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User
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Approval 100%
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Album Ratings 350
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Last Active 10-16-23 11:24 pm
Joined 11-29-22
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| | Top Electronic Releases 1990-2019 | | 1 |  | Autechre
Tri Repetae++
One thing that’s for certain is that this year, I’ve made it a habit to listen to a lot of electronic music. This partially comes from the desire to fit into a neat category of listener, which um, no comment, but also partially because of an increased interest in electronic music (maybe that was caused by making it a point to get into it this year?). | | 2 |  | Fluxion
Vibrant Forms
Anyways, in the spirit of sleeping in the electronic bed I have made for myself this year, here is a WatchMojo style list of my favorite electronic release per year! | | 3 |  | Actress
88
Format: Year. Rating/5. Description. | | 4 |  | Wait What
This Is Real Life
1990. (MISSING). Doing it from 1990 to 2019 is kind of arbitrary, it just came about because I wanted to do my favorite for each year for the last 3 full decades. But due to that rule, we’re already off to an incredible start with this empty year. Erm, recs please? XD | | 5 |  | 808 State
ex:el
1991. 4. Luckily, we recover quick with 808 State. It’s not a surprising pick at all for early ‘90s electronic, seeing that they were so early to the game and they are a bit of an albums group, having such dense and amazingly paced albums. This has the goods, reaching an early high on Leo Leo with that amazing sub bass, keeping it up with a bunch of bangers with some help from a certain Icelandic singer, going into the monstrously simple Cübik, then keeping it up all the way to the finishing line of Olympic. It has like this mildly Roman architecture vibe meets futuristic energy building half life 2 citadel extravaganza… so assthetic! To be sure, it’s above the buzzwordy soup that I like to use to talk about music of this ilk, because you just get lost in how superbly it bangs! | | 6 |  | Stop it!!
Self Made Maps
1992. (MISSING). Ok, this is just getting embarrassing. Luckily, this is the last empty stop. Onward! | | 7 |  | Basic Channel
Lyot Rmx
1993. 5. Have you heard Vainqueur - Lyot? I think it was/is a fairly popular track in its own right, and it’s definitely going for a different vibe than this, but holy smokes, it’s like night and day compared to this remix. This track is quite the experience, and probably my favorite Basic Channel track, at least under the name Basic Channel. But more on that later. Phylyps Rmx isn’t bad either, and I appreciate it mostly as a palate cleanser. Am I a pleb for thinking this? Comment your reaction below! | | 8 |  | Autechre
Amber
1994. 3.5. Um, 3.5? What’s going on here? Yeah, so this is one of those moments where I honestly just owe the album another rinse or three, and it hasn’t gotten its due credit from yours truly. Ironically, the other album in the running for this year is Radiance by the venerable Basic Channel, which is another insufficient-neurons moment for me. This is a bit of a disappointing year in that case, but also a hopeful one. I respect these albums and this spot is almost a reminder just in case I forget to dive back in. Let’s keep going. | | 9 |  | Plug
Plug 3 - Versatile Crib Funk
1995. 4.5. Compiling this list, while pretty fast and fun due to the awesomeness of RYM (yuck!) cataloguing, was an eye-opening learning experience. Case in point, I’ve learned that some years are equaler than other years in terms of just how many releases are in the running for my favorite. My tie-breakers usually have to do with which artists have already gotten or will get their due credit in this list (see Radiance vs. Amber), which isn’t the most honest strategy, but it’s all in the name of a more varied list. Due to being a discovery from my halcyon period (lol), Plug’s VCF (2.0) wins out over Iaora Tahiti, Init Ding, In Pine Effect, and Tri Repetae(++), meaning that yes, Jan St. Werner has been snubbed twice this year, and it’s only the beginning of Autechre’s woes. If you’re curious, Iaora Tahiti was also from my halcyon period but I didn’t rinse it as much as this one. Tuff luck! | | 10 |  | Tortoise
Millions Now Living Will Never Die
1996. 4.5. The obligatory “what?” of the list. If you’ve heard this album, you probably know why it qualifies, but it’s still kind of annoying that I’ve chosen to include it. I mean, seriously? This mostly just reflects on the statistically unsurprising but annoying lack of 1996 electronic releases in my library. But on its own, this is one of my favorite post-rock albums and so 1996 turns out to be a “great year” if you took this list by the numbers. Sweet! | | 11 |  | Maurizio
MCD
