With contributions from Alan Lockett, Chang Terhune, Chris Amell, Clint Anderson, Eric Sorenson, Philippe Blache, Pietro Da Sacco, Robbie Geoghegan, and Will Andahazy, Igloo Magazine has compiled an extensive list of its favorite releases from the past 12-months spanning many genres and sub-genres. Having covered hundreds of releases in 2018, many notables—including links to their respective Igloo reviews and/or release pages. 29 of our Top Record Labels, 57 EPs, 136 LPs, 19 Compilations, and 5 Reissues—are cataloged in this article. As usual, there are no winners or runners-up, all the lists are alphabetized by artist, and a randomized track selection on Soundcloud is available to immerse yourselves even further. As Igloo heads into its 19th year of operations, we’re looking forward to another round of experimental electronic music consumption from around the globe!
RECORD LABELS ::
Analogical Force
A Strangely Isolated Place
Detroit Underground
DiN
Erased Tapes
FireScope
Fluid Audio
Friends of Friends
Ghostly International
Hibernate
Hymen
Kaer’Uiks
Kahvi Collective
Kaometry
M-Tronic
Numb Capsule
n5MD
Planet Mu
Pyramid Transmissions
Raster
Section 27
Sound In Silence
Sparkwood
Subtrakt
Suction
Sun Sea Sky
Touched Music
Umor Rex
Warp
“Music has so many permutations and avenues to explore that it is impossible in any single life time to see it all. So you have to go on a personal journey that takes you down paths and tracks that are unique to you.” ~Ian Boddy, 2011
EXTENDED PLAYERS ::
36 :: Circuit Bloom (3six)
4T Thieves :: Wayfield Asylum (Kahvi Collective)
Abadir :: Clattered Tell (Kaer-Uiks)
Acronym :: Burgundy (Stilla Ton)
Acronym w Korridor :: Untitled (Vaagner)
ADJ :: Street Life Part 1 (Pyramid Transmissions)
Aeon Waves :: Mute Angel (Mindtrick)
Air Liquide :: This Is A Mind Trip (Intergalactic Research Institute For Sound)
Ambulance :: Combover (Open Ear)
Aphex Twin :: Collapse (Warp)
Axiom 23 :: Origins (Kahvi Collective)
Bambounou :: Parametr Perkusja (DISK)
Bass Kittens :: Play It Backwards (Pretension)
Bauri :: Vinkelvolten II (FireScope)
Bovaflux / Flux :: aux4411 Split (mindcolormusic)
Brainwaltzera :: Bunker (Analogical Force)
Chaircrusher :: Balsamic Remorae (Cornwarning)
Charlotte de Witte :: The Healer (Mute)
Chris De Luca :: Rekd (Detroit Underground)
D’Arcangelo :: II (Suction)
Derek Carr :: New Planets To Conquer (Distant Worlds)
Dictate :: Noclip (Renraku)
Dominic Coppola :: Serenity Channel (Strange Rules)
Driftmachine :: Shunter (Umor Rex)
exm / Mitoma :: I/0 DISC (Kaer’Uiks)
Faex Optim & PBS’73 :: Poppy Tears (Magic Square)
Federico Leocata :: Archetypen (Shipwrec)
Ficture :: Filled Spaces (Audiobulb)
Fleck E.S.C. :: Discrete Opinion (Central Processing Unit)
Flint Kids :: Gec Alsthom 1996 (Kaometry)
Fragile Balloon X Pan Pan :: Vodena 111 (Numb Capsule)
Huron :: Invisible Hands (Subtrakt)
In Love With A Ghost :: Gay Story (Self-Released)
Instupendo :: Faces I Know (Self-Released)
In The Branches/Bluetech :: Behind The Sky (Behind The Sky Music)
Ivan Shopov & Monolog :: Veracity (Subtrakt)
