The Best Electronic Music of 2019

Featuring Peggy Gou, Floating Points, Joy Orbison, and a lot of deep cuts
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Illustration by Drew Litowitz. Octo Octa photo by Basti Schulze, images via Getty Images.

These are the albums, EPs, and songs that defined the sound of electronic music in 2019.

The list, sorted alphabetically, includes tracks and albums found on Pitchfork’s main year-end tallies as well as additional records that did not make those lists but are just as worth your time.

Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.

Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2019 wrap-up coverage here.

(All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission.)


Jenkem Recordings

AceMoMa: AceMoMa EP

What does New York sound like? That’s easy to answer when the question is applied to bygone decades, but it’s much harder to come up with a satisfying response in the moment. If there’s one uncontroversial answer for 2019, though, it’s AceMoMa. AceMo (Adrian Mojica) and MoMA Ready (Wyatt Stevens) bring their lightning-in-a-bottle energy to small clubs around the city, where Stevens will sometimes hop on the mic and hazily emcee, and their debut collaborative EP manages to capture the same spirit. It’s not hard to pick up on Mojica and Stevens’ reverence for classic house music in the deep groove of “Nothing Crazy” or the laidback shuffle of “Ethereal Stepping,” but they prove equally as adept at crafting lush, driving jungle on the B-side. Countering the gentrification of the city’s club culture, there’s no metropolitan polish here—in their hands, New York still sounds magnetic. –Rachel Hahn

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music | Tidal


100% Silk

Akasha System: Echo Earth

Akasha System is the leading artist in the new subgenre I am calling Portland techno. This is literally accurate, as he is from Portland and he makes techno, but it’s also spiritually correct, as this is the sound of techno from Portland, land of flannel and pretty trees. Stereotypical, perhaps, but Echo Earth, with its raw sound and big sweeps, is so evocative of green terrain that it feels impossible that it came from anywhere urban. It’s a treat for avid fans of electronic music, where creative progress often feels like it must be signified by deconstruction. Echo Earth is an A-frame home, a Pinewood derby winner, pottery made on the wheel. A lovingly crafted piece of electronic music whose seams are happily showing. –Matthew Schnipper

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp


Whities

Anunaku: Whities 024

If you’ve encountered a frame drum recently, it was likely in a classroom. Varying in size, they are deep and wide, and easily portable and playable by hand, making them great for teaching kids. They are often found in Middle Eastern recordings, and they were popular in somewhat glossy ’90s world music. That their sound plays such an outsize role in Anunaku’s “Bronze Age” is a pleasant surprise; it gives the music, nominally techno, a unique edge that brings it in line with the very special and very underrated records by onetime Steve Reich Ensemble member Glenn Velez. While far from a household name, Velez has made the frame drum the focal point of his compositions, where its elastic rhythms are completely enchanting. On this EP, Anunaku goes a step further, dripping drum over drum until rhythms that at first feel competitive begin to interweave. To varying degrees, on all three tracks, the frame drum is the engine, as toms and snares fight for time in the mix. Sometimes synthesizer bloops and bleeps show up too, but with a percussionist this talented, they’re nearly unnecessary. –Matthew Schnipper

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal


Ostgut Ton

Barker: Utility

Sam Barker is wary of taking the easy route in getting people to move their bodies. A resident DJ at Berlin’s hallowed techno haven Berghain, he has voiced his skepticism of kick drums and drops—the utilitarian elements that so often trigger lizard-brain reactions on a dancefloor. For his debut album, Utility, Barker dug into his archives to see which of his old sketches sounded good when he stripped them back to the studs. The result is mysterious, weightless. These tracks still throb: “Hedonic Treadmill” and “Utility” are trance-like bangers made propulsive entirely via cycling synth melodies, and even the more ambient songs swell and build like club music. As a whole, Utility is an expression of what techno can be when the most obvious percussive elements go away. –Evan Minsker

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal


Merge

Caribou: “Home”

