The best Electronic Music of 2023: Albums

My top 30 albums of 2023, in no particular order

It’s the end of the year, time to look back and reflect! Here are my thirty favorite albums of 2023, in no particular order. Many of the blurbs are taken from the quarterly round-ups (Q1, Q2, Q3) I did across the year, but I’ve also written some new ones for the occasion. I hope you might discover something you like and see you in 2024!

Maara - The Ancient Truth [Step Ball Chain]

Over the past couple of years, Maara-Louisa Dunbar from Montreal has made a name for herself with raving and trance-y techno-house EPs on labels like NAFF and Kalahari Oyster Cult. Her debut album The Ancient Truth centers on lush and atmospheric broken beat tracks that draw from 90's downtempo while remaining committed to trance-like melodies and arrangements. For a newer producer, this is a decidedly self-assured album that confidently cycles through various styles and approaches while staying coherent and making sure each track slots into the overall narrative vibe of the project.

Opener "Sip From My Chalice" is a silky downtempo breaks track that oozes with warmth and lushness. "Erotics Of Betrayal" is a dark and slow number, driven by fat breakbeats and a brooding, 00’s Bedrock-style reese bassline, over which dry spoken word vocals and wet, echoing vocal pads and chops form a kind of dialogue. "Rough N' Ready" is quicker and somewhat manic, with deep, rolling subs, swift organic hand-drums and percussion, and auto-panned vocal licks. "Just Give Me Time" is a modern drum & bass track driven by a dark reese and ethereal vocal-chop washes, while "Oh I Remember..." is a jazzy, LTJ Bukem style jungle track with trance-gated licks and luscious vowel pads. "Sapphic Rehabilitation Center" finally goes back to the ol' 4/4 and channels big and breaksy trance-house.

While this is a relatively subtle record, there is a palpable latent eroticism and libidinal energy to these tracks that is rare in contemporary music, which - much like our culture at large - tends to oscillate between the extreme poles of either bloodless puritanism or pornographic obscenity. The Ancient Truth suggests without showing, prefers to reside in the dark, fuzzy and liminal zones of the sonic imaginary. Do we need to note down "sapphic downtempo trance" as a new micro-genre?

Sunik Kim - Potential [Otoroku]

On a first listen, Potential may seem like ... a lot. Through the means of a borderline malfunctioning SuperCollider patch, this record spews out an almost impossibly dense stream of MIDI information, resulting in dense, almost cacophonic cluster-tone collages. But on a closer listen, it becomes obvious that this record isn't really about being "confrontational" or "challenging" or similar experimental music clichés. Rather, it is about the most basic practice of arranging and composing music by distributing sound across a duration of time. In this sense, what's most interesting about Potential isn't that it is one of the most sonically radical records of the year, but that it does so while being deeply committed to structure and composition.

Nueen - Link [3XL]

Link is a mini-album of short ambient sketches that conjure a grand, nocturnal atmosphere with dusky pads, big buzzing reese basslines and scattered vocal-echoes. Opener "I" is dark and dubby, while "III" is euphoric and ghostly with fluttering, reverb-drenched and pitch-shifted trap vocals. "IV" continues a similar theme, but goes downright majestic with some stunning sonic vistas. Closer "V" mixes its dark bassline with light shimmery synths and hymnal autotune vocals. Sublime.

Nondi_ - Flood City Trax [Planet Mu]

I've always had a soft spot for electronic dance music made by outsiders without any consideration for wider trends or dancefloor impact. Flood City Trax is that kind of record, one that borrows from a wide variety of genres and sonic aesthetics - from footwork to 00's IDM to classic detroit techno to lo-fi house - to earnestly express a very specific sense of place and emotion that could only ever be expressed in this exact way.

Catherine Christer Hennix - Solo for Tamburium [Blank Forms]

Solo for Tamburium is an eighty-minute live recording of looped and overdubbed revolving drones that endlessly cycle through new variations and interpretations. A journey towards the cosmos.

Hoavi - Phases [Gost Zvuk]

Hoavi's latest is a strange mini album of loopy structuralist experiments in percussive synthesis. These tracks make do without traditional drum sounds and center around murky and noisy synth patterns that also serve as the primary rhythmic elements. My favorite is "Phase 8", a disorienting, but addictive number who's rapidfire percussive sequences are almost tripping over themselves as they keep moving in complex criss-cross motions.

Jo Johnson - The Wave Ahead [Mysteries Of The Deep]

Jo Johnson is a former riot grrrl punker turned ambient producer. Her output is sparse, but essential. While there are many similar releases centered around gently rotating synth arps, her sound has a certain mysterious quality that recalls the mythical, primordial era of synthesis, when synthesizers were not consumer products, but occult technology.