Jamison Issak :: EP1 (FLORA)
kon001 :: 65489 CETO (Pulse Drift)
London Modular Alliance :: INTLBLK006 (International Black)
Lowfish :: Hypersensitivity (Suction)
MacroNoise :: Continuum (Post-Label)
MacroNoise :: Various Species (The Crime League)
Mihail P :: Multiverse (Distant Worlds)
Monoiz :: Blurs a/v (Crazy Language)
Norken & Nyquist :: Go Polonius (Exalt)
Pacific :: Rain City (Onset Audio)
Pakun Jaran :: Sekt (Kaometry)
Rand Weiss :: /139bda (Kaer’Uiks)
Redox :: Binary Forecast (Kahvi Collective)
Roger Van Lunteren :: Rosa Dos Ventos (Something Happening Somewhere)
ScanOne :: E.OneSeven (Analogical Force)
Second Woman :: Instant / Apart (Tresor)
Setter :: Transversal (Hylé)
Synkro & Arovane :: Refractive (Index) (Apollo)
TM404 & Echologist :: Infiltrated (Kynant)
Valance Drakes :: Panic Can Only Bring On Fear And Defeat (Cut & Paste)
Weldroid :: Turgeoncellsil (Kahvi Collective)
“What we have said makes it clear that music possesses the power of producing an effect on the character of the soul.” ~Aristotle, The Politics, 1340a
LONG PLAYERS ::
ADULT. :: This Behavior (Dais)
Against All Logic :: 2012-2017 (Other People)
Amorosi Dressel :: DeathMetha (Giallo Disco)
Andrew Tasselmyer :: Maui (Hibernate)
Anenon :: Tongue (Friends of Friends)
Aot-x :: Per Aspera Ad Astra (Touched Music)
ASC :: Trans-Neptunian Objects 2 (Auxiliary)
At The Psychedelic Circus :: Psychedelic Motel (Shipwrec)
Attraktta :: Massive Irretrievable Data Loss (Touched Music)
Ariadnes Labyrinth :: Twisted Up & Turned Around (Touched Music)
Autechre :: NTS Sessions 1-4 (Warp)
Benoît Pioulard :: Slow Spark, Soft Spoke (Extended Edition) (Dauw)
Bluørangee :: White Pajamas (Numb Capsule)
Boy Harsher :: Yr Body Is Nothing (Nude Club)
Boy is Fiction + Ghosts of Tyto Alba :: A Single Beam of Light (n5MD)
bvdub :: A Different Definition Of Love (Dronarivm)
Caldon Glover :: Peddlers of Pastel Delights (881224 Records DK)
Cameron Day :: The Castle And The Garden (Fluid Audio)
Carbinax :: All Ears (Self-Released)
Carpenter Brut :: Leather Teeth (Blood Music)
Casino Versus Japan :: Suicide By Sun (CVSJ)
Cathode Ray Tube :: Invisible Soundtracks (M-Tronic)
Charm Days :: Shelter (Sun Sea Sky)
Chevron :: Good Morning Britain (Love Love)
Christian Kleine :: Electronic Music from the Lost World 1998-2001 (A Strangely Isolated Place)
CMD094 :: Kagami Tears (No Problema Tapes)
Council of Nine :: Exit Earth (Cryo Chamber)
Daniel Avery :: Song For Alpha (Phantasy Sound)
Data Rebel :: Retrospective (Sun Sea Sky)
Deru :: Torn in Two (Friends Of Friends / 79Ancestors)
Dez Williams :: Insulted Intelligence (Bass Agenda)
Dissolved :: Tangled Prismatics (Daddy Tank)
DJ Healer :: Nothing 2 Loose (All Possible Worlds)
DTROY :: Terra Incognita (Detroit Underground)
Droid Eater :: Bipolar Outflow (Repeat Eater)
Eff Dst :: Out Of Body (Hymen)
eks.center :: Clouds (M-Tronic)
epitomeZero :: Moonsong (Sea Of Clouds)
Etnik Sentetik :: Selected Works 1995-2006 (Müstesna)
exm | Mitoma :: FF0000 (Touched Music)
Fall Therapy :: You Look Different (n5MD)
False Mirror :: SIGINT (Malignant)
Fayze :: Fayze (Detroit Underground)
