P&B's Top 30 Electronic Music Albums

[Thundermonkey]

I think the more honourable thing to do here Colin is cancel your fucking trip to America.

[Nizzy]

What a creep.

I've been on one since Saturday. Still in love with the world.

[uberman]

18=

Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip

Angles

(2008)

Coming straight outta Essex, the cult of Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip is an ever growing force, a word of mouth success that deserves a greater audience. Rapper/poet/singer Scroobius Pip delivers an ever fascinating and compelling flow of consciousness over the tapestry of beats, sounds and hooks provided by producer Dan Le Sac, and on this debut album it all comes together to form a hugely exciting and varied collection of tracks.

For a nominal hip-hop band, the pair have struggled to make the breakthrough with the purist audience the genre often attracts. An MC named after an Edward Lear poem was perhaps never likely to appeal to those weaned on the hollow subject matter of much of modern rap, but that's their loss. Whether name-checking Herbie Hancock and rapping about the periodic table on Development, or offering up genuinely touching views on self-harm and suicide on The Magician's Assistant, Scroobius Pip is the perfect guide through the record.

Dan Le Sac's productions share top billing throughout though, combining endless sounds and ideas that help make this a genre-hopping experience that still all sits neatly together. It combines electronic programming and live instrumentation, a mosaic of colourful shifting musical themes. The head nodding beats and stuttering breakdown of Rapper's Battle, pulsing synth of the title track, and chilling piano lines of stunning climax Waiting For The Beat To Kick In are just some of the highlights on an album that's packed full of them.

Musically the whole album has an endearing anything goes attitude - Radiohead's Planet Telex is chopped to great effect alongside acidic bleeps on Letter From God To Man, and Dizzee Rascal's Fix Up Look Sharp is mangled and stretched beneath interchanging rock guitar and synth riffs on Fixed, while elsewhere there are seemingly inexhaustible twists and turns through a maze of colourful motifs. Angles is an exciting and always fresh sounding experience that deserves wider recognition - a great discovery sitting here among other more celebrated albums.

This was my number 1 choice, a superb album. Scroobius Pip is re-releasing his debut solo album No Commercial Breaks next month as a double cd with the second disc being a live spoken word set from his current tour

[Bert Raccoon]

Excellent write up for Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip. Probably my favourite act of the last few years, their albums are excellent but where they really come into their own is when they play live. With Dan Le Sac's beats and Scroobius Pip's outstanding lyrics they really are something quite brilliant. Great to see them getting so much love on here.

[uberman]

[Mambostaggie]

The best of all time? Dans le sac? Fair enough! The P&B massive has spoken. I'm totally losing heart that orbital 2 has come in below that. I can understand new order cause I love them and goldie fair enough, not my thing but I realise the impact he had.

[Thundermonkey]

The best of all time? Dans le sac? Fair enough! The P&B massive has spoken. I'm totally losing heart that orbital 2 has come in below that. I can understand new order cause I love them and goldie fair enough, not my thing but I realise the impact he had.

It's tied for 18th. We have a long way to go yet.

[Mambostaggie]

Aye fair play. Afternoon drams had the seethe levels rising.

Edited November 9, 2012 by Mambostaggie

[Colin M]

14=

Lo Fidelity Allstars

How To Operate With A Blown Mind

(1998)

You know those guys you see at every gig you ever go to? Perfect shaggy Richard Ashcroft hair, spliff-weighted eyelids revealing half of bloodshot eyes, supermodel girlfriend who looks like she's been cut out of a vintage copy of THE FACE magazine following him round like Toto in Oz, visions of impossible cool in zipped up army parkas while everyone else is battling heat rash from the sweat, the kind who you never see back out in the real world as if they scuttle off to live backstage at The Barrowlands in eternal hedonistic gatherings while the rest of us go home to our safe and mundane existence. Well, I can't help but think of those guys when listening to this magic brew of an album.

