November: 18 albums you need to hear this month

‘Belief System’ is not only Special Request’s most definitive piece of work, but it will also, probably, prove to be Paul Woolford’s magnum opus. While Special Request arrived amidst a wave of breakbeat nostalgia and rave revivalism, this new double-album finds the project develop into so much more. ‘Belief System’ is an obviously autobiographical work, not least in the title, which hints at the lifelong investment Woolford has made in dance music. But there are the various found-sound recordings of pirate radio shout-outs that hark back to his teenage days tuned into Bradford’s PCR, too, and some of the music is also sourced from rediscovered tapes recorded back in 1993, when he was experimenting with his first drum machines. Tracks such as ‘Tiresias’, meanwhile, are infused with the same dramatic emotional sweeps that make the music he’s released under his own name so big on the festival circuit. Elsewhere, ‘Change’ is cavernous and heartbroken with skeletal beats, ‘Curtain Twitchers’ is a speed-riddled frenzy of drums and whirring lasers, and ‘Brainstorm’ is a joyous rush of rave euphoria. But there are surprises, too, which ensure the album remains enthralling despite it lasting over 100 minutes. Chief among them is the LP’s second half, as the jungle, techno and breakbeat sounds make way for 40 minutes of cinematic sound design. From string-laden and contemplative to foreboding and militant, this section conjures an apocalyptic mind-movie so absorbing that, when it’s done, you’re left emotionally drained, as if waking from an intense dream. ‘Belief System’, then, is a comprehensive mapping of Woolford – and indeed UK electronic music’s – musical DNA. Kristan J Caryl

9/10

A backdrop of grief pervaded ‘Suzi Ecto’, Joe Seaton’s elegant, abstract debut LP as Call Super. Follow-up ‘Arpo’ is more optimistic according to Seaton, but the mood remains a plaintive and muted one. It lends Seaton’s take on techno a singular, heavenly quality, one that’s informed by Detroit’s second wave and Villalobos-style minimalism, with the jazz that his artist/clarinetist father raised him on a distinctive undertone; it translates into warm and fuzzy electronics that bubble and pop like an Icelandic geyser. Dad contributes extensively yet again, his experimental clarinet phrasings twisting ‘Arpo Sunk’ into a ghostly hybrid of loose techno and Jewish klezmer. If you’re looking for some immersive and emotional electronica, just Call Super. Stephen Worthy

8/10

Younger readers may be new to Flunk, but anyone with Balearic heritage will remember their brilliant lo-fi cover of ‘Blue Monday’. And while there’s been a whole lotta history (and five albums) since then, their new record continues to demonstrate a love of bleak and windswept melodies, and sounds like a more delicate response to Portishead’s ‘Sour Times’. “I wrote a book about you,” sings Ulf Nygaard, who shares vocal duties with Anja Øyen Vister. “And when it’s over, it’s over.” Of course, the other band who perhaps owe the group a musical debt are The xx, although Flunk’s hushed soundscapes are more aligned to Nordic whizz kid Erlend Øye than the Wandsworth trio. If you can get past the heartache, it’s bliss. R Moore

7/10

Given Pikes’ cultural significance, it’s a surprise a Pikes record label hasn’t happened before; perhaps everyone at the famed hotel and hangout for Ibiza’s glitterati has been having too much of a good time. But there’s no more fitting a ringmaster for Pikes Records’ debut than DJ Harvey, who blends sumptuous Balearic, 80s European electronica, crate-digging oddities and, naturally, devastating disco nuggets. Idjut Boys’ glittering ‘One For Kenny’ retains its raw power, but it all really comes together with the disco mix of Eight Wonder’s ‘I’m Not Scared’, a Pet Shop Boys-penned slice of Patsy Kensit-fronted synth-pop. Like Harvey’s personality, it’s a mix full of sunshine. Stephen Worthy

7/10

M A N I K is a proud New Yorker, and this new album pays testament to that. It’s his second on Ovum, and finds the producer telling a musical tale that goes through many shades of house, with hip hop and jazz influences also colouring the grooves. The years since his debut have served him well, as the music here is thoroughly out-of-the-box and lovably loose: smart variation in the drum programming (which always provides the essence of each track) bolsters raw, to-the-point cuts such as ‘Devil’s Dance’, as well as the smoother, balmier sounds heard on ‘That Hustle.’ Freewheeling Rhodes chords help smudge the edges of many pieces, and an endearingly brash New York attitude also characterises the LP’s party-starting jams. Kristan J Caryl

8/10

The Parisian label Infiné is consistently a mark of sheer class. Whether it’s putting out club tracks, Middle Eastern sounds or modern compositions, it always specialises in subtlety and tracks that don’t immediately give their secrets away. This second album for the label from Mexican producer Cubenx certainly doesn’t: broadly ambient with orchestral touches and the occasional throb of fierce techno, ‘Fractal City’ is very dark, very futuristic anwd very, very grown-up. Its moodiness and reticence make it uneasy listening, but it’s also strangely compelling, too. It would be the perfect soundtrack to a baffling but beautiful sci-fi thriller – in fact, the more we listen to it, the more we want to see that film. Joe Muggs

