The pitched-up vox on 100 gecs’ ‘money machine’ turn vocal breaks and gasps of breaths - two hallmarks of post-hardcore - into pop-punk on helium, Kidz Bop on too much Monster Energy. It’s that scrambled sound that has catapulted the duo into notoriety. The video features them stomping around the parking lot, a platinum-blonde pair up to no good. The apex? Member Laura Les exhaling a lungful of vape smoke as the beat lets loose mewling distortion in homage to a brostep bass drop. LC

Club Chai co-founder 8ULENTINA kicked off the year by celebrating the collective's third anniversary before stoking the label's flames with a handful of bootleg club edits on 8ULENTINA SUMMER PACK. Standout 'deep summer' whisks Summer Walker's lusty R&B ballad ‘Deep’ into an addictive and very repeatable drum'n'bass cut perfect for raising pulse rates and carving out liberatory dancefloor space no matter what the season. NP

‘I'm Not Always Where My Body Is’ may be glittering avant-rave but its electronics are infused with the same breathy atmosphere which defines Aïsha Devi’s signature vocals. Crystalline, hollow-sounding synths spar with pummeling kicks until the Swiss artist’s ethereal voice lulls listeners into a lullaby-like trance. Devi referred to herself as a “shaman hacker” when discussing 2018’s DNA Feelings and she truly owns that sentiment with this high-point from S.L.F. The track feels like it’s tapping into a peculiar 21st century inflection of ritualism — one as likely to happen in the virtual realm as the real — its impact resonant throughout the body. LG

‘No Harm’ spins Vitamin D-enriched keys and buoyant, G-funk saw waves around a strident bass line - then a ‘Boogie Down (Do It)’ sample signals a thrilling change of pace as the track spirals headlong through toothy, demonic darkside, channeling the jaw-swinging energy of Moving Shadow and Kniteforce Records. Alongside Finn, Tom Boogizm and the rest of the 2 B REAL crew, Anz demonstrates once again that Mancunians do it better. HBJ

London’s Parris and Berlin’s Call Super announced their collaborative CANUFEELTHESUNONYRBACK EP with a compelling short story about “an aging writer called Mortise Koshimitsu who lived in a small apartment” and the duo deftly evoke that level of imagination on A-side ‘Chiselers Rush'. The two club music heavyweights fuse their talents for ambient experimentalism and off-kilter rhythms to create an immersive roller that effortlessly pulses forward. ‘Chiselers Rush’ is delicate and slow-burning, carved from layers of sound that bury themselves deep under your skin. ACW

LA-native Claude Fontaine moved to London for love and came home with an education from Portobello Road institution Honest Jon's. Her self-titled Innovative Leisure debut is the culmination of her enchantment with reggae and bossa nova but it isn't just an ode to inspiration; the players are genre bona fides, including Steel Pulse's Ronnie “Stepper” McQueen on bassist, guitarist Tony Chin (King Tubby, Jackie Mittoo) and Rock Deadrick who drums for Ziggy Marley. Inspired by her own sense of hopeful melancholy, 'Cry For Another' is a perfect preamble for the LP — like Lana Del Rey with yé-yé vocals, a healthy obsession with Trojan on the A-side and Jorge Ben-gleaned ingenuity on the other. CL

‘Paris Nord-Est’ is a serotonin-overload from a young maestro of club euphoria. De Grandi is one-quarter of Paradoxe Club, a crew of Parisian producers who've been carving out a local sound from a broad palette of global bass – particularly inspired by Francophone Africa – along with the grand legacy of French filter house. But on ‘Paris Nord-Est’ he goes all-out, welding the bug-eyed rush of ’90s trance to pounding, intricate drumwork, which bears traces of Baltimore club and Ivorian coupé-décalé. It's an exhilarating highlight from an EP that was quietly one of the year's best. CR

Gqom pioneer DJ Lag and Hyperdub’s Okzharp collaborative EP Steam Rooms pays homage to the sweltering interiors of Durban’s energetic nightclubs. On ‘Steam One’, the duo find synchronicity in a slow-simmering pachanga-adjacent beat that graduates undulating thunder punctuated with melancholic bass. A true reflection of the growing global dance continuum, the track illustrates a seamless relationship between the South African and London music scenes. SSS

