ACL 2024
Top Ten Electronic
Dancing is a primal activity; sometimes we want to dance, and other times we need to dance, as shown in the presence of two Ukrainian albums on this list. And while club music is a subset of electronic music, there are club moments on each selection below. Some are ebullient, some are wistful, some are angry, some are nostalgic, some are collaborative, and at least one is familial. Perhaps MORPHO is the word of the year ~ in 2024, mood and music were continually in flux.
One of the other common threads is positivity. While this year's electronic music recognizes the challenges of a polarized world, it also brings people together, bridging chasms of misunderstanding and uniting listeners by emphasizing our commonality. On the dance floor, at least, everyone is equal.
Dame Area ~ Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area (Mannequin/Humo)
What a change for Italian-Catalan duo Dame Area, whose sound has shifted into the realm of pounding post-punk/industrial with live metallic percussion and energetic chant. Teeming with confidence and verve, Toda la verdad sobre Dame Area is the most powerful album of their career. Fans of Throbbing Gristle and Nitzer Ebb should investigate immediately; but one need not be familiar with industrial history to enjoy this blast of dramatic, emotional, floor-filling music. (Richard Allen)
Four Tet ~ Three (Text)
Most electronic music fans are familiar with Four Tet, a pioneer of the electronica subgenre which crosses over into ambient and experimental. Over the last couple decades that his career spans, Four Tet has become famous for his emotionally charged yet chill and subdued style. In more recent years, though, he has risen to the top of the UK dance scene, and he has headlined at some of the biggest festivals around the world. In situations like these, artists often shift their styles to match popular appeal. At Coachella last year, Four Tet remixed both “Country Riddim” by HOL! as well as Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” which exemplifies his broad taste across genres, to say the least. Three proves that despite his foray into the mainstream, Four Tet’s roots remain firmly planted in the indie electronic we know and love him for. (Maya Merberg)
galen tipton & Holly Waxwing ~ keepsakeFM (Orange Milk)
This album might come in first place for cutest cover art of the year, if such a chart existed. Luckily, the music itself is equally as cute. keepsakeFM draws on influences like SOPHIE to achieve a glitchy, high-pitched, hyperpop-like sound. At the same time, its chillwave side makes it more apt for a small house party than a club. keepsakeFM exudes joy. It reminds us of summer evenings like the one the little woodland creatures on the cover are enjoying. Warm, peaceful, happy, and spent in good company. (Maya Merberg)
Jlin ~ Akoma (Planet Mu)
Akoma marks the high point – so far – of an artist who has gone from being a steel worker producing a track on the footwork compilation Bangs & Works II to composing works for the Kronos Quartet. It’s quite the career arc so far, and if Jlin continues to produce albums like this among all her other projects, we will be more than happy. The rhythms are still footwork-adjacent, the percussion programming is dizzying, and the guest spots (Björk and Philip Glass) are noteworthy but crucially don’t steal the focus away from the producer. A properly cohesive album, the tracks build momentum until it feels like an unstoppable force of nature. (Jeremy Bye)
Kiasmos ~ II (Erased Tapes)
There has been a ten-year gap between the first and second Kiasmos albums; but even then, their return with an EP this year was unexpected. The duo have plenty of other projects to keep them busy, of course, but Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen slip right back into the zone with II (a full album incorporating the Flown EP). Lush string arrangements float above busy electronics and compelling beats, the arrangements overflow with melody. Probably a touch warmer album than the debut, this ticks all the boxes for sweeping, accessible and gorgeous ambient techno. (Jeremy Bye)
Lara Sarkissian ~ Remnants (btwn Earth+Sky)
Dance as leisure, dance as ritual, dance as communion – this is what’s at stake in Remnants, an eclectic and sometimes challenging journey through the connective tissue that ties EDM and Albanian folk. These types of music might be conceptually distant, but their shared core of bodily revelry led Sarkissian to realize a mixture that does not sweep one genre into the other, but mobilizes their distinctive musical elements – as well as instruments – towards a unique reflection on dance. Where EDM obliges a rhythm, folk obliges a texture, and then the formula is inverted: to dance is not just to move, but to deeply connect, to assemble the flows of history, going beyond the simple opposition between the traditional and modern. (David Murrieta Flores)
Murcof ~ Twin Color (vol. 1) (InFiné)