Home is an ambiguous concept for Dan Snaith: In his nearly two decades of music-making, the producer has dramatically reinvented himself on an album-by-album basis, veering from glitchy electronica to blown-out shoegaze to kaleidoscopic pop to subaquatic house without ever retracing his steps. So there’s a delightful sense of frisson when, on his first Caribou single in five years, we hear the sampled voice of ’70s soul singer Gloria Barnes declare, “Baby, I’m home.” It’s a statement that suggests a return to one’s roots, but “Home” doesn’t so much sound like Snaith’s earliest music as it does an alternate 2001 where he embraced the crowd-pleasing collagist aesthetic of the Avalanches and DJ Shadow instead of the cerebral beats of Four Tet and Boards of Canada. By conjuring a past he never experienced, “Home” once again takes Snaith somewhere he’s never been before. –Stuart Berman

Listen: Caribou, “Home”


Numbers

Complete Walkthru: Scrolls

“What is the long-term effect of too much information? We don’t know, but we’ll find out,” muses a voice deep in Complete Walkthru’s Scrolls. Completed after a move from New York to South Carolina, Max McFerren’s third album under the alias is, in part, a response to the feeling of overload—of information, data, inputs, emotion, noise—that grows more oppressive with every idle scroll of the feed. But where some might collapse into pessimism or worse, McFerren finds a kind of grace in the chaos, tempering his quirks into a sound both potent and poignant. He hasn’t unplugged, exactly: shot through with scraps of advertisements and other found sounds, Scrolls is as hyperactive as his most helter-skelter work. But his grooves are leaner and his synths brighter; even at its busiest, his music feels fundamentally at peace. –Philip Sherburne

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal


NAAFI

Debit: SYSTEM EP

After the claustrophobic ambient textures of last fall’s Love Discipline, for the Quiet Time Tapes label, the New York-based, Monterrey-born producer Debit returns to the tough, percussive energy of her debut album. Taking the thundering triplet rhythms of tribal guarachero as her starting point, she wraps textures of wood and leather in the kinds of buzz and throb that the Finnish noiseniks Pan Sonic used to mete out, twisting the knobs on her distortion unit until the whole thing is suffused in the distinctly bitter whiff of an electrical fire. –Philip Sherburne

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music | Tidal


Hyperdub

DJ Haram: Grace

You might already have a sense for DJ Haram’s razor-sharp sonic world if you’ve heard the experimental music that she makes with Moor Mother as 700 Bliss. Her proper solo debut, released on Hyperdub this summer, is an even finer introduction to Haram’s world. It sounds almost like an audio translation of the album’s cover art, an illustration by artist Samantha Garritano that depicts a six-armed woman in red heels wielding multiple swords, gilded bongs, and mythical creatures like mermaids and hooved monsters. Drums splatter against Middle Eastern rhythms on opener “No Idol,” and throughout Haram’s patchwork compositions you’ll hear the distinct sounds of her New Jersey youth, where she grew up listening to ’80s and ’90s Arabic pop music and her uncle, who played the accordion and darbuka drums. Jersey club’s signature bed-squeak sample commingles with blaring flute rhythms in closer “No Idol (Remix),” and gunshots punctuate a tinny drum pattern in “Body Count.” With Grace, Haram makes something new out of her rich musical history. –Rachel Hahn

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal


Planet Mu

DJ Nate: “Fuck Dat”

A deceptively sparse cut from Chicago stalwart DJ Nate’s first footwork record in nearly a decade, “Fuck Dat” is a fitting return to the genre: The steady clap of a snare drum recalls the style’s roots in ghetto house, while a meandering synth line hovers in the air, teasing the onslaught to come. But DJ Nate’s power is restraint: With a stream of warm TR-808 hits and a few errant hi-hats, he allows the footworkers who compete in dizzying dance battles to fill in the energy. The titular vocal sample, chopped into oblivion, is a suitable mantra: Nate returned to footwork while recovering from an injury that left him temporarily paralyzed from the waist down, a particularly cruel irony in a scene defined by movement. But just because he’s not killing a circle doesn’t mean he can’t give it new life. –Arielle Gordon

Listen: DJ Nate, “Fuck Dat”


Dekmantel

DJ Python: Derretirse EP

Happiness, sadness, whatever: You’d have to be heartless to not feel whatever you’re feeling that much more after listening to DJ Python. His music, which blends Latin strains and house beats, conveys passion to almost strangely deep levels. He does it by layering inventive rhythms with plenty of long tones, something simultaneously for the head and the heart. “Be Si To,” a play on “little kiss” in Spanish, is the most powerful of the songs from this EP on stalwart Dutch label Dekmantel. The BPMs are slow and sexy, and you’ll definitely feel them in your hips, too. –Matthew Schnipper

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal


Xpq?

