AOTY MISC

(more of the best music of 2024)

Mon Dec 23 2024

See, this is how I limit myself to a top-25 list: cheating! Hey, every critic gives you their favorite albums, but where else are you gonna find a yearly update on the multitude of projects involving members of Mr. Bungle? Nowhere except You-Phoria.com, that’s where!

HONORABLE MENTIONS: 11 ESSENTIAL EPs

Here’s the thing: BEATLES ’65 is one of my favorite albums of all time. (Go ahead, ask me if I care that it was cobbled together from previous Beatles releases.) Total runtime: 26 minutes. I’m a stickler by nature; I like hard-n-fast rules about definitions of things, and it’s generally hard for me to consider a record that’s under 40 minutes an LP, especially nowadays when the average song length is more than two-and-a-half minutes. There are going to be exceptions no matter what rules I lay down, but I think my BASIC guidelines for a new release are that anything under 30 minutes is an EP, unless it features ten songs or more. If it’s, like, 35 minutes, it’s in no-person’s land, way too confusing, I refuse to listen to a 35-minute record, what were you thinking. But what about that amazing new Body Futures record (https://bodyfutures.bandcamp.com/album/maybe-its-just-the-weather)? Don’t you feel, every time you get done listening to those six songs, that you’ve just experienced AN ALBUM? Argh. (YES, eleven entries because I forgot about one until the last minute and couldn’t bring myself to delete any of the others.)

4 SONG EP | That Long Dark Train

https://acrosstundras.bandcamp.com/album/4-song-ep

Tanner Olson of Across Tundras has taken on almost as many moniker variants as John Dwyer; his most recent is That Long Dark Train, which hews to a trend of acoustic balladry in a doomy folk style with heavy Hank Williams, Sr. overtones. Olson is prolific; I single this release out primarily because of its opening track, “Rusted Gears”, which gets at a simple truth with the sort of blunt honesty you’d expect out of Neil Young. It’s the best song Olson has written in ages, and the rest of the EP is damn good too.

ACROSS THE FORSAKEN WILDS | Nightshade Forests

https://nightshadeforests.bandcamp.com/album/across-the-forsaken-wilds

Alas, the beloved ‘dungeon synth corner’ is probably done; my dungeon synth guru like most people has left twitter so I only occasionally see their posts when facebook deems it pertinent or I randomly think to check in. This is the one recommendation you’re getting this year; my three faves all range between 31-36 minutes COME ONNNN and this is the one I come back to most because it’s like living in a type of video game that existed beyond the world barriers you’d always run up against playing video games in the ‘90s. Soon I’ll be one of the last remaining humans who remembers when digital imagination was finite.

ALL WAS CARBON | Venusian Motel Guests

https://venusianmotelguests.bandcamp.com/album/all-was-carbon

Easily the most beautiful record about ecological collapse that I’ve ever heard. Of course, when WE think about environmental disaster, we usually imagine it in terms of a human toll. Pure conjecture/projection here, but for me, Venusian Motel Guests evoke the serenity of the rest of Earth while humans were suddenly forced to stop moving around so much for a while a few years ago. There is a sad undercurrent throughout it all (and little serenity to be found in the echoing desolation of “A Future Survey of the Great Inundation”), which for me is the sonic equivalent of our mass refusal to recognize what happened there, such an obvious lesson, such a massive ongoing blunder for such a cosmically unimportant species. Given that it’s just 17 minutes of instrumental, mostly ambient music, I’d say it’s exceptionally engaging as such.

ARRIVAL | The Demix

https://thedemix.bandcamp.com/album/arrival

It’s been a long time coming—eight years since the last Demix EP, and ARRIVAL keeps alive the proud Radiograffiti tradition of loud fast beats and heavy noise. You can think of it as dance music but it is so much more extreme than most music in that realm, certainly in the industrial spectrum at times but if that’s still even a genre I don’t know of any other artists taking it to this level of abrasion and unpredictability. Five merciless tracks for the next ending of the world.

