39.
Bulbils began life as a lockdown project by Richard Dawson and Sally Pilkington, converting their living room into a makeshift studio, with synths, vocoders, keyboards, guitars and drum machines in an effort to stave off the pandemic’s existential dread through relentless creation. There they recorded more than 60 albums, music that was for the most part hypnotic, lo-fi, beautiful and ambient – gently evolving, growing and shrinking from one album to the next. Though lockdown is now a memory that grows gradually more distant, these songs remain just as powerful – testament to the ability of beauty, intimacy and human connection to stand firm against whatever darkness might encroach.BulbilsMapTor Press
38.
Jaqueline Nova, who began learning piano when she was seven and continued across the 50s and 60s, quickly broke into the conservative musical community in Colombia, when female musicians were mostly confined to roles as teachers. An out lesbian, she charted new paths in Latin America using amplifiers, filters, microphones, transformers and oscillators. Her music was played by orchestras, and she also contributed to the visual arts, theatre and cinema. She tested the boundaries of acoustic instruments, electronic sounds and human speech. On Creación de la tierra, based on vocal recordings of indigenous U’wa peoples of northeastern Colombia, she interacts with found sound, modulating it without resistance and distorting it. The voice is constantly transforming and shifting, deliberately becoming less and less understandable. Nova perversely modulates the voice from the dominant group’s perspective, amplifying its sound-replicating quality. She reflects on the relationship between society and indigenous groups, questioning the political implications behind the intelligibility of speech, history and place.Jacqueline NovaCreación de la tierra: Ecos palpitantes de Jacqueline Nova (1964-1974)Buh
37.
Recorded over the course of three shows earlier this year, Tom G. Warrior’s live tribute to his early work serves up a banquet of classic Hellhammer tunes, performed with utmost gusto and an absolutely monstrous guitar tone that just oozes out of the speakers with a jet-black menace. This would be a perfectly solid live album in its own right, but given Warrior’s well-documented dismissal of Hellhammer’s artistic merits after the project’s dissolution, it feels like more than that; it’s the sound of one of metal’s most visionary and pioneering artists finally coming to terms with – and embracing – his past, and that’s a beautiful thing.Triumph Of DeathResurrection Of The FleshBMG
36.
This fantastic-sounding remastered version of Cardiacs’ classic 1988 album was completed in 2021 but only this year saw the light of day, originally in deluxe, box set form and later as a standalone gatefold LP. The vinyl remastering offers additional clarity and a warmer bass tone whilst reigning in the treble just a touch and is particularly welcome on fast, complex tracks like ‘Dive’. The 50-page book is clearly a labour of love, full of previously unpublished pictures alongside some heartfelt and informative words from journalist, author and long-time Cardiacs fan Cathi Unsworth. Additional material on four CDs includes radio sessions and an imperfect but dynamic live concert from 1987. The album itself sounds even more unique with the passing of time and the benefit of hindsight. No one else sounded like this, then or now, which is undoubtedly why the band continue to find new fans online, despite playing their last gig in 2007.CardiacsA Little Man And A House And The Whole World WindowThe Alphabet Business Concern
35.
Slapp Happy may not have made particularly futuristic music, but the offbeat and exploratory sounds they pioneered using ideas from folk rock and free jazz make Sort Of an unusually prescient album. In the last five years, Black Country, New Road and Squid have used a similar collision of sonic ideas that still sounds fresh, unlike other more exhausted tropes. Slapp Happy would reform sporadically – an ICA show in 1983, an opera for Channel 4 in 1991, two nights with Faust at Cafe OTO in 2017 – and it’s a legacy that rests largely on the back of Sort Of.Slapp HappySort OfWeek-End
34.
There are many different strands to Soft Cell’s debut album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. The record filtered the faded seaside sleaze of Dave Ball and Marc Almond’s upbringings, in Blackpool and Southport respectively, through the bold electronic experimentation that brought them together at art school in Leeds. At once, it captured the euphoria of legal ecstasy in early 80s New York clubs, the banality of bedsitting in Thatcher’s England, and the sordid release of Soho at its peak. Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret is tender, outrageous and daft. Even after four decades it’s hard not to be bedazzled by the melodrama of it all. Beyond the megahit ‘Tainted Love’, for which it’s most commonly remembered, it’s a record that’s constantly freewheeling its way down one nefarious alleyway after another.Soft CellNon-Stop Erotic CabaretMercury
33.
Jon Savage’s ongoing series of compilations for Ace Records remains the essential antidote to endless TV documenarties using the same old prog / overflowing bins / punk / bloke with a 10lb mobile phone narrative of 70s and 80s Britain. Here, in what he describes as “a period when the underground discovered the overground”, we hear two years in which cultures and styles cannoned off one another in joyous abandon, and Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force rub shoulders with Soft Cell and The Cure, while Grace Jones pops along for a Joy Division cover.Various ArtistsJon Savage’s 1980-1982 (The Art Of Things To Come)Ace
32.