Exael: Dioxippe

Exael turned up in various configurations in 2019, releasing a lovely ambient double A-side as Naemi and joining Huerco S. and uon in the dub-techno trio Ghostride the Drift. But best of all was the Berlin-based American producer’s Dioxippe EP, a six-track array of clanking-drainpipe techno, psychedelic pulse studies, and sandblasted noise. The typography of the record’s center sticker is a subtle nod to Basic Channel, who pioneered Berlin dub techno back in the early 1990s, but don’t be fooled: Dioxippe is a thrilling reminder of the uncompromising, freeform spirit that a new generation of American producers is bringing to underground scenes around the world right now. –Philip Sherburne

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade


Ninja Tune

Floating Points: Crush

British electronic producer Sam Shepherd has always exerted remarkable control over his meticulous musical output as Floating Points: With his favored instrument, the Buchla modular synthesizer, he can contour sound waves and alter circuitry to suit his needs. But Shepherd, like the rest of us, has comparatively little control over his input, and the chaos of the past three years—Brexit, Trump—shook something loose inside him. Out came Crush, a record that vibrates with sadness and anger, buoyed by squelching melodies that flutter and pop. It’s the sound of a super-rational person realizing the limits of reason and letting loose with 44 minutes of pure feeling. –Jonah Bromwich

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal


Text/Ministry of Sound

Four Tet: “Only Human”

Four Tet’s “Only Human” started life as a dancefloor edit of Nelly Furtado’s “Afraid,” the opening track from her now-iconic 2006 album Loose. As Four Tet describes it, he happened to hear the original song and began working on it almost as a lark, layering Furtado’s vocals and locking them into sizzling hi-hats and knocking percussion. His rework quickly made its way from DJ to DJ (as these unofficial edits tend to do), appearing in sets by Peggy Gou, Ben UFO, and others, before finally being officially released this March. The track itself is minimalist brilliance, but the song’s origin story and its dancefloor potency are what makes it such a compelling listen. Thank goodness that sample cleared. –Noah Yoo

Listen: Four Tet, “Only Human”


Nyege Nyege Tapes

Jay Mitta: Tatizo Pesa / Duke: Uingizaji Hewa / Sisso: Mateso

It was only last year that Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Tapes label introduced the world to the hyperspeed sound of Tanzanian singeli, a regional genre so fast it makes Chicago footwork seem positively pokey in comparison. This year, the label returned with three complementary interpretations of a style that often sounds like a merengue cassette with the fast-forward button glued down. Jay Mitte’s Tatizo Pesa bobs and weaves with incredible dexterity; the bright colors and pinprick tones mimic the movements of an industrial sewing machine. Duke is part mad scientist, part punk rocker: His beats gallop at tempos upwards of 200 BPM, with screamed vocals pushing everything even more dangerously to the breaking point. Sisso—head of Dar Es Salaam’s Sisso Studios, ground zero of singeli’s experimental underground—has the most hypnotic take of all. His tracks are just as fast as those of his acolytes, but he likes to let his loops run with minimal interference. The effect is gravity-defying. –Philip Sherburne

Listen: Jay Mitta, Tatizo Pesa | Duke, Uingizaji Hewa | Sisso, Mateso


Cómeme

Joe: “Get Centred”

DJs have been paying tribute to Steve Reich for years; the Orb sampled Reich’s “Electric Counterpoint” way back on 1990’s “Little Fluffy Clouds.” But rarely do artists capture the off-kilter repetitions of classical minimalism as well as Joe does on “Get Centred.” The UK producer’s first appearance on Cómeme smartly splits the difference between his bassy rollers for labels like Hessle Audio and Cómeme’s more esoteric, percussive sound; despite the title, it’s a delightfully un-centered song—a sun-drenched drizzle of contrapuntal synths that just gets slipperier as it goes. Yet it’s so effortlessly executed that it makes dancing in 7/8 time seem like the most natural thing in the world. –Philip Sherburne

Listen: Joe, “Get Centred”


Various

Joy Orbison: “Burn” / Joy Overmono: “Bromley” / Overmono: “Le Tigre”