CAN’T STAND THE THOUGHT OF US EVER BEING APART | Rat Bath

https://ratbathmke.bandcamp.com/album/cant-stand-the-thought-of-us-ever-being-apart

It was awfully risky of Rat Bath, having created music unlike any Milwaukee had previously heard on its first few releases, to take this abrupt turn into emo/grunge/riot-grrrl songs. On the other hand, doing gothic twangy post-hardcore could look to some people like a gimmick, as if Rat Bath were riding on the assumption that being unique equates to being good. But it’s probably no surprise to any of their fans that Rat Bath write songs every bit as good even when they’re doing it in a long-exhausted style. They damn near make the case that the ‘90s weren’t a complete waste of energy on the rock end of things after all. They put out “You Sly Dog, You Got Me Monologuing” as the advance single almost as a fake-out; it’s the only trace of countryish sounds you’ll hear and I actually didn’t like it until I got used to it nestled in with the other songs. Eventually I realized it’s such a perfect song it’d make Mutt Lange jump out a window. It’s like my third-favorite song on the EP.

I FORCED MYSELF TO LIVE, CHARLIE BEE | The Hallelujah Ward

https://thehallelujahward.bandcamp.com/

After I got over my initial shock of all the new Mark Waldoch songs I knew existed not being ON this EP, I could let the pure joy of having The Hallelujah Ward in the world wash over me. Waldoch, one of the most emotive and potent pure singers around these parts, has been monkeying with treated vocals for at least a decade and on this record he’s finally captured what he might’ve been going for all along, or at least pretty close to what I had been trying to imagine. Plus his crack rhythm section of bassist Paul Hancock (Testa Rosa) and drummer Dan Didier (The Promise Ring) comprises the first real band he’s had backing him in what seems like ages. These songs are cause for celebration (but just wait ‘til the full-length).

I’M YOUR MAN | Lauryl Sulfate & Her Ladies Of Leisure

https://the-lol.bandcamp.com/album/im-your-man-2

On the heels of their superb 2023 full-length THE AFTERPARTY comes something akin to an old-school maxi-single by somebody like Radiohead or Catherine Wheel where the multiple b-sides are just as sick as anything they’ve put on an album. Each track is a self-contained groove to remind us that we’re all in fact still six feet under the dance floor, bringing us gen-xers back to ‘80s and ‘90s beats with an ultra-modern eclecticism and the hybrid sung-spoken delivery of Lauryl Sulfate herself. Bookended by clean and dirty mixes of the infectious, seductive title track, the boldest move on the EP is actually the mellow “I’m Not The Type”, transporting us into dreampopland the likes of which the Ladies Of Leisure hadn’t really attempted before. It puts me on a cloud every time. We get every side of Lauryl in just five songs, in our faces and underneath our skins. The synthpop revolution is still going strong in Milwaukee.

MILWAUCUMBIA | El Sebas

https://browns-crew.bandcamp.com/album/milwacumbia

Similarly to reggae or black metal, cumbia is liable to be received by uninitiated listeners far outside the culture as ‘it all sounds the same’. It just takes a little exposure, and I essentially have Browns Crew to thank for providing that breakthrough experience a few years back, where the expansive possibilities of the genre opened up in front of me. And no, I still haven’t learned Spanish worth a damn, so El Sebas for me is still about the music, mostly, and catching occasional phrases to latch onto. I can’t say with any certainty that he’s pushing the boundaries of his style; I’m nowhere near well-versed enough yet. Maybe it’s just a personal reaction. So listen to it and tell me if I’m wrong.

MOMENTAUFNAHMEN 2024 | Gegenentwurf

https://gegenentwurf.bandcamp.com/album/momentaufnahmen-2024

I’m filing this under ‘black metal’ even though it’s soooo much more than that. Gegenentwurf’s 2023 full-length TOSENDES WEIß, a somewhat more traditional effort, barely missed my list last year; this three-song EP covers as much stylistic ground and more, a mostly instrumental affair that comes off like a garage-rock take on metal. The first and third songs are mostly acoustic but they feel like death-doom played by people who forgot their amplifiers, while the beastly middle track forsakes traditional tremelo-picking for such guttural, caustic guitar tones I have no choice other than to accept it as black metal and move on. I like to tack on the 12-minute single-track release “Distanz” from earlier in the year as further evidence.

SOJOURNER | Immortal Girlfriend

https://immortalgirlfriend.bandcamp.com/album/sojourner

As synthpop duo Immortal Girlfriend kept leaning more into their heavier, rock/industrial side, I was getting more and more excited for their future. Then they came out with this more subdued, almost meditative EP, their first multi-song project since 2020, and it brought me back to the early days of the band, a lush, soothing sound that envelops your whole being as you listen. Every time I put it on the super minimal opening beat (which may have subconsciously caught the ear of VBIV, who put also put out a killer EP this year that gives me that same feeling at the start: https://vbiv.bandcamp.com/album/material-vessel-2) gives me sweet anticipatory chills; I know that for the next 28 minutes I’m goooooone. This is the first Girlfriend release that’s less about the individual songs than a full-on big mood, but “Hourglass” and “All I Want” are still low-key (in the Old American dialectal sense) bangers and “Mobile” is liable to make your partner suspect you’re cheating on them unless you’re listening to it together in bed.

