Central Industrial – Flaring Blue in a Timeless Space (Samurai Music Group): Music for exploring an abandoned steampunk spaceship that may or may not be haunted but probably is haunted
Clarke:Hartnoll – 2square (VeryRecords): Half of Erasure and half of Orbital do electro-house and tribute the moment when rave turned into trance
Lone – Levitate (R&S): If rave music never died
The Kills – Ash & Ice (Domino): They’re back! With hooks!
Ocean Wisdom – Chaos (High Focus Records): Clever as hell Eminemy double-time raps over sludgy grime beats make this a hugely impressive debut)
Aesop Rock – The Impossible Kid (Rhymesayers): I always forget how much I love this dude. Nerdy woke personal stories, internal rhyme schemes, RTJ-y production.
St Lucia – Matter (Columbia): Every year it seems like I have a shiny 80sy production-based pop record on my list. This is this years, from the producer of HAERTS which was on my list last year
Luke Howard – Two Places (Lukktone): Sad Jazz plus loopy stuff = solid rainy day tunes)
The Veils – Total Depravity (Nettwerk): Grimy dirty rock/boogie with a hint of electronics)
Maxwell – blackSUMMERS’night (Columbia): Was never much of a fan of his, but this is gorgeous. Especially wonderful on vinyl.
Plaid – The Digging Remedy (Warp): As usual, the first track on a Plaid album is the most interesting. The rest is up to their top quality of warm melodic playful IDM
Shearwater – Jet Plane and Oxbow (Sub Pop): Shearwater’s albums (other than their covers one) are always on my top albums list. If you like them you will like this. This is why I am not a record reviewer by trade.
Singles and EPs
Theremynt – Vampiros Discos (Neopren): Dd-elicious italo-electro-disco goodness
El Perro Del Mar – dream baby dream (one of the most gorgeous covers of a Suicide song evar)
Phaeleh – All That Remains (Self-released) (Burial-ish melancholic beats and post-rock sounds with nils frahm-ish piano)
Album I still can’t bring myself to listen to even though I’m sure it’s amazing:
Bowie – Blackstar