1997. 4.5. Another doozy year, let’s quickly take inventory of the favs: Envane and Cichlisuite from the Ae side of things, Elevations and Hongkong from the Chain Reacting side of things, and whoa, a precocious debut EP from teenage internet user “Bogdan”. Amazing roster, but Maurizio takes the cake, I just can’t ignore an album with M4 on it, plus other dancefloor goodies (M4.5). Basic Channel ensure their victory by staying on peak form thru the mid ‘90s and having the good sense to time the release of this CD. Hindsight, I love you! | | 12 |  | Substance
Session Elements
1998. 4.5. I’m pretty sure this is just a random fluke of statistics, but this is pretty much the only electronic album I really like from this year. This is going to feel even weirder as we get into 1999. To be fair though, this is one of the best albums on Chain Reaction, due to it having one of my favorite qualities an album can have: addictive replayability. Plate Element 3 is ice cold. | | 13 |  | Various Artists (Torsten Profrock)
Decay Product
1999. THE MOTHER LODE! This is it baby. The year that puts all the other years to shame. The pressure was on to party like the world was about to end, and so the dancefloor gurus kicked out the jams. Coincidentally also a prolific year for the weirdo IDMists that we will instead be focusing on! This is first and foremost the year of Bogdan-san’s imperial phase, with Boku mo wakaran and Samurai Math Beats both being in the running, alongside Jan Jelinek’s debut album(!), (Personal_Rock) as Gramm, and already in peak form in the second year of his career(!!!) Could he be the one to steal the coveted 1999 crown? But it’s kind of hard to beat Vibrant Forms, the iconic comp by Fluxion, featuring the immortal Lark plus 9 more great tracks. Can it be done? BY AUTECHRE? EP7 wins by such a small hair that let’s be fair and cut up the burger king crown and give everyone a piece. Sorry to lead you on, Torsten Pröfrock. | | 14 |  | Kid606
PS I Love You
2000. 5. The not-very-long awaited sequel to Vibrant Forms meets Kid606’s second best album in 2000, but both fall behind to… Kid606’s best album. This is another halcyon days pick, and is actually the album where those days began in Aug ‘22 (and ended in Dec ‘22 with Session Elements. Irrelevant… but weird!). | | 15 |  | Daft Punk
Discovery
2001. 4.5. I know what you’re thinking. Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew! Daft Punk? In this PATRICIAN music list? Well, I guess everyone has to stop gawking at Chain Reaction and Autechre at some point, and luckily this is the serum. This is the shit! No more pretensions! Just feel good dance music! Alright, I don’t mean to put down Daft Punk or come across as a jerk here, although to be honest this blurb is not doing me any favors in that field. I’m going to take a page out of this album’s book and let the music do the talking. But while I’m here, let’s review the “could-haves” - the warm, nostalgic Gq on the Eq++ and Pistachio Island, the not those things Confield, and, released on Chain Reaction in December… Ship-Scope. | | 16 |  | Farben
Starbox
2002. 4.5. Not Textstar. This is the full comp of EP’s released by Jan Jelinek from 1999 to 2002 as Farben. I’m going to be a full stickler and say that all of the material from these four EPs is necessary for the patrician, euphoric experience that is circa-2000 Farben. If you know anything about this alias, you might be confounded, as I was, that this is not the last time it will show up on this list. I kid you not. Spoilers!!! | | 17 |  | Kid606
Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You
2003. 4. What’s the fourth best Kid606 album doing at the top of the list for 2003? That admittedly doesn’t reflect too good on me in terms of what’s on offer here. I mean, V:D:C came out this year for cryin out loud! I’m sorry guys, I just really like this album. Interestingly, Jan Jelinek does get snubbed twice for this spot, and Autechre gets pretty brutally shafted. Even I’m kind of disappointed that I picked this over Draft 7.30… the heart wants what it wants! | | 18 |  | Pola (JPN)
Même
2004. 4.5. Here it is folks… the most patrician pick of the entire list! And here’s where I vow to stop using that word on this list, and ever. The underappreciated older brother of Pola Meets Lyrica (but it’s not that big a deal because PML is still really good), and definitely one of my more obscure favorites, but hey, at least the artist is somewhat well known now… on the internet, but that counts for something now, don’t it? This just barely beats out the legendary No Tricks EP from… whaaa? Actress?! | | 19 |  | Jan Jelinek
Kosmischer Pitch
2005. 4.5. Hey Myri, what’s your favorite Jan Jelinek album? …what? Are you stupid or something? | | 20 |  | Cornelius
Sensuous
2006. (MISSING) (kinda). I have Cornelius - Sensuous, a pick so tenuous for this list that it would make Tortoise blush, rated at a 3.5. Meanwhile, Jelinek’s Tierbeobachtungen is rated at a 4, but I’m invoking the rule of making the list more varied to almost, ALMOST put Sensuous on this spot. I just can’t do it in good faith. There are Ambers in this world and there are Millions Now Living Will Never Dies in this world, but put them together and it just doesn’t wash. Why do I have so few albums from 2006 in my library? Is this a Pibby glitch? Do you people know what that is? Skibidi rizz! | | 21 |  | STL
Night Grooves
2007. 4. A break from the insanity with STL’s debatably but certainly deservingly legendary Night Grooves. Seek out the one with the 11 loops placed randomly in the middle of it. Two words baby. Minimal. Bliss. | | 22 |  | Actress
Hazyville
2008. 4. Yay, Actress exists now! This is a wonderful time in human history, the time where Actress’s history begins, like, for real this time. And what a debut, I mean I simply cannot get enough of this shit, and we aren’t even at the best part yet. There’s more to come in the future, and there’s more to come… right now, right here in 2008. Yep, I’m also going to shoe in Ghosts Have a Heaven, because it’s an awesome track from this era. Actress! Yippee! | | 23 | | Mark E
Codsall Juniors / Gunstone
2009. 4.5. What? Mark E? Codsall Juniors? Ok calm down, even I don’t really know why this is Mark’s best song and yet it sits neglected, in neither of his Works compilations. Oh well, at least it saved me from this year being otherwise kind of a drought, narrowly avoiding a fourth (missing). Oh goody goody! And now... | | 24 | | Farben
Farben (2010)
2010. 4.5. Here we are, at the last decade! And we ring it in with… what the fuck? Farben? Oh wait, I already warned you about this. Can’t have my cake and eat it too, can I? Well, turns out that we all can, because this isn’t just a return to form, it’s an awesome update with the new tropical feel of Jan Jelinek’s work that he’s now comfortably absorbed by this point. It’s hard to stress just how surprisingly good this is, with more emphasis on good than surprising. It is Jelinek after all…. | | 25 | | Actress
Parallel World
2011. 4. Hi again Actress, thank you for being such a paragon of late 2000s/early 2010s electronic, shaping my perception of what it could be and how exciting this period was. This debatably obscure EP of what I understand to be a collection of Twitter demos is pretty intense and awesome, basically comprising the high echelon of the low-key Actress stuff (that I’ve heard) alongside the 88 mixtape- but that gets into the wrong decade! | | 26 |  | Actress
R.I.P
2012. 4. That name is a reference to your attention span now that I’ve over-Actressified. I mean, reneging on my promise to have a varied list? I’m sorry people, but I’m going to have to make an exception or three for this decade. I promise to make it up to you though. But on the topic of being relevant, this album seems to be seen as a high point for Actress, although I’ve heard that this could be true of Splazsh. Regardless, both albums are stellar works front to back. It’s hard to really put into words how interesting and cool this stuff is, you kind of just have to… figure it out.
!!!!!!PRETENTIOUS!!!!!!! | | 27 | | Jan Jelinek
Temple Vinylbox
2013. 4. Snore… I mean hey, we’re at 2013! It's a shame that there’s such little variation of artists now, I guess it has something to do with the recency of the dec' and having less time to sort out the cream, plus my old favorites having more time to improve and get even better. Case in point, Jan Jelinek put out a great compilation of very tropical electroacoustic music and droney-drone, featuring all sorts of random experiments that come together like peanuts and butter. So just like check it out? I would go one EP at a time, but it’s nice to have them all packaged together. Hindsight! | | 28 |  | Shinichi Atobe
Butterfly Effect
2014. 5. "Ok, seriously. What the actual hell? Shinichi Atobe, that guy who put out the second to last release on that awesome Chain Reaction that everyone constantly drools over (both the EP and the label in general). Suddenly coming back 13 years later. THIRTEEN. And this guy is going to go and rate it a perfect 5? What’s up with that?" - a guy with a very good opinion
This is just like that Actress album dude. You just have to find out the magic for yourself. I’m sorry. I’m going to be that guy. But sometimes you have to be a jerk to make it work. Write that down! | | 29 |  | ASC
Fervent Dream
2015. 4. We’ve reached the customary throwaway year of the decade where I just couldn’t seem to listen to enough electronic albums to really stick with me, and I have to go with something that I heard for the first time two days ago. This is pretty great though, I don’t know man. This isn’t much of a recommendation. Just listen to 100% Electronica. This list does need more chillwave now that I mention it.
This entry? NOT GOOD. I honestly would have preferred a (missing) to this bullcrap… | | 30 |  | Masayoshi Fujita / Jan Jelinek
Schaum
2016. 5. That was kind of an embarrassing spot, but luckily we’re in the real meat of the decade now, with the customary doozy year, so let’s check out the deluge! Shinichi Atobe gives us World, and we get No Title/The Second Evergristle from upstart Yakui. Pretty great numbers for 2010s standards, we’ll take ‘em. Both of these artists will be more important in just a sec, but this is the end of the road for Jelinek on this list, and actually probably his finest moment. Thank you for your service pal. (jk, he has more great stuff after this and he’s still going. Thanks again Jan!) | | 31 |  | Shinichi Atobe
From the Heart, It's a Start, a Work of Art
2017. 4. From the hip to the hop to the hippy to the… this album is pretty stellar. Very understated a la World. Love this album for how it fits into the Atobe body of work, but its placement feels a little naked here, I mean I’m kind of including it because it’s practically the only electronic album I’ve heard from 2017. Because see, the thing is— | | 32 |  | Shinichi Atobe
Heat
2018. 5. —he drops this banger the year after! So much for list variation… ah, whatever. If anything, this is a lesson that I should be checking out more artists from recent years. But back on topic, this is an outstanding release from Atobe. This was also a complete 180, nothing like anything he had ever released to this point. Of course, that wouldn’t mean anything if this didn’t carry the same emotional resonance and je ne sais quoi of his previous stuff, but it’s here in spades. Erm.. get digging! | | 33 |  | Yakui
Imni
2019. 4.5. Check out more recent artists, they said… it’ll be fun they said… and they were right! Yakui (or Nondi_ as she’s known now) is the most exciting new artist I’ve found, although to be sure she’s not exactly new (see 2016 entry (and this entry tbh)). In any case, this is just so new and exciting and stellar, and what’s even better is that it actually sounds like something made by someone who wasn’t born before 1980 (no shade to my favorites on this list, I just crave something that’s more my generation’s style). What can I say, this album just packs a punch, isn’t afraid to go complete wacko but has a razor sharp vision PLUS a modern sounding pertinence that is only expanded upon by her later works. This is the end… of the beginning. ┌( ಠ_ಠ )┘ | | 34 |  | ASC
Windchime/Offworld Tides/Stature
The End. Ok, I’m sorry, that was a lot. But we made it to the end, and I couldn’t be happier! I have long thought of what the best way to do a run down of what I listen to on a daily basis is, that isn’t just describing what I listen to on a daily basis. I hope this unedited slog had enough interesting tidbits to at least make up some of the difference between a cohesive list and a “daily diary” sort of list, not to rag on the latter, since I enjoy both. Also, what electronic artists do you like? Do you think there’s too much electronic music discussion on Sputnik now? Do these artists suck or is they are good? Where’s Drexciya? | |
Hawks
12.17.24 | Killer list man gotta hear lots of these. | myri14
12.17.24 | Thanks, appreciate it! | jrlikestodance
12.17.24 | I really need to do a deeper dive into Shinichi Atobe. You rec'd me some track a lil while back and I loved em | CottonSalad
12.17.24 | Where’s Drexciya [2]
Great list, subbed | bludngorevidal
12.17.24 | peepin this, looks like some good stuffs | FowlKrietzsche
12.17.24 | lfg high quality myri14 list!! | Hyperion1001
12.17.24 | sweet list. for 92 check out x-102 - discovers the rings of saturn | Relinquished
12.17.24 | for 29 you could’ve tried his Imagine the Future album lol
he splits between doing drum and bass, to ambient, to whatever is in between | myri14
12.17.24 | Thank you for the comments and recs! Will check out X-102 n ASC. |
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