WORKER’S COMP | Klassik

https://vyd.co/Workerscomp

On the heels of last year’s excellent SUMMERSKOOL EP comes Klassik’s latest missive, and where he had been trending in somewhat of a poppy, old-school direction (it’s all relative), WORKER’S COMP displays the singer/rapper/producer/multi-instrumentalist’s love of moody jazz in what is still a distinct hip-hop setting. Fans will recognize this concoction from Klassik’s periodic collaborations with jazz/ambient/turntable outfit Kase; their latest joint album PERFECTLY IMPERFECT (recorded in 2021) also deserves mention (https://bsiderecordings.bandcamp.com/album/perfectly-imperfect) (but their 2022 album LIVE AT THE OPERA HOUSE is still my fave, I could listen to it for days on end). It’s more sparse and much less vocal-oriented than the songs on WORKER’S COMP, of course, but if you dig either release you definitely shouldn’t skip the other. Klassik’s beats are more intricate and economical yet overall slow and deep this time around, hinting at synthwave and chillout-room EDM, the overall feel very atmospheric. There are hooks though; I get “RunItUp.” stuck in my head plenty.

THE YEAR IN SPLINTER BANDS

Somewhere in the middle of the main list (http://www.you-phoria.com/Blog/2024/December/the-best-albums-of-2024) there should’ve been an entry for The Smile’s CUTOUTS, but then I came up with this ‘splinter bands’ idea. The Smile put out two studio albums this calendar year, a feat even Radiohead never accomplished, and while Thom Yorke’s voice will always bring Radiohead to mind, The Smile are developing a signature songwriting style totally separate from their antecedents. For instance there’s no CHANCE Radiohead would’ve ever recorded a song like “Bending Hectic” (off the earlier WALL OF EYES album), and with both Yorke and Jonny Greenwood tinkering on guitars in this band, you get these fascinating interwoven patterns that have to be at least partially inspired by early-’80s King Crimson (“Read The Room”, “Under Our Pillows”, “Eyes & Mouth”, etc.). And Yorke keeps getting better as a lyricist as the years go by, absolutely devastating on songs like “Zero Sum”, “The Slip”, “Bodies Laughing”, and I could keep going off about his solo stuff too, I won’t try to hide the fact that I consider him the greatest living rock star of my generation in terms of artistry across a career. Yet he’s kinda like Mike Patton in a way, could’ve conquered the world long ago but let’s do some weird shit instead. And this is the least-weird shit he’s done in ages, killer grooving vaguely Bowie-ish dance rock with the occasional gentle ballad thrown in. But it’s NOT Radiohead, so even if it’s arguably the most forthright, accessible music Yorke and Greenwood have made since IN RAINBOWS, critics and the public alike are gonna hold it against ’em. They’re not gonna play “Creep” or “Fake Plastic Trees”, so they’re not AS good, without…y’know, those other guys from Radiohead.

Radiohead’s influence on the music world tends to be mostly big-picture; they didn’t spawn many copycats because their precise recipe is irreplicable. However, Daniel and Vincent Cavanaugh, the creative forces behind Anathema, freely acknowledged Radiohead’s influence on them back in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, even covering “Airbag” live during that period. The band called it quits, at least for now, in 2020, a couple years after Radiohead went dormant, and the Cavanaugh brothers have gone their separate ways in two new projects, both of which debuted this year. Daniel named his new band after Anathema’s triumphant 2012 comeback album, WEATHER SYSTEMS; its debut album OCEAN WITHOUT A SHORE (https://weathersystems.bandcamp.com/album/ocean-without-a-shore) picks up right where his old band left off, only without Vincent’s (and Anathema co-vocalist Lee Douglas’s) iconic singing, Daniel compensates with a heavier bent, making for an overall less melodramatic, more strictly proggy experience. We start off with the extremely Tool-esque “Synaesthesia”, a nine-minute statement of purpose that shows Danny’s perfectly capable of handling the vocals. “Untouchable Part 3” references the aforementioned 2012 Anathema record, and there’s even a callback to over two decades ago: “Are You There? Part 2”, a sequel to a ballad off Anathema’s A NATURAL DISASTER that was probably one of the most contentious things they ever recorded. Remember, Anathema started as death-doom; ballads were not A Thing! But it allowed the Cavanaughs to do absolutely whatever they felt like from then on, indulging their cheesiest impulses and ultimately becoming the Celine Dion of alt-metal—in the best possible sense! If you treasure the last three Anathema albums like I do you’ll get a lot out of OCEAN WITHOUT A SHORE…but it doesn’t QUITE reach those heights for me.

