Peaceful, soothing, ethereal ambient with choirlike vocals. It keeps amazing me what comes out of the Ninja Tune roster sometimes.
Julianna Barwick – Healing Is A Miracle
Ital Tek – Outland
Bass heavy, melodic, dreamy and moody, slow paced but not fully ambient electronics. It explores space, goes under the ocean, travels in the belly of the Earth—all the places where dark is the domain but textures can be observed by some shimmering traces of light.
Kruder & Dorfmeister – 1995
Exactly what it says on the cover: the best downtempo, nu jazz, chill out sound from the golden days of the genre. Supposedly these are some old recordings found and dusted from the G-Stone studio. Sounds like time travel, smooth as ever.
Gidge – New Light
Beautiful, easing ambient, IDM, and some very soft techno. Think Moderat but with more chill.
Robert Hood – Mirror Man
Minimal techno, coming from one of the godfathers. This shines through with purity and a good sense for essence, but also some retro sounds here and there. Although, it’s not the most important record of the year, not even in techno, but it’s a good listen.
Ulver – Flowers of Evil
This is not an overall great pop rock record. I had to check a few times while listening that I’m still listening to Ulver—this style and sound feels alien for me coming from them. That said, Machine Guns and Peacock Feathers is a flawless pop rock song.
Wonk Unit – Nervous Racehorse
One loveable and so honest punk rock album that I got really fond of last year. Music that makes me miss live concerts badly.
PUP – This Place Sucks Ass
Punk rock, nothing extra, but it’s a good one.
Róisín Murphy – Roisin Machine
I probably haven’t listened to this much Róisín Murphy since the solo debut. Signature sound, great pop music, disco vibes.
Faithless – All Blessed
Honestly I don’t follow Faithless that closely so I’m not sure how much this record fits the overall body of work, but personally it checks all my boxes that I expected and wanted from a new Faithless album. Not exactly the uptempo party hits but rather the midtempo electronica, which has this vibe of landing somewhere on the Booka Shade-Bonobo axis. I can also see how the new collaborators bring new colors and that’s pretty good, like the voices of Suli Breaks and Nathan Hall.