2006: Top 10 EDM Albums Of The Year
Submitted by sljiva on Mon, 01/08/2007 - 02:33
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- Booka Shade - Movements
- Beautiful album. Just beautiful. I've listened to it only once last year, and it took me so strong that I had to put it in the first place. Everything about this album is great: it's very minimal (but not in that awful plinky-plonky way), it's hypnotic, it's full of great melodies and some real natural sounds. It can take you right on the dancefloor and it can make you fall aspleep in a minute. It's that universal. All songs are terrific, but I have to mention my 3 favourites: Paper Moon, Mandarine Girl and Darko. Great job from this guys after rather disappointing debut album Memento.
- Kaito - Hundred Million Light Years
- You can call this trance, progressive house, neo trance or ambinet trance, it doesen't matter. It's just great music. Kaito is the only guy on Komapkt that makes this kind of music. I picked up this album right after I heard his track Hundred Million Light Years on Kompakt's Total 6 compilation, and I was absolutely amazed. He has done a great job beacuse this album sounds really fresh compared to some other albums in progressive house/trance genre. Favourite track: Color Of Feels.
- Nathan Fake - Drowning In A Sea Of Love
- This young guy started with four-to-the-floor progressive music in 2003. His first release was Outhouse, progressive house monster that he made when he was only 20 years old. In 2004 he made some other progressive tracks, like Bored Of House and The Sky Was Pink. But he chose not to do any house on his first artist album. Drowning In A Sea Of Love is instead filled with fantastic ambient sounds, lush melodies and noise that fits perfectly in context of the album. That contrast (beautiful ambient sounds - harsh noise) is best represented on You Are Here, probably the craziest tune on the album. Charlie's House, Grandfathered, Bumblechords and The Sky Was Pink are all very good IDM/ambient/experimental tracks that are not only good for home listening, but for all occasions.
- Herbert - Scale
- Another beautiful, chilled out and very minimal album. This one sounds a lot like Booka Shade's masterpiece, but with jazzy atmosphere and lots of vocals. In fact, maybe too much vocals, because every track contains them, and they were all done by Dani Siciliano. Every now and then some unknown guy makes appearance too, but she dominates. This is probably the reason why I already heard 3 of his singles on the radio, but it's cool. Something Isn't Right is the best track on album. Moving Like A Train is second best.
- Vibrasphere - Archipelago
- Vibrasphere are two guys from Sweden that make great progressive trance. Some people like to call their music progressive psy, but on this album it's hard to feel any psy influences. It's mostly all progressive trance/house. But the most beautiful track on this album is definitely Tierra Azul, track that has nothing to do with progressive what so ever. It's the opening track, and it's so lovely that it immediately puts a smile on your face. After that you have seven 8+ minutes tracks filled with stomping beats, smooth sounds and wonderful melodies with Landmark as it's highlight. 9th track is again chilled out downtempo track that closes the album very smoothly.
- Squarepusher - Hello Everything
- Old IDM wizard is back with brand new album that has more to do with jazz than any other genre. Pretty much every track draws the influences from jazz, and only one from drum & bass, his "favourite" genre. And that track (The Modern Bass Guitar) is my favourite song on this album. Planetarium, with its spacey atmosphere and Welcome To Europe are also very good tracks.
- Hybrid - I Choose Noise
- Hybrid are still the kings of breakbeat genre. They announced their third artist album with the gorgeous track Just For Today on which Kirsty Hawkshaw did the vocals. And she's not the only well-known name that appears here. John Graham (aka Quivver) does the vocals on two tracks (pretty strange for him to sing and not to co-produce), and Peter Hook from New Order plays bass on two other tracks. There are also two songs on which Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction does the vocals and that two songs (Dogstar, Dream Stalker) are my favourites on this great album.
- Trentemoller - The Last Resort
- It's groovey, it's funky, it's percussion rich. Basslines are smooth and fat. Clicks appear where ever they can. You got slow, deep songs like Vamp, and you got fast, dancefloor oriented songs like Nightwalker and Chameleon. Anders did a great job on this album and he deserves all the hype he gets at the moment. Let's just hope that his further releases will be on the same level of quality as this album is.
- BT - This Binary Universe
- Legendary BT decided to do an ambient/downtempo album after all this soundtracks he has done over the past couple of years. His choice is quite understandable since he's a very talented producer who touched pretty much every genre of electronic music till now. He did house, trance, breaks and even some drum & bass. But now he chose downtempo and made a perfect album. Album that is warm, natural, experimental, deep and atmospheric at the same time. It impressed me so much that I had to choose it over the new albums of downtempo masters William Orbit and Geir Jenssen (Biosphere).
- Binary Finary - The Lost Tracks
- Everyone knows 1998. And 1999. And probably 2000. They're all the same tracks, released so many times because some fat chief that had absolutely nothing to do with creating these masterpieces needed cash. And what is the easiest way to earn that cash? We all know that. So that 1998 (Original) became remixed to death from guys like Paul Van Dyk, Matt Darey, Gouryella, Dumonde, Kaycee and many others. But BF have never remixed their own masterpiece since they got in some problems with the releasing company and they pretty much abandoned the project in 1998. 8 years later they're finally back with the 16 track album, and Finality Remix of 1998 (which is IMO the best version of the track, alongside PVD's mix). The other tracks are also very cool, not like today's boring epic trance. They have that old school feel to it, because they were made in previously mentioned 8 year pause period. My favourites would be Dirty Little Tart, Chicken Dipper and Remedy. Unfortunately, album is available only in digital form as mixed or unmixed version.
You check out ASOT 2006? It got bashed quite a bit, but it was my album of the year.
well, i haven't listened to it. and it's mix album, this one's for original artist albums. if i'm gonna do mixed cd list, i'll check it out
Ah, okay, didn't see that. Gotcha.
Booka Shade are awesome from the songs i have from them, definitely need to get that Movements album! You gonna do a top 2007 one as the year goes on as well? Looking forward to it if ya do
You got the Lost Tracks album off soulseek?
No, I got it from somewhere else. Why do you ask?
I can't find it on Slsk, that's why.