Meanwhile, Vincent’s new project, The Radicant, is a radical (sorry) departure from his old band. Its debut EP WE ASCEND (https://kscopemusic.bandcamp.com/album/we-ascend) is a mildly experimental quasi-pop record that lingers more in my psyche for the way its various aspects blend together in a heady, almost psychedelic haze; the songs don’t stick out much as individual pieces but there are so many interesting little passages that it kinda feels like a single 24-minute art-pop epic. It still gives you that dose of almost unbearable Cavanaugh yearning; I just don’t have a way to pin it to my own experiences yet. I’m excited for what both of these acts might have to offer us in the future, though.

THE BUNGLE REPORT

I covered Trevor Dunn’s live escapades here: http://www.you-phoria.com/Blog/2024/December/the-best-shows-of-2024; perhaps as a consequence of that demanding schedule he was somewhat less active than typical in terms of releasing music, although there could be releases I simply haven’t found yet; digital releases don’t necessarily even show up on discogs. However there was an intriguing release in the spring called ANTI-POLARITY AND ITS OPPOSITE by a quartet called Microdose (https://antipolarity.bandcamp.com/album/anti-polarity-and-its-opposite). This debut release (as far as I know) features a very Zorn-y lineup: world’s-greatest-drummer candidate Kenny Grohowski, Matt Hollenberg of Cleric on guitar, and Ben Goldberg on clarinet. If you’re bothering to read this section, Goldberg’s playing will doubtlessly remind you at times of DISCO VOLANTE-era Bungle jams, though only in fits and snatches. The tags suggest avant-garde jazz is the best way to describe it, sounds good to me. And now, dear readers, I have to apologize: combing this blog, I can’t find any previous mention of Low Flying Hawks (https://lowflyinghawks.bandcamp.com/)! It’s possible that I only figured out how to utilize discogs dot com properly in the past three years and thus had been unaware that Trevor and Dale Crover have served as rhythm section for this project since its first album, KŌFUKU, released back in 2016! Masterminded by two individuals known as AAL and EHA whose sole amassed credit that I can find outside of this band is an EHA solo post-rock thing from a decade ago called Elfmilk, Low Flying Hawks were originally a traditional slow-doom band like early Melvins plus a twist of psychedelia; on the new MAKEBELIEVE however they ‘went prog’ so to speak. With the addition of Toshi Kashai from Big Business on guitar (who has produced all of their releases), it’s a more eclectic stew of mostly metal flavors, and…I wouldn’t say it comes together into anything I’m going to want to listen to over and over. In checking out their older albums it’s been a gradual development into a more polished sound; there are a handful of good tracks I guess but kudos to the guys for continuing to support their mystery buddies. (Also, Buzz Osborne guests on their second album, GENKAKU, in case you wanted to know.) Plus, Trevor just dropped a new record with Kevin Rutmanis, with whom he’s moonlighted as Dunn With Rutmanis since early ’23 or so. This particular release finds drummer/artist Gina Skwoz joining in—or perhaps more accurately, Trevor joining THEIR pre-existing duo. The resultant album, LAST DAYS AT HOT SLIT (by DUNN with LORDS AND LADY KEVIN, so you know: https://lordsandladykevin.bandcamp.com/album/last-days-at-hot-slit) is more accessible than the first Dunn With Rutmanis album (CRACKPOT WHOREHEAD) for sure but it’s still very noisy and belligerently eclectic. It wasn’t until stumbling upon this on bandcamp somehow that I discovered there was ANOTHER Dunn With Rutmanis album that just dropped in October; it’s called GENE KRUPA WORLDS [sic] GREATEST DRUMMER and it’s just two long-ish tracks and by this point either you’ve got the idea or you haven’t, am I right? I can’t wait to see what they call this band when King Buzzo joins.

