The best Electronic Music of Q1-2026

Featuring 34 EPs and albums from January to March

Apr 06, 2026

Hellooo, I hope you’re all doing well! I wanted to be a bit more diligent about my quarterly round-ups this year, and I’ve somehow actually managed to get this one done right on time, so here are my 34 favorite electronic albums and EPs released between January and March of 2026 :) There have been a lot of good records coming from all sorts of directions and scenes so far this year, although I couldn’t help but notice that I’ve used the word “microhouse” here more than I have in years, possibly ever, so there is definitely something in the air in that respect … perhaps the beginnings of a general vibe-shift away from the very fast tempos and high-intensity 90s energy of the post-Covid dance music landscape.1 In any case, I hope you enjoy and might find something you like! — Vincent

Picture - Eeeeeeee [Short Span]

Picture, aka Erika de Casier collaborator DJ Central — undoubtedly one of the best house producers of the past ten years — ventures into more abstract lands here with six refined studies in sample and filter modulation. Traditional elements and arrangements are thrown out of the window, making space for a diffusive ensemble of gleaming refracted textures and cascading send-return lines; all rapidly flickering across the stereo field via intricate stereo filter modulations. Despite their seeming simplicity, making tracks like this is very difficult, almost impossible in fact, in the same way that making a genuinely great minimalist abstract painting is: you already have to have said everything there is to say with just a few lines and strokes, have to have fabricated a plausible inner life in which all the elements have come into their own being, have conjured a portal towards this strange new life the onlooker may suddenly find themselves in —

Mammo - Lateral [Short Span]

— rarely, but occasionally, there is techno that has been gifted with the power to jump into the portal and find itself in unknown lands, neither floor or home. That takes the courage to give in and let go, to resist the temptation of pressurizing and solidifying the fragile; to love and nurture what is almost too frail to survive: a sound in its nascence.

No question, Short Span is currently on the cusp of something, in the same way that West Mineral was around 2017-2018. The most vital label in electronic music right now.

Glob Deejay - Glob [NAFF]

Lovelylovelylovely tracks here, like cute soft fluffy little bunnies you just want to hug and cuddle and squeeze forever … tracks so adorable they almost give me cute aggression; cute accelerationism in practice. Just pick any of these, press play/repeat-one and make your day a little bit better. Probably the best neo-microhouse record I’ve heard since Huerco S’ One Day — which kicked off this whole little micro-trend to begin with — back in 2024.

Nueen & Defled - xnd [self-released]

Spanish producer Nueen’s 2023 EP Link was one of the most astonishing things I’d heard in years, absolutely sublime and singular in its digitized cosmic evaporation of auto-tune lean harmonics over majestic reese basslines. His new collab LP xnd ventures out into similar territories, although not all the cuts here hit quite as hard as those on Link for me. But when they do, they really do, for example on “Connexion” or “Between The Lines” ... you know, no one ever acknowledges this, but DS2 era trap was in itself already bordering on ambient-trance at times (see my recent note on this), so what Nueen is doing here is basically just deterritorializing the tranced-out qualities already inherent in those records, stripping away all the triplet hats and 808s and letting the whole underlying structure dissolve; until all that’s left are washed out trails of warbled pitch and distortion reverberating above the chasms below.

Ribé & Roll Dann - Virtus Occulta [Mutual Rhythm]

Spanish pair Ribé and Roll Dann are back with an extended collection of techno rollers, this time on Stuttgart’s Mutual Rhythm. All eight tracks here are very sound, with my favorites probably being the glowy shimmer-pad euphoria on “Virtus Persistens”, the slinky hi-hat moves on “Ars Non Placens”, and the Oli XL -esque borderline-ASMR texture arrangements on “Meritim Negatum”.

