This month, as we’re introducing electronic musician Jo Christman, it felt fitting to explore the world of electronic. Get lost in our otherworldly playlist from Jo & Gail.

Electronic music has always had an otherworldly and slightly strange vibe, from its origins in the 1940s; everything had to be recorded (on tape), manipulated and re-assembled. And until the late 1960s, there wasn’t such a thing as ‘live electronics’ as such: performances were more or less someone pressing ‘start’ on the tape machine. Though, would there have been a point if it had sounded like or could have been played by an orchestra?

The invention of the Moog Synthesiser and drum machines in the late 1960s meant that electronic sounds could be performed live and respond to the audience or moment.

And here we are, 70 years later, when there’s probably more digital music than there is instrumental. Much of electronica has, however, kept its ‘other worldliness’.

Here’s a playlist of fairly recent electronica, mostly selected by music leader and electronic musician Jo Christman, 

Here’s Rahina 1 by Pan Sonic from 2014 

Stags, Aircraft, Kings and Secretaries from Tim Hecker, 2006 

Port Gentil by Porter Ricks, 1996 

Abandon Window by Jon Hopkins, 2013

Xerrox Sora 1 by Alva Noto, 2007

Now we’ll go back in time (to 1977) with Kraftwerk on the Trans Europe Express

Finally, we’ll leave the planet for another world with Brian Eno and An Ending (Ascent)