A surprisingly triphop album in 2018 with an equal balance of rock and electronics. Reminds me of Archive most.
Lorn – Remnant
I don’t really know how to label these albums anymore. When Loren appeared on Brainfeeder it was easy and obvious to call it dubstep not just because of the music but because it was those times. Then in the Ninja Tune years it was still related to that scene. But then the dubstep bunch dissolved and some started creating techno, others house, and then some continued this sort of evolution of dubstep into something like bass-dominated darkish ambient, which I wouldn’t call ambient per se, but I just don’t know what to call it.
Discogs labels this latest Lorn album simply as experimental, but I don’t think it’s experimental at all in a sense how I see a Pansonic record or something by Sakamoto being experimental electronics. Remnant has a lot of melodies, easy-to-listen textures, some beatless pieces but many with mid-tempo rhythm. This is not experimental at all, this is completely approachable and easy to digest even if it is for a specific taste – but that’s true for all sorts of music.
Nowadays I tend to consider these simply electronic music. Maybe add “atmospheric” as most of them could fit as a soundtrack for any movie, game or live performance. Bit dark but then not, bit ambient but then not, bit experimenting but then not, bit triphopish but then not. I am thinking of labelling these as IDM again, which feels weird because I have very specific moods attached to that genre because of Planet Mu, Plaid and such from the late ’90s and early ’00s, but the philosophy of that music and those releases are closest to what I feel now. So, all that said, we could call Lorn’s Remnant a modern, bass-oriented, moody IDM record.
Or this is dubstep still. It’s just that this is what dubstep sounds like 10-15 years in. (And probably I had come to this realization a few times in the past decade.)
Ital Tek – Bodied
Chilling, beautiful, intimate. Like Apparat with more Planet Mu in it.
Chris Liebing – Burn Slow
It is like techno with a triphop sound: not so dark as rather introvert, slow to mid tempo, bass-dominated, some vocals but often just words.
Bicep – Bicep
Electronic dance music from the UK on Ninja Tunes.
Skee Mask – Compro
From ambient to rhythmic noise to breakbeat.
Phase Fatale – Reverse Fall
RA writes “Hayden Payne’s records package the lunging ferocity of EBM and industrial into a sound you could loosely describe as techno.” Ex-act-ly what I had in mind, all these three cornerstones just like that. I also like the idea that this came through Ostgut Ton.
Rival Consoles – Persona
I wrote some notes about Howl in 2015 when it made it to my Top 10 albums of the year. Most of those hold true for Persona. Although this one is not that elemental and cosmic but closer to earth and more looking up from here. Same vibes, same sounds, same great music though.
Ghosting Season – The Very Last Of The Saints
Some kind of melancholic electronic music with dark moods and a steady pulse. Like the dark days of Apparat or the electronic version of a post-rock record. Extremely atmospheric, swallows me, chews me, spits me back into the void, a pitch black to love.
Cybotron – Enter
Back to the future, ancient cyberpunk and loveably naive. And the cover.