Nondi_ - Nondi… [Planet Mu]

There are certain producers that just know how to strike the right balance between sonic extremism and more conventional musicality and Nondi is one of them, a fact she demonstrates as well as she ever has on her new Planet Mu LP. I don’t even know what genre I would put a track like “I Version Melody” in, but for all their manic energy, its rapid-fire distorted sample chops also have something very hymnal to them. This inclination towards melodic mania also continues through tracks like the dubbed-out lo-fi floater “Blossom”, the glassy ambient interlude “Saltrun”, and the bassline killer “Just hanging out (Reprise)”. Even the less melodic and more out-there tracks like “Unrendered Location” end up being oddly memorable, far from an easy feat. Towards the end, the harmonic drama then ramps up even further, with “Emo Bunny”’, sounding like ‘ca. 1990 Carl Craig meets 128kbs slo-mo juke’, and closer “Seesaltsun” going all-in on a comically bitcrushed cheesy piano line. It really shouldn’t work, but it all does, somehow. Excellent work from one of the most singular producers working today.

Galcher Lustwerk - Vestibule [Stratasonic]

Very classic (dare I say, “100%) Galcher on the title track here; jazzy, sensual and bouncy, with that trademark unassailable coolness in the vocals. A fine return to form from the last remaining hip house producer on the planet.

Nakul Krishnamurthy - Punaravartana [The Death Of Rave]

Listen/buy over at Boomkat

People sometimes make fun of Boomkat’s record blurbs for being overly enthusiastic — they are written to sell records, after all — but when they write that something is “next level amazing”, they do tend to be on the money more often than not, which is also the case here. I don’t know much about the artist or the Indian tradition he is referencing, but this is fantastic material situated somewhere between the ancient and the digital. Some of the best drone work I’ve heard in a while.

Snad - Dispo [Smallville]

Gorgeous extended spring floaters on this new Smallville from Snad, who I first came across via his delightful Bubblescope EP from 2024, also on Smallville. The fourteen minute long “Dispo” is clearly the star of the show here with its lush vocoder-y chords figures, athletic bassline and funky vocal snippets, although “Italosnadi” on the flip is also highly enjoyable; kicking things off all deep and floaty until the second bassline drops, when suddenly, everything’s gone all Italo, just like the title promised. An EP well deserving of the label that once put out Silent State.

Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske - At Source [Light-Years]

I tend to generally be a bit wary when it comes to these “big name x big name” collab2 records, because the artists in question usually tend to talk over each other, rather than with each other. However, that is definitely not the case here on At Source, and Giske’s elaborate sax harmonics do end up working marvelously with Barbieri’s trademark modular arp glides. Definitely the best I’ve heard from Barbieri in a while.

Priori - 9 [Kynant Records]

Over the past five years or so, Priori has quietly catapulted himself into the S tier of contemporary producers, and his latest EP 9 finds him at the peak of his abilities. “Nesting Chamber” is one of the best neo Rhythm & Sound numbers I’ve heard in a long time, evoking the immortal science of those 12”s without being too epigonic about it. Great performance from MC Gavsborg on the mic, too. The a2 “Isolation Dub” is a more reduced version of the above, while on the flip, “9” and “Somewhere Divine” leave behind the echoes for more microhouse-y territories with sweet floaty pads and sleek and satisfying percussion. Fantastic EP all around.

Maara - Ultra Villain [NAFF]

Maara’s 2023 debut album The Ancient Truth was one of my favorite records of that year and one of the records that finally made me believe in the long awaited zillenial trance revival. Now she’s back with her second LP, which definitely keeps up the trance-y vibe and ca. Northern Exposure harmonic work, but ventures even deeper into the depths of 90s downtempo psychedelia. Also new is the inclusion of vocal lines that range from ethereal and loved-up (“Glimmers Of Hope”, “Come Home”), to sultry (“Burn Up”), and even manic-possessive (“Obsessive Compulsion”, “The Chase”). As I wrote in my review of The Ancient Truth, Maara has a striking aptitude for channeling the full spectrum of desire; a talent laid out in all the more detail and vigor here.

Carré - Hibiscus [Tempa]

After her excellent Body Shell EP from last year, nuskool dubstep flag-bearer Carré is now already back with another solid EP on dubstep institution Tempa. The opener “Warm Light” is liquid-y and dubby à la late 00s Headhunter, while “X Effect” goes heavy on the subs and wobbles, and “Ride It Out” puts its all on the snare. The standout here is definitely the title track “Hibiscus” though, a laid back yet all the more heavy-hitting stepper with great performance from MC Bbyafricka that nicely complements the sultry and slightly sleazy vibe of the beat.