Lebanese-Australian producer DJ Plead, alongside 8ULENTINA, Discwoman-affiliate DJ Haram and many others, has smartly injected Middle Eastern percussion into the lexicon of the global dance continuum. The vinyl-only ‘Ruby’ takes the pristine pop hook and featherlight drums of 2004 Egyptian hit ‘Leih Beydary Kedah’ and pairs it with laser-like bass stabs and urgent kick flurries. Its pitter-patter polyrhythms and crunching low end blossom into a hypnotic, propulsive thumper. Hard? Yes — but with a supple groove at its heart. LG

In a world full of grumpy, grey techno, Cork-born producer Ellll’s contributions, like ‘Pepsi’, off her candy-themed EP Confectionary, are a welcome reprieve. Muted sylvan beats lend the track a mellow industrial vibe while effervescent bloops afford its mischievous edge. Ellll’s gift is making hybrid-techno that’s lighthearted without being overly syrupy, striking a balance between rich sounds and whimsical flourishes, like the slide-whistle that pulsates throughout ‘Pepsi’. It’s a track so refreshing, Coca-Cola must be losing sleep. MRS

A few years ago, as a member of New York queer club crew KUNQ, False Witness was getting kicked out of bottle-service clubs for playing Total Freedom tracks. Today, his focus has shifted towards techno but, as the apocalyptic ‘Red Curtain Daybreak’ shows, he's still dedicated to anarchy. A filtered snare roll and booming kick suggests we're in for a speedy, if safe, slice of warehouse techno, before a Sheperd tone chord progression pulls us by the eyelids into the stratosphere. It’s an antidote to pedestrian, plodding, white noise warehouse techno everywhere. SW

Felix Lee poured grime, emo, dancehall, reggaeton, R&B, industrial and, for the first time ever, his own voice into a potent post-everything cocktail on Inna Daze, his white-hot debut for Planet Mu. He described his cache as “survival ballads for the near future”. Built around incandescent synths, ‘Focused’ is the candied cherry on top: sad 110 BPM dancehall laced with bursts of rhythmic noise, incorporating the talents of London rapper and vocalist Yayoyanoh. Like the rest of the album, it connects the dots between touchstones of the UK electronic underground, from Bala Club and NTS to Lee’s own Endless parties, sending out a smoky Big City dispatch that purrs with nocturnal energy. ACW

Bubbling with latent passion, 'Sad Day' is the highlight of FKA twigs' stunning MAGDALENE, and finds the singer wondering hopelessly if things could have been different. Romantic love is perpetually misunderstood in pop music, and twigs' emotional vulnerability, twinned with her spare composition and production (aided by Koreless and benny blanco, among others) gives the complexity of a relationship's glacial demise a poetic, whimsical sadness. It's hard not to be moved to tears as twigs illustrates a dream ("I can imagine a world when my arms are embraced around you") knowing, deep down, that fantasy is the best it can ever be. JT

Frank Ocean’s ‘In My Room’ is a pop-centered ballad underscored by the chronically elusive singer’s hallmark vulnerability. He reflects on the nature of fame and how it inhibits his attempts at intimacy. Part of Ocean’s skill lies in his ability to create parallels between the mundanities life and the perils of love and the music industry. Is his lover suited to join him in the fast life?  SSS

Guapdad 4000 will do anything to land a joke: tie a durag on his his Filipino lola; film his mother reacting to a video of him dropping his designer drawers on camera. A veteran of viral fame since the Vine days, the Oakland native is one of the funnier rappers this side of Zack Fox.

The Ferragamo Falcon’s fondness for alliteration, puns and silly similes can seem unserious - ‘Flossin’ features an entire verse constructed of baseball references but his career is no joke. He was a prolific fixture on J. Cole’s Revenge of the Dreamers III and released his debut album in October - some glorious wins after starting this past summer walking the Bay Bridge in a dinosaur costume after losing an NBA Finals bet to Drake. LC

India Jordan has been one of our go-tos for mossy ambient recs but in 2019 she proved to be one of our favorites for delivering pupil-dilators, too. Following her Local Action debut EP DNT STP MY LV earlier this spring, Jordan's 'WARPER' is a reminder of the joys of getting speed-freaky on the most marathon of club nights. Try not to pull a muscle. CL

Jai Paul’s experimental R&B is basically a one-man micro-genre and - following a six-year silence after his now legendary Leak 04-13 mixtape - ‘Do You Love Her Now’ is the newest evolution in his singular sound. Located somewhere in a sweet spot between D’Angelo, M.I.A. and Burial, the track weaves a plodding post-punk intro into a space-age soul sex jam. It could easily take another six years for us to hear new music from Paul but, at this rate, we know it will sound both timeless and completely ahead of the curve. CC

In a rare interview with Dazed this year, Joy Orbison admitted that, while his post-‘Hyph Mngo’ career has been comfortable, it hasn’t always been fulfilling. “Being a house DJ was very, very steady middle ground,” he said. “A business move.” 

‘Burn’, the lead track on what might be the best EP of his career, couldn't be further away from those main stage house sets, sounding more like something forged from the memory of Plastic People and south London's thriving jazz scene. It's a reminder that despite 10 years of reinvention, Orbison has remained true to the culture of his hometown. SW

Blood meshes Kelsey Lu’s classical training with a pop sensibility that typically takes years to perfect. The lifted harmonies and lilting waves of synths on ‘Due West’ are transportive and almost religious — which makes sense, given Lu’s backstory as having left a Jehovah’s Witness upbringing to pursue music. The repeated refrain of “California / California” sounds like a mantra Lu is invoking to take her home. Here she’s found clearly found her footing as a musician and, it seems, some serenity, too. CC

With ‘Faces On Ankles’, Berlin-via-Iowa producer Karen Gwyer further establishes her gift for punchy, confrontational techno, maintaining her signature bite while mixing in some ethereal sparkle. Using off-beat drum patterns and jittery melodies, Gwyer plunges the listener into topsy-turvy euphoria; it’s daylight-friendly enough for a bike ride but, with the right club speakers, would absolutely shake the floor. MRS

It makes sense that Kehlani's ode to escalating intensity in a casual relationship is, basically, a waltz. The archetypal lilting romance adds an almost Disney-ified, feminized prettiness to a song originally written by Trinidad James as a rap cut. This gender flip cooly maps a shift in how we perceive relationships, especially queer relationships, as Kehlani pirouettes through difficult emotions, not wanting to derail a friendship yet not knowing how to change track. It's beautifully understated and terrifyingly real. JT

'Air BnB' is a No Wave-slanted fever dream. We didn't need Kim Gordon's post-Sonic Youth output to indicate that she was the group's most radical mind. But there is nothing but joy in hearing it manifest in every Body/Head record and, finally, on her very first solo album, No Home Record, which was released earlier this year. CL

On ‘Muhammad Ali (Remix)’, north London MC Lady Lykez channels the dancehall she grew up with after being encouraged by producer and longtime collaborator Scratcha DVA. As a teenager, Lykez often did verses in patois when Scratcha was making grime. With an assist from grime MC Lioness, Lykez digs into all of the corners of her life, creating a world that is very much her own. MRS

Rolling martial snares plus electro bass bumps add up to pure, dancefloor dynamite on ‘Penetration Testing’ the inaugural track from Leonce’s new Morph Tracks label. The furious momentum is established at its outset and never lets up, building with each carefully chosen element: plastic yelps, metallic, trance-like stabs and shimmering synths bristle over the relentless beat. Following an acrimonious split from Fade To Mind last year, it’s heartening to see the Atlanta-based producer return with a thrilling club banger pulsing with his own idiosyncratic style. LG

When cultural historians try to make sense of 2019, Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ will be Exhibit A. The perfect anthem for a year that has been a battle for the soul of the planet between boomers and Generation Z, ‘Old Town Road’ is a viral hit by a gay rapper, spread via a video sharing app few over the age of 21 understand. It also became the longest-running number one in American chart history, despite not being ‘country enough’ for Billboard’s country chart. While middle-aged hands are wrung over political upheaval, the climate crisis and who gets to appear in which chart, the success of ‘Old Town Road’ is a hopeful reminder that these people will soon be dead, and the young will inherit the earth. SW

Medulasa's Typhoid Mary was composed in the wake of a close friend’s death and ‘Forever’ is the elegiac EP's heart-wrenching crux. The track gracefully grapples with grief's final stages as a bittersweet sample of Thom Yorke-vocals wails amidst pretty, teary-eyed synth lines and light-handed drums that drop in and out, like memories. Medulasa pines but also perseveres and it's beautiful to witness. NP

Murlo’s debut album Dolos was one of the most ambitious records of 2019. A stunning development of his particular sound – technicolor, hyper-melodic, turbo-charged by grime and club rhythms – it also included a lavishly illustrated comic and a 3D live show. Fractal Fantasy bosses Zora Jones and Sinjin Hawke take ‘End of the Road’ into a darker place with their “flashback” remix, excavating the original track's chopped helium vocal and suspending it in a vat of suspicious liquid. The tension is maintained, the big drop never quite comes. CR

‘Destruction of Power’ capped a stellar year for Nkisi, one that included her monumental 7 Directions LP and the 5GT280219 cassette made with John T. Gast under the COLDWAR moniker. Here, doom-tinged percussive bursts carry the composition forward across 17 cinematic minutes while RPG-inflected dark ambient pads eerily hum in the wings. Are they hanging around to help or hurt? Nkisi keeps it unclear. NP

Noname’s conversational, idiosyncratic rhyme style makes her music’s heavy themes feel like a rare gift. On ‘Song 32’, she unrelentingly critiques former US president Barack Obama while pointing to profound pop cultural moments like Childish Gambino’s video for ‘This is America’. It exemplifies the Chicago rapper’s effortless ability to provoke thought with purpose. JB

Normani’s first few endeavors outside of Fifth Harmony saw her sharing the spotlight with Khalid, 6lack, Calvin Harris and Sam Smith, but her debut solo single ‘Motivation’ proves she’s worthy of her own stage. The track, co-written by Ariana Grande, possesses youthful flirtatiousness, a bit of sunshine sorely needed to punch up the current sad-slow pop landscape. It recalls the great pop and R&B of the last few decades, which Normani doubles down on in the video with nods to BET’s TRL corollary 106 & Park and tour-de-force choreo inspired by Beyoncé, Ciara and Britney Spears. KR

Modular maestro, classical-trained Hindustani vocalist and ghunghru boss ose floored us with her electro-acoustic raga re-workings on With & Without. Tender closer ‘is it love?' draws inspiration from the raga Bihag to build a track as shrewd and swooning, vulnerable and gorgeous as the sweet question posed in its title. Whispering electronics, synthetic twinkles, some pensive piano melodies and her own hazy vocals are just some of the nooks she pads out for us to curl up and ponder in. But is it love? Could it be? NP

Cera Khin's mantra is "I PLAY WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT" and the DJ/producer does exactly that here, fusing elements from Peder Mannferfelt's Daily Routine highlight 'Sissel & Bass' with fuzzy hoovers and sparse, doomy kicks. A pitched-down hardcore techno belter infused with all the atmosphere of death metal, the remix shows why Cera Khin is so in-demand as a DJ as her style isn't so much eclectic as it is smart, considered and purposefully diverse. JT

In 2019, few rap songs better matched a vocalist and producer than ‘Welcome to the Party’. Here, New York’s Pop Smoke, almost cartoonishly macabre with a looping, low delivery, meets London’s 808Melo whose icy beat courses with an unmistakable UK swing. Across shuffling, garage-like hi-hats and a grotty dubstep scrawl cutting through like a chainsaw, Pop Smoke welcomes listeners into his own bleak inflection of a party track with quotable aplomb. “No Alicia, I got keys, don't get your car Swiss cheese,” he raps, as 808Melo deploys sheathing swords and ominous bells across the skittish beat. This is a transatlantic hook-up of the highest order. LG

Filled with nervous energy, ‘New Tribe’ is an anxious offering from beloved DJ Powder, who finally quit her day job as a Shinjuku office worker this year. The creeping groove gradually builds momentum into a dizzying crescendo that will leave you bent double. If dystopian commutes, flaccid packed lunches and the thought of another soul-sucking cycle of the same dreary 9-to-5 have got you feeling existential, this might be the most devastating track you’ll hear all year. HBJ

Philadelphia artists Precolumbian and Estoc laid out their fresh and personal vision for club music on the two-track CCT EP, a crossover creation that blends percussive Afro-Peruvian styles with Dutch hardstyle. Just the thing for Riobamba's adventurous APOCALIPSIS label, which focuses on surreal new fusions from Latinx artists. With the Peruvian cajón taking centerstage, the duo apply heavyweight engineering to this dextrous, flighty percussion instrument, evoking hardstyle without getting caught in pastiche. Combining Estoc’s love of hardcore and Precolumbian’s ear for rhythm, it’s a fusion that feels both futuristic and ancient. CR