British producer Joy Orbison was a relative unknown when, a decade ago, he released a track called “Hyph Mngo,” which quickly spread throughout clubs and the blogosphere. The song’s oft-imitated wordless diva vocals may have become passe, but the song’s ability to tug at heartstrings is still effective. That same emotive quality distinguishes—arguably for the first time in his career since then—this year’s Slipping EP, specifically on “Burn,” featuring guitarist Mansur Brown and vocalist Infinite, who appears just briefly at the track’s beginning. Orbison has tightened his game, his drumwork impressively tidy while the synths soar. Perhaps he’s gotten some of that skill from his work with the duo of brothers Overmono, with whom he collaborated on “Bromley”: three-plus minutes of tight, shuffling drums before a sudden breakdown of tweaked vocals interrupts the proceedings. Overmono had their own banner year, especially with “Le Tigre,” a bloopy tune made up of plenty of buzz and buildup. It smartly utilizes a simple “Amen” drum break in places, a little bit of flavor throughout an excellent, simple meal. A nice year for these craftsmen who have long been doing their thing. –Matthew Schnipper

Listen: Joy Orbison, “Burn” | Joy Overmono, “Bromley” | Overmono, “Le Tigre”


Kulør

Kasper Marott: “Drømmen om Ø (Forever Mix ’19)”

Yoshinori Mizutani’s cover photograph of vivid lime-green parakeets outside a drab urban building is ingeniously suited for Kasper Marott’s Forever Mix EP. The record’s A-side, “Drømmen om Ø (Forever Mix ’19),” is a sumptuous, 14-minute mini-suite that lofts picturesque bird calls atop sleek drum pulse, rubbery acid synths, clattering Latin percussion, and other meticulously rendered subtleties. “Drømmen om Ø (Forever Mix ’19)” (the first part of the title translates to “The Dream of the Island”) is also a strange bird within Marott’s own Copenhagen techno scene. Forever Mix is the second release from Kulør, the label run by fellow Danish artist Courtesy, following a compilation that introduced the city’s “fast techno” style. But the music here is slower-paced, introspective. “Drømmen om Ø (Forever Mix ’19)” may hit like a shock of tropical color against a gray city exterior, but it takes the length of an early-morning dream to achieve its blissful effects. –Marc Hogan

Listen: Kasper Marott, “Drømmen om Ø (Forever Mix ’19)”


Various

Leif: Loom Dream / Igam-Ogam

At times, the drum pattern on Leif’s “Yarrow” resembles the flutter of butterfly wings. In fact, much of the music on his album Loom Dream feels rooted in nature sounds: frog hiccups, fire crackling, rain heard from a distance. When it doesn’t sound like that, it sounds like a drum circle, but in a good way. The same could be said for his three-song EP Igam-Ogam, which may be even better than Loom Dream. It’s heavier on the percussion than on National Geographic moments, and its vast array of peppy thumps and thuds shows Leif to be a playful and articulate digital drummer. —Matthew Schnipper

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal


West Mineral Ltd.

Mister Water Wet: Bought the Farm / Pontiac Streator and Ulla Straus: 11 Items

With every new release, Huerco S.’s Berlin-based ambient label West Mineral Ltd. enters increasingly uncanny territory, and the latest two additions to the enigmatic collection are no different. Bought the Farm is the debut full-length from Kansas City-based Puerto Rican artist Tito Fuego (who Huerco S.’s Brian Leeds cites as a mentor), and there’s something fascinatingly unkempt about this music “made by hand from trash and dust,” as the label bills it. There are moments in crackly opener “Walking West” where you can almost make out the sound of crunching leaves underfoot. 11 Items, from frequent collaborators Pontiac Streator and Ulla Strauss, is another debut, and it’s equally strange. Each song is distinctly capacious—the sound of hand drums rolls along like a desert tumbleweed in “Item 2,” while haunting vocal samples flutter in and out of the glistening “Item 7.” Ambient music often functions as an easily tapped reservoir of relief, but in West Mineral’s case, tuning in to their latest transmissions feels mesmerizingly alien. —Rachel Hahn

Listen/Buy: Mister Water Wet, Bought the Farm | Pontiac Streator and Ulla Straus, 11 Items