Markus Suckut - Control [Primordial State]

Over the past fifteen years, German producer Markus Suckut has made a name for himself as a very reliable supplier of reduced and understated techno grooves. His new 12” Control is no exception and pairs shifty sub tectonics with well-placed drums and muted hypnotic lead lines. All the cuts here are very solid, although if I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be “Observe” with its rolling rumble groove, buzzy reverberating lead motif and timely clap accents.

RAMZi - RAMZTEK [ONO Records]

I last wrote about RAMZi in my 2025 end of the year roundup, and now she’s already back with a seven track mini album. As expected, there’s some very lush and pretty fare to be found here, all warm and glistening and slightly strange in all the right ways. The drums are very proudly digital, on the clickier and cleaner side, at times almost sounding like they went through a bunch of FFT processing; a sound I don’t always love, but here ends up working very nicely as part of the overall timbral picture. My one complaint would be that some of the tracks are just a bit too short, with the excellent “deepdubi” clocking in at only two and a half minutes for example … so far, house and techno have mostly remained spared from the TikTokification of track lengths, so I do hope that this is just a quirk of this particular record and not indicative of any wider trends.

Suburban Architecture - Purpose EP [Suburban Architecture]

When a drum & bass EP starts out with a Photek quote, you already know what you are in for, and Suburban Architecture make no pretensions otherwise. Sweet four-tracker somewhere between Modus Operandi, Good Looking Records and early-mid 2000s ASC with a very tidy, slightly modern feel to its production.

Federsen - Plato [Axaminer Records]

Over the last decade or so, San Francisco’s Federsen has quietly established himself as one of the best dub techno producers currently in the game.3 Following a recent collaboration with EchoSpace legend Steven Hitchell, his new Plato EP now finds him in prime form. The title track especially is just gorgeous, the kind of thing I could loop for hours on end; warm and hissy and nocturnal in all the best ways with a perfect groove on top of it. “Spring Tank” is slightly more muscular but just as sensuous, while “Pluto” veers a touch more minimalist and diminutive. You usually only get a handful of dub techno 12”s this good every year, so absolutely do pick this up if you like this kind of thing.

Colleen - Libres antes del final [Thrill Jockey]

There’s just always been something very honest and vulnerable about one-synth/one-take records like this to me. As on her 2022 album Le Jour, Colleen coaxes fragile and slightly mournful lines and figures out her Moog; all live and uncut, at many points you can practically hear the tweaks of the knobs and flicks of the mod wheel. If you’ve ever spent any time on midlifecrisis-monosynth-YouTube, you will know that it is far from trivial to turn solo arp noodling into compelling music, but Colleen has the right amount of care and patience in the fingers to make it work. Manual music.

Sub Basics - Taxi Dub [Temple Of Sound]

Excellent quick-footed dub house bouncers on this new 12” from Sub Basics, who started out as bass music producer in the 2010s but has veered more and more into 4/4 territory over the last few years. “Taxi Dub” kicks things off in a good mood, all skippy and giddy with its cute call+response stab pattern and big rubbery bassline, while “Polytope” is slightly more melancholic with misty pads and skittish 909 hats. “Latch On” is a playful, jazzy number, and the closer “Holographic” casually throws slightly manic drum swing and floaty chord figures over heavily droning sub pressure. Very refreshing variation on modern tech house via London soundystem culture.

No Icons - Nothing But Fixes [Modern Love]

Listen/buy over at Boomkat

Yet more killer hyperdigitized IDM-ambient-bass-jungle from the extended Xenia Reaper verse. “Nothing But Fixes” is the most classically jungle sounding here, while “Dojo” is more sparse and steppy with its lethally chunking kick, and “Echochrome” layers soft PS1 grime motifs over alien donks. The last track “Carinho” is probably the weirdest but also most interesting of the bunch with its Ableton-warped bizarro reggaeton beat and complete lack of anything resembling a traditional melody. I have no idea who made this or where you could even play a record like this, but I do know that I would like to be at that party.

