The 30 Best Electronic Music Releases of 2020

Listen/Buy: Apple Music | Bandcamp |  Spotify | Tidal

DEEK

The slow-motion electronic pop of Bullion’s “Hula” soundtracks a series of vacations, recounted as pleasantly fogged memories. The music is seductive, almost narcotic, with synth pads exhaling in long, overlapping layers. But something feels off. The instrumental break following an unexpected chord change lurches like a luxury liner in choppy water; melodic lines become queasily detuned. The London-based producer-songwriter is taciturn as a lyricist and a singer, but such off-center musical moments help to fill in the blanks, suggesting that holidays and hula dancing offered only partial reprieve from some looming anxiety. “Are people in pain where you are?” he wonders repeatedly, then thinks better of it: “I’ll ask you tomorrow.” –Andy Cush

Listen: Bullion, “Hula”

Merge

After the sentimentalism of 2014’s Our Love, Dan Snaith rebooted the mad-professor mentality that had fueled the flower-power plunderphonics of his early work. Nestled amongst Suddenly’s proggy cornucopia, though, is “Never Come Back,” one of Caribou’s most concise and powerful singles yet. Riding on little more than silky house stabs, helium-high vocal science, and a devastatingly catchy hook, it’s a precision-engineered peak from a master of anthemic dance pop. –Chal Ravens

Listen: Caribou, “Never Come Back”

Incienso

The centerpiece of this disembodied take on dance music is an 11-minute tropical-dub misery meditation threaded with de-motivational quotes: “It’s OK to feel hopeless.” “Life has no meaning but suffering.” Too on the nose for 2020? It doesn’t feel that way when you’re neck-deep in DJ Python’s depressive twist on “deep reggaeton.” Mas Amable’s eight rain-streaked tracks blur into one subtly-shifting mood piece as New Yorker Brian Piñeyro weaves heavy breaks and percussion through cloudy synths and barely-there melodies. For those who’ve still never touched a sourdough starter, this was pitch-perfect wallowing music for ineffectual afternoons. –Chal Ravens

Listen/Buy: Apple Music | Bandcamp |  Spotify | Tidal

Local Action

With euphoria in short supply and dancefloors shuttered around the globe, 2020 hasn’t been particularly kind to dance music. Outside the context of booming sound systems and late-night revelry, even the most expertly crafted club tracks have lost some of their luster, which makes the glittering elation of “For You” all the more precious. Bounding along atop a turbo-charged filter-house template, the song gleefully reanimates the ghosts of French touch and harkens back to the days when house producers regularly (and rightfully) landed in the Top 40. As the title track of Jordan’s For You EP—an effort reflecting the London artist’s struggle to move past the homophobia and small-mindedness that pervaded their formative years in the North of England—the song is a joyous ode to self-love and self-acceptance that underscores the healing power of a good rave. –Shawn Reynaldo

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal

Ninja Tune

There were so very few reasons to break out in ecstatic dance this year, but Jayda G offered a sublime exception. The London-based producer dropped her bubbly single “Both of Us” mid-summer, and it felt like being rescued by a party barge while lost at sea. Bright, bouncing keys are the driving force of her spirited house banger, but what happens on the song’s perimeter is just as entrancing. Dry, papery beats, synchronized claps, and muffled chit-chat lend the atmosphere of a packed, pulsing nightclub—and the molasses-slow breakdown offers one of the best beat-drop payoffs of the year. After months of inertia, Jayda G brought the dancefloor to us. –Madison Bloom