UIQ

Nkisi: 7 Directions

London-based, Congolese-Belgian producer and NON co-founder Nkisi’s 7 Directions takes its name from the cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo people. In order to inhabit the world as a fully formed human, Nkisi has explained of the Bantu-Kongo worldview, one must master seven directions. One of these trajectories, an introspective one, can foster a communal sense of healing. Nkisi conjures a sort of introspective hypnotism through each of the seven percussive tracks on her full-length debut, all built around brain-rattling Congolese polyrhythms. Sometimes she injects hints of the gabber of her Belgian upbringing, as in the booming, breakneck rhythms that appear midway through “III,” but most of the time she encases her percussive workouts in slow-moving, celestial fog. Nkisi’s tracks might abound with energy, but their real power lies in their inner focus. –Rachel Hahn

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music | Tidal


Technicolour

Octo Octa: “I Need You”

The first half of this 10-minute track from DJ/producer Maya Bouldry-Morrison, aka Octo Octa, is rooted in gritted, lo-fi breaks, with vocals that drift on a reverbed vapor trail. They give "I Need You" the feeling of being suspended between two planes, its knees planted on the ground as its spirit drifts to the sky like a prayer. Then, six minutes in, the song finds its emotional anchor, as Bouldry-Morrison reads a buoyant note to her friends, her family, her listeners: “I love you! Thank you for being there. You mean so much to me.” It’s a deeply joyous moment. –Ian Cohen

Listen: Octo Octa, “I Need You”


Gudu Records

Peggy Gou: “Starry Night”

Whatever accounts for it—club culture’s ongoing fragmentation, some creeping suspicion that levity is bankrupt—dance music has been short on anthems in recent years. The South Korean producer Peggy Gou’s “Starry Night” summons revellers around a familiar gathering point: bright, bold piano chords, the tentpoles of summertime house classics ever since the music migrated from Chicago basements to Balearic terraces. To drive her point home, she offers up a chant that’s practically subliminal—one-word invocations of the ocean, starlight, pleasure, freedom, us. It’s a song about communion, an invocation of the very act of coming together, and an irresistible reminder of why we do. –Philip Sherburne

Listen: Peggy Gou, “Starry Night”


Beats in Space

Powder: “New Tribe”

At first, Powder’s “New Tribe” looms ominously. The left-field techno anthem’s beat is reminiscent of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman,” except here those slow, staccato exhalations sound more like the huffing of some titanic beast; the lumbering bassline might be its swishing tail. But a funny thing happens as the song continues its endless build: It pulls you in. What started out forbidding and impenetrable becomes a bubble you live inside. But that’s exactly the kind of thing Powder would do. The Tokyo electronic musician is famous for lengthy, off-kilter DJ sets that disorient and envelop in equal measure. Here, she effortlessly flips the specter of colossal menace into a warm embrace. –Philip Sherburne

Listen: Powder, “New Tribe”


Jolly Discs

RAP: EXPORT

Do you think Lifetones are far and away better than This Heat? Do you feel like Gang Gang Dance were never the same after Tim DeWitt left the band? Do you stand in solidarity with DJ Sprinkles in her anti-streaming stance? If you have a burning hot desire to answer these questions, then you’re probably already obsessed with the RAP album. If, instead, parsing any of the proper nouns above makes you want to throw the whole of experimental music into the ocean, bear with me, and please give a listen to EXPORT. Yes, the album fits comfortably within the avant-garde’s long tail, but the British duo’s sound is primed for a much larger audience. Blending skittering percussion with stoned-out synths and charmingly monotone vocals, EXPORT is warm and playful, a genreless exploration of rhythm. It’s the type of record that seems destined to be rediscovered long after its release and heralded as ahead of its time. But it doesn’t have to be. –Matthew Schnipper

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp


Skint

Róisín Murphy: “Incapable”

Róisín Murphy begins “Incapable” as cheerfully as its disco-ready bassline suggests she will. The Irish dance-pop vet is ready to move, happy to feel wanted and free, even boasting that she’s never had a broken heart. But soon, the song’s steady groove and bright handclaps underpin a growing skepticism, as her perfectly intact heart begins to strike her as its own worrisome condition. “Am I incapable of love?” she asks herself. Though the song may be tongue-in-cheek, it highlights one of dance music’s core truths: Even a great beat can’t shield you from self-doubt. –Colin Lodewick

