Electronic

This is our track of the day. Be sure to subscribe to The Best Songs of 2018 (So Far)for regular updates."Opal - Four Tet Remix," Bicep What It IsConsidering that Belfast DJ duo Bicep took their name from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Pumping Iron, there music isn’t nearly as cheeky as you’d expect. The tracks bounce between Chicago house and Italo-disco and have a nice sheen that belies a mid-period Detroit influence. They’re also quite well known for their influential blog, Feel My Bicep, which is a destination site for fans of underground electronic music. What It Sounds LikeThe original “Opal,” from Bicep’s self-titled 2017 album, is a sludgy chunk of flangy, metallic synth sounds and downtempo drums that is surprisingly melodic for the duo. Four Tet doesn’t tinker too much with the formula. As is his wont, Four Tet adds whirring ambient textures and isolates the track’s melody, adding a layer of distortion that draws out the tracks blurry qualities. The track takes a minute to build, but, by the end, it’s vintage Four Tet: both transcendent and completely ephemeral. Suggested Playlist PlacementHedonist Hangover Music.

Subscribe to the Spotify playlist here.This playlist shouldn’t be interpreted as a best of 2016 mix. That would be insanely presumptuous of me. Rather, it needs to be considered a useful tool for anybody looking to explore just a fraction of the heavy, propulsive, and oftentimes weird beats forged on the outskirts of boring person normal culture. Simply press play and get blasted: there’s mangled hip-hop stutter (Prostitutes), aggro industrial fist-pumping (Orphx, M AX NOI MACH), meticulously sculpted hard techno (Cassegrain), dub-smeared throb (LACK), and pounding white noise that sounds like the next evolutionary step beyond Lightning Bolt and Death Grips (Dreamcrusher). You’re also going to encounter a few artists who are more rooted in rock than electronic tactics, yet make no mistake: they’re just as doggedly loyal to raw propulsion. The New York duo Uniform slayed 2016 with their vicious iteration of cyborg automation caked in gutter scum. Lost System, meanwhile, are pulsating synth-punk upstarts from West Michigan (a.k.a. DeVos country) chronicling Millennial alienation, while America flushes itself down the toilet. I’d wish you a happy new year, but we noth know that’s not going to happen.

Described by Guitar Girl Magazine as "a Latin artist who combines hypnotic, electronic funk with alternative and psychedelic styles," DeAnza recently released her concept EP Cosmic Dream on June 29. The collection of tracks and interludes designed to take you on a sonic journey through the various sleep cycles. To continue celebrating that release and her subsequent tour, we asked her to make us a playlist thats as eclectic as her style. Listen here.Says DeAnza: "I went through several playlist ideas in my head before deciding to create a list that’s as eclectic as the music I listen to. Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music – good and bad. I created a list that consists of what I believe to be good music, regardless of the genre or era. All of these artists have inspired me in some form or another."What you’ll get: Some classics, witchy women who I idolize, singers who blow my mind, couple deep cuts and some Latin spice for those who want to hear something that isn’t Despacito."

George Lucas has never explained quite how the bulbous-headed musicians of Mos Eisley got hip to hot jazz. Maybe Jabba the Hutt got a hold of a hijacked cargo of scratchy 78s. Whatever happened, the players onstage — toting space-age clarinets of various sizes — sure are cooking when Luke walks into the smuggler bar where he first meets Han and Chewbacca.No matter how many times I’ve seen it, I’m always captivated by the music known as the “Cantina Theme,” perhaps because its loose-limbed vitality contrasts so sharply with the Wagnerian pomp that otherwise dominates John Williams’ scores for Episodes I-VI. As music designed for pleasure, it was a rare commodity in the dingy Republic that Luke, Leia and Han strived so hard to save.With the franchise in full swing once again, it’s high time to celebrate one of the most underappreciated facets of the Star Wars universe over the last four decades: its relationship with the dancefloor. You see, I wasn’t the only one struck by that cantina sound. A trombonist and producer who’d worked with Gloria Gaynor and Carol Douglas, Domenico Monardo was so obsessed with Star Wars and its score, he pitched the idea of a dancefloor-friendly revamp to Casablanca Records’ Neil Bogart. He also sweet-talked 20th Century Fox into green-lighting his scheme for a full-bore disco treatment, complete with 70-piece orchestra and an arsenal of synthesizers. Released under the droid-y artist name of Meco, the single supercharged both the main theme and the cantina music, and was a smash hit in 1977.Of course, Monardo wasn’t the first to fuse science-fiction tropes with earthbound grooves. Sun Ra, Funkadelic and Earth, Wind & Fire had all gotten plenty pan-galactic already. Futuristic fantasies had also become a core piece of code for electronic music, too, as evidenced by works as diverse as Bebe and Louis Barron’s score for Forbidden Planet (1956) and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s sci-fi opera Sirius (1975). But Meco’s success still ushered in a dazzling new age of space disco by American masters and European mavericks. It would also inspire similarly disco-fied themes for other movies and TV shows with starry settings and laser guns.The harder rock sound that Meco adopted for The Empire Strikes Back was a sad indication of disco’s waning potency by the turn of the decade. Yet the futuristic fantasies he sparked persist in the music that sometimes fills our cantinas. And as was the case for Monardo, sometimes they’re even sanctioned by the Lucasfilm empire, a fact that suggests there may be more going on in those rebel bases than the usual mission briefings.

