It’s hard to believe that, prior to this year, Pleasurekraft had yet to release a full-length record. Pleasurekraft, Friends, Lovers, and Other Constellations In its entirety, album1 is sonically pleasing and a fresh breath of air in an often monotonous EDM scene.ĩ. After pouring months of passion into the record, San Holo wasted no time incorporating live instruments in album1, kicking off the compilation with a wistful guitar melody in “everything matters (when it comes to you).” This theme continues throughout the album’s 12 tracks, with each song exuding pure emotion and spirit.

Perhaps the label’s biggest buzz this year was that of San Holo’s inaugural LP, appropriately titled album1, which made its debut in mid-September. Since its founding in 2014, San Holo’s bitbird label has made monumental strides, helping propel his releases - along with those of artists like DROELOE and Taska Black - to notoriety. Below, we’ve compiled ten innovative, stylistically diverse, and evocative albums that shook the scene and stirred us so resoundingly that they manage to stand out among a formidable pool of contenders. In the realm of dance music alone, 2018 saw an abundance of stellar, individualized efforts, providing our editorial team with quite a difficult feat in selecting a Top 10.

However, the LP is far from a dying art form, as legions of artists have duly proven in the past year. In the modern era of streaming, wherein declining royalty rates demand that musicians tour incessantly and the necessity of instant gratification demands a correlative, unending supply of singles and remixes, the process of producing a full-length record is perhaps more daunting than it’s ever been. Since the advent of recorded music, albums have reigned as the supreme vessel through which artists put forth their most hallowed creations and define their oeuvres.

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