The kids and their synthesizers are hitting the KUOI new music shelf in droves. So, listed from the most danceable pop to the cream of the avant-garde crop, here are five electronic albums to enjoy all summer.
“Random Access Memories” by Daft Punk
The masked heroes of the club have disco fever circa 1979, only one problem: disco should have stayed dead. However, Daft Punk offers plenty for today’s dance floor and they continue to straddle the Atlantic Ocean with ease. Both Europe and the U.S. get something to groove to, and while this album is a little too much like a KC and the Sunshine Band remix for me, it’s too danceable. “Get Lucky” is the overplayed gem and “Doin’ It Right” is the diamond in the rough.
First try: “Get Lucky,” “Doin it Right” featuring Panda Bear and “The Game of Love”
“Settle” by Disclosure
Modern dance halls are witnessing the maturation of the relationship between electronica, rhythm and blues and Disclosure’s “Settle” is the best of its offspring. The beats seem ready to trail off into repetitive house junk, but rebound from the brink. They also blend perfectly with soulful pop cuts that echo the rejuvenation of mainstream rhythm and blues — think The Weeknd or Frank Ocean. An utterly danceable smash from a pair of UK brothers who are 18 and 21 with a big future.
First try: “F for You,” “Defeated No More” featuring Ed Macfarlane and “Latch” featuring Sam Smith
“Half Of Where You Live” by Gold Panda
Berlin-based producer is at the heart of the electronica, but “Half of Where You Live” is half dancehall and half electro-drone, halfway round the world and half pushing toward the future and then calling back the past. Gold Panda never quite enters the pop realm, keeping his electronica downbeat and dreary. Then the sounds of the Orient from “My Father in Hong Kong 1961” are at once calling back ancient dynasties, and hinting at a “Blade Runner” future covered in Chinese characters — though Gold Panda’s future is less grungy and nihilistic.
First try: “Brazil” and “Community”
“Immunity” by Jon Hopkins
Hopkins’s productions have finally come to the forefront after bolstering, but ultimately being overshadowed by big names like Imogen Heap and Coldplay. His soundscapes are densely layered but sound almost like minimalist classical, industrialized and modernized under the command of a pro.
First try: “Open Eye Signal” and “Form by Firelight”
“Tomorrow’s Harvest” by Boards of Canada
Most of the electronic music I’ve been listening to is club-ready, but “Tomorrow’s Harvest” is a perfectly weighted 1970s J Robert Oppenheimer documentary soundtrack; an odyssey of space. Why Oppenheimer? Because I hear a post-nuclear explosion wind whipping through a New Mexico test site right from the outset. Boards of Canada use the analogue sounds of old National Film Board of Canada productions — where their name comes from — which sound like every 30-year-old PBS documentary you watched in school. The simplest, softest and best album on the list.
First try: “White Cyclosa” and “Jacquard Causeway”
Dylan Brown can be reached at [email protected]