Often I feel like folklore is attempting to pander to the parts of me that listen to indie electronic folk. Toned down percussions, muted snares, acoustic kicks, more or less completely absent hi-hats, a solid dollop of reverb. And often, spare vocals. Often on this album, the emphasis with the vocals seems to be on a central melody sung simply, naturally.

When expressed authentically, like in SUGAREGG, there is power in the journey of self-discovery. Alicia Bognanno was diagnosed with Bipolar II before the making of SUGAREGG, and a lot of the album deals with her experiences of the condition and the aftermath of the diagnosis. It's cathartic to shout the realisation that you deserve a good life over crunchy power chords.

So much minimal electronic music does a great job of creating exactly this sort of vibe: armchair, headbob, toetap, lemony beverage, one person daydreaming. Like Jon Hopkins’ Immunity manages to convert even an early morning run on just another manic monday into a contemplative, meditative, in-the-here-and-now sort of experience. While Articulation doesn’t do this perfectly, it comes close enough.

The two Antariksha Sanchar albums by Murthovic are splendid heady mix of electronic music and Carnatic classical music. Through collaborations with incredibly talented instrumentalists and producers, the album traverses through such a rich variety of sounds, while managing to create two coherent opuses of moody downtempo.

Doomsday is a pretty chill song given its emotional backstory. Its wickedly funny, and rife with puns and epic wordplay. And more-or-less devoid of cold cynicism. But at its key moments, for instance in its chorus, you can see how emotional Operation: Doomsday really is for DOOM.

Each short track of this mixtape is a hazy journey into the self. The lyrics deal with the everyday, the mundane: easily my favourite lyrical focus. Rarely have I heard the simple combination of bass + drums + vocals + synth done this expertly.

The tag cloud that forms in my mind when I think of this album contains the word jazz, but after many other words: bright piano, technical proficiency, tight yet jammy, instrumental fusion between rock and (then finally) jazz. 

Mente navigates seamlessly through avant-garde experiments, while also showcasing its pop sensibilities. There’s no wave infused with funk, pop infused with dissonant jazz. Melody + noise. Over its ten-track run, Nassif collaborates with 20 musicians from the Rio underground, chiefly Arto Lindsay, the album’s producer.

A classic of experimental pop, striking a deliciously fine balance between those two words that are unfortunately (read: incorrectly) often seen as contradictory: experimental and pop.

A week ago, gripped by your usual seasonal feelings of inadequacy, I turned for comfort to a playlist of Zamrock, 70s psych rock from Zambia. I have since fallen in love with Lazy Bones, the magnum opus of the genre’s archetypes, WITCH, Africa by Amanaz, and other albums from the scene in general. 

On 26 July, Québécois Canadian singer-songwriter Klô Pelgag released a jaw-droppingly stunning baroque pop album, Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs.

Kelly Lee Owens’s second album, Inner Song, was slated for release on May 1, 2020, but was delayed due to Covid. Last week, she released the fantastic single, On.

New Delhi-based jazz drummer Tarun Balani’s debut EP under this electronic music moniker, 2° is 20 minutes of carefully crafted, moving electronica; what used to somewhat condescendingly be called ‘intelligent dance music’ or IDM.

They’d call this Mumbai based radio channel I discovered on Radio Garden a mix of psybient and dub and psytrance and deep house.

In my mind, songs from the eighties are always juxtaposed with images of Mumbai’s many beer-and-fried-food establishments. Rainy nights, dumb chatter, old friends who are now scattered around the world, out of reach.

This album does such a good job of something that’s been done so many times before. That said, you’d be right to ask: does the world need another one of these after the 80’s nostalgia of the National, the Editors, the 1975, Future Islands, and on and on the list goes. The answer is yes, it does.

Ever since there’s been nerdy people on the internet writing about nerdy music, there’s been nerdy people writing about Radiohead. I have no interest in perpetuating the mythos of great men and great art, so I won’t do this.

An introduction to a new Akhil Srivatsan Track called Age, with a playlist of tracks that inspired it including some from Washed Out, Peggy Gou, Ross From Friends, Hercules and Love Affair, and Funktuation.

This is an enchantingly beautiful acoustic folk performance by the Japanese artist, recorded live in a concert hall in Tokyo. What’s remarkable is its simplicity: one woman playing an acoustic guitar and singing.

Waxahatchee's Saint Cloud is a wonderful alt-country gem. In some ways, it's a throwback to Wilco's classic Summerteeth,