Top 4 Electronic Albums of 2012 *

This was a nutsy year in music; a lot of big acts released albums. Maybe the idea of having an album out in 2012 (the end of the world) was particularly appealing. So, to narrow down the list of favorite albums, I decided to make my list purely electronic. I like listening to different genres of music but I am absolutely infatuated with experimental electronic stuff.  Here are four albums I thoroughly enjoyed listening to and why.

4. Andy Stott - Luxury Problems
Listening to this album evokes a sense of having been been transported to an autocratic dystopia in some parallel universe. Under this regime- the citizens who like to go clubbin must do it very secretly. One by one they trickle out of their respective apartment buildings in the middle of the night, and they have to dodge the view of hidden cameras throughout the streets in order to finally get to an isolated building in the outskirts of town. There, they enter the basement, and then another basement underneath the first basement. In the sub-basement, through the almost entirely dark room, this album is pulsing through. The place is crowded beyond occupancy, everyone is dripping in sweat and dancing in music-video slow motion. Okay I'll stop.

Thus, it's not the sort of music that I would like to listen to all the time. And despite the analogies I just made, it's not music that would be easily received in a dance club. But to sum it up, under the list of "most impressive upon a first listening" (and also "most inappropriate to listen to with lap-top speakers") this debut definitely tops the list. The entire album teems with the intriguing combination of  gritty & deep instrumentals (think abandoned factories, or better yet, Eraserhead by David Lynch) and operatic vocals (think angels singing lullabies to you through the sky).  As Luxury Problems proves, the two starkly contrasting elements merge seamlessly when paired together, or at least when paired together by Stott.


3. Actress - R.I.P.

I came to appreciate this album because it directly skips elements of electronic music that make it a popular target of criticism. The sort of criticism from people who purposely don't listen to it. Either because they assume that (1) its attempt to imitate "real" instruments  results in sounds that have less character and musical properties that somehow feel cheaper or (2)  it's music that is only suitable for dancing partying.

2. Holy Other - Held

This debut from Holy Other utilizes very recent electronic music trends to create a mood that parallels the dark visceral atmosphere that someone like Burial is notorious for channeling. The album brings the words - "haunting" and "otherwordly" to a whole new level. And that's clearly what he was shooting for, but I mean seriously. If you image-google the guy, you'll come across photographs of what appears to be the grim reaper playing DJ. Well, he succeeded in materializing this vision.

Lyrically ambiguous vocal samples are weaved in and given the  reverbed-out, delayed, pitched-low treatment. But to say that Holy Other makes this common formula "work" would be an understatement, he does it in a way that makes the air echo, or, better yet picture the vocal equivalent of a life-saver floating over a lake, bobbing up and down (listen to "Nothing Here"). All in all, it's music that somehow translates to the listener a sense of comfort despite its densely dark exterior. 


1. John Talabot - ƒIN
Oh baby. Just about every track in this album (except for 'Journeys' in my opinion) is (1) catchy (2) musically innovative and (3) emotionally evocative. It's also very "colorful". Colorfully infectious as in, if I had synthesia and epilepsy, listening to this album could potentially induce a seizure within me. And "colorful" is definitely not an adjective that I would use to describe some of the other albums on this list. If I had to spit out a quick label to describe what genre it falls under, I'd probably blurt out something along the lines of "very tribally house".  They're not words I would have associated with an album that I would assume myself to most consistently gravitate to in any given year, but in 2012 that's exactly what this album became to me.


Other [non-electronic] albums I loved: Porcelain Raft - Strange Weekend, Grizzly Bear - Shields, Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Mature Themes

Top Tracks of 2012

10. Grimes - "Skin"

9. Diplo - "Move Around" (Ft. Elephant Man)


8. Four Tet - "Pyramid"


7. Frank Ocean -  "Crack Rock"


6. XXYYXX - "Good Enough"


5. Burial - "Kindred"

4. How To Dress Well - "Running Back"

3. Burial & Four Tet - "Nova"


2. Porcelain Raft - "Unless You Speak From Your Heart"


1. Grizzly Bear - "Half Gate"

Similarly to artists themselves, from the perspective of a record label, the choice to sign an artist can side with the artists rising popularity- their potential to bring in the money, or, side with a belief in the style of music that the artist is channeling. And when it comes to Tri Angle Records, the latter is true (though the former has been a perk).

"I think I had a relatively clear vision for the label pretty early on and that definitely helped me wrap my head around everything." reveals Robin Carolan, the label's founder, in one interview. And this is all the more apparent when browsing through the family of artists signed to it- a list which includes names like How To Dress Well, Holy Other, Balam Acab, and perhaps most notably, Clams Casino.

In addition to the fact that their music has generated a lot buzz, the element these artists have in common is their inclination toward a pulsing, intricately controlled use of reverb.  A technique which has come about from the rise in digital software and hardware for making music and a technique that allows for the effect of stacked, yet indistinguishable layers hammered in with heavy rhythms. Atmospheric layers that sort of melt right into one another. That faith in the powers of almighty reverb  maybe best describes why these artists fall under the same family. Put that reverb together with a preference for making music under 100 BPM and you have the two ingredients that make up the recipe for the Tri Angle sound. That slow drone with the deep beat.

But as the artists under Tri Angle prove, this formula leaves a lot of room for variation. How To Dress well puts the reverb emphasis on his r&b vocal melodies while Clams Casino samples vocals in a way somehow indicative of the second-coming Christ. Aside from their similarities regarding the technical side of song construction, all these artists under Tri Angle evoke that indescribable something in a song that gets us feeling. Instead of seeking artists that make tracks which get us grooving, Carolin has opted to seek out artists who are fueled by highly personal emotions derived from the condition of permanent isolation.

I first took notice upon the label after the startling realization that it was the name behind many, it seemed all, of the new artists that I was listening to. And as I found upon further investigation, this pattern was too much of a coincidence to be an actual coincidence- if I have it right, it was actually something that had been calculated by one man, Robin Carolan, who detected the ingenuity of these artists before the rest of us did- "I was always a fan of labels that seemed to exist within their own world. The ones that appeared to know what they were about, like 4AD in the 80s, Warp, Ghost Box, Rephlex, etc. I think very carefully about everything I release, almost as if I’m trying to create a narrative for the label with each release."

To hear more of what Carolan has been after and learn more about the inventory of the artists under Tri Angle Records, check out their website and/or soundcloud. And for a taste, here's a song from Holy Other.