Welcoming listeners into a world inspired by the glaciers of Iceland, Gaister’s eponymously titled 2024 debut marks the first collaboration between songwriter Coby Sey, soprano Olivia Salvadori and Bo Ningen drummer Akihide Monna. Only a few synths, drums and a mixture of Japanese, Italian and English vocals are used to create a soundscape that’s frantic and ill at ease, its tectonic plates restlessly shifting between meditative calm and horror-movie terror. Sparse though it may be, Gaister’s self-imposed limitations made it one of the most consciousness-expanding releases of last year. 

Eschewing an earthy approach in favour of distant synthetics is Boards Of Canada’s ambient masterpiece Geogaddi (2002). It ushered in a new digital age with haunted instruments trapped inside machines, voices vocoded out of all recognition, ultra-processed acoustic instruments, and drumbeats altered by the crunching numbers of computer programming. With a shadowy threat underpinning its chilly calm, the duo have claimed Geogaddi was a response to the September 11 attacks. To contemporary ears, its grim sense of subversion feels like a trek through the hinterlands of the internet’s early untamed era. 

Other G listens: Grush by μ-Ziq (2024), Game Theory by The Roots (2006), Gorilla by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (1967).