Igloo Magazine :: Best of 2022

After covering several hundred releases in 2022, many notables—including links to their respective Igloo reviews or release pages—are cataloged here. As usual, there are no winners or runners-up as the lists are alphabetized by artist and selected tracks are featured on our Soundcloud playlist.

Giving due recognition to quality work

We still feel like an impressionable teen after having turned 22 in 2022. The ambition to somehow describe our excitement for music (in words) is motivation enough to keep the proverbial Igloo doors open. With over 460 articles published in 2022, many of which were reviews, our small group of dedicated contributors continue to volunteer their time to cover the wonderfully abstract world of electronic music and its many interlocking branches. While we realize there may be a few more top releases from 2022 not cataloged here, we certainly hope to (re)discover them in 2023 with your recommendations and they may be added to the list below, so keep checking in!

A special thank you to all of our contributors, especially those who helped piece together this article including: Alan Lockett, Chang Terhune, Chris Amell, Cris Quizzik, James Delaney, Jason Martin, Philippe Blache, Pietro Da Sacco, and Robbie Geoghgan. For her unwavering support and continued patience; Francesca Da Sacco.

Another thank you goes to one of our favorite concept-driven, creative graphic-design and image making outfit Grid Pattern for the feature image this year. We’re thrilled to have Grid Pattern onboard this year!

Feel free to contact us if you’d like to contribute to Igloo Magazine as we regularly seek new sonic perspectives to expand our horizon and drive momentum.

LONG PLAYERS ::

36 :: Symmetry Systems (Past Inside the Present)
36 & zakè :: Stasis Sounds For Long-Distance Space Travel II (Past Inside The Present)
4T Thieves :: Elder Dawn (Rednetic)
4T Thieves :: Fragment (Self Released)
Adam Jay :: The Inevitable Demise (Detroit Underground)
Ard Bit :: Music For Delirious Episodes (Phainomena / Shipwrec)
Arovane & Taylor Deupree :: Skal_Ghost (12k)
ASC :: Eye of the Storm (Past Inside the Present)
Adrian Copland :: If This Were My Body (Lost Tribe Sound)
All That We See or Seem :: All That We See or Seem (Miasmah)
ANKUBU :: RX_71_0 (Subtrakt)
Aseq :: RIVERS (Detroit Underground)
Barking :: Barking (brokntoys)
Billow Observatory :: Stareside (Felte)
Boxheater Jackson :: We Are One (Mighty Force)
Brainwaltzera :: ITSAME (FILM)
Braulio Lam :: Apertura (Dragon’s Eye)
Café Kaput :: Maritime (Themes & Textures) (Clay Pipe Music)
Cercle Futur :: Genèse (Roulette Rekordz)
Chad Mossholder :: Lighghthouse (Schematic Music Co.)
Chaircrusher :: Music For Upholstery (Component)
clocolan :: Empathy Alpha (Redpan)
C Mantle :: Photisms (Kaer’Uiks)
Daedalus :: Simmers Over (DOMEOFDOOM)
Dag Rosenqvist :: Lexica (Dronarivm)
Daniel Avery :: Ultra Truth (Mute)
Defrag :: Float (Hymen)
DJ Hidden :: Isoclusion (Hidden Tracks)
Dragon & Jettenbach :: Tales From The Algorithm (Self Released)
Drape :: Forage/Presence (Infraction)
Dreissk :: Seiche (n5MD)
Drifting In Silence & Tineidae :: Simulation (Labile)
D York :: Melancholic Gardens (Neotantra)
enereph | Production Unit Xero :: premoniss | Bukimi no Tani Genshō (Heterodox)
exm|Mitoma :: e|m (Section 27)
Everglades Computer Club :: Immortal Cybernetic Space God (Schematic Music Co.)
f5point6 :: A Matter of Light and Depth (See Blue Audio)
Fall Therapy :: Fall Therapy (n5MD)
Fetcho :: Fetcho (Schematic Music Co.)
Field Lines Cartographer :: Dreamtides (Castles In Space)
Flavia Massimo :: Glitch (Audiobulb)
Force Majeure :: Force Majeure (Concrete Collage)
Fragile X :: The Man With The Plastic Brain (noci miste)
GGGG :: Gazé (Firescope)
Gimmik :: Sonic Poetry (n5MD)
Grandbruit :: Adaptation (Élan Vital)
Hexalyne :: Null Surfaces (Point Source Electronic Arts)
Hexalyne :: Tcaresset (Kaer’Uiks)
Hypnos :: Vindictiveness (Mahorka)
Ian Boddy :: Coil (DiN)
Illocanblo :: Maze (Rednetic)

iNF0 :: All Possibilities And Outcomes (Self Released)
Inkipak :: +ve (Fourier Transform)
Inkipak :: dot (Touched Music)
James N Murray :: An Emerald Necklace (Dragon’s Eye)
Jason van Wyk :: Descendants (n5MD)
Jeannine Shulz :: Humble (Polar Seas)
Joy Orbison :: Still Slipping Vol. 1 (XL)
Kangding Ray :: ULTRACHROMA (ara)
Karsten Pflum :: Camera Obscura (Touched Music)
Keiss :: Access Denied (Pulse State)
Kenneth James Gibson :: Groundskeeping (Meadows Heavy Recorders)
Kübler-Ross :: Kübler-Ross (Ice Machine)
Laconic Impression :: Epidemy (Acre)
Lake Haze :: Henosis (Shall Not Fade)
Lav :: A New Landscape (Past Inside the Present)
Longmeadow Pyramids :: Longmeadow Pyramids (Component)
Long Range Desert Group :: Pro-oxidant (Mighty Force)
Lord of the Isles :: Subtle Thoughts (Lapsus)
Loscil :: The Sails Part 1 & Part 2 (Frond)
lovetrip :: Synaesthesia (Móatún 7)
LPF12 :: Contours of Stillness (Self Released)
Luis :: 057 (Schwyn) (AD 93)
Lull :: That Space Somewhere (Cold Spring)
Marco Zenker :: Channel Balance (Ilian Tape)
Mathmatrix :: Mathmatrix (Touched Music)
Max Cooper :: Unspoken Words (Mesh)
Moderat :: MORE D4TA (Monkeytown)
Modified Toy Orchestra :: Silfurberg (Bit-Phalanx)
modular sleep patterns :: modular sleep patterns (Home Normal)
MONO :: My story, the Baraku Story (Temporary Residence)
Moss Covered Technology :: Brick & Air (Audiobulb)
µ-Ziq :: Hello (Planet Mu)
Nacht Plank & Futuregrapher :: Music For Kettle (Móatún 7 / Neotantra)
Netherworlds :: Vanishing Lands (Glacial Movements)
Nils Frahm :: Music for Animals (Leiter)
NOXIN :: Dream Sequence (Evel)
Nuron + Fugue :: DAT Tapes 1993-1994 (De:tuned)
Oberman Knocks :: Conder-Rhyptik (Aperture)
OdNu :: My Own Island (Audiobulb)
Of Thread & Mist :: Static Hymns To No One (Gizeh)
Ossa :: Exit Language-Translator (Schematic Music Co.)
Paul Hierophant :: Beyond The Oort Cloud (Ping-discs)
Paddy Thorne :: Lost Cause (Part Two) (Mighty Force)
Part Timer :: Interiority Complex (Self Released)
Plaid :: Feorm Falorx (Warp)
Pleasurefields :: Shelter (Touched Music / Pleasure Wax)
POLe :: Tempus (Mute)
Pontiac Streator :: Sone Glo (West Mineral)
Precenphix :: Off-Axis (Not Yet Remembered)
Principles Of Geometry :: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (Tigersushi)
Pye Corner Audio :: Let’s Emerge! (Sonic Cathedral)
Qebo & William Fields :: αlive (3OP)
ReKaB :: Lost In Wires (Intellitronic Bubble)
ReKaB :: Subtle Beginnings (Móatún 7)
Roberto Auser :: Touch Your Fear (Lunatic)
RTR :: 61 Cygni (Analogical Force)
Russ Gabriel :: Aonia (Ferox)
RX-101 :: New Discoveries (Suction)
Sakanatsuri :: Sadness Defines Your Happiness (Neotantra)
Scanner :: Listening Forest (Self Released)
Seahawks :: Infinite Echo (Cascine)
Serge Geyzel :: Love Kamikaze (Pulse State)
Serge Geyzel :: Xenophonic (Touched Revolutions)
Silicon Scally :: Field Lines (Central Processing Unit)
Skee Mask :: ISS007 (Ilian Tape)
Skrika :: Soludenia (Cryo Chamber)
Skurken :: Dagur (Touched Music)
Smoke Point :: Smoke Point (Geographic North)
Soutien Gorge :: Tarskapcsolatodban (Touched Music)
Stephen Mallinder :: tick tick tick (Dais)
subtractiveLAD :: Wreckage (Self Released)
Sven Kössler :: D•bl Stndrds (Mighty Force)
SVLBRD :: Somber (Faint)
Tapes and Topographies :: Modalities (Simulacra)
The Follower :: Waiting, Occurrence, Dissolve (Concrete Collage)
The Jaffa Kid :: Passing Signals (Suction)
Tim Koch :: Volplaning (Central Processing Unit)
toffo :: aux4433 (mindcolormusic)
Valance Drakes & Ivan Shopov :: A Picture in Motion Through Eternity (Sound In Picture)
Viul & Benoit Pioulard :: Konec (A Strangely Isolated Place)
V-Stók :: Liminal (Position Disposition)
Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan :: Districts, Roads, Open Space (Castles In Space)
William Basinski & Janek Schaefer :: “ . . . on reflection ” (Temporary Residence)
Yimino :: Touched Presents Yimino (Touched Music)
zakè & ossa :: syntheticopia (Zakè Drone)
zakè + Ossa + Fax :: Module (Zakè Drone)

EXTENDED PLAYERS / REMIXES / SINGLES ::

Alako :: Arch (Notte Tempo)
Burial :: Streetlands (Hyperdub)
Cash Romantic :: Overmono (XL)
Chairweiner :: P1LL5 (EC Underground/Dead Money)
CLAIR :: Body Blossom (Hot Gem)
dgoHn :: Portus (Analogical Force)
Digitizer :: Future Technology (Pulse Drift)
exm :: pas de point (Self Released)
Fausten :: Mercenary (Acroplane)
Fleck E.S.C. :: Walking Free (Woodwork)
Fortresses :: Near (Dragon’s Eye)
Gilbert :: Shift the Focus (030303)
G-Prod :: Cinetic (Brique Rouge)
Hanut Munson :: AE-02 (Adepta Editions)
Heinrich Dressel :: Promenade (Lunar Disko)
Heogen :: Oxygen Fields (Dyadik)
HRYM & Friends :: Heimferd (Kahvi Collective)
Introvertmusic :: Crunch (Detroit Underground)
Ion Driver :: Sustain (Self Released)
Kab Driver :: Little Smoke (Acroplane)
Lawrence Hart :: Small-Scale Experimental Machine (Self Released)
LectrO cOd_E :: Savidge Machine (Woodwork)
Lloyd Stellar :: Randomized Lifeforms (Pulse Drift)
Max Cooper :: Exotic Contents / Pulse at the Centre of Being (Mesh)
Meduna :: Desmantelo (6 Plusten)
Mitoma :: PentadEP (Section 27)
Mono Peninsula :: Layers (Friends of the Noise Floor)
Nike_Vomita :: TUN011 (Móatún 7)
MOY :: MASA 004 (Masa Series)
NUNDALE :: Nothing, Nothing (Errorgrid)
Permutation :: Epicycles (Permutation)
Robyrt Hecht :: Type EF (Clear Memory)
Ruff Cherry :: Phantom Fortress (Midgar)
Serge Geyzel & Karsten Pflum :: Remains of the Day (mindcolormusic)
Slace :: SSD (Renraku)
SMPL SMPL :: Mistika (Specimen)
Solipsism & Mosca :: TUN013 (Móatún 7)
Stasis :: From a Failing Light (De:tuned)
Stazma :: AE-04 (Adepta Editions)
Stormfield & Mitoma :: Theia (Combat)
TBEX & Elias Zorn :: Solar Parallax (Adventurous Music)
The Jaffa Kid :: The Jaffa Kid (Cold Blow)
TL3SS :: Debride (Errorgrid)
Yaporigami :: Chaos Swallower (Analogical Force)