Beautiful Electronica: Recommended Masterpieces and Popular Tracks

Bless This Morning YearHELIOS

Helios – Bless This Morning Year

When it comes to electronica with beautiful melodies since the 2000s, many people would probably name Helios first.

It’s the electronica project of Keith Kenniff—an artist hugely popular in Japan as well—who has released numerous works under various monikers, including Goldmund, known for post-classical sounds centered on piano ambient.

Bless This Morning Year, with its ethereal, floating ambient atmosphere that differs from overt pop appeal or straightforward melodic beauty, is a gorgeous piece that opens Eingya, the acclaimed second album released under the Helios name in 2006.

The exquisite interplay of elements—resonant live acoustic guitar, electronics that never overpower, and field recordings—meticulously weaves textures that clearly showcase Keith’s remarkable talent.

Released on Type, a prestigious label familiar to fans of electronica, the album was highly regarded among dedicated music listeners from the outset, including fans of post-rock.

If you’re looking for melodic electronica, this is an essential track you must hear.

TendencyJan Jelinek

Tendency

If you’re a fan of 2000s electronica or minimal techno, you’ll likely know Jan Jelinek from Berlin, Germany.

Let me introduce a track from his acclaimed 2001 masterpiece Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records, a work highly praised for its worldview: meticulously and delicately reconstructed from second-by-second samples of old jazz records, looped and refined through a sensibility shaped by 2000s click/minimal techno.

Tendency, included here, had been released the previous year as an EP, and can be considered one of the standout tracks from the very early stage of Jelinek’s career, which began in 1998.

Although the album remained out of print for some time, it was reissued in 2018 and released domestically in Japan, underscoring its enduring popularity across eras.

Unlike electronica that foregrounds lush, beautiful melodies, this sound world belongs to genres like minimal and glitch house, so listeners expecting easily accessible tunes may be taken aback.

Even so, the textures woven from the warmth of jazz and the hard-edged quality of electronic sound, along with the calculated beauty of its layered construction, are something I insist you experience at least once!

Never Catch Me ft. Kendrick LamarFlying Lotus

Flying Lotus – Never Catch Me ft. Kendrick Lamar

It’s impossible to box him into any single genre anymore—Flying Lotus is an artist who commands respect worldwide for his crossover sound.

Drawing influence not only from hip-hop but also from jazz, electronic music, and Brazilian music, he forged his own beat- and bass-music blueprint and has remained a key figure leading the music scene since the late 2000s.

Never Catch Me, featuring his close ally Kendrick Lamar, was released in 2014 and appears on the album You’re Dead!, famous for its striking face-cover art.

With freewheeling electronic tones and looping, beautiful piano phrases ringing out, jazz-inflected drums taking the lead, and Lamar’s solid rap etched on top, the track overwhelms you with Flying Lotus’s flawless sound design, brilliantly fusing electronica, jazz, and hip-hop.

Psychedelic, spiritual, and infinitely beautiful—the song showcases the genius of one of today’s greatest beatmakers.

It’s an experience you should have at least once.

As Serious As Your LifeFour Tet

Four Tet – As Serious As Your Life

I get the impression that the tech-music scene has many multitalented figures who operate under various monikers and pursue distinctive projects, and Kieran Hebden—better known as Four Tet—is one of them.

Born in London, Hebden originally played in the post-rock band Fridge, later achieving success as a solo artist and becoming a sought-after remixer for many popular artists and bands.

Four Tet, which can be considered Hebden’s main project, released Rounds in 2003 on the prestigious label Domino Records.

It’s a definitive masterpiece of folktronica—melding folk music with electronica—and a landmark that shocked even rock fans who hadn’t been particularly interested in electronica.

Just listen to As Serious As Your Life, with its mysteriously resonant melodic lines and the cool, hard-edged drum sound influenced by beat music like hip-hop—you’ll be struck by Hebden’s overwhelming talent.

If this track piques your interest in any way, be sure to check out the album and his other works!

Kim & JessieM83

M83 ‘Kim & Jessie’ Official video

Since the 2000s, a genre called electro-shoegaze has suddenly begun attracting attention—are you familiar with it? Shoegaze, which became a boom in early-90s Britain and has many outspoken fans among artists here in Japan, has had a profound impact on musicians in the electronica scene as well.

Among the leading artists who interpreted shoegaze—characterized by guitar noise, gorgeous melodies, and an ambient atmosphere—from the perspective of electronic music, and later broke through globally, is M83 from France.

Now operating as the solo project of Anthony Gonzalez, M83’s breakout came with the classic 2008 album Saturdays = Youth, which includes the masterpiece Kim & Jessie.

It’s an exquisitely beautiful, melodic track that distills the lyrical facets of shoegaze and electronica and elevates them into vivid dream pop.

It may no longer fit neatly within the definition of electronica, but in the sense that an artist rooted in electronica’s history reached this creative horizon, it can surely be called an epoch-making classic.

If you want to feel more of the electro-shoegaze elements, give the 2005 album Before the Dawn Heals Us a listen!

BibMouse on Mars

Mouse On Mars Bib ( 1995)

An early classic by Germany’s acclaimed sound unit Mouse on Mars, “Bib” showcases their mastery of acoustic instruments and electronics, peppered with the sharpness and humor of their Krautrock forebears from the same country, like Kraftwerk and Neu!, while continually presenting a sound unbound by existing musical conventions.

Featured on their second album IAORA TAHITI, released in 1995, it’s also a fan favorite that came out as an EP.

Amid a driving, high-velocity beat that draws on drum’n’bass, the freely ricocheting electronic tones sound irresistibly cool.

There isn’t a clearly defined, easy-to-grasp melody line, so if you play it for someone who’s hardly listened to techno, they might be puzzled at first—but once you catch on to its peculiar pop sensibility, its addictive pull is what makes it so compelling.

It’s also included on Rost Pocks – The EP Collection, which compiles their singles from the Too Pure era, so why not check that out as well?

Love Grows Out Of Thin AirUlrich Schnauss

Ulrich Schnauss ‘Love Grows Out Of Thin Air’ (Version 2020)

It’s a masterpiece that paints beautiful electro-shoegaze soundscapes alongside delicate synthesizer melodies.

The track appears on German artist Ulrich Schnauss’s album “No Further Ahead Than Today,” released in November 2016, and can be seen as the fruition of his attempt to translate human emotion into sound.

The music video is produced in the style of a short film, with the track itself functioning as the score.

In April 2020, it was also included in a seven-disc career-spanning compilation, where it was reappraised as a defining piece that symbolizes his musical talent.

When you want to surrender yourself to soothing waves of electronic sound, this is a song well worth listening to.