By describing it as “synth-led folk-trance standards”, could James Holden’s new album be a mea culpa for his past – specifically the early 00s, when his ornate, prog-trance epics such as ‘One For You’ polarised dance music fans? Yet no amends are necessary: those cuts are intriguing documents of their time, and the music Holden has released since then has been consistently enthralling. With a new band alongside him, he fills ‘The Animal Spirits’ with haunting brain-melters that fuse modular synths, jazzy musicianship and trance-like rhythms. As the sax and cornet-embellished frenzy of ‘Pass Through The Fire’ shows, he can still get you twisted. S Worthy

7/10

Eighty seconds into Kelela’s debut LP ‘Take Me Apart’, the shimmering pads that opened proceedings drop out and lead track ‘Frontline’ explodes into life. Two strands of her voice wrap around each other with breathtaking power, as the track flips into an infectious club rhythm full of percussive whirrs and sharp snares. It sets the tone for the record, which bursts with textured atmospheres and danceable beats, all led by the unwavering might of Kelela’s lungs. The styles explored across the LP are diverse: ‘Blue Light’ is moody club scuzz, ‘Jupiter’ oozes through tender ambient, and ‘Truth Or Dare’ marries a stripped-back beat with some glossy synths. Above the production, each track is emotionally anchored by Kelela’s affecting, human lyricism. “I’m gonna prove you wrong,” she sings on ‘Bluff’, a 72- second interlude that packs immense feeling into its brief running time. At once both vulnerable and subversive, throughout the album she touches upon love, identity and the human condition. “It ain’t that deep,” she jibes about a one-night stand on ‘LMK’, taking a swipe at gendered relationship constructs, while ‘Turn To Dust’ drips with Björk-esque melancholy, and a silky pop hook dominates ‘Waitin’. Talk in the early stages of Kelela’s career often centred around what she brought to the futuristic productions of the likes of Arca, Jam City and Kingdom, whose names would be included in the track titles. On ‘Take Me Apart’, though, the titles stand alone: here, Kelela rightfully takes centre stage. Patrick Hinton

9/10

Rødhåd 'Anxious' (Dystopian)

The themes of Rødhåd’s ‘Anxious’ are clear before you’ve even switched the speakers on. The artwork shows him panda-eyed and shirtless, wrapped in tattoos, while titles such as ‘Cast A Shadow’ and ‘Unleash’ pre-empt the dark journey that follows. Dense pads whirr and recoil on ‘Witheld Walk’, and the beats of ‘Escape’ give off a feeling of genuine menace. The ghoulish ‘Brief Respite’ is full of metallic distortions, but the star of the show is undeniably ‘Target Line’, which pummels your senses before hi-hats and punchy, ferocious bleeps bounce into the mix. It’s a take-no-prisoners climax that’s one of the best techno tracks of the year so far, and helps make ‘Anxious’ a hypnotic, fiery record. Leah Jade Connolly

8/10

As the royal ascension of Solange Knowles after ‘A Seat At The Table’ has shown (her summer show at Lovebox was the undisputed best of the festival after a misfiring headline slot from Frank Ocean), there’s definitely room in the market for well-manufactured electronic soul with (whisper it) depth and meaning. But panic not, because neither Ms Knowles nor her former collaborator Ava Raiin are inviting you to poetry readings: instead, the latter’s new LP is more focussed on offering a snapshot into better places via a mixture of daring attitude, great production and solid-gold songwriting. The brilliant ‘Steady’ and ‘Eagle Eye’ both offer entry points into brave new worlds; Solange would approve. R Moore

7/10

The base material of good electronic music is improvisation. If you’ve seen a Juju & Jordash live show then you’ll know that this Amsterdam-based Israeli duo are fiercesome evangelists for the power of improvised grooves and fluid rhythms, and the essential energy of their live jams is everywhere on their fourth album for Dekmantel. This is electronic music with an organic feel, rooted in atmospheric and fluid deep house as well as the freeform experimentalism of jazz. ‘Deadman’ is a gathering storm of rushing winds, pulsating synths and fizzing beats; elsewhere, on ‘L-Motion’, Juju and Jordash run a warm bubble bath of emotional pads and fill it with breaking waves and dubby guitar licks. S Worthy

