With an appreciation for the jubilance of pop music and the willingness to explore new sounds that NYC is known for, in 2014 the city’s electronic musicians created music that could soundtrack all-night dance parties or pensive nights alone. Beshken captured that contrast best on For Time Is The Longest Distance Between Two People. The album migrates between spacious, simmering instrumental sections and buoyant, pulsing rave-ups. Overcoats played more heavily on thumping, dance-floor anthems with their debut album YOUNG, but lyrically the duo looked further than the party scene. Overcoats’ portrait of inner emotional struggles rivals the tact of many veteran pop songwriters. The electronic genre also took influence from the indie rock world. Guerilla Toss, featured on our cover this past fall, released GT Ultra, a mish-mash of post-punk, psychedelia, and electronica that’s near impossible to accurately categorize. Covering stuttering electronica in a dream pop-inspired haze, Blood Cultures’ Happy Birthday balanced the danceable with the moody. Perhaps not quite fitting into the electronic realm, Sneaks made a post-punky sophomore album using almost only a drum machine, bass guitar, and vocals to craft the expertly concise and individual It’s a Myth. To be fair, that album came out before Sneak’s Eva Moolchan moved to NYC, but since the band’s relocation we’ve proudly embraced them as our own. Belonging to the Electronic realm are also two NYC records we recently blogged about: Torres’ dark and mysterious Three Futures and Standing on the Corner‘s avant-hip hop masterpiece, and recent Deli NYC Record of the Month, Red Burns. – Cameron Carr