Listen: Róisín Murphy, “Incapable”


Клуб

Schacke: “Kisloty People”

Russians may recognize Schacke’s “Kisloty People” as a cheeky rework of “Кислотный DJ” (“Acid DJ”), a 2001 pop-dance hit by the singer Oksana Aleksandrovna Pochepa, aka Akula (Shark). It’s a clever edit, upping the pace of an already speedy song, and using a stern, walloping kick drum to take the edge off the original’s goofy mood. That reference may be lost on the rest of us, but no translation is necessary to feel the energy inherent in the Danish producer’s tribute to the beloved St. Petersburg club Клуб, informally known as Kisloty. (Shuttered in May this year, it lives on as a label.) Tireless as the Energizer Bunny and as tightly wound as the springs of a pogo stick, Schacke’s song was ubiquitous in techno clubs this year—a guileless anthem that flipped its cornball source material into something giddily optimistic and refreshingly pure at heart. –Philip Sherburne

Listen: Schacke, “Kisloty People”


Peak Oil

Topdown Dialectic: Vol. 2

This album sounds like beautiful ambient music breaking apart into a million pieces after being crushed in a vice. Some songs have an identifiable beat, like “B2,” which resembles a submarine radar pinging. There are hints of many UK dance music genres of the last two decades, too, but as if they were reconstructed from memory while underwater. All eight songs are five minutes long and no one knows who Topdown Dialectic is. It’s either an alien or a super-stoned genius. Strangely pleasant and pleasantly strange. –Matthew Schnipper

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music | Tidal


Die Orakel

Upsammy: Branches on Ice

In an interview with Resident Advisor from last year, Dutch producer Upsammy (Thessa Torsing), a resident at beloved Amsterdam club De School, bristled at the prospect of anyone labeling her music as electro. She strongly preferred to think of her hallucinatory creations as existing in a sort of nebulous, unsettling purgatory. Even by her standards, Branches on Ice is hard to wrap your head around. The dubby spell of “Bronze Goddess” is only exacerbated by coos that dissipate like curls of cigarette smoke, while the bell-like synth line that carries “Shaky Limbs” almost tumbles over itself, like a spindle losing its bearings. The final track is the most upbeat of the bunch, thanks to a euphoric melody reminiscent of saccharine ’90s trance. It’s a surprisingly warm note to end on, a glimmer of light in an otherwise steely landscape. –Rachel Hahn

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music | Tidal


Allergy Season

Various / Physical Therapy: It Takes a Village: The Sounds of Physical Therapy

With a tracklisting split between aliases like Jungle Jerry, Green Buddha, and Kirk the Flirt, It Takes a Village might be a compilation dedicated to forgotten rave producers. In fact, all these names are alter egos of Allergy Season head Physical Therapy, aka Queens’ Daniel Fisher; the fake-comp gambit is merely a convenient means of cramming all his sprawling interests into one relatively svelte package. The 1990s loom large over it all: Liquid drum’n’bass jostles elbows with ragga-sampling trip-hop; filter-disco edits go hand in hand with percolating techno anthems. It’s clear that he’s got a healthy appreciation for irony, even kitsch—a storming Frankfurt acid cut is credited to one Stefan Pröper—but the tender melodies that bind the album suggest that Fisher is really a softie at heart. –Philip Sherburne

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music | Tidal


Music From Memory

Yu Su: Roll With the Punches

There’s an old Chinese proverb that roughly translates as, “The spring flows over plains and the valley is born.” The title of Vancouver-based, Kaifeng-born artist Yu Su’s Roll With the Punches EP is meant as her own take on the idea, and it’s a good fit for such sun-dappled, downtempo gems. In the breakdown of highlight “Little Birds, Moonbath,” a collaboration with fellow Vancouverite Michelle Helen Mackenzie, the sound of faraway rushing water sweeps against Mackenzie’s modular synth, which dissolves from a steady, soothing spiral into crystalline patterns that mimic bird songs. “Tipu’s Tiger,” an improvised jam session between Yu Su and Mood Hut duo Pender Street Steppers, is even more laid back, ambling along an axis of bongos and mellow guitar, while “The Ultimate Which Manages the World,” takes a downright dubby turn. Even with so much ground to cover, Roll With the Punches floats effortlessly along. –Rachel Hahn

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal