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Summer Solstice 2015: The Electronic Review

June 25, 2015 | by : Luke Bradley

2015’s longest day has come and gone. That means six months of the year have elapsed, and by extension, six months’ worth of new music has been birthed into this world for our listening pleasure. As is traditional amongst those who dedicate a significant portion of their lives to discovering new music, the end of June is the point at which reflection on the state of the year’s emergent musical landscape is often undertook, which makes sense given that a healthy amount of music has been released by this time. So here’s my take on the year in music so far.

I’m not one who puts too much stock in the belief that some years yield a better quality of music, or a greater amount of good music than other years, (after all, any evaluation of art is entirely relative to the subjective tastes of the critic [i.e. me/you], which themselves morph over time), but reviewing the mid-annual output is at least useful in collating together all that one has most enjoyed in the recent past, and also allows for the efficient transmission of new music to others. All that is to say compiling a big list is a really simple way to share music.

As the album format is becoming less and less necessary over time, I’ve divided the works into four categories: LPs, EPs, Compilations/Reissues and Mixes. Each section contains its fair share of great music, and of course new full lengths are still a big draw, but the number of top drawer compilations and reissues is increasing to the point where it is possible to have a very enriching listening diet consisting solely of ‘new’ old music. Plus, the amount of excellent free mixes available online is of such a staggering quantity as to be impossible for any one individual to tackle in their entirety, so whilst that section is obviously quite limited in scope, it is probably the most potent in terms of concentrated quality.

Also, I will concede that I haven’t trawled the Bandcamp seas as much this year as I have in the past, especially since the proliferation of vapourwave has resulted in vast swathes of half-arsed plunderphonic collages and by-the-numbers genre exercises being pumped out by labels that spring suddenly from the aether and amass a huge back catalogue in no time at all. Nevertheless, if you have the time and aren’t overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff available to listen to out there in the farthest recesses of the interweb, then there are plenty of interesting artists using the Name Your Price model for your delectation, a few of which feature in my list below.

Anyway, that’s enough of an intro, I’ll let the music speak for itself.

I’ve listed the works in a very rough order of preference, but as they are liable to change from day to day, all that I will say is that although the sequence is quite fluid, I’ve tried to place my most favoured items higher up in each list.

Summer Solstice 2015: The Electronic Review

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