Imagine you are standing under a vast, intersecting network of overhead power lines, listening to the hum of electricity and the vibrations of cables that seem to stretch on forever. Suddenly, the ground opens up and you plunge into a gigantic underground cavern, finding yourself in the midst of the gnarliest rave you’ve ever had the sordid pleasure of attending. That is ‘MONOLITH’: a Carrollian bellyflop into the inky black k-hole of Quest?marc’s take-no-prisoners approach to fucking up the club. HBJ

Once again, Cassegrain’s Alex Tsiridis takes up the mantle as Rhyw for an abstract study in propulsive, avant-techno. Elasticated synths stutter over pummeling percussive hiccups and distended vocal chops, ‘Biggest Bully’ rattles along like a bullet train whose driver is determined to shake every single one of its screws loose. As ever-increasing tension threatens to snap the track in half and hammered-out syllables begin to slur into one another, you can feel your body beginning to warp under fever pitch club pressure, before the stripped-back construction is over, its few moving parts shuddering to a smoking halt. HBJ

Riobamba is one of the club’s most politically active creators, launching an EP earlier this year with an anti-ICE protest rave. A self-styled “cultural activist”, the Ecuadorian-Lithuanian DJ founded her APOCALIPSIS as a platform to amplify immigrant voices, and in September released the sprawling charity compilation SIN FRONTERAS. The opening track of October’s Criatura EP, ‘Muerte’ hammers home the label’s political ethos with a siren and dembow-powered battle-cry. It’s a track that snowballs with intensity, embodying the urgent sound of protest music today. ACW

Of the many producers doing weird and wonderful things with the Day-Glo DNA of hardcore rave, Rui Ho’s music is some of the most elegant. This has never been more apparent than with ‘The Heat’, the glittering centerpiece of her exceptional In Pursuit Of The Sun 逐日 EP. A contemporary musical accompaniment to the Chinese myth of Kua Fu, the track draws out the narrative of a giant obsessed with catching the sun with chattering vocal samples and crystalline synth stabs. Rui Ho unleashes folklore onto the dance floor at breakneck speeds with palpable ecstasy and gleeful ambition. HBJ

Scarlxrd bellows over a sparse thumping bass line on ‘GXING THE DISTANCE’, exuding the rage of young 20-somethings in Britain. Screamo-rap doesn’t get as much of a look in as it deserves despite infectious elements like Scarlxrd’s lite-grime flow and use of repetition. His ability to traverse the lines of punk, metal, grime and trap indicate there is potential for so many kinds of collaborations — hopefully 2020 is the year. JB

In the video for ‘BB’, Shygirl stands in the middle of a dark parking lot, stoic as a car drifts around her in donuts and the track sounds like what it must feel to be the passenger: rapid yet controlled, threatening to go off the rails before it crashes to a halt. The NUXXE co-founder says she enjoys exploring emotions that are “considered to be taboo, the worst of us”. Here, she’s coolly and intentionally distant, rapping in monotone with Twista-like speed over equally dark production from Sega Bodega. KR

Armed with a bounty of “bowel-evacuating bangers”, this year Paul Woolford, aka Special Request, vowed to “fuck all that conceptual guff m888" with new album Vortex; a brain-scrambling whirlwind of upfront dance music with track titles like ‘Ardkore Dolphin’ and ‘A Gargantuan Melting Face Floating Effortlessly Through The Stratosphere’. ‘Vortex 150’ is a sticky, bug-eyed critter that will suck you in and spit you out in a portaloo somewhere along the M62. It’s a simple yet highly dynamic recipe for losing your shit to — jagged, soaring synths punctuated by face-melting drops that feel like a new high every time they hit. ACW

With '2 for $20', Taso and Siete Catorce create one for the old-heads who still find Run-DMC's 'Peter Piper' a rapper's delight. But don't expect too much tripping on the past here; forward-thinking production abounds and who would doubt it? Teklife, N.A.A.F.I. and, now, Subreal have been incubating some of the best dancefloor ideas of the decade. CL

Whether vocally tearing through tracks like E-Saggila's 'Alia' or challenging club docility with her own experimental and deeply personal hardcore style, Thoom's sound is always a considered (and considerable) confrontation. ‘Wound As Pocket’ takes on themes of the pained body navigating sites of destruction and decay via a mangled squeaky-wheel beat and huger-than-huge kicks. Before we settle too comfortably into the drums, Thoom skillfully snatches away the rhythm and breaks the track down into total delirium before gathering up its hefty pieces and ending on her own assertively brutalist terms. NP