Paul St. Hilaire - Tikiman Vol. 1 [Kynant Records]

The Berlin-based, Dominican-born Paul St. Hilaire is best known for his vocal contributions to many Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound classics. In the time since, he's remained musically active, lending his unmistakable voice to producers like Rhauder and Deadbeat. His new solo project Tikiman Vol. 1 finds him both in the vocal booth and in the producer's seat. For an artist that is primarily known as a vocalist, the production work here is excellent throughout, drawing from the dub techno sound of his collaborations with Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald, but also imbuing it with a tidier, more modern character. For anyone that's craving more Rhythm & Sound, this is as close to the source as you're going to get.

Superabundance - Extrasolar [Future Times]

Extrasolar is an album of playful jungle exercises that seem more inspired by the freewheeling DiY spirit of early 10's lo-fi house than classic 90s jungle. While the breaks are heavy and the pads are lush, these tracks tend to go for quirky twists and turns, rather than what one might traditionally expect. While it is unlikely to smash any junglist raves, Extrasolar is just a whole lot of fun.

Lau Nau - 5x7 [Beacon Sound]

Sublime studies for Buchla and voice by Finnish composer-producer Laura Naukkarinen. The pieces here revolve around nimble, Suzanne Ciani styled arp-constructions that continually alternate between sacral, almost medieval harmony and more dissonant and microtonal moments. Despite the frequent nods to early electronic music, this is a record that feels properly timeless. My favorite here is "Pleomothra", a veritable hymn of a track that harmonizes electronic sequences and vocals, layering them together in a series of complex foldings and unfoldings.

Shackleton & Wacław Zimpel - In The Cell of Dreams [7K!]

Sam Shackleton has long looked towards the cosmos. His latest collaboration with musician Wacław Zimpel and vocalist Siddharta Belmannu aims straight for the great outside with grand sweeping vocals, droning synths and alien instrumentation, adorned by subtle FX and processing.

Purelink - Signs [Peak Oil]

Purelink just know how to nail this kind of hazy late-night ambient dub. Signs is the musical equivalent of a warm, gently flowing body of water, chock full of pillowy rhythms, meditative basslines and warm, enveloping padscapes. A varied palette of incidentals and noises keeps things interesting in the background.

Lilocox - Drums (Lata) [Príncipe]

Príncipe goes four-to-the-floor with this mixtape of quirky techno-house tracks with various Afro-Latin influences. Despite sticking with reduced, almost mnml-sounding rhythm sections throughout, Drums shines with immense flair and personality, playfully cycling through a myriad of melodic and rhythmic ideas over its 80+ minute duration without ever getting boring.

Mads Kjeldgaard - Musik For Virtuelle Orgler [SUPERPANG]

The title already reveals what's going on here: experimental compositions that make use of digital physical modeling to go beyond the limits of the physical organ. I like Kjeldgaard's compositional approach here, centering on repeating Reichian, almost (proto)technoid, sequences that show off their structural dexterity through subtle means rather than singular big moments. Organ-ambient-trance?

SØS Gunver Ryberg - Spine [Arterial]

Spine is a warmer and smoother record than the Swedish producer-composer's previous efforts. She dials back the distortion and harsh noise, and instead hones in on lush and stepping ambient techno, interlaced with warbling and shimmery beatless pieces. It's still got plenty of sonic impact, but also looks towards the subtler moments in between the beats.

Lugo / Shiroshi - Feed [SUPERPANG]

Feed is an album mostly composed of screeching cascades of noisy feedback. While feedback techniques certainly are a well-treaded cliché in experimental circles, Feed is rescued from academic dullness by its stern, but delicate focus on the visceral experience of feedback and its textural and timbral nuances. Across the record, Lugo and Shiroshi weave together live-playing, oscillating feedback tones and heavy, noisy compression-overdrive into an organic whole. Not the most easy or pleasant listen, but a rewarding one.

Windowseeker - tranquil flutter engulf my heart [3XL]

3XL has been putting out some of the more interesting ambient out there lately, and this one's no exception. Far from any kind of "wallpaper-ambient", tranquil flutter engulf my heart goes all out on heartfelt, trance-y melodrama. The highlight is "crumble crack dawn song" with its emotive supersaw arpeggios, mourning bassline, siren-song vocal chops and glassy streams of noise.

Aiden Francis - Overture [Houseum Records]

Aiden Francis has recently made a name for himself with a number of trance-y, acidic tech-house hits. His first album Overture channels similar big and euphoric vibes, borrowing freely from various strains of trance, rave and acid. Despite this penchant for excess, he manages to never make things sound too corny, which is quite the feat (he's also recently put out an Aqua Remix that somehow manages to not sound completely ridiculous, so apparently this man can make anything sound classy). Underground stadium tracks.

Keith Fullerton Whitman - A Stable Environment [Going In]

A Stable Environment is a sublime, hour-long drone piece that conjures the sonic imagery of a fantastical and serene underground waterway with gently flowing samples of water and slowly shifting and drifting resonances. A purifying listen.

Elizabeth Parker - Future Perfect [Trunk Records]

Somehow, they keep on unearthing yet more forgotten pioneering women electronic music composers. Elizabeth Parker was a part of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop from the 70s up until its ultimate dissolution in the mid-90s. Future Perfect is the first anthology-compilation of her work. Despite the fact that the material almost entirely consists of commission work for the radio, there is a stunning amount of musical personality at display here, with the many pieces ranging from classic bleepy 50s sci-fi sound effects to gorgeous, Vangelis-like soundtrack work.

