Dec 31, 2015

Best electronic albums of 2015: the no-listers

Throughout this process, I had three rules.

1. Don't worry about the albums I didn't notice. Other sites will cover those well enough.

2. Nothing too poppy. Let's keep it a little bit snooty.

3. No compilations.

The second and third of these rules gave me a no-list: albums that I deliberately chose not to consider. Let's take a break from the top ten to see the also-rans that fell at the first hurdle for no reason other than my own jobsworthing:

Sorry, Hot Chip, I really loved Why Make Sense? (Domino) but I decided it was on the wrong side of the pop line. Wowsers, though, how much did Huarache Lights sound like Orbital? Delicious.

A number of compilations fell foul of the compilation rule. They included Berlin legends Berghain (Ostgut Ton) and their absolutely solid techno, Wolfgang Voigt's Protest tracks (Profan) dropping on CD for the first time, the top dub techno of The Wandering II (Silent Season), Jon Hopkins simply brilliant contribution to the Late Night Tales series, the DJ Kicks comps from persistent no-shower Actress and from wheels-of-steel prodigy DJ Koze (the latter including William Shatner and The Gentle People in his set), the thoroughly industrial Selected Cuts (Repitch) and the best compilation of the year, the epic µ20 (Planet Mu) wich gives you the best bang for your buck of anything released this year.

Oh and AFX's Orphaned Deejay Selek (2006-2008) (Warp Records) was an EP not an album, so I struck it from my list then cried for about four days.

Back to the top ten shortly. Remember, catch up on all these blog posts so far by clicking this magic link:

-----> Best electronic albums of 2015 <-----

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