Let’s go to the rendezvous/ Of the past, me and you/ DJ plays déjà vu/ As we were in 1982 - Miss Kitten and the Hacker, “1982”

If you don’t spend your time thinking about music trends (which I suggest you don’t), mining of previous musical ideas tends to happen in 20 to 25 year cycles. For example, about 25 years after 1997, the end of grunge’s relevance as a mainstream rock sound, you start hearing the grunge sound appearing in critically well-received indie albums as well as in mainstream recordings. If we are to follow this math out, we get back to 2001.

In 2001, the sound of electronic music was taking over. It was no longer just the domain of rave kids doing ecstasy in fields or in seedy clubs by the docks. A part of this explosion came in the form of electroclash, a subgenre that had been gaining steam in Europe as well as in the United States. As we are in 2026 and music is cyclical, people are reviving the sound, preserving its past while updating it for modern times.

This week’s dispatch is a quick explainer of the primary elements of electroclash as well as some seminal albums to listen to. From there, we’ll talk about the better albums of the electroclash revival.

As suggested by my introduction, electroclash really took off in 2001, but the form had really started early in 1998 on the label International Deejay Gigolos, a german label run by DJ Hell. This is considered the home because it released man of the hallmark electroclash tracks. One of these tracks is “Frank Sinatra” by Miss Kittin & The Hacker:

This track encompasses many of the stylistic elements that made up electroclash. First, the beats recall 80s dance music styles like acid house, electro, and synth pop due to the use of instruments like Roland rhythm machines, cheap keyboards, and analog synthesizers. Next, there is the singing-not-singing primary vocalist. To call it singing is a reach; it’s more akin to stylistic talking like what the women in Saada Bonaire do.

The lyrics tended to be either archly funny or about general club culture. The jokes tended to be real inside baseball, but if electroclash was anything, it was for those “in the know.” You had to be “cool” to get their references or to get the joke. More than anything, many of the deadpanned lyrics were very silly. (I point to “Frank Sinatra” as one such example.) The club culture lyrics are what you expect such as traveling from place to place and uniting through dance music. While still mostly detached, these are the times when you do feel some sense of connection, rather than arch distanciation.

To further explore the elements of electroclash, let’s look at “Emerge” from Fischerspooner, another foundational track:

This is a good track, but let’s be clear: this song is vibes. It’s almost completely aesthetic in its approach. And this is another hallmark element of electroclash. The music to come out in this category is, almost to an artist, an example of style over substance, of creating a vibe. This may sound critical, but it is actually a good thing. At the end of the day, this is dance music. Do you want life truths while you’re two red bull and vodkas into a three-hour DJ set? No, you don’t.

While there were a bunch of bands working around the time of this scene who were unfairly lumped into it (e.g., Adult., Ladytron), there aren’t that many albums you need to listen to if you want to understand this scene. In fact, you only need to listen to three. One of those is First Album by Miss Kittin & The Hacker. On this album, you’ll find “1982” and “Frank Sinatra,” the songs that helped to define the genre, as well as a bunch of extremely well-made house- and techno-influenced tracks. Although there are a couple of weak tracks, the whole is very good, and the highs, such as the aformentioned tracks and “You and Us,” are excellent.

Fischerspooner’s #1 is a greater artistic achievement than First Album. While they are pulling from the same musical foundation (80s-style house, disco, and techno) as Miss Kittin and the Hacker, the album tracks show a greater depth than one would suspect from “Emerge.” While it is still primarily an aesthetic exercise, #1 is more technically accomplished than one might expect, making it a very good listen even today.

The last foundational album of electroclash, for me at least, is Peaches’ The Teaches of Peaches. While she takes a different approach with her lyrics from her contemporaries—they are very sexually explicit—and her presentation is more confrontational, the beats are very much following the 80s nostalgia of the aforementioned projects, pulling from the murky, synth-heavy aesthetic of electro and the Liquid Sky soundtrack. The album is great, and as an aside, this was one of the better concerts that I saw as an undergrad, as she really used the entire room.

In the past 12 months, there has been a resurrection of this sound, as the younger folks get their hands on the records of their parents or, more likely, hear these tracks in videos on social media. While it has been lurking around the margins for a few years, there have been three albums that have heavily referenced the sound—to somewhat different ends.

The first album will talk about is the one that references the style the least: underscores’ u. This album calls upon the gritty 80s electro sound of electroclash, but that is about where its relationship to the movement ends. For one, this album is far too catholic in its taste, pulling from pop music of all different eras in addition to electroclash. As well, the lyrics are far too personal and the presentation is very earnest, putting it out of step with electroclash’s detachment. While it is only tangentially related to this movement, it is one of the best pop albums of this year so far. She’s taking so many styles and merging them into something fresh, dynamic, and fantastic. If you have not listened to this album year, I would highly recommend that you do so.

The last two albums I’ll discuss here are ones that actually recall the halcyon days of electroclash. The first to be discussed is fcukers’ Ö. This album pulls from the same sounds as those foundational albums above by heavily referencing electro and house music. They modernize the sound by adding a little 2000s dubstep for extra flavor. The lead singer, Shanny Wise, has the same disaffected, hypnotic tone of Miss Kittin, but to her credit, she does have more vocal range. This album is about 29 minutes of dirty, sweaty vibes, making it a lovely update of the electroclash sound.

The second album to discuss is Slayyyter’s WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA. This is an album that calls itself an electroclash album, and it’s hard to argue with that when you start to listen to it. The lo-fi, gritty electronics and electro-style beats immediately recall electroclash at its peak in the 2000s. Furthermore, Slayyyter’s vocals add to the vibe. She’s got the confidence and confrontation of Peaches, and her lyrics do an excellent job of creating the vibes and getting the party started. While some songs on the album do have pop ambitions (i.e., “DANCE…”), the great majority of the album could have been played at a 2007 warehouse party in Brooklyn after Tiga’s “Sunglasses at Night” with no problem. I want to be clear: This is a great thing.

If you did not know anything about this scene before, I hope that it has taught you something or at least given you some albums to go listen to. If you lived through this, I hope I haven’t scarred you too much, reminding you of taking weird photos at parties with your 5 MP digital camera while blitzed on whatever your local shitty beer was. I, for sure, did not do this . . . ever.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed what you read, tell a friend and get them to subscribe. As always, watch out for yourselves and each other. Pet a dog or a cat if they are OK with it. Lastly, don’t feel ashamed about getting young people to explain things to you. I do it all of the time. I usually say, “Hey, (insert name)! You’re a young person. Explain (insert thing) to me.” I also acknowledge that I am, spiritually, a 75-year-old man, so I have no shame on this front.

On that note, bye for now. I’ll see you next week with The Spins.