It’s a straight-up electronic dub record. Perfect soundtrack for work.
Om Unit – Acid Dub Studies
Clubroot – Surface Tension IV
Melodic bass-heavy electronic music, post-dubstep if you will. It’s a beautiful soothing experience. I don’t feel the sci-fi that the liner notes say and the cover’s aesthetic suggests, much more the love and the delicate connection nature of it that the cover’s subject depicts. So it’s not exactly how it looks but rather what it shows.
Eomac – Cracks
Techno at heart, mid tempo, lots of bass, some epic melodies, introvert and meditative headspace. Definitely one of the highlights of the year. One ceveat is that it has the potentiall to put me on this downward spiral in terms of mood so I can only digest it with careful measure.
Lake Haze – Sun Rising On Concrete Landscapes
Steffi‘s Yours & Mine is my forever favorite work music. When I need to push push push it in the most efficient way that is my go-to. Now, this album is the pretty close to that. It is good music, has some great vibes and tunes and drag to it, but neutral and non-disruptive enough to be able to fully concentrate on what I’m working on. It contains a couple different flavors of electro and a general dub techno mood.
Assemblage 23 – Mourn
Just that EBM slash futurepop that I would expect from an Assemblage 23 album. The Deluxe Edition’s remixes added pretty much nothing to the experience, so that basic set of ten tracks are fine as they are.
LONELYOUTH – Floating in a Negative Space
Nu metal with all that you’d expect from a melodic modern metal band. I like these young new bands so much who doesn’t get bogged down by “oh this has been done before” and create something that’s clearly along the lines of a genre that’s sometimes considered past tense and moved over, and still can hit their own voice and create something great.
Arnaud Rebotini – Shiny Black Leather
EMB and industrial flavored electronic dance music and cold wave.
The Terrordactyls – The Terrordactyls
I came across the track Fall on an episode of Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet and it has that trigger of “alright, what’s this, search immediately”. The album as a whole is like a low-fi bedroom alt-rock recording, and in that Fall is a smash hit.
Blackploid – Cosmic Traveler
During the first track I was considering skipping this EP altogether, lucky I didn’t. This is a collection of some oddball electro tracks, which are too boogie to be IDM but too silly to appear seriously on a dancefloor. But it would be FUN to hear a track like Night Drive in a club. Although the one titled Pleasure Activism could totally fit a chiptune set.
Pessimist – Pessimist
Darkish drum and bass, medium tempo. Not for the dancefloor but for headphones. Could be sci-fi but I’d rather think of cityscapes than empty space.