Released

Basic Channel was a label, and a duo, and an entire way of looking at music. Initially very much not visible, Mortiz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus made the music behind the various aliases here. It stayed this way for years, actually. What they achieved was one of the biggest flips in electronic music history. They made techno and dub the same thing, and made electronic sounds feel completely organic. Not the only and not the first, but these records remade the frame and the game, both. They continued to work under the alias Rhythm & Sound, and ultimately their own given names. These are absolute classics unlike anything before or after, and the language to describe them will likely never change: muffled, aquatic, dirty, degraded, whooshy, sandwormy.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Suggestions
D cover

D

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Schaum cover

Schaum

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Topdown Dialectic cover

Topdown Dialectic

Topdown Dialectic
Sputters cover

Sputters

LNS, DJ Sotofett
Follower cover

Follower

Chris Abrahams
Raft cover

Raft

Mike Cooper
Last and First Men [Original Soundtrack] cover

Last and First Men [Original Soundtrack]

Jóhann Jóhannsson, Yair Elazar Glotman
Young Echo cover

Young Echo

Young Echo
Labradford cover

Labradford

Labradford