Before my top 20 albums, then, here are a few other lists:
Notable EPs & 12"s
Humanoid - 30303
Stakker Humanoid given a breakbeat makeover for its 30th anniversary, backed by two spanking two acid tracks.
Nullptr - Aftermath
Pristine melodic electro from the always reliable Central Processing Unit label. At 6 tracks, one of the best value releases they've put out.
LNS - Recons 1
Superb EP of techno and ambient from Laura Sparrow's excellent LNS project.
The Future Sound of London - Ramblings of a Madman 2
Five solid pieces as an accompaniment to the second volume of their ongoing zine series.
Favourite reissues:
Carbon Based Lifeforms - The Path & Twentythree
Blood Music fills in two of the three gaps in their CBL reissue campaign, and thankfully the band don't go back to remix them beforehand. The Path is effectively a demo album from the '90s, but many moments stand up to their 'proper' releases; Twentythree is largely beatless ambience, and not quite up there with their other records for me, but still worth owning, and great to have at a reasonable price at last.
Nurse With Wound / Aranos - Acts / Bicycle
Two of NWW's collaborations with violin player Petr Vastl - Acts of Senseless Beauty and Santoor Lena Bicycle - both of which were extremely rare and pricey before this two disc collection pieced them together at the start of the year. The former is very much in the '90s NWW electronic soundscape style, while the latter is more folky and contains some of the most ludicrous material in the NWW catalogue.
Charli XCX - Number 1 Angel / Pop 2
Charli XCX's two 2017 mixtapes given a double LP release. Could do without quite so many guest vocalists, but otherwise an immaculate set of boundary-pushing pop.
The Fires of Ork - The Fires of Ork 1 & 2
Six years on from Pete Namlook's death, and his extensive collaborative back-catalogue continues to get new reappraisals. These two Biosphere collaborations came out on Geir's own Biophon imprint as part of his ongoing reissue campaign; the first is on the techno side of ambient techno and firmly rooted in 1993, but the second is an ambient masterpiece and feels, in many ways, like a sequel to Biosphere's own Substrata.
Off Land - Blue Narration & Eventide Passage
Before moving to CD and tape releases in the past five years, Off Land's material was largely confined to digital releases, so it's great to see these two superb ambient albums get CD releases at last. The former is blissful field recording-sourced electro-acoustic ambience, the latter runs closer to microhouse in places, and was mastered by ex-Orb member Thrash.
Nurse With Wound - Sinister Whimsy to the Wretched
Another superb 2CD set from Steven Stapleton (whose self-published reissues are up there with Biosphere's in terms of quality and price), bringing together 1991's Sugar Fish Drink and 1993's Large Ladies With Cake in the Oven (themselves tying together tracks from EPs, splits and compilations). My favourite NWW material generally runs from 1979-1991, from which almost all the tracks on these compilations comes, so there are plenty of favourites here. Standard NWW krautrock-inspired noisy, whimsical experimentation.
Biosphere - The Hilvarenbeek Recordings
Originally an unofficially sanctioned four track 12" from a few years ago, this collection of field recording-based ambient pieces was expanded into an eight track album as part of Biosphere's superb reissue series. A slight release in comparison with some of his works, but beautifully textured throughout.
And the disappointments...
Dubstar - One
Three or four tracks in the second half are quite nice on here, but on the whole it's a pretty dull, forgettable set. Almost uniformly mid-tempo ballads, the album lacks the spark and memorable melodies of the band's original three. Key songwriter from their '90s lineup, Steve Hiller, left the band before they started the album, and it shows painfully: Chris Wilkie's mellow, jangly songs worked as nice foils to the energetic tracks on their earlier works, but are nowhere near interest enough to fill out an entire album.
Manic Street Preachers - Resistance is Futile
This one was both pleasantly surprising and sadly disappointing: although far more interesting than the singles suggested, the bulk of the album is still Manics-by-numbers, of the 'major key pop-rock' variety. The thick, layered, slightly electronic production is lovely, but doesn't particularly suit the material. The Wire-sung closer is nice, and 'Song for the Sadness' matches wistfulness with an unexpected bluesy riff in a really effective way, but the rest is sadly forgettable.
The Orb - No Sounds Are Out of Bounds
A few gorgeous ambient pieces near the end - epic ambient closer 'Soul Planet' does a fairly good impression of 'classic' era Orb - aside, everything here feels half finished: tracks start with some tightly programmed beats, a bassline, some daft samples, and then don't really do much else. This wouldn't be so bad if the sounds were more interesting - the loose grooves of the breakbeats sampled on their classic debut, or some of the interesting textures and samples from Orbus Terrarum - but the very precise production and uninspired 'goofy' samples make it all sound sterile, as if it's just a collection of backing tracks.
Underworld ft. Iggy Pop - Bells & Circles
Underworld provide some excellent backing tracks, only to be ruined by Iggy Pop talking over the top like a grumpy old bloke moaning about the 21st century. He can no longer smoke on aeroplanes or expect women to be ok with him indiscriminately hitting on them, so he complains about it a lot.
Zu93 - Mirror Emperor
David Tibet and Zu come together to create a surprisingly forgettable album of acid folk that really should be a lot more exciting and memorable than it is. A few moments inspire several listens, but the overall effect is very disappointing.
Aphex Twin - Collapse EP
I loved the lead single, but nothing else on this did anything for me at all. I've always preferred the 1990-1995 era of 'classic' Aphex, so perhaps that explains why I took to Syro, Cheetah and Orphaned Deejay Selek a lot more than the hyper-programming of this very percussive EP. I'm aware I am almost entirely alone in finding this one underwhelming.