Floex & Tom Hodge :: A Portrait Of John Doe (Mercury KX)
Forest Management :: 21st Century Man (Self-Released)
Frank Bretschneider :: Lunik (Shitkatapult)
Glowing Swords :: The Autumn Elegy (Wistrec)
GosT :: Possessor (Blood Music)
Gray Acres :: Gray Acres (Sound In Silence)
GUNSHIP :: Dark All Day (Self-Released)
Hall of Mirrors :: When Only Shades Remain (Eibon)
Harmonious Theolonius :: Petrolia (Marmo Music)
Hatch :: Arcanoid (Section 27)
Ignatius :: Vitrine Mentions (Buried In Time)
I-LP-ON :: ÄÄNET (Editions Mego)
Ital Tek :: Bodied (Planet Mu)
Ishqamatics :: Elements (Fantasy Enhancing)
Ivan Shopov & Valance Drakes :: Unearthing Buried Chapters (Amek)
James Shinra :: Vital Heat (Analogical Force)
Jimi Tenor :: Order Of Nothingness (Philophon)
Jon Hopkins :: Singularity (Domino)
Justin Maxwell :: Synthesized Sounds For Young Humans (Touched Music)
Kirill Mazhai :: Hearts Must Change (Fluid Audio)
Lantern :: Summer Knight (Occult Research)
Liminal Drifter :: The Dreams (Hidden Shoal)
Loden :: Lit For Exits (Extinct)
Lorn :: Remnant (Wednesday Sound)
Markus Guentner :: Empire (A Strangely Isolated Place)
Martin Nonstatic :: Ligand Remixes (Ultimae)
Matthew Dear :: Bunny (Ghostly International)
Meat Beat Manifesto :: Impossible Star (Flexidisc)
Mordançage :: Mordançage (Fluid Audio)
Morego :: Solivagant (D.M.T.)
Morphology :: Traveller (FireScope)
M//R :: Among The Methods (Great Circles)
Nadia Struiwigh :: WHHRu (Denovali)
Nils Frahm :: All Melody (Erased Tapes)
Northcape + Obfusc :: Reprojected (Sun Sea Sky)
Ocoeur :: Inner (n5MD)
Objekt :: Cocoon Crush (PAN)
Olan Mill :: Variations On The Letter H (Unknown Tone)
Panama Fleets :: Data Melt (Sparkwood)
Pausal :: Volume Flow (Hibernate)
Peshay :: Reflections (De:Tuned)
Poemme :: Moments in Golden Light (Constellation Tatsu)
Positive Centre :: Forever Optimum (Horo)
Production Unit Xero :: Post African Repetitions (Heterodox)
Pterygium :: Concealing The Past (Tesco)
Qebo :: Wroln 2018 (Detroit Underground)
R Beny :: Saudade (Dauw)
Rafael Anton Irisarri :: El Ferrocarril Desvaneciente (Umor Rex)
Richard Devine :: Sort\Lave (Timesig / Planet Mu)
Rival Consoles :: Persona (Erased Tapes)
Robert Lippok :: Applied Autonomy (Raster)
Roel Funcken :: Dear of the Yog (Touched Music)
Room Of Wires :: White Transit (Self-Released)
Ross From Friends :: Family Portrait (Brainfeeder)
Shinichi Atobe :: Heat (DDS)
Shrine :: Celestial Fire (Cyclic Law)
Siimplex :: Fragments (Sunwarped / Schematic)
SineRider :: Lonely Ocean (Sun Sea Sky)
Skee Mask :: Compro (Ilian Tape)
SK’P :: Specks Of Dust On The Edge Of Immensity (Crazy Language)
Snowbeasts :: Nocturnal (Chthonic Streams)
Soccer96 :: Rewind (Slowfoot)
Somatic Responses :: The Decision Tree (Acroplane)
Sophie :: Oil Of Every Pearl Un-Insides (Transgressives)
Space Afrika :: Somewhere Decent To Live (sferic)
Sraunus :: Equal Melodies (Greyscale)
Steve Hauschildt :: Dissolvi (Ghostly International)
Steven Rutter :: Brain Fog (FireScope)
Styrofoam :: We Can Never Go Home (Sound In Silence / Silent Face)
Submersion :: Inner (Rohs!)