Ring - Rotation [Kino Disk]

I do not know who “Ring” is, but this new EP on the very interesting Kino Disk label is a promising effort with its two gorgeous ultramarine ambient dubs. “Rotation 1” slowly rotates chilly organ pads, a cavernous bassline and swirly vocal-percussion bits over an abyssal backdrop. Then, every dozen seconds or so, the whole mechanism comes to a halt; particles and streams all briefly remaining frozen in mid air. “Rotation 2” is a bit more chatty and uplifting with its humid Topdown Dialectic style filtered disco chords and skittish sampler tricks. At eleven and twelve minutes of length respectively, both cuts here definitely fall into “extended” territory, but they do manage to more than justify their runtime.

Rosati - Divina Nostalgia [Fuse Imprint]

A sweet Detroit-y four tracker from the Amsterdam-based Rosati here that competently mixes modern dancefloor and production sensibilities with a classic sense of motor soul. “Division” with its shimmery stabs, dry bassline, and crunchy drums is probably my favorite, although the classic Good Life dubber “Orbital” and the jazzy tech house funk on the title track are very nice as well. For a long time, it used to be actually quite difficult to find modern techno tracks with a Detroity flavor that still pack enough pace and energy for a peak time set, so it’s been quite nice to see more twelves like this show up in recent years.

Xylitol - Blumenfantasie [Planet Mu]

Blumenfantasie translates to “flower fantasy”; a very pretty and very apt name for this new LP from Xylitol aka Catherine Backhouse that channels the spirit of ca. Lunatic Harness (is it any surprise this came out on Planet Mu?)4 jungle-IDM with its slapping breaks, playful arp figures and watery pads. One of those records where none of the tracks stick out in particular, but taken as whole it is just a very pleasant listen all the way through.

Cristi Cons - Give Me Love [Crosstown Rebels]

Romanian minimal veteran Cristi Cons goes big and melodic on Give Me Love, resulting in a trio of uplifting and airy tracks. The title track is probably my pick here with its classic rominimal bassline, rotating hat grooves, swerving pads and jazzy arp figures. Yet more proof that, for all their enthusiasm for ten-minute percussion orgies, the Romanians have never struggled with writing a proper anthem when they want to.5

LT - LT [mAtter]

Excellent little dub-abstraction sketches somewhere between IDM, dub techno and microhouse on this self titled LP that remind me of early 00s clicks n’ cuts material from producers like Mikael Stavöstrand, although the tracks here are a bit less deliberately stiff and pay more attention to the funk of it all. I still can’t imagine anyone except the most adventurous DJs playing these though — but that is not to say you shouldn’t try!

Kameliia - Come and Find Me [SK_Eleven]

There’s a subtle tinge of melancholy to Kameliia’s tracks that I quite like and that makes them stand out a bit in the ultracontemporary tool-techno landscape. “Come and Find Me” pairs muscular drums with a small sine motif and dramatic sampled string stabs, while “Punishment” plays around with pitched vocals and airy sci-fi pads, and “Akashic Records” makes punchy claps dance over a subtly wistful sequence and soaring string trails. There’s not a lot here, but that is also why it works.

Sun People & Other Worlds - Endophyte [All Things Records]

Sun People is one of the more interesting producers in the current post-bass6 landscape that I first came across last year via his very varied sounding album Look Within. His new Endophyte collab EP with Other Worlds similarly mixes up a bunch of different things without too much regard for genre conventions, with the a1 “Sunnyview” reminding me of Mark Fell’s Sensate Focus project — albeit with a bit more of a funky Miami electro feel — while the title track plays around with punchy 808 rotations and a slinky arp and the closer “June” floats shimmery pads over a rolling buzzy bassline and sporadic kickdrum. Very promising EP, probably worth keeping an eye on this duo in the future.

Alton Miller - Spirit Chaser [Quintessentials]

There was a brief moment in the late 00s when subtle deep house was the most hyped sound of the moment, and Quintessentials was one of the primary labels of that moment. While that hype has now long since passed, Quintessentials is still going strong as ever, now approaching its 100th (!) release. I think there is something very admirable to this kind of continued dedication to a specific sound, and catalogue number 99 here features Detroit deep house veteran Alton Miller in fine form, with great remixes from Life Recorder and Shaka on the a2 and b2 as well. To the next hundred!

