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
Balsams cover

Balsams

Chuck Johnson
Form Grows Rampant cover

Form Grows Rampant

The Threshold HouseBoys Choir
Substance cover

Substance

Moisture
A  Heart From Your Shadow cover

A Heart From Your Shadow

Michael Beharie, Teddy Rankin Parker
Alien Dreamtime cover

Alien Dreamtime

Spacetime Continuum, Terence McKenna
Ireti cover

Ireti

NikNak
Wormhole of Time cover

Wormhole of Time

Jean-Louis Huhta
Works cover

Works

Abul Mogard
There I See Everything cover

There I See Everything

Cucina Povera, Ben Vince