What’s This Playlist All About?: Canadian electro-pop visionary Claire Boucher (a.k.a. Grimes) makes a mood playlist capturing the tracks that inspire her to draw. As a point of reference, here are her drawings.What You Get: A bunch of the least-cluttered tracks by ‘90s IDM trickster Aphex Twin, punctuated by wispy, ethereal songs from Lana Del Rey and other (generally female-fronted) electro-pop/rap acts. We’re not art critics, and we have no strong opinions about how this impacts her visual art, but it does reflect the general aesthetic poles in Grimes’ own music——the mixture of fairy-tale balladry, empowerment anthems, and smeared electronic atmospherics. Biggest Surprise: Grimes still rides for Azealia Banks and Salem in 2018!Greatest Discovery: The blurred, sludgy, nightmare pop of Ginger Blossom, who is exceedingly difficult to Google.Does This Make Us Want To Draw?: Not really, which is probably a good thing for our friends and loved ones. It does, however, make us want to take a nap.

You really need to go to Red Bull Music Academys critical reclamation of happy hardcore to know what Im talking about -- and you totally should, btw, regardless of how you feel about the music -- but the smiley face graphics they have randomly popping up over the text is as inanely brilliant as the genre. Miles Raymer provides a critical perspective to a genre he says has been treated as "as an awkward phase in dance music’s teen years, the gangly, overenthusiastic cousin of the more sophisticated, intriguingly dark jungle scene." Miles goes on to observe keenly that "happy hardcore quickly became the UK equivalent of what pop punk was in the States at the time" and "like happy hardcore, EDM artists judge their work strictly by its ability to get large crowds moving, using a number of techniques drawn from happy hardcore’s playbook to do the job, from digitally altered pop vocals to aggressively noisy synths to huge drops that come at regularly scheduled intervals."

Denizens of Düsseldorfs Salon des Amateurs have long known that Lena Willikens is one of the most spellbinding DJs working today, boasting crates deeper and stranger than just about any other selector out there. For an unusual collaboration between Resident Advisor and Sonos, Willikens hosted a home-listening session in which she dug through the deepest corners of her collection and talked about her picks; this playlist, originally published on Apple Music, covers the portion of her selection that currently exists on streaming services. Chances are, you wont have heard most of it—and chances are, most of itll flip your lid. Taking in Krautrock, dank ambient, Belgian avant-rock, Middle Eastern fusion, vintage synth experiments, coldwave revivalism, and more, its a seriously psychedelic selection—just the kind of thing to keep on hand if youre planning to spike the punch at your own dinner party.

Though he may not have been present at the birth of Detroit techno, Carl Craig exerts a huge influence on that scene. He was the founder of seminal label Planet E Communications, was the co-creator of the Detroit Music Festival and is responsible for some of the most eclectic and well-known tracks from that scene. Hes also a very eclectic remixers, as this playlist from Jess Harvell at Beats demonstrates. From Throbbing Gristle to Junior Boys, the picks have a random quality to them, but Craigs signature oddball soul provides a common thread.

When I asked my hipster neighbors about the first things that come to mind when they think about indigenous cultures, they said the following: feathered headpieces, teepees, dream catchers, tobacco, ritualistic ceremonies, genocide, and the worship of mother nature. Not all these terms are positive, to say the least, and it’s important to recognize the centuries of historical oppression the native population has endured here in the U.S., as well as in other regions of the Americas. It is also utterly important to celebrate their rich, beautiful traditions -- traditions that respect life in all its forms. With the rise of social media, more and more indigenous artists are stepping into the spotlight, recounting their stories via songs with a modern spin, which is in itself an act of resistance. Ottawa Canada DJs A Tribe Called Red incorporate powerful powwow drum and chants into hard-hitting EDM, while Ecuadorian beatmaker Nicolá Cruz blends hypnotic Andes Step into his mix. Dakota rapper Frank Waln ferociously spits eye-opening tales that take place at the “rez” (or reservations), and Bolivian Quechua singer gets the ZZK treatment in her charango and zampoña-driven hymn. The artists, featured on this playlist, are multifaceted, inspiring, and sincere. Ultimately, the music empowers their tribes, their communities and the listener.

Critic Andy Beta provides an overview of Italo Disco (which he calls, "the most amazingly uncool genre ever created") in this Pitchfork feature. To be a bit snobby, including Paul Lekakis as Italo Disco is a bit questionable, but Andy is trying to take a wide swipe. Regardless, the genre is limitlessly influential and helped spawn everything from Chicago House to DFA-era New York electro. This playlist demonstrates why with a collection of the kitschy, endlessly addictive cuts. The Gary Cat Park song is a gem, among many others.