It’s a perfectly Bonobo album. Melodic and emotional electronic music.
Bonobo – Fragments
SIERRA – See Me Now
Synth-infused cyber-futuristic electronic music. Also, “I make vampires dance” is the coolest tagline.
DB Armitage – Lovelow
I have such a hard time waiting for Dalma Berger to produce new music, I’m hungry for every new things she makes. She definitely takes her time to release new material with the latest DB Armitage alias but this record is also showing that it’s worth the wait. Beautiful (and sorrowful) electronic pop music from the non-mainstream kind.
It has been interesting to see her journey from the Realistic Crew and Singas Project through Volkova Sisters to where she is now. And whatever she produced or contributed to always orbited around the musical aesthetics that I completely adore. Probably it’s an easy statement that she’s also my favorite Hungarian female vocalist of all time.
Pye Corner Audio – Entangled Routes
Atmospheric electronic music, like a soundtrack to a movie that never was. Genres go mainly on the ambient to synthwave axis.
Being exposed to lots of sci-fi and futuristic noir things, it’s easy to see this as a perfect backdrop for a cyberpunk book or RPG play session.
Emeka Ogboh – Beyond The Yellow Haze
Electronic ambient music with lots of busy city life field recordings. It’s not like a beatless soundscape populated by urban noises, it’s often pretty upbeat. And that, mixed with the sounds of busy streets create this quite lively atmosphere, which feels like a rushing metropolis of ants.
Bicep – Isles
Slow tempo melodic techno sound with straight beats and some breaks. But other than that it’s an epic classic of an electronic music record, that’s what it is. Every single day I have to realize that such evergreen music is still being released, continuously. I can see how this builds on everything from Four Tet to Rival Consoles and everything in between, but it stands so well in its own right. Beautiful music.
Chris Liebing – Another Day
It’s really hard to pin down the genre for this album. The atmosphere is moody electronic music on mid tempo, city music, walk in the rain music. On Basecamp it self-defines as techno and downtempo by tags. But I’d argue that the reality of it is mostly progressive breaks. In any case, Circles is my track of the month: this is most definitely prog breaks, with a fantastic melody, beautiful vocals, and such a well crafted arch for the whole song.
Weval – Changed for the Better
Overall a nice electronic music record, and I couldn’t be more specific than that—it’s like those Booka Shades of the musical spectrum that could fall in many sub-genres depending on how you look at it or where you come from. That said let’s focus on the title track, which just knocks my socks off. It is some amazing achievement in being soothing and calm, but also high in energy and making me move right away with floaty-wavy arms. I can imagine listening to it on a dancefloor and rise to melodic mid-tempo electro heaven. It’s been a while that I listened to something and wanted to reach for remixes; I just wish there’s a slightly higher tempo version of this as well.
Alva Noto – HYbr:ID I
Cannot say much beyond what I’d expect from Alva Noto on the usual high standard.
Djrum – Portrait With Firewood
Nice to mention this record right after Tides as this is a great example for the same vibe but with originality that I felt lacking there. Nice atmospheres on the slow-to-mid tempo electronic axis with lots of live-sounding orchestration, even more Floex vibes, but the more complex drum patterns and the post-dubstep bassline aesthetics package it into something fresh and exciting. I really like that this is a moody record without the sadness aspect—it’s like watching rain through the window but with inspiration and wondering. Actually it’s also like a new take on nu jazz.