Ellen Allien

If German goddess Ellen Allien set out to dissolve techno’s rigid edifice on her third full-length album, Thrills, she more than accomplished her goal. While highly danceable head-bobbing beats abound, dissolute tracks such as “Cloudy City” float in an oceanic haze of electronic atmospherics. Throughout the standout track “The Brain is Lost,” Allien’s robotic voice bemoans the suffocating inflexibility of her body (“Flesh makes me blind”) as she aspires for release. Her mission to break out of the monotony of techno is simultaneously harrowing and liberating.