition we feature the stunning experimental electronic sounds of EMSEATEE, the full-blooded indie-punk of BlackWaters, the smooth drum 'n' bass of Djrum, the 1980s synth-inspired pop of Natalie Shay, and the reflective indie of Night Flight.
Ross From Friends' Family Portrait is an album you can easily disappear into from one of electronic music's most thrilling new talents.
Rizzla's Adepta is nothing short of a full-on, multi-sensory assault that constantly threatens to tear itself apart.
Martyn's Voids is reflective of an artist who has survived a life-changing trauma and, in doing so, visited the very darkest places a mind can go.
On Nothing Is Still, Leon Vynehall has woven a rich tapestry of complimentary sounds that serves a purpose far bigger than the music itself.
Litorate's "Yellow Pool" is a compelling, hallucinatory trip of a track that seems to operate in a parallel space where the tangible and intangible merge.
DJ Koze's commitment to avoiding easy four-on-the-floor dance music, his unwillingness to whack at synth pads for an hour and call Knock Knock an experimental ambient album, is commendable.
Throughout the brilliant Song For Alpha, Daniel Avery sticks to the fundamental dictum that music should take you to somewhere unexpected.
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