Subskan :: Drawback (Hymen)
Survive :: RR7400: LA041717 (Relapse)
Suumhow :: Crash_Reports (n5MD)
Tangent :: Approaching Complexity (n5MD)
Tapes and Topographies :: Opiates (Simulacra)
The Future Sound Of London :: From The Archives Vol. 9 (FSOL Digital)
The Midnight :: Kids (Self-Released)
The Star Pillow :: Symphony for an Intergalactic Brotherhood (Boring Machines)
The Valley And The Mountain :: Rotations Vol. 1 (Central Scientific)
Timecop1983 :: Night Drive (Self-Released)
Tomasz Bednarczyk :: Illustrations For Those Who (Room40)
Trevor Something :: Ultraparanoia (In Your Brain)
Ukuphambana :: Inline (Self-Released)
Ultradyne :: Ocular Animus (Po Gao Movement)
Understated Theory :: Tales From The Shadowlands (Sparkwood)
UnknownDivide :: Instinct (Labile)
UpliNk :: VIVIVIX (Clavitronics)
Valance Drakes :: Climbs the promise of no real change (M-Tronic)
Vizier of Damascus :: Ramadan Heights (Self-Released)
William Basinski + Lawrence English :: Selva Oscura (Temporary Residence)
Witch Eyes :: Treatment (Component)
Young Hierophant :: The Thin Place (940321 Records DK)
ZoiD :: Nebulous Concrete (Self-Released)
“We hear a lot of duplicated sounds and rhythms in electronic music today. It takes a lot of effort and imagination to make original sounds which in my opinion is the basis of electro and techno.” ~Ultradyne, 2014
COMPILATIONS ::
Cottage Industries 8 (Neo Ouija)
Covert 3 (Touched Music)
Dalekovod 7 – The Future Is Here (Crobot Muzik)
Earthlings 2 (Pyramid Transmissions)
Errormatic Vol.2 (Clean Error)
Found Sound (Touched Music)
From The Dark Volume 1 (Cultivated Electronics)
Full Circle (A Strangely Isolated Place)
Global Surveyor: Phase 4 (Dominance Electricity)
New Clockwork Music (Electronic Sound)
Pop Ambient 2019 (Kompakt)
Psionics (E.L.M. Collective)
Sectioned v7.0 (Section 27)
Sichten 1 curated by Frank Bretschneider (Raster)
Submission 02 (DiNDDL)
Tone Science No.1 – Structure and Forces (Tone Science, DiN)
Touched Electronix 001 (Touched Electronix)
Trame Due (Minimal Rome)
Trap Configurations (June)
“A music-scape that oozes with primitive life, as if pulsing from the swamp itself. . . A time traveller searching for the aperture that looks back to Eden.” ~Calvin Ahlgren, San Francisco Chronicle (taken from BITS & PIECES with Robert Rich, 2016)
REISSUES ::
Boards of Canada :: Hi Scores (Skam) ~review from 2014 reissue
Ian Boddy :: The Climb (DiN)
The Sight Below :: Glider 10 (Ghostly International)
Loscil :: Submers (Kranky)
Nearfield :: Mars (Reissue) (People Can Listen)
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead—his eyes are closed.” ~Albert Einstein
BEST OF 2018 SOUNDCLOUD SELECTIONS ::
FEATURE IMAGE ::
Special thanks to Richard Devine for the feature image this year, and Francesca for the final cut! The image is a sequencer called Seq by Poland’s Polyend—a MIDI step sequencer that can create rhythms, notes, and chords. Richard Devine started using the Seq at the end of 2017, and in this picture he is also using the Seq with another product called the Polyend Poly eurorack module which allows him to use the Seq with other modular systems.
