4/4 electronic music may not be quite as prevalent as it was 5 years ago, but there’s still plenty of steely beats married to immaculate sound design to be had. While a good chunk of the techno albums of 2024 reflected the genre agnosticism of electronic music in general, skewing more towards experimental, textural offshoots like ambient techno and dub techno, some of the best techno albums of 2024 still crossed the line on the merits of stark, relentless beats and meticulous attention to detail that have always been techno’s trademark.

From the militaristic dystopian nearly industrial techno of Dax J’s War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength to the big room euphoria of Floating Point’s Cascade to the elegant experimentation of Huerco S.’ Loidis project, here are the 10 best techno albums of 2024!

The Top 10 Techno Albums of 2024

10. H-Fusion – Skin Breaker (Sound Signature)

Skin Breaker is as sleek and relentless as an ASRAAM missile. In a year dominated by genre fusions and psychedelic production, it’s a relief to hear a solid techno album built solely around the steady, sturdy thump of a 4/4 kick and the aurora borealis of slight clinical atmospherics. No muss, no fuss, just pure dancefloor hypnosis.

9. Peter van Hoesen – Towards the Center of Time and Surrounded by Spirits (Vlek)

Towards the Center of Time and Surrounded by Spirits manages to sound both futuristic and timeless. It’s got the same relentless Audobahn thrust that created the genre in the first place, yet it still manages to sound somehow dank and shivering, like an android cowering from a horde of demons in Plato’s cave.

8. Funk Assault – Paces of Places (Primal Instinct)

Many of this year’s biggest and highest-profile techno releases have favored an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink production style, an ambivalence towards genre, high concept, and big personalities. It’s refreshing to hear a sprawling double album of stripped down nuts-and-bolts techno that’s still meticulous enough to warrant being listed among the best techno albums of 2024.

7. Perc – The Cut Off (Perc)

Perc’s first full album in 7 years retains his ferocious industrial techno burr but polishes it to a mirrored chrome finish, like an Industrial Age foundry into a midcentury laboratory.

6. Floating Points – Cascade (Ninja Tune)

Floating Points trades in his usual spiritual jazz for an album of pure big room hedonism. It might not strictly adhere to the metronomic steady thump of straightahead techno, instead fizzing and buzzing with a fun, frothy house bounce, but Floating Points meticulous production, sound design, and mastery of dancefloor mechanics makes Cascade one of this year’s standout electronic releases, regardless.

Read J’s review of Cascade at Spectrum Culture.

5. Dax J – War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength (Monnom Black)

With our culture of paranoia and mass surveillance, our eavesdropping technologies, our perpetual othering and the seemingly inescapable bloodthirst of the 5 minutes of hate, it seems George Orwell’s 1984 is more relevant than ever. Dax J does an admirable job of capturing the dystopian jackbooted militarism of Orwell’s biting satire using a limited template of storming uptempo techno beats and steely stentorian atmospherics.

4. Oscar Mulero – Have you ever retired a human by mistake? (Warm Up Recordings)

With AI capturing so many headlines this year, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – the source material for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner – is every bit as relevant as 1984. Oscar Mulero expresses the noir technological militarism of Dick’s dystopia with a virulent blend of cybernetic acid and stomping, swarming, driving techno beats.

3. Regal86 – Unearthed Vol. II: 100 Trax (Self-Released)

It almost feels unfair to include Regal86’s monumental collection among the best techno albums of 2024, considering how much ground it covers. Unearthed Vol. II is everything. While standard, straightahead bangin’ 4/4 techno might make up a relatively small percentage of its runtime, Unearthed Vol. II would be worth including for sheer audacity and ambition, alone. The fact that Regal86 proves himself adept in everything from sugary house to lowdown throbbing bass music to futurist jungle and drum ‘n bass is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

2. Monolake – Studio (Monolake Records)

I can’t remember who said it, but i’ve heard a master defined as someone who takes pleasure or gets lost in every single aspect of an activity. Regardless of where that quote originated from, it’s beyond dispute that Robert Henke is a master of making electronic music. Not only has he created genuine masterpieces in nearly every genre of electronic music you can think of, under his real name as well as Monolake, he even helped create some of the most innovative music software ever made, Ableton Live. Whether its EQing hi-hats, hanging subwoofers, or crunching code, Robert Henke takes care and great joy in making every single detail pop.

Studio is every bit as polished as you’d expect from a master while still never becoming fussy or neurotic. While it might be short on big room, peak time techno chart toppers, and resistant to straightforward 4/4 structures in general, there’s simply no arguing with its rich, satiny low-end, its sparkling mids and heavenly highs. And even while Henke has an engineer’s eye for detail and precision, he never forgets the dancefloor, delivering euphoric endorphin rushes and toe-curling drops while still defying expectations entirely. Rarely do the mind and body come together in such harmony.

Read J’s review of Studio at Spectrum Culture.

1. Loidis – One Day

For over a decade, Brian Leeds has been stretching house music into artful chiaroscuros of elegant abstraction as Huerco S., creating material that’s beautiful and strange while still working on the dancefloor. This year he turned his attention to dub techno as Loidis, delivering an album that’s somehow even more lovely and effective as club fodder. With layers upon layers of surface texture and noise, it’s like peering in at some alien planet, obscured by magenta and tangerine, only to find an advanced civilization living in harmony once you’ve pierced the gloom. It’s utterly addictive and challenging – not an easy balancing act to pull off.

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