Pitchfork's Best Electronic Music of 2021

Every year since 2015, Manchester producer Anz has released a mix of all of her own tracks made over the course of the preceding months. For 2020, she sought to finish 40 tunes; by summer, she’d already made 74, which were then culled down to a slim 35 for her *Spring/Summer Dubs 2020* mix. Like the ones prior, that set—which, again, *was made entirely of her own brand-new songs*—spanned genres and revealed all kinds of influences: UK garage and 2-step, East Coast club, techno, house, jungle, old-skool rave breaks, you name it. While the *All Hours* EP is a compact six tracks, it’s just further proof that Anz is one of dance music’s most versatile, exciting (and obviously prolific) producers working today. “Inna Circle” mixes B-more club with B-boy breaks. “Real Enough to Feel Good” is the kind of stepping garage tune that keeps dancers in an anaerobic state, while Anz drives a vocal sample in all sorts of unexpected directions. “Last Before Lights” is a whip-cracking, high-BPM assault that goes down a rabbit hole of squelchy bass, pitched-up voices, and classic rave-style piano riff. But as wildly divergent as all these tracks are, little can prepare you for “You Could Be,” on which singer George Riley channels the giddy joys of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s “I Wonder If I Take You Home” and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” atop one of the funkiest, most glorious synth arpeggios recorded since the heyday of Miami freestyle. Dance pop has rarely sounded so perfect—and so out of left field—as it does here.

a collection of demos/ideas/emotions

“I like the simple stuff,” murmurs Loraine James on “Simple Stuff,” a standout track on the London producer’s second album for Hyperdub. Perhaps her idea of simplicity is different from others’, because *Reflection* (like its predecessor *For You and I*) is a virtuosic display of dazzlingly complex drum programming and deeply nuanced emotional expression. James’ music sits where club styles like drum ’n’ bass and UK funky meet more idiosyncratic strains of IDM; her beats snap and lurch, wrapping grime- and drill-inspired drums in ethereal synths and glitchy bursts of white noise. Recorded in 2020, while the club world was paused, *Reflection* captures much of the anxiety and melancholy of that strange, stressful year. “It feels like the walls are caving in,” she whispers on the contemplative title track, an unexpected ambient oasis amid a landscape of craggy, desiccated beats. Despite the frequently overcast mood, however, guest turns on songs like “Black Ting” show a belief in the possibility of change. “The seeds we sow bear beautiful fruit,” raps Iceboy Violet on the Black Lives Matter-influenced closing track, “We’re Building Something New.” Tender and abrasive in equal measure, *Reflection* is that rarest of things: a work of experimental music that really does make another world feel possible.

It’s sort of funny that RP Boo (aka DJ/producer Kavain Wayne Space), who’s been active on Chicago\'s footwork scene for more than two decades, would name his fourth LP *Established!* He’s long been considered a standard-bearer—arguably the creator—of the regional sound, which relies on jittery, extremely off-kilter beats to braid dancers\' legs into a 160-BPM game of Twister. Of course, with his establishment status comes the responsibility to lead in a new direction, and that’s what happens, in fits and starts, with Boo’s fourth album. The 4/4 beat of opener “All My Life” is the first signal of that departure—and provides a window into the electro-funk and house that Boo likely absorbed before he ever sat down in a studio. And “How 2 Get It Done!” starts off with a greasy, ’70s slow-jam vibe before it morphs into deconstructed G-funk and a barrage of snares that snap to an entirely different grid from the underlying rhythm. Those looking for more classic-style tracks—and aggressive conceits—will still find them in abundance. The theme of dunking on one’s detractors, for instance—a perennial footwork favorite since long before DJ Nate dropped “Hatas Our Motivation” in 2010—is well represented on \"Haters Increase the Heat!,” where the minimalist bass wobbles between the channels to such a degree that it throws you off balance even when you\'re sitting down. Footwork tracks can certainly feel like unfinished sketches at times—more a tool for dance-party battles than something you might just have on in the background. But it’s in the DIY experiments that *Established!* conducts—*how many tempos can a track have layered on top of one another before it collapses under its own weight?*—where the boundaries really get tested.

w&p by Skee Mask Mastered by Tangible Air Artwork photos by Lara Köcke

UK label Wisdom Teeth returns with it’s third long-form offering - Sculpturegardening: a new LP by Mexico City-based artist and producer, Tristan Arp. Incorporating elements of ambient, glitch, microhouse and downtempo, it’s an otherworldly record populated by knotty modular textures, blossoming floral melodies, tight pointillist rhythms and glossy acoustic instrumentation. The record was born from a process of “collaborating with machines”: using modular synthesisers to generate probabilistic melodies and rhythms, with the artist taking on the role of sculptor and curator. Throughout, the boundaries between the organic and digital are playfully blurred: we hear synthesisers played by guitars; emotive and distinctly human melodies generated by modular circuits; digital percussion drummed by hand; and live cello processed with a digital finish. The results sometimes recall Roman Flügel at his most colourful, or Benge’s meandering synth workouts, and even at times echo the dubbed-out cello experiments of Arthur Russell. But really sculpturegardening occupies a sonic world of its own, born from a unique web of happy accidents and incidental arrangements. The record’s bright colours and subtle rhythms make it a fitting follow-up to K-LONE’s 2020 LP Cape Cira and Facta’s 2021 LP Blush, and place it neatly alongside the work of label mates Duckett, Benoit B, Steevio and Iglew. “With sculpturegardening, my concept was to approach music like gardening. I collaborated with machines inspired by the way a gardener collaborates with the earth. A gardener creates the conditions for the plants to come to life and develop on their own. In a similar way, I created a set of conditions and probabilities for the music to make itself. Who is making the music here? “A sculpture garden to me can be a really beautiful environment of balance between randomness and order––between nature and human interaction. Things that are either extremely organized or completely random tend to not resonate with us. On the other hand, something very interesting happens when a balance between the randomness and organization is struck. I invented this verb sculpturegardening to represent creating with the aim of this balance, and the with the aim of building a world in which each piece is a zone, or a sculpture in a garden.” The record will be twinned with a physical iteration - a sound installation at an exhibition curated by Tristan Arp titled Nada Se Pierde; Todo Se Transforma. The show opens on 9th October in Mexico City at Avant.dev. The physical sculpture garden will be a collaboration with Mexican sculptor Pablo Arellano. The sound installation will centre around a 4-channel audio system that gives voice to different sculptures and allows visitors to create a mix of the sounds depending on their position in the garden. Sculpturegardening is Tristan Arp’s second LP, following 2019’s Suggested Forms, released on his own label Human Pitch.