A Closer Listen
Wild sounds, creative sounds, exciting sounds, all underpinned by a variety of beats: welcome to our electronic section, in which forward-thinking artists provide glimpses of the future today. We reviewed more electronic music than any other type this year, which is a statement of strength for the genre. The tone of this year’s top albums is split between light and dark, representing complementary poles. One artist below has been recording for 33 years, while another appears with a debut album. In 1993, Mike Paradinas was ahead of his time; today we’re saying the same thing about Exzald S. Mainstream culture has not yet caught up to these sounds; by the time it does, the genre will have moved on. To hear what’s coming, listen below!
Aho Ssan & Resina ~ Ego Death (Subtext)
A fallen tree at a forest clearing, deep into the night, illuminated solely by moonlight. The cover hints at the musical self-dissolution sought by both Aho Ssan and Resina across different projects, the boundaries of the subject a plastic material under the processes of augmentation (electronic, instrumental), an objectification that, under the midnight stars, appears as needing no recognition. It is precisely because there is no one to hear, no one to see, that the fallen tree has been perceived – by nothing other than a living mechanism. (David Murrieta Flores)
Original Review
Disiniblud (Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith) ~ Disiniblud (Smugglers Way)
Sometimes glitchy, but more often chilled, the debut collaboration between Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith is an unexpected delight. Given Nayar’s previous work, we were expecting a more off-kilter beat-centred album. But what Disiniblud deliver is more akin to folktronica – not a term we’re all that fond of, but one that fits here. There’s also a stacked list of guest appearances. Julianna Barwick and Tujiko Noriko bookend the album, but the highlight is Cassandra Croft on “Serpentine”. Disiniblud feels like a warm embrace, drawing friends into its world where everyone is welcome. (Jeremy Bye)
Original Review
Exzald S ~ Iridesc (Subtext)
Another entry from our Label of the Year, Irisesc is a subtle sci-fi journey in which the voice of the artist becomes texture, melting into a miasma of synthetic settings. This debut album has been a long time coming; after appearing as a guest artist on other albums that have made our year-end charts, Exsald S (Sarah Foulquiere) has stepped out on her own, and the results are glorious: as conveyed on the cover, calm in the midst of chaos. (Richard Allen)
Original Review
Jilk ~ Fix Your Hearts
The starting point of Fix Your Hearts is, apparently, the sound of French pop, although it’s not an obvious influence for the majority of the album. There’s barely a trace of ye-ye discernible here, although the highlights “Any Precious In The Metal” and “End Harm For End Home” do have French vocals. What Jilk give us, though, is a beginning that is filtered through their own style, resulting in a concise set of light, jazzy, occasionally glitchy instrumental mood pieces. The Bristol collective have been on quite the run recently, with a series of excellent albums – and we don’t think they are near their peak yet. (Jeremy Bye)
Original Review
Katarina Gryvul ~ SPOMYN (Subtext)
Three years after her groundbreaking Tysha, Katarina Gryvul returns with SPOMYN (“recollection”), an album that delves into the delicate, splintered texture of memory and the ways it quietly moulds our identities. Each piece functions like a shard of something once known—distorted, misplaced, eerie or fading—revived through raw emotion to form a chain of connection linking us to past lives and the fleeting traces they’ve left within us. The emotional centrepiece is “Vdykh Vydykh,” a meditation on grief, trauma, and the struggle to keep living after unbearable loss—its lyrics trace a mind fractured by sorrow, clinging to memories that shine and wound in equal measure, and confronting both personal devastation and collective tragedy. The music video, directed by Illya Dutsyk and starring his grandmother—who had lost her husband weeks before filming—expands this emotional landscape into lived reality: a collaborative act of processing grief, shaped by the fact that Gryvul herself had recently lost her father. (Gianmarco Del Re)
Original Review
Kelly Moran ~ Don’t Trust Mirrors (Warp)
A suite of pieces for prepared piano and synth, Don’t Trust Mirrors sees Kelly Moran revisit and develop some older songs alongside newer material. This brings an immediate familiarity to an already inviting album, inspired by hitting the dancefloor at the end of festivals to produce that elusive hit of euphoria. There are no drums, but there is plenty of rhythm in the playing. Moran has shifted and shimmered her way through recent albums, but this feels like a course correction, towards a future in which Moran discovers fresh influences and environments. (Jeremy Bye)
Original Review
Max Cooper & Rob Clouth ~ 8 Billion Realities (Mesh)
This EP may be short, but it sure covers a lot of ground. The first (of four) tracks has a frantic techno beat, and the last one is atmospheric and pillowy, bordering on ambient. In between there is rap and grime. The artists do an outstanding job of showcasing four distinct realities, all within 22 minutes. (Maya Merberg)
Original Review
µ-Ziq ~ 1979 (Balmat)
Mike Paradinas returns with the sequel to his last LP, 1977. As the titles suggest, this duo of albums does not attempt anything groundbreaking. Instead they are a welcome step back in time. 1979 uses retro synths to recreate the 90s electronic era during which the artist first made a splash. Taking listeners on a tour of Paradinas’s memories– wisps of recollections from his childhood in the UK and Spain– 1979 is a cozy recognition and embrace of little slices of personal and cultural history. A companion album, Manzana, was released a week later. (Maya Merberg)
Original Review
tedzi ~ تدزي‘s Mn Dehab (mnjm)
Machine-vision deliriums of endless violence; artificially produced sandstorms (a detonation, a mushroom cloud, an unshackling from the earth’s surface); the sounds of industrial warfare doubling as the acoustics of bodies dropping… electronic music has always been a more self-reflective genre than most, questioning itself as medium integrated in the technological development of the system. tedzi تدزي’s striking poem, accompanying this harsh techno/IDM album, reads like programming, words tuned to the 1s and 0s of weaponized drone interfaces, altered and subverted to allow for hope to filter through: it conceives of hope as prelude to sabotage. (David Murrieta Flores)
Original Review
Whatever the Weather ~ II (Ghostly International)
On Whatever the Weather II, Loraine James further develops her more introspective alias, crafted through hardware improvisation without collaborators. True to its name, the music flows like a seasonal cycle, with pieces titled by “emotional temperature” drifting from granular ambience (“1°C”) to glitchy, sun-dappled rhythms (“20°C”). Her collage-like approach layers diaristic field recordings (children playing, idle chatter) within a meticulously sequenced world of ambient rhythms. The result is a strikingly three-dimensional and cohesive sequel, an internal weather system of its own where digital processing meets organic human warmth. (Joseph Sannicandro)
Original Review
Sun Dec 14 00:01:36 GMT 2025