We’ve been fans of Murcof since his influential early 2000s releases on the Leaf Label, and as much as we’ve enjoyed the many soundtracks, sessions, and collaborations he’s done since, we were thrilled to find him working with InFiné for his first solo full-length record in nearly two decades. The French label previously released his collaboration with pianist Vanessa Wagner, and is a fitting home for a project that was conceived in Paris’ famous IRCAM studios. Twin Color is also an audio-visual performance, which premiered at Montreal’s Mutek this past summer, in collaboration with Simon Geilfus, whose colorful imaginary landscapes helped shape the album’s sonic otherworldly atmospheres that recalls the golden age of sci-fi. But even without the accompanying visuals, Twin Color immerses listeners in a nostalgic atmospheric journey. Working with a relatively restrained palette, Murcof blends drones and industrial beats with a wide range of tempo and mood throughout. Of course a title like Twin Color (vol. I) leaves us anxiously awaiting the sequel. (Joseph Sannicandro)
NFNR ~ Fragility (WAAGE)
A lot has been written on the Russian full-scale invasion but what has all too often been left out of the “war narrative” is the psychological and emotional toll this has taken on all Ukrainians with the vast majority suffering from mental trauma to varying degrees. According to a study from The Lancet looking at figures from the first 9-12 months of the 2022 invasion the results indicated that the lowest stress, anxiety, and PTSD severity was observed among NDPs (non displaced people), with significantly higher levels among IDPs (internally Displaced People) and the highest among refugees. The study concluded that being forcibly displaced from the previous living area and, especially, entering a new cultural environment significantly contributes to the mental health issues caused by war exposure and witnessing. Researchers also suggested that the previous invasion in 2014, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, have significantly contributed to the currently observed mental health issues in Ukraine.
Fast forward to 1,000 + days since the full-scale invasion and the human landscape in Ukraine has changed with many displaced people having returned home even when the threat to human life has far from decreased. On the contrary, renewed daily attacks and severe damage to the infrastructure have affected the sleep patterns and daily lives of Ukrainians to an unprecedented degree especially when coupled with an increasingly uncertain outlook. Having always resided in Kyiv throughout the invasion Olesia Onykiienko, aka NFNR, has now been weighing the human cost of the war with Fragility. The album starts in a decisive but almost demure manner. The second track Sprotyv (Resistance) includes recordings of unarmed protests in Kherson, a city occupied by Russians that has since been liberated. If during the initial stages of the full-scale invasion, similar recordings were more prevalent, a testimony to the sense of urgency felt, now they act as a marker of resilience. The following two tracks are “Our Hearts” and “Ardor” lay bare feelings of tenderness, love, and passion.
According to different studies, there are different stages of grief ranging from four to seven. Broadly speaking they go from either, shock/numbness, yearning/searching, disorganisation/despair, and reorganisation/recovery to denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. NFNR puts it differently in the liner notes, “Unspeakable pain, despair, despair and sadness, fuel our thirst for life even more.” What is evident is that this is a very different process than that of mourning. As many Ukrainian artists have told me, at present there is no time to grieve, the reasoning being that should one stop to mourn they would fall apart. Instead, whilst acknowledging the pain and difficulties, now is the time to celebrate life. (Gianmarco Del Re)
NINA EBA ~ MORPHO
Our initial review posited NINA EBA as a future superstar beyond the relatively small reach that A Closer Listen has. Musically exciting and visually thrilling with a back story that is a publicity department’s dream, the Ukrainian has – in theory – everything required to be big. But the reason we like her is probably why she’s not going to break through just yet – MORPHO is too individual, too personal and too sonically interesting to tap into a mainstream audience. We can’t think of many pop artists who will delay the build and place a thirty-second piano solo in the middle of a song as she does on “Doves”. On the other hand, we would never be so happy to be wrong, and let’s face it, in these strange times she’s probably one viral TikTok video away from being huge. (Jeremy Bye)
Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan ~ Your Community Hub (Castles in Space)
You could be forgiven for spending much of the run-time of Your Community Hub trying to decide if this music is a soundtrack to your nightmares or your everyday. Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan, the alias of Gordon Chapman Fox, channels the dreams, the ghosts, and the grim realities of suburban planned communities on one of the year’s most fascinating concept albums. Full of forbidding synthesizers and icy drum machines deployed in mostly minor keys, Your Community Hub uses the familiar sounds of ambient and electronic music to explore the monotony and repetition, the “quiet desperation,” of life under contemporary capitalism. (Jennifer Smart)