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Albums from the last decade that have stood the test of time
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| craiggarner |
Sometimes it's tough to know if an album is a true classic until it has a few years behind it. Which electronic albums from the past decade do you think have stood the test of time? For me, there are very few electronics albums that make the cut, so I thought it might be fun to hear some other people's highlights. Here's a couple from me:
Scuba - Triangulation (2010)
This is one of the few records from the dubstep x techno era that still shines. It still sounds fresh thanks to Scuba's stellar production values and it capture the 'zeitgeist' without sounding dated.
Dorisburg - Irrblos (2016)
This album just doesn't get old. To me, it's one of the best examples of an electronic artist album: a seamless blend of different styles, tempos and atmospheres but with a common thread weaved throughout. It never once feels like an obligatory artist-album effort - a rare gem! |
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| Kilixpree |
| well, 'huerco s - for those of you who have never' is pretty close I think |
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| Trance-M |
| quote: | Originally posted by craiggarner
Dorisburg - Irrblos (2016)
This album just doesn't get old. |
A bit early to say not? |
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| SYSTEM-J |
I can think of a few:
Yagya - Rigning / Sleepygirls (2009 / 2014)
Depending on whether you count the "last decade" as the last 10 calendar years or if you cut it off at 2010, but either of these make the quality cut. Rigning is an obvious modern classic which doesn't need any explanation. To a lot of people, I think Sleepygirls was more of the same, so not as widely heralded, but for me it's just as good.
Almunia - New Moon (2011)
A low-key little album that nobody's ever heard of, this never struck me as an immediate classic but I've hammered it so many times over the last few years whenever the sun came out. Just beautiful mid-tempo Balearic grooves shot through with really gorgeous sun-kissed guitar. It's more than proven its longevity to me.
John Talabot - Fin (2012)
This one was an obvious future classic right from the moment it came out. I remember being in London after I'd just bought it, having it on my headphones all week, and then ending up at a mutual friend's flat. He got on the decks excitedly saying "Listen to this record I've just bought" and it was this. It had that moment-defining buzz at the time, and nothing's happened in the last seven years to diminish it.
The Future Sound Of London - Environments 4 (2012)
It's a weird little career path that led The FSOL, grandmasters of the ambient concept album, to quietly come back in the late 2000s and put out this concept-less series of albums, which includes some their finest material about 15 years after anyone stopped giving a . Environments 2 from 2008 is glacial and vast, Environments 3 from 2010 is fragmented and post-apocalyptic, and then Environments 4 is paranomic and primordial, and my favourite of the lot.
Minilogue - Blomma (2013)
Maybe this didn't get jumped on by the blogs at the time and I ended up being a couple of years late to the party, but I think everyone who heard it knew straight away it was special. If you like that Dorisburg album, this is surely on another level.
I would also back Triangulation as a good shout. It doesn't sound dated at all, whereas a lot of stuff from what we must call The Dubstep Era sounds quite faddish. A similar album, which I think is just a notch below classic status, would be ASC - Nothing Is Certain from the same year, which shares that same mutant techno gene pool. |
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| craiggarner |
Blomma, is a good pick - I haven't revisited it for a little while now as it disappeared from Spotify.
I'd say Yagya - Sleepygirls is actually the pick of those 2 for me -Rignig is always touted as one of the essential modern dub-techno LPs but I never quite understood the fuss... |
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| craiggarner |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trance-M
A bit early to say not? |
Possibly so, but I've given it a flogging in that 3 years - so it feels like longer somehow :happy2: |
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| Sykonee |
A more interesting question here is whether there's been any album from the past decade that's gonna' be held up as the gold standard of this era. The '10s Music Has The Right To Children, or Untrue, if you will. Y'know, that one record that, in 10-15 years, will receive a 4,000 word essay from Simon Reynolds about how Very Important it was.
I'm struggling to think of one. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sykonee
A more interesting question here is whether there's been any album from the past decade that's gonna' be held up as the gold standard of this era. The '10s Music Has The Right To Children, or Untrue, if you will. Y'know, that one record that, in 10-15 years, will receive a 4,000 word essay from Simon Reynolds about how Very Important it was.
I'm struggling to think of one. |
I'd say that's due to the Big Important Album being a feature of a more centralised version of the music industry that doesn't really exist any more. It's the same way we talk about there being less "classics" in dance music these days. Does it mean the music is degrading in quality, or is it just that there's far more music, far more sub-scenes and far more ways for artists to put out tunes and albums that aren't going through established labels, their PR machines and their distribution reach? |
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