The Best Electronic Albums of 2011

This has been something of a peculiar year for electronic music. Some of the most compelling music from the genre has come from unsigned or yet-to-record-an-album bands. Discoveries like Curxes, Vile Electrodes and Nightlife provided some of the most alive, exciting and dynamic electronic music of the year. It was a year where EPs, instead of full albums, which we measure here today, brought us some of the most interesting glimpses of how good electronic music can be from the likes of Softsynth mainstay Miss FD, The Golden Filter, Tenek, or the three aforementioned bands (perhaps the latest example of how differently we now consume music in the digital age). And it was a year when many of the bands that make up the very foundation of this blog and this blogger’s bedrock musical interests, released new albums only to fall flat. In a year when Erasure, Ladytron, VNV Nation, M83, She Wants Revenge, And One and The Human League released new work it felt like assembling this year’s chart would be a pre-ordained affair, and yet it was surprises, resurfaces and new discoveries that provided the real fodder for our best of the year list in 2011. It was a year when Amy Lee of Evanescence, of all people would give us one of our most compelling electronic songs of the year, covering a Muppets song no less. There were curve balls but ultimately, as is the case every year, the best of the best rises to the top…

Review: Diffuzion – Winter Cities

Sometimes we are taken completely by surprise by a new band, one we hear little-to-nothing about, one we go in with no expectations of, and they emerge to be nothing short of a revelation. Belarus darkwave band Diffuzion were one such band who took the Softsynth world by storm back in 2008 with their terrific, game-changing album Body Code. It’s been a long wait but the wait has, refreshingly this year when many anticipated releases felt like left-downs, been very much worth it.

Winter Cities is a very difficult album to classify. It’s not pop, it’s certainly not industrial, it’s not even really darkwave technically speaking. Much as Body Code seemed to carve out new musical ground, building a musical structure where one simply never stood before, Winter Cities is…something else altogether. Dark beats, heavy bass, dance rhythms, spoken harsh vocals mixed with occasional sweet underlying background vocals, it’s not any one identifying thing within the world of electronic music, it’s simply…Diffuzion. 

A thousand times yes! Diffuzion back with new material

One of the small handful of bands Softsynth has championed over the years is back at exactly the point we were about to write them into a Bands We Miss posting.

Belarus’ Diffuzion came at us with their spectacular debut album Bodycode three years ago but had gone awfully quiet since. They quickly became one of our absolutely favourite bands and we were out of our minds wondering if they had more in the hopper. At last they are back with a new track, “ddb (while you can)” and while we wish the song featured more of singer Xev’s vocals it’s a pretty nifty largely-instrumental track that has whetted our appetite for a new long player.

It simply does not get better than Diffuzion and its our hope that they will quickly find a wider audience embracing their darkwave, industrial-influenced goodness.

Watch: dbd (while you can):

Bounty of DM riches from Alfa Matrix

I don’t think I ever realized just how many of my favourite bands are on the Alfa Matrix label. New out is the latest in an endless stream of Depeche Mode tribute albums, most of which suck donkeys, but this one may be the most interesting of all. Some of the finest electronic bands on the planet, spanning the full spectrum of electronic music’s subgenres cover some of DM’s best (and often less obvious) songs. Two of my absolute favourite bands of the moment are featured here, Belarus’ Diffuzion and Germany’s Technoir, but they only scrape feebly at the surface – Leaether Strip, i:scintilla, Nebula-H, Regenerator, Ayria, Inure, Psy’aviah (I never noticed how much electronic bands abuse the “gratuitous punctuation rule”), and a host of bands I’m less familiar with come up with some truly inspired cover versions of DM’s very best. It’s a pricey €20 and only available at the Alfa Matrix website, but highly worth it if you enjoy electronic music, even if Depeche Mode leave you cold.

Listen to samples:

Best of 2008

I’m reprinting this from my lastFM account as it seems relevant to this blog. Not all the albums on this list are electronic but not all the best albums of the year are electronic (though I think most were). (and that said, only R.E.M. and The Breeders can be absolutely said to be wholly organic, The Kills and Maple Bee, some case could be made for a hybrid.)

While 2008 left a lot to be desired on the part of mainstream music (Kanye West, Keane, Pink and even Britney had some interesting stuff out these year but these were exceptions), alternative music had another bang-up year. I’m an album guy so I tend to focus on the “best” albums (knowing full well how stupidly subjective something like this is; look at someone’s playlist and you’ll be able to guess their best of list, which would be markedly different than anyone else’s), but there were some singles (and a few album tracks) that stood out in a big way like Weezer’s awesome “Pork and Beans”, Tricky’s fantastic take on the Kylie Monogue track “Slow”, Ra Ra Riot’s “Ghost Under Rocks” (an album that, along with Humanizer by Thermostatic, would be in my “top 12”), Lily Allen’s great new track “The Fear” and “The Best Revenge” by Fischerspooner, among many more.