More Eaze - Sentence structure in the country [Thrill Jockey]

Nice grab bag of stuff on this new LP from composer Mari Maurice that effortlessly swerves between the electronic and the acoustic, exploring all sorts of textures and arrangements along the way, including some fun Jules Reidy -like auto-tune warbling that I’m always up for.

Translate - Interpolation [Speculations LTD]

Some tracks’ grooves just make me wish I had more limbs so I could dance to them like Squidward, and “Myriad of Angles” is one of those with its skittish rhythms and off-kilter tentacle funk. “Polisemic” goes in a similar direction as well, while “Praxis” is a more measured dance-the-limbo number with its cottony groove and pulsing hats, and “Crysa” is a fun bleepy slow-roller with just the right amount of swing. Another very solid EP from Buenos Aires based producer Translate, who has become a very reliable supplier of this kind of funky sci-fi techno over the last few years.

Sarah Belle Reid - Manifold [smartdumb]

As I’ve said previously (writing about Ryu Hankil’s Rhythm Machine), I feel like this kind of “EAI” music’s reputation for being academic and unapproachable at least partly stems from the fact that people often try too hard to listen to it as conventional music — whereas I think it would probably be more enjoyable for them if they threw out those assumptions and just treated it as some kind of “45 minutes of binaural noise to relax and study to” thing. Case in point, I put on Sarah Belle Reid’s new album Manifold while cleaning and had a good time with it, just letting the flow of the textures tickle my ears without trying to listen to anything specifically — which, if you would like to, you could of course do as well, because this is a dense and very richly orchestrated record with smart arrangement choices that make the whole thing flow well as a continuous piece, with enough respite from the more intense passages and even some soothing string harmonics towards the end as a reward.

Melchior Productions LTD - Jupiter Tracks 1 [My King Is Light]

When it comes to launching house into the cosmos, no one does it quite like Thomas Melchior, and I really can’t think of a better word than “cosmic” to describe this new EP on his own My King Is Light label. Killer tracks, and available digitally on Bandcamp for your pleasure — until relatively recently7 producers like Melchior still released a large chunk of their output exclusively on vinyl, making you set up in-stock reminders and fork over top dollar for sometimes lousy pressings — although I guess Perlon is still holding out as strong as ever, maybe one day …

Ottagone - Ottagone.08 [Ottagone]

Since April of last year, S. Mensink (aka “Will & Ink”, aka “Yaleesa Hall”) has been uploading a series of excellent dubby tools and sketches to his Bandcamp under the Ottagone moniker. Now in its eight installment and over forty tracks in, the quality of the series has remained high. “041” hones in on a chunky tom bassline and swirly washing machine chords, while “042” combines muscular lowend with a misty midrange, “043” barges in with a fat M5 bass and big string sweeps, and “045” pairs shifty hats with slightly melancholic metallized stabs. Very tightly crafted material from one of the modern masters of the four-on-the-floor, although perhaps a bit too stripped down for some. Definitely check out this series if you are a deejay though.

Rod Modell - GRoTTo of THE SUN / FReQUeNCIeS IN THe FOG [Silentes]

While Rod Modell’s dub techno work has always been very (very very very) dear to me, I have to admit that I’ve not loved all of his ambient efforts, which at times have sometimes suffered a bit from the genre’s endemic wallpaperitis. Luckily, this new LP duology for his longtime Italian collaborators Silentes suffers from none of that, perhaps because it packs a decent amount of rhythm and energy into its beatless soundscapes. GRoTTo of THE SUN is a bit more uptempo, with its pulsing bassline and rapidly swirling field recordings, while FReQUeNCIeS IN THe FOG (okay, what is up with the capitalization here?) goes a touch slower to make room for its majestic vocoder harmonies. The accentuating bass and lively string harmonics do their thing as well, lending the entire piece an almost orchestral feel, especially in the second part. Extraordinary, there’s really no one else out there making ambient quite like this.

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