Signed to Skint Records, the Lo Fidelity Allstars were inevitably associated with the short-lived Big Beat scene, a now mostly shunned and sneered upon post-Chemicals-at-the-Heavenly Social/Fatboy Slim indebted collection of quirky sample based chancers, ramshackle hip-hop with all the funk sucked out, an excuse for the NME set to think they were "edgy" despite being too terrified to ever dive headlong into "dance music". This association is a misleading and unfair tag to place upon How To Operate..., a phenomenal explosion of ideas and long-form driving grooves that are positively dripping in swagger juice.

The tracks form a densely layered landscape for which vocalist Dave Randall (or "The Wrekked Train" as he was appropriately credited as) spouts all sorts of cosmic conciousness and brain splatter, snarling all the time like a Mark E Smith for the rave generation. What the f**k he's on about throughout is a mystery until he emerges into a seeming moment of clarity over the funereal organ and dubbed up trip-hop on closer Nightime Story. He provides a shapeshifting dream logic narrative, the inner voice of our collective Blown Mind.

The music throws all manner of ideas and sonic signifiers into the melting pot, from the scuzzed up riffs, spacey synths and stuttering drums of Kool Roc Bass and distorted disco of Lazer Sheep Dip Funk to the piano led waltz and guitar freak out of I Used To Fall In Love, sounding like Funkadelic if they'd grown up in 90s Leeds. Battle Flag is purportedly a remix of a track by a band called Pigeonhed, more accurately a total reinvention turning it into a funky strut fest while Pigeonhed's singer attempts to challenge ODB's probable world record for most uses of the word "motherfucker" in the same song.

It's a hell of a trip, a collection of speed fuelled extended driving jams that remind of so many great musics yet form their own thick stew of terrific flavours. Let your mind be blown.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Colin M

[groaninjock]

14=

Lo Fidelity Allstars

How To Operate With A Blown Mind

(1998)

You know those guys you see at every gig you ever go to? Perfect shaggy Richard Ashcroft hair, spliff-weighted eyelids revealing half of bloodshot eyes, supermodel girlfriend who looks like she's been cut out of a vintage copy of THE FACE magazine following him round like Toto in Oz, visions of impossible cool in zipped up army parkas while everyone else is battling heat rash from the sweat, the kind who you never see back out in the real world as if they scuttle off to live backstage at The Barrowlands in eternal hedonistic gatherings while the rest of us go home to our safe and mundane existence. Well, I can't help but think of those guys when listening to this magic brew of an album.

Signed to Skint Records, the Lo Fidelity Allstars were inevitably associated with the short-lived Big Beat scene, a now mostly shunned and sneered upon post-Chemicals-at-the-Heavenly Social/Fatboy Slim indebted collection of quirky sample based chancers, ramshackle hip-hop with all the funk sucked out, an excuse for the NME set to think they were "edgy" despite being too terrified to ever dive headlong into "dance music". This association is a misleading and unfair tag to place upon How To Operate..., a phenomenal explosion of ideas and long-form driving grooves that are positively dripping in swagger juice.

The tracks form a densely layered landscape for which vocalist Dave Randall (or "The Wrekked Train" as he was appropriately credited as) spouts all sorts of cosmic conciousness and brain splatter, snarling all the time like a Mark E Smith for the rave generation. What the f**k he's on about throughout is a mystery until he emerges into a seeming moment of clarity over the funereal organ and dubbed up trip-hop on closer Nightime Story. He provides a shapeshifting dream logic narrative, the inner voice of our collective Blown Mind.

The music throws all manner of ideas and sonic signifiers into the melting pot, from the scuzzed up riffs, spacey synths and stuttering drums of Kool Roc Bass and distorted disco of Lazer Sheep Dip Funk to the piano led waltz and guitar freak out of I Used To Fall In Love, sounding like Funkadelic if they'd grown up in 90s Leeds. Battle Flag is purportedly a remix of a track by a band called Pigeonhed, more accurately a total reinvention turning it into a funky strut fest while Pigeonhed's singer attempts to challenge ODB's probable world record for most uses of the word "motherfucker" in the same song.