Cv313 - Suspended In A Moment [Cv313]

Echospace's Steven Hitchell is back with two singular and sublime extended ambient drifters. Music for those twilight states between sleeping, dreaming and waking.

HOLOVR - Continual Unfolding [Indole Records]

A few years ago, HOLOVR had the honor of releasing new music on the mythical early UK techno label Likemind. A fitting match, since HOLOVR has a hand for channeling the utopian romanticism of that period, when electronic music was still about a promise of the future, expressed in machinic bleeps and sequences.

Various - The NID Tapes [The State51 Conspiracy]

This is a compilation of tracks taken from archive tapes that were recently rediscovered by Emptyset's Paul Purgas. They were recorded in India's first electronic music studio, the NID between 1969 to 1972. The studio was outfitted with a Moog modular system and tape machines by David Tudor while on a stay in India.

What's above all striking here is the markedly loose and free-spirited feel that is very different from the meticulously composed early electronic music that came out of the classic European studios of the 40s and 50s. Instead, the NID Tapes evoke people playfully engaging with the studio, just casually seeing where this improvisational dialogue with the machines will take them. This ethos makes for some really interesting results, especially on the S.C. Sharma tracks entitled "Dance Music" that almost sound like 60s proto-techno.

Marta de Pascalis - Sky Flesh [Light-Years]

On Sky Flesh, Marta de Pascalis hones in on the venerable Yamaha CS-60 with some very expressive synth playing. Her reverb-drenched melodic and harmonic motifs convey a strong sense of human touch, letting you almost hear her glide from key to key, pulling sliders, sweeping cutoffs and pushing resonances. But instead of showcasing mere virtuosity, the performances serve the songs, making for something that sounds both grand and intimate.

Gamut Inc - Sum To Infinity [Morphine]

Sweeping, atonal digital spectral harmonics, accompanied by polyrhythmic, computer-controlled acoustic percussion and metal instruments? Sounds just ripe for a party! I'm kidding, but for such an unapologetically bizarre record, this one's pretty damn fun, eschewing academic self-seriousness in favor of a mad scientist's bravado, passionately indulging in its own absurdity.

Rod Modell - Ghost Lights [Astral Industries]

Rod Modell aka DeepChord's latest on Astral Industries showcases his ambient side with one long (split into four parts) luminescent atmospheric scene.

Tolerance - Divin [MESH-KEY]

If you are a fan of 70's and 80's Japanese music, you will probably already know this one, but for me, this reissue was my first introduction to this cult-classic with a backstory that's almost too good to be true: in the late 70s, a young female dental assistant made two pioneering avant-garde electronic music albums on the seminal label Vanity Records, only to promptly disappear from the music world and to never release anything again.

Despite such a record’s inherent risk of being suffocated under the weight of its own mythology, this music is still remarkable over forty years later because it still sounds utterly alien and reference-less. This is electronic outside made from the complete outside of the genre-matrix within we operate in today, only driven by base human intuition and what the interfaces of the (at the time still novel) electronic music-machines themselves suggested. Listening to this is like taking an expedition into the unknown and ancient pre-history of electronic music.

Imaginary Softwoods - The Notional Pastures Of Imaginary Softwoods [Field Records]

The Notional Pastures is classic Imaginary Softwoods. It evokes fantastical forests and dream-like pastoral landscapes that are colorful and inviting, urging you to lose yourself in their radiating warmth. But (in the best tradition of Boards Of Canada), hidden somewhere deep in the background, there remain signs of an ancient, ghostly presence that is haunting the land. Music like an old-fashioned fairy tale.

Chaos In The CBD - Fabric Presents [Fabric]

Chaos in The CBD do classic, purist deep house better than just about anyone working today. Their new mix/compilation for London's Fabric club is a big grab-bag of lesser known 90's house bombs. Coming as both a mixed and unmixed version, casual listeners can enjoy a great classic house mix, while the unmixed tracks provide DJs and enthusiasts with high-quality digital versions of many sought after Discogs gems. Either way, this one's a must for anyone that enjoys classic house.

Bee Mask - Versailles Is Not Too Large... or Infinity Too Long [Unifactor]

Bee Mask was a part of the same 00's American DiY ambient-cassette underground that launched the careers of the likes of Emeralds and OPN. Unlike those artists, Bee Mask has kept a relatively low profile, which may also be explained by the fact that he's hardly released any music in the past decade. In lieu of new music, we can be happy that this hyper-limited 2008 cassette release is finally being reissued and digitally released, because both sides here are excellent. The a-side is an intense spectral orgy with Risset-like glassy drones that ascend and descend in pitch like a see-sick see-saw. The b-side is noisy and distorted, but also weirdly lush with its damp and dense, jungle-like vibe. Two intense pieces that are as satisfying as they are alien.