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
Timewave Zero cover

Timewave Zero

Blood Incantation
Replica cover

Replica

Oneohtrix Point Never
ASS cover

ASS

Schneider TM, Jochen Arbeit, Günter Schickert
Song for Alpha cover

Song for Alpha

Daniel Avery
Stikling cover

Stikling

Blue Lake
Qua cover

Qua

Cluster
Abduction cover

Abduction

Eat Static