It's a hell of a trip, a collection of speed fuelled extended driving jams that remind of so many great musics yet form their own thick stew of terrific flavours. Let your mind be blown.

Phenomenal album, glad to see it make the cut here. The Wrekked Train's monologue on the opening track is superb, and the beats throughout are tip-top. Love the follow-up EP The Ghostmutt EP as well, with the lead single The All, The All, but their second album - the one after The Wrekked Train left - is horrendous.

[the aggressive beggar]

Phenomenal album, glad to see it make the cut here. The Wrekked Train's monologue on the opening track is superb, and the beats throughout are tip-top. Love the follow-up EP The Ghostmutt EP as well, with the lead single The All, The All, but their second album - the one after The Wrekked Train left - is horrendous.

very nearly made my top 10. excellent album, was listening to Vision Incision at work yesterday, bouncin about a building site like an idiot.

[uberman]

My number 2 album has joined my number 1 in the p and b top of the pops, I think that'll be my last unless theres some industrial fans on here

[Thundermonkey]

Try as I might I've just never truly got into the Lofidelity Allstars. Was genuinely surprised to see it make the list.

[Mambostaggie]

Try as I might I've just never truly got into the Lofidelity Allstars. Was genuinely surprised to see it make the list.

Couple of decent tunes on this album, really liked it back in the 90's. Very surprised to see it anywhere near the top 30 though.

[groaninjock]

Couple of decent tunes on this album, really liked it back in the 90's. Very surprised to see it anywhere near the top 30 though.

I think I had it at number 4 on my list.

[Colin M]

13

Boards Of Canada

Geogaddi

(2002)

There's a scene in 1970s cult classic horror film The Wicker Man that makes me think of Boards Of Canada, and specifically of Geogaddi. In a circle of standing stones, a group of nymphs dance in a circle and leap over a fire while reciting pagan chants of fertility, while equally circular flute melodic figures dance in accompaniment. BOC's music is often painted as being born of a cult community, campfire electronica drenched in mystery. The music in the scene sounds like a precedent for some of Geogaddi's fluttering interludes and melodies, and the basis of the whole film forms a similarity to this album - often light and airy on top but with a strong dark undercurrent running throughout.

Rarely has a musical act of any kind managed to form as strong and identifiable musical identity as Boards Of Canada. Often dense and monolithic electronic hip-hop beats, synthesizer pads detuned as far as they can be without actually becoming out of tune, child like voices stretched and processed reciting colours and numbers, snippets of nature documentaries rescued from the corridors of history, "the past inside the present" indeed. They evolved on this, their second album for Warp, sounding the same in analysis, though still somehow different - heavier, darker, yet also more psychedelic.

The balance between dark and light seems present throughout - the opening notes of The Beach At Redpoint could soundtrack Darth Vader's arrival on base before the Eastern sounding polyrythms see the track explode in a frenzy of delight. 1969's robotic refrain may tell of that year "in the sunshine", but the sinister undertone barely suggests you'd ever be wise to go there. Dawn Chorus has twinkling melodies and surging chords yet the whole thing sounds unhinged and off-kilter, My Bloody Valentine drones looped over slabs of thumping hip-hop. The perfect geometrical rhythms of the fantastic Gyroscope are joined by drones that sound backward enough to contain strings of subliminal satanic messages.

There are also great moments of beauty and colour - the kaleidoscopic cover art forms a great visual representation of the glow of Sunshine Recorder, while the gorgeous oscillations of the all-too-brief Over The Horizon Radar sound like BOC have tapped into the sound of a distant supernova, briefly audible from an adjacent galaxy. Geogaddi goes way beyond functional electronic music, always retaining an air of magic and mystique that keeps you coming back for more.