The opening bassline from tobi lou’s ‘I Was Sad Last Night I’m OK Now’ slumps like the shoulders of a person down on their luck. The rapper’s idea of large living is a house on the lake and even his literal dreams of fast food are simple, but all-too-relatable obstacles of being perpetually broke, ghosted, tired, hungry and anxious get in the way. Relief comes in small packages: money for petrol, a fiver from a friend. So when the beat transforms from slumped into an uplifting harmony of synths, it’s a reminder that after a bad day is potential for a good one. KR

Ugandan MC Swordman Kitala slides effortlessly between Luganda and English on this 808-driven Tom Blip collaboration, a gambol of deceptive sparsity and an unrepentant percussive aggression. The duo, who met at Nyege Nyege Festival last year, finds a natural collective energy in Swordman’s timorous call-and-repeat vocals and Blip’s guttural beats. The result tips a hat to Uganda’s thriving traditions of kuduro and balani and leaves room for other contemporary affectations to shine through. SSS

SVBKVLT’s essential Cache 01 compilation offered a more definitive snapshot of East Asia’s club community and beyond. Album highlight ‘Electrolytes’ is charged with a life-giving energy that conveys its mineral namesake and unites Bristol innovator Hodge and Shanghai scene mainstay Tzusing. Hiccuping robots, hardcore beats and a propulsive synth sound like a jet engine hurling the track into the future, assuring that exciting times lie ahead. ACW

So Much Fun is an album title that couldn’t be closer to Young Thug’s impulses. Even at his most introspective, he borders a meme-level humor that should be too much but is instead sincere and endearing. On ‘What’s the Move’, Thugger and Lil Uzi Vert are just two friends vibing off each other in the studio. Call it mumble rap, SoundCloud rap — whatever. Thug is one of the best there is and he’s not going to stop while there’s still fun to be had. CC

Pop’s most versatile princess flexes on this self-produced love letter to her queer fans. Eschewing a rainbow-colored cliché, Yung Baby Tate touches on subtler themes of pilgrimage and self-actualization. It’s a statement in defense of excess, built on the conviction that everything covered in glitter is gold. Inspired by this year’s Met Gala, the song’s title refers to the slippery concept of ostentatious aesthetics but a spiritual sort of summer camp — “A place so free, where you can be who you wanna be.” LC

As dance music got faster and faster in 2019, gabber and hardcore made a visible return to center stage. France's Casual Gabberz collective has been on this wave for a few years now, and Von Bikräv's "frapcore" blend of hip-hop and hardcore elements highlights a ruthlessly innovative subgenre that's tough to forget. 'Casse des Murs' is a standout from Von Bikräv's 22-track opus 100% Bibi and quickly shows off his head-melting fusion of French rap, psychedelic gabber and the kind of distortion usually relegated to an American Tapes CDR. Fuck business techno, turn this up loud and you might remember just how physical and jagged dance music can really be. JT

Since 2011, Lotic has been tearing the thin mesh between club subgenres, pushing the often rigid sound of Berlin - their current base - in a startlingly new direction. In fact, Lotic has already been so influential, it’s hard to believe they’re only now dropping their debut full-length. Power is part demonic symphony, part heavenly chorus. The record looks to deconstruct the dynamics of power – social, economic, patriarchal, capitalist – by encasing the dialog into a piece of music that is both oppressive in its tonality and forward-thinking in its message.

And as it turns out, that message is stark and biting. “I’m still alive / So I’m gon’ thrive / I’m a bulletproof nigga,” growls Lotic on ‘Bulletproof’, their voice chopping in and out of cut-and-paste beats and punishing feedback. It almost comes off as a threat, the idea that Lotic refuses to capitulate, using their blackness and their gender identity a weapon against the status quo. It’s a theme that permeates the album as a whole: danger lurks around every corner, but Lotic continually confronts it, both through their lyrics and genre-busting production. Power is a triumph, not only of what can be achieved in electronic music in 2018, but of whose voice can and should be elevated above the fray. CC

Written by April Clare Welsh, Cameron Cook, Chal Ravens, Claire Lobenfeld, Henry Bruce-Jones, John Twells, Lorena Cupcake, Maya-Roisin Slater, Scott Wilson. Cover image by Olivea Kelly.