As for Scummy (NOTE: It’s no good referring to Trey Spruance as “Uncooked Meat Prior To State Vector Collapse” any more, because not only did some Canadians actually steal this for their band name, there’s some maga shithead on twitter who also stole it. I hate the internet.), he’s kept busy with several different incarnations of Secret Chiefs 3, even unveiling a whole new set of UR tunes on the East coast in September in addition to a residency at The Stone. Nothing’s been officially released yet but there’s a recording of their Brooklyn show, feel free to drop me a line if you wanna hear it! I don’t know if it’s out there online anywhere. However there was one new Spruance track available on a real album this year. The beloved Red Hot Org put out OUTER SPACEWAYS INCORPORATED: KRONOS QUARTET & FRIENDS MEET SUN RA (https://redhot.bandcamp.com/album/outer-spaceways-incorporated-kronos-quartet-friends-meet-sun-ra), which features a unique SC3 lineup of Spruance, Tim Smolens, and a San Diego session drummer named Mike Stone for some reason. They do “Love In Outer Space” and it’s great! Other than that, there’s just James Goode’s SOMNILOQUY – LIVE AT THE STONE, NYC, JULY 13, 2007 (https://jamesgoode.bandcamp.com/album/somniloquy-at-the-lab-may-16th-2007), a project which features a few other Secret Chiefs as well and which I don’t care for at all as a listening experience but the description of it is pretty interesting.

Not much else to report; Faith No More appears to be finished once again and Patton didn’t appear on any 2024 releases other than reissues and the same goes for Bär McKinnon. However, you can find Danny Heifetz on a couple of intriguing releases from this year: one by Melbourne artist Electric Self (rumored to be Angus Leslie from Umlaut and Sex on Toast but I can’t confirm or deny this) called GASTROPODO (https://electricself.bandcamp.com/album/gastropodo), a very loosely-composed mostly droney experimental work regarding “worship of snails, crustaceans, jellyfish…MY SAVIOURS”. It’s plenty bizarre and eclectic enough to appeal to Bungle fans; Electric Self’s vocal forays are often reminiscent of one Neil Hamburger to my ears, even. (Also available on his bandcamp page for only 999 Australian dollars: “A bag of water, straight from the briny deep!!!! Swam in by many a Crayfish, Sea Pig, Sea Snail and other creatures. STILL WARM!”) And then there’s LITTLLE [sic] GOLDEN HOOKS by theHEAD (https://derkopf.bandcamp.com/album/littlle-golden-hooks), a Sydney group that Heifetz has been involved with for over a decade. This release is “a reworking of three earlier theHEAD EPs…remixed, remastered, and occasionally rerecorded”, so I GUESS it counts? Like the smart people they are, theHEAD list “mr bungle” as a tag on bandcamp, which should again indicate that there’s no good way to categorize this music but it’s way more accessible than GASTROPODO while still quite unpredictable, mostly vocal- and synth-based with all kinds of extra stuff going on in the back- and foregrounds. After a couple spins I must say I’m pretty into it.

I should also mention that both Bär and Danny did make an appearance with Bungle during their Australia tour—the first and only such occurrence for either of them since the year 2000. While I staunchly refuse to let myself even think about potential implications (yeah right), it was a great sign that at least there’s no bad blood; who could blame those guys for not wanting to live in this country? Which is why my hope is that Trey, Trevor and Mike just say ‘fuck it’ and move to Australia too. My eternal profound gratitude to Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian for helping to resurrect this band; I wish these guys every happiness except the happiness of being in Mr. Bungle ’cause I’d prefer it if they got their old drummer back and a keyboard/horn player where the extra guitarist has been. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take whatever they can put together! New songs, old songs, it doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine not WANTING to try and conjure up that magic again. But if Mr. Bungle IS over, again, that’s okay too.

CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED LAST.FM TOP 20 MOST-LISTENED-TO ALBUMS

My hodgepodge of devices and softwares hasn’t played particularly well with last.fm this year but I think I have things mostly sorted out now, so next year’s tally should give a more accurate picture of what I actually listen to. I still think it’s fun putting the top 20 in here, though; it’s always weighted towards stuff that came out earlier in the year and albums that feature more/shorter songs, but I would definitely recommend ALMOST everything listed below. A few of these are major faves of mine that I can admit are not so much GREAT as up my alley—no, a critic’s list SHOULDN’T just be ‘favorites’, I’m not saying it’s ever a purely objective process but taste does not dictate quality. I’ve edited out non-2024 releases because I needed help getting to sleep a lot this year which resulted in Enya (accurately) taking the #1 AND #3 slots on the actual chart, there’s that dirty little secret for ya.