Something unidentifiable and Pavlovian is triggered in me when I hear the specific jangle of guitar often found in that Dunedin sound – like nostalgia for something I never knew; an abstracted comfort in sound. I never knew this record first time around: it was originally released on a cassette in 1989, the lone solo album by Peter Gutteridge, who was a founder and/or member of The Clean, The Chills, Snapper, and The Great Unwashed. ‘Hang On’ is my favourite: a puck of Suicide via Aotearoa, complete with Alan Vega whoop. Unmissable.Peter GutteridgePureSuperior Viaduct
31.
Kristen Noguès’ Marc’h Gouez is muffled as it begins. You hear footsteps crunching along gravel, walking toward the sound of a harp that grows gradually louder until you hear the squeak of a door opening and closing. Suddenly you hear the harp in full, enchanting and otherworldly, as if the door you’ve stepped through has not just taken you to another room, but another realm. The song then shifts quickly to acoustic guitar, delicately twisted by synthesiser, then strings, then woodwind, as Noguès’ vocals – entirely in her native Breton – loop and flutter with a rare, delicate power. It is a magical introduction to a magical album, a record that blends folk with drifting jazz, eerie psychedelia and more, and features over a dozen collaborators from across a thriving Brittany music scene. Rare since its original release in 1976 via an arm of the Névénoé collective, whose aim was to celebrate Breton culture, this first-ever reissue via Souffle Continu is an absolute must. Kristen NoguesMarc’h GouezSouffle Continu
30.
It seems pointless to pick out specific songs, for Man Of Aran‘s strength is its wholeness – to choose highlights would be like picking out your favourite raindrops in a summer shower. Instead, all you can do is lie back on an imaginary bed of pebbles and let the likes of ‘Spearing The Sunfish’ and ‘No Man Is An Archipelago’ wash over you as they evoke the strong smell of kelp, the screech of a distant seagull high up overheard.Man Of AranRough Trade
29.
Taken as a whole, the material collected on this reissue of The Darkness’ Permission To Land hasn’t aged all that badly; the group were so at odds with the zeitgeist when they arrived in the first place, that they’re essentially able to sidestep the issue of sounding dated anyway. Most of all, it merely strengthens the argument that The Darkness were a band who knew from the very start that they were to be all about immediacy; early pub gigs, by all accounts, were performed with the same bombast with which the band would later headline arenas. In an extensive interview that serves as the liner notes to the physical release, the band recall that even in his pre-Darkness days, a teenage Justin Hawkins tried (and failed) to perform guitar solos behind his head during his first gig with a band called Biff, and then found local notoriety in his native Lowestoft opening for a local pub covers band under the name Bionic Reg, performing on guitar to a drum track wearing a purple tailcoat and a helmet.The DarknessPermission To Land… Again (20th Anniversary Edition)Warner
28.
With the wonderful The Night Safari EP and his first live dates in years, 2023 has been a year of rebirth for Patrick Wolf and this compilation gives an opportunity for further reflection before the enticing prospect of a new album in 2024. Made up of B-sides and rare tracks from the Lycanthropy and Wind In The Wires-era, this is Wolf at his most reflective and pastoral, all gently plucked ukulele and dancing viola lyrics from the time when, as a youngster, he was finding his way into what it was to be a man.Patrick WolfThe Circling SkyApport
27.
The power of Things Viral lies in the tension built between its whispers and its shrieks. On ‘Commuted’, Stephen O’Malley’s guitar and James Plotkin’s bass trace a five-note sequence, stretched unevenly over Tim Wyskida’s percussive pulse. This creepy-crawl is clean and quiet, but unsteady and off-kilter. Khanate’s other weapon is juxtaposing the irregular with what appears regular, or at least metrical. At the heart of this is another tension: between Plotkin’s arrangements and the band members’ execution. Eventually it was too much, they were pulling in different directions, and the band tore itself apart (for the time being) in 2006.KhanateThings ViralSouthern Lord
26.
There was never meant to be a Sandwell District album. Certainly the idea had never crossed Karl O’Connor’s mind – and wasn’t he in charge, kind of? He had impulsively minted Sandwell in 2002 as a German-distributed offshoot of his Downwards label, but he had no grand plans in terms of what to do with it. Over the course of that decade, he guided its metamorphosis into something else entirely: not just a label proper, but an artists’ collective, a laboratory for the post-minimal techno experiments of four battle-hardened producer allies: David Sumner (Function), Juan Mendez (Silent Servant) and Female (Peter Sutton) and Regis (O’Connor himself). By 2009, and by word of mouth alone, Sandwell District had come to be revered by the global techno underground; each of its sporadic, imperious 12-inch releases feverishly anticipated and slavered over. Why would they want to do something as old-fashioned as make an album?Sandwell DistrictFeed ForwardPoint Of Departure
25.
Seen through a cultural history lens, the impact of this compilation reminds me of that of Gqom Oh! The Sound of Durban, Vol. 1, which shed light on gqom music coming from the South African city of Durban, and Nyege Nyege Tapes’ Sounds Of Sisso, which presented Tanzania’s singeli sound. Listening to it feels a bit like discovering early hardcore records or even early blues records. It’s marked by a sense of urgency, exemplifying creativity out of need, not out of trend-hopping ambition. There’s almost an amateurish aspect to it, a kind of “let’s find out what happens next” approach. The intensity of these riddims speaks volumes about the sincere experimentalism that fuelled their creation. They sound as fresh today as they did back then. Considering the open-mindedness of modern ravers, they are sure to cause as much devastation on modern dance floors as they did at local street parties where dancers, caught in a dancing spree, would allegedly climb walls.Various ArtistsDJs Di GuettoPríncipe
24.
I feel IDM is honest music. That’s what The Black Dog sounds like to me. A friend once compared something I made to them, but I hadn’t previously delved into their discography. This made me explore their work, which introduced me to Plaid. They serve as the gateway to IDM and are possibly the true pioneers of the genre. The Black Dog’s music feels genuine, unpretentious and timeless. It’s characterised by distinctive, heartfelt, and thoughtful melodies. It’s quirky but cool and straight from the heart.The Black DogSpannersWarp
23.
The Hafler Trio comprised Scottish artist Andrew M. McKenzie, sound-recordist Chris Watson, who has long since departed the line-up, and third member Dr Ed Moolenbeek, who never actually existed, and this is a lovely-sounding vinyl version of the 2005 double-CD release (which was reissued on 5.1 Surround Sound DVD in 2011) they recorded with Autechre. If any records genuinely demand deep listening (which will inevitably fall away eventually into some kind of reverie) then this is among them. Within this thrill of synthetic pads, electrical hums and digital reverb exists some of the quietest music ever recorded; much quieter than Robert Ashley’s Automatic Writing; much, much quieter than Nurse With Wound’s A Missing Sense even. In fact it’s so damn quiet that in order to convince yourself that you’re not listening to a blank disc, the volume must be turned up so high that when someone in the studio brushes against a mic or disturbs the equipment, the ensuing sonic boom is so great it threatens to blow out your windows and partially collapse your house. An extraordinary listening experience.Autechre, The Hafler Trioae³o & h³ae Box SetVinyl On Demand
22.
If one were petty-minded, one could do the maths. ‘Harvest Time’, a track which has undergone a change of fortune over the 47 years since it was recorded, lasts for 20 minutes. This box set, released by Luaka Bop with that track placed front and centre, costs 50 quid. That’s £2.50 per languid minute, presuming that’s all you came for. It’s hard to feel languid with a calculator in your hand perhaps but time is a relative concept – especially when one is adrift in the beautiful bardo-like fathoms of this track – and who can put a price on beauty anyway? The word isn’t snatched at random; the bardo is the transitional state between death and rebirth in some schools of Buddhism, but also it makes a workable metaphor for the position some groundbreaking artists find themselves in when moving out of one well-received, red hot phase of creativity and preparing to make a necessary move into another. And at such a crossroads is certainly where Pharoah Sanders found himself in 1976.Pharaoh SandersPharoahLuaka Bop
21.
I’ve no idea if Chris and Cosey had a kitchen rave after half a pinger each, but Pagan Tango‘s opener ‘In Ecstasy’ and ‘Synaesthesia’ have an early-night acid house warmth that evidences why the late, great Andrew Weatherall was such a fan. From then on in, it gets saucy – ‘I Belong To Me’ (Cosey singing, not without menace, that “the man is mine”) leading into utter banger ‘Take Control’, where squelchy, leathery rhythms sit under a mantra, “I’m gaining power / I take control”, an intense reversal of the male gaze and domination. Similarly, ‘Feel To Me’ combines breathy vocals with a nerve-tingling synth line and rhythms that drop like hot wax, and ‘Sin’ is BDSM intonation “whipping, burning, rolling, turning, lashing, writhing, tasting, dying, dying on the bed of sin” that turns into a ruthless 4/4 pounding. It makes most other electronic body music of the era sound like the Belgian bloke off Eurotrash who liked to dress as a penguin wanking over a pack of kippers. Pagan Tango has it all – the tunes, the bangers, the desire – and ought to be seen as one of the toughest, yet most accessible, albums that emerged from the great post-Throbbing Gristle explosion.Chris & CoseyPagan TangoCTI
20.
‘Angels’, The Bug & Flowdan’s remix of Earth’s ‘Seven Angels’, pumps urgency into the original with its ‘foot to the pedal’ refrain. The duo supplant the original’s meandering exploration with the focused overstimulation of a world scrupulously documented for “likes” and “views”. The Bug’s other (solo) remix of ‘Like Gold And Faceted’ transmutes it to a lower realm of even greater sub-frequencies where you can hear the air being pushed through the track – ghosts rushing to oblivion. ‘May Your Vanquished Be Saved From The Bondage Of Their Sins’ by Loop’s Robert Hampson is a Ligeti-esque cosmic nightmare. Untethered from our earthly realm, the lashings of the bass guitar seem to simulate a destructive event. Adrift in LSD-ified space, cold comfort comes by way of fizzing guitars panning in and out of the mix like barely intercepted transmissions. Brett Netson’s take on ‘Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine’ begins with an engine growling to life. In his hands, the song is the ghost of a new machine – burnished and eternal.