[Colin M]

12

Boards Of Canada

Music Has The Right To Children

(1998)

Bloody typical - you wait half a thread for a Boards Of Canada album and then two come along at once. When initiating this poll and trying to think of what would chart highly, I had MHTRTC as one of the leading contenders. It often represents electronic music in more general polls and is widely held up as one of the finest examples there is of "electronica", one of Warp Records' sacred cows. But, clearly the magic that surrounds BOC had these two albums destined to slither through this chart to sit comfortably next to each other. There are higher forces at work here, people.

Entirely why BOC evoke such strong feelings of childhood nostalgia isn't clear. There is a specific aesthetic to their music and imagery - resemblance to soundtracks to 1970s/80s nature documentaries, public information films and music for schools is often explicit in their tracks. They have talked of a process of purposefully "degrading" their sound, lending it a haze to make it sound as if it was discovered in boxes of old VHS tapes. Yet here in 2012 their appeal remains to be discovered by a generation who can't be nostalgic for those times by virtue of having not been around then. Perhaps the appeal is different for those people, but there is something purely about the music, both in the sound and melodies, that provokes those feelings. We can all be nostalgic for times that we never knew in the first place, moreso now than ever before with easy access to media of all sorts both from those times and depicting them.

The music here is terrific throughout - its notable not just for that memory haze but stands as innovative and influential electronic music. From the stutter and thump of Telephasic Workshop and the pounding gloop of Sixtyten, to the sparkling beauty of Turquoise Hexagon Sun and slow motion funk of Aquarius, it delights at every turn. The twin miniatures of Kaini Industries and Bocuma, gripping loops of Rue The Whirl, endless turns of Pete Standing Alone and soothing calm of Open The Light are only some of the highlights of this outstanding collection.

Music Has The Right To Children is one of the landmark releases in the history of electronic music, the first widespread glimpse of brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin's original, captivating work. Its influence is still heard in countless places in recent years, from the hauntological roster of Ghost Box records and wonky hip-hop of Moon Wiring Club, to the freeform synth workouts of Oneohtrix Point Never and cosmic melodies of Polysick. This was their introduction to the wider world, and remains for many their definitive statement.

[Mambostaggie]

Another 2 that weren't on my list. Can't argue with those choices. Great Albums just not my preferred choice of tunes.

[Colin M]

10=

Prodigy

The Fat Of The Land

(1997)

The Prodigy's transition from DIY rave protagonists to full-blown rock festival stalwarts was not entirely unexpected - there was always something about even their earliest releases that seemed to hint at huge crossover potential. Their third full length capped that transition with a collection of massive sounding tracks that make some of those early tracks sound positively twee and toytown in comparison.

Critics of The Fat Of The Land would say that it lives up to its name, being a bloated monster that shook off some of the charm of their earlier work. There's no question that it's a far meatier affair than they had previously produced, and that is a huge part of the appeal - these tracks are designed to be blasted loud to knock their ever growing audience off of their feet. The beats and riffs punch with sledgehammer effect for what is at times an exhilirating listen.

Firestarter was a seemingly unlikely UK number 1, and while it's easy to see it as cartoonish now, it was a genuinely shocking burst of glorious noise on release. Followup Breathe is built on terrific p***kly riffs while the powerhouse beats of Smack My Bitch Up sound likely to blow your speakers. There are collaborations a plenty here too - Crispian Mills chips in with some pseudo-mystical bollocks and legendary Ultramagnetic MC Kool Keith phones in a performance on Diesel Power, presumably before Liam Howlett ran out of things to sample from his back catalogue.

The Beastie Boys-sampling Funky Shit is exactly as described on the tin, but the highlight for me is the more restrained widescreen sci-fi mission soundtrack of Climbatize, demonstrating Howlett's ever more confident production abilities. The Fat Of The Land is the sound of a band embracing their ever growing status and audience and making the crossover step to mainstream adulation, all the time relishing the prospect.

[Colin M]

Right, we have 10 great albums to go before the end of this - all of them are total beezers that I'm looking forward to revealing.

For now though we'll need a short break while I jet off on holiday for a week and a bit, so hopefully you won't all have forgotten about this by that time!