The Best Albums Of 2024
Some years the most hyped and popular albums speak to me. Some years, even when that’s the case, I’ll pass over them in this piece in order to better fulfill my meager life’s mission of turning you the reader onto music you wouldn’t otherwise have listened to. This year, the pervading critics’ lists are ordered as if from some theoretical standpoint of goodness; there’s one thing from them that you’ll find below, but otherwise it’s as if critics were way into artists taking zero risks. Pure comfort food, these lists. They’ve all homogenized just like the festivals. I couldn’ve sworn it used to be the general public who liked the boring music, while critics stood up for pioneers, but I also realize how badly education has been tanking in this country and how all the media conglomerates are simply trying to make money and that aggregate opinions about art are inherently bullshit.
I kept dabbling in outliers from these lists, though, hoping something would click in an album-of-the-year-type way, and nothing did. A lot of really great albums but this wasn’t one of those years where anything captured what’s going on in my soul I guess. It doesn’t have to happen every year. As time goes on, things fall by the wayside; there’s stuff I believed in passionately ten years ago that I haven’t listened to in who knows how long, life goes on. Yet there’s stuff below that I’m positive will be in my life forever; even if that only amounts to a song or three from an album, that’s huge. And that’s the unspoken and of course unverifiable criterion that subconsciously orders these lists in a big way: will it stick with me? I’m willing to bet especially the ones towards the bottom of the list will.
I arbitrarily limited myself to 25 albums this year. They are presented here in approximate reverse order of greatness, with bandcamp links for listening whenever possible. Some cuts were brutal! I can’t believe some of the incredible stuff I’m about to not even mention from 2024. I guess it was a darn good year of music. As always, your best bet is to listen to my radio show, Midnight Radio, every other (ish) Tuesday from 7-9 p.m. central U.S. time. In Milwaukee, the frequency is 91.7 FM; worldwide, wmse.org streams it live, and you can even listen to archives of past shows here:
https://wmse.org/program/midnight-radio/
Select a date from the dropdown menu and the corresponding playlist pops up underneath. If it starts with Hedwig & The Angry Inch, that’s one of mine. Happy listening!
SORCS 80 | Osees
https://ohsees.bandcamp.com/album/sorcs-80
“I have nothing but contempt for the music press”, proclaims John Dwyer, sole constant member of the band calling itself Osees last I heard. Edgy! So as a writer, I have nothing but contempt for Dwyer; however as a radio DJ I salute him for sending my station a copy