When the new year dawns, a sense of excitement and curiosity about the albums and artists that will be discovered in the coming months washes over us. As the first quarter of 2021 passed, I reflected on some of the new electronic music releases I’ve discovered this year. I wrote about eight of these albums. I invite you to dig into them and explore what they may offer you. The albums are presented below in alphabetical order along with my own reflections on listening to them. Keep an eye on our Album of the Day as a living log of excellent release from past and present.
Edge by Street Cleaner
Street Cleaner delivers an incredibly coherent set of songs on Edge. The album opens up with a bright, hopeful, and energetic movement that is noticeably purposeful, growing darker and more intense as the album progresses. At times, Edge plays like walking down endless digital streets in the future, clearing out bad guys as you move along, such as on “Sewer Shark.” At other times, the textures are heavy and gritty with pulsating melodies that penetrate deeply, such as on “Berserker Class Behemoth WarMech.” You’ll encounter thumping beats on “Order From Chaos” and chunky bass and heavy riffs on “Terror Influx.” Many of the songs on Edge take a moment to slow down and breath, creating a well-balanced offering from top to bottom.
Feels Like Rain by Various Artists
Are you looking for some bedtime reading and a lullaby to go along? The Original Book Soundtrack, Feels Like Rain, is exactly what you need. Feels Like Rain comes with a book and a collection of songs. The book was written by John Bergin. It’s a collection of short stories that “revolt, arouse, terrify, and delight – reveling in the imperfections of human beings,” as described on the book’s Bandcamp page. The soundtrack has songs written by various artists, including Xander Harris, Alpha Chrome Yayo, OGRE, W17CH, Cemetery Gates, and many more. The soundtrack creates tension, places pressure, and agitates. It invites visualization and induces worry, apprehension, and fear.
Filter Tipped by Zayaz
It takes about 30 seconds to fall in love with Filter Tipped by Zayaz. It’s a prescription. If you’re a little low, it will pull you up; if you’re a little high, it will keep you grounded. Filter Tipped knows no boundaries. It’s a palette for every mood, and its integration of styles shines. One of my favorite qualities of Filter Tipped is the layering of melodies, each simultaneously co-existing at their own pace, such as on “Aesthetics,” “HORIZON93,” “Vibe,” and many others. The more you hear listen to Filter Tipped, the more you need it.
Hyperlink Dream Sync
Hyperlink Dream Sync is a dreamy ride through a pastel digital landscape that continuously blossoms with surreal scenes. It elicits a feeling of time passing by as one stands still. Its airy and lets emotions and thoughts arise and pass by. It has a steady character, yet it subtly twists and turns, directing your consciousness to places that are just as often dark as they are bright. This attribute is especially noticeable on tracks such as “Gold Dust Station,” “Hyperlink Dream Sync,” “Cathedral of Blue,” and “Galaxy Structure.” Sit down. Press play. And let Hyperlink Dream Sync do the work.
Lucifer's Technology (Devil Sounds Pt. III) by Surgeryhead
Surgeryhead is in his own category. Lucifer’s Technology is dark. This is to be expected. After all, it’s Surgeryhead who makes some of the darkest electronic music in the scene. It’s empty basement by candlelight dark. Lucifer’s Technology opens with what sounds like the devil’s calvary, trampling anything in sight. About halfway, the album plays like a soundtrack to involuntary participation in a Satanic ritual. As it nears its end, it grinds relentlessly, and the savage nature of Surgeryhead’s electro shines through, occasionally coming up for air before going back down for more. After the battering, the album closes with a recovery period. The electro character on Lucifer’s Technology is gritty. The sounds can be ambulatory and urgent and are often heard through filters that create chaos. The melodies often play like traveling through broken circuits, zig-zagging through time. Melodies often occur at different depths, each constructed from their own texture. Read more about Surgeryhead at Forged in Neon.
Vaporwave for China by XWAVES
Vaporwave for China is an addictive, nuanced release that sticks to you. XWAVES does the driving. It grabs hold of you and dictates the pace and direction beginning with the first notes of the opening track, “Pool Day.” So, buckle up, sit back, and surrender your will. Vaporwave for China invites you to sink into a psychedelic rabbit hole. On “O Piano,” your ride is just underway. It plays like the slow rise and fall of an amusement park ride through the darkness. Around every corner, we encounter a circus of unearthly creatures performing a show of kaleidoscopic goodness, such as “The Going is Just Too Rough.” The turns are never too sharp. The textures are gentle, balanced, and space open. The sounds are fed to the listener at an absorbable rate. During your trip, you will travel through levels of nostalgic dreaminess, such as on “Trapped in the Coalmine” and “In Your Eyes.” “Move Tonight” will bring your ride to an end with layers of melodies that play like a ship sailing through the sea of the starry night sky.
We've Come for Your Flesh by Burial Grid
We’ve Come for Your Flesh is big in scope and full of sticky textures and melodies that extend through time. Vocal pieces rise like a corpse from the grave, such as on “Baiting the Undertow”, or sitting in the back room of the mind waiting for you to arrive, such as on “Voluntary Ending of Eating and Drinking.” Burial Grid is an expert in letting every sound do its job to create a soundscape through which the listener wanders, a quality that shines on “From His Face Sprouted the Beak.” This quality comes through on other Burial Grid offerings as well, such as Negative Space, an album written as a soundtrack to a horror novel by the same name by B.R. Yeager. Negative Space plays like traversing the subconscious along cobweb strings, much like those displayed on Negative Space’s cover art made by Kerry St. Laurent.
Witness by Tengushee
Witness offers you a gift. It’s a gift of introspection, a release from the gravity bound world on which we roam. On each song, Tengushee opens the door and invites you in. When you step inside, you may find yourself suddenly falling through an endless black space. Along the way, you will be gently battered by sounds that appear as black and white geometrical shapes of different size and texture, such as on “We’re All Mad Here” and “The Fox Chases the Moon.” On other songs, Tengushee taps into a raw, organic, and earthy character, such as “Burning the Corpses of Long Dead Kings” and “Sex on the Battlefield.” Witness will induce self-reflection on the past yet move you to stand and take a step into the future, such as on “Your Civil War of Tears.” Witness is a 20-track experience. Dig into it.