These are the albums, EPs, and songs that defined the sound of electronic music in 2019.

The list, sorted alphabetically, includes tracks and albums found on Pitchfork’s main year-end tallies as well as additional records that did not make those lists but are just as worth your time.

Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.

Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2019 wrap-up coverage here.

(All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission.)

Jenkem Recordings

AceMoMa: AceMoMa EP

What does New York sound like? That’s easy to answer when the question is applied to bygone decades, but it’s much harder to come up with a satisfying response in the moment. If there’s one uncontroversial answer for 2019, though, it’s AceMoMa. AceMo (Adrian Mojica) and MoMA Ready (Wyatt Stevens) bring their lightning-in-a-bottle energy to small clubs around the city, where Stevens will sometimes hop on the mic and hazily emcee, and their debut collaborative EP manages to capture the same spirit. It’s not hard to pick up on Mojica and Stevens’ reverence for classic house music in the deep groove of “Nothing Crazy” or the laidback shuffle of “Ethereal Stepping,” but they prove equally as adept at crafting lush, driving jungle on the B-side. Countering the gentrification of the city’s club culture, there’s no metropolitan polish here—in their hands, New York still sounds magnetic. –Rachel Hahn

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Apple Music | Tidal

100% Silk

Akasha System: Echo Earth

Akasha System is the leading artist in the new subgenre I am calling Portland techno. This is literally accurate, as he is from Portland and he makes techno, but it’s also spiritually correct, as this is the sound of techno from Portland, land of flannel and pretty trees. Stereotypical, perhaps, but Echo Earth, with its raw sound and big sweeps, is so evocative of green terrain that it feels impossible that it came from anywhere urban. It’s a treat for avid fans of electronic music, where creative progress often feels like it must be signified by deconstruction. Echo Earth is an A-frame home, a Pinewood derby winner, pottery made on the wheel. A lovingly crafted piece of electronic music whose seams are happily showing. –Matthew Schnipper

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp

Whities

Anunaku: Whities 024

If you’ve encountered a frame drum recently, it was likely in a classroom. Varying in size, they are deep and wide, and easily portable and playable by hand, making them great for teaching kids. They are often found in Middle Eastern recordings, and they were popular in somewhat glossy ’90s world music. That their sound plays such an outsize role in Anunaku’s “Bronze Age” is a pleasant surprise; it gives the music, nominally techno, a unique edge that brings it in line with the very special and very underrated records by onetime Steve Reich Ensemble member Glenn Velez. While far from a household name, Velez has made the frame drum the focal point of his compositions, where its elastic rhythms are completely enchanting. On this EP, Anunaku goes a step further, dripping drum over drum until rhythms that at first feel competitive begin to interweave. To varying degrees, on all three tracks, the frame drum is the engine, as toms and snares fight for time in the mix. Sometimes synthesizer bloops and bleeps show up too, but with a percussionist this talented, they’re nearly unnecessary. –Matthew Schnipper

Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade | Apple Music | Tidal

Ostgut Ton

Barker: Utility

Sam Barker is wary of taking the easy route in getting people to move their bodies. A resident DJ at Berlin’s hallowed techno haven Berghain, he has voiced his skepticism of kick drums and drops—the utilitarian elements that so often trigger lizard-brain reactions on a dancefloor. For his debut album, Utility, Barker dug into his archives to see which of his old sketches sounded good when he stripped them back to the studs. The result is mysterious, weightless. These tracks still throb: “Hedonic Treadmill” and “Utility” are trance-like bangers made propulsive entirely via cycling synth melodies, and even the more ambient songs swell and build like club music. As a whole, Utility is an expression of what techno can be when the most obvious percussive elements go away. –Evan Minsker