8/10

Matthew Cutler’s career as Lone has marked him out as a producer and DJ who weaves a myriad influences into his music. His first love, hip hop, is the backbone of the early skirmishes of this eclectic DJ-Kicks release, from the loopy, cosmic 8-bit beats of Spotted’s ‘Heralds Of Change’ to the stoned lope of Lootpack’s ‘Hityawitdat’, courtesy of leftfield rap general Madlib. One of the four Lone exclusives, ‘Cali Drought’, is a similarly wonky downtempo lurch. As the mix migrates to the dancefloor, Lone drops some smooth 90s techno with John Beltran’s ‘Placid Angles’ and the cyber-electro of Drexciya’s ‘Bubble Metropolis’, before signing off with Radiohead’s obscure and atmospheric mood sketch ‘Worrywort’. Stephen Worthy

8/10

A fizzing creative marvel whether he’s making films, producing Underworld’s album or creating cinematic d’n’b masterpieces, Lincoln Barrett has always been something of an outlier – and now we know why. His sixth album is his grand musical departure, featuring straight-up rock (‘Shotgun Mouthwash’), Daft Punk-shaped house jams (‘The Beat Don’t Feel the Same’ feat Boy Matthews), stunning euphoric downtempo ballads (‘Save Somebody’ feat Callum Beattie) and his own vocals, keys, bass and guitar. Precisely half of the 14 tracks here are drum ‘n’ bass, and yet that feels almost incidental: this is a big, ambitious and shimmering dance/indie record in the Moby or Fatboy Slim mould, unapologetically swollen with huge choruses and hooks which careen towards the listener. There is surely no turning back from here. With sold-out live band solo shows already crushed, and Radio 1 giving daytime play to every single, our man just hit the next level. Ewen Cook

8/10

Whether he’s making jungle, hip hop, footwork, slo-mo house, disco edits or John Carpenter-style electro, Jim Coles (aka Om Unit) guarantees meditative atmospheres and hi-res production values. On this new album, Coles is on the form of his life, hitting intimate emotions and, particularly with the rolling breaks and strings of ‘Out Of The Shadows’ and ‘Despite It All’, sweeping your imagination away into vast cosmic vistas. In this context, the three vocal tracks (spoken by DRS and Rider Shafique, and sung by Amos) actually bring the album back down to earth somewhat, even though they’re very ably performed: Om Unit’s sounds are more than capable of reaching heights that mere words can’t. Joe Muggs

7/10

Roman Flügel and Jörn Elling Wuttke’s Acid Jesus project dates back to the early 90s and a heyday of German techno, but this two-disc, triple-vinyl retrospective proves it’s music that’s aged well (or hasn’t even aged at all). Soulful and deep like Underground Resistance but also hallucinogenic and trippy like Bloodsugar-era Andrew Weatherall, tempos range from slow and spacey to manic. But tracks are never all-out brutalist assaults, and there’s always room for a serene pad or tangled acid line that elevates them above pure functionality. The many highlights included here, from the liquid funk of ‘Odyssey’ to the slick electro of ‘Hibernation Drive’, ensure its status as an essential techno document. KJ Caryl

8/10

Of all the great ‘heritage’ bands, the sprawling, crazed Funkadelic seemed like the least likely candidate to throw out a decent remix album. Yet here we have something better than we could have dreamed. Rather than cashing in with big names, Westbound have recruited the people who understand the music best: the mostly black producers of house, techno and electro from Funkadelic’s adopted home town. Names like Underground Resistance, Moodymann, Ectomorph and Claude Young should be all you need to hear to assure you you’re in safe hands, and the results are stunning, as they twist the disco, funk and psychedelia into fresh and crisp patterns. Joe Muggs

9/10

Visionist’s follow-up to ‘Safe’ once again invites you into a troubled world, as seen through the eyes of an artist. But this time, we’re left blinking into neon lights post-anxiety attack, with our pupils hastily trying to readjust and our pulses still racing. The album starts as it means to go on, with a haze of cinematic emotions and crackly crooning; the 10-track LP also features Visionist’s own vocals for the first time, as the producer explores weighty ideas of self-love, self-deprecation and self-preservation. The LP’s reserved, unadulterated strength is what carries it through, saturating tracks such as ‘Homme’ and all of its masculine connotations. If ‘Safe’ was Visionist’s “personal portrait of anxiety”, then ‘Value’ is his awakening. Jasmine Kent-Smith

9/10

“Bops and ballads” is one of the best descriptions we’ve used to describe the music of Rationale, aka Tinashe Fazakerley. Alongside MNEK, he’s one of the buzziest young male artists to be signed to a major label as of late. But while MNEK sells Mariah-esque r’n’b via classy pop, Tinashe arguably offers a more truthful strain of soul. Opener ‘Re:Up’ (co-written by Zena Kitt, who also appears on the track) cleverly uses a dealer drop-off as a metaphor for affection and addiction (“waiting for the Re:Up/I can’t get enough”), while ‘Loving Life’ channels Jermaine Jackson’s ‘Do What You Do’ but takes it to church rather than the charts. 'Fast Lane’, meanwhile, drives straight to the pop pulpit with a chorus Jim Steinman would be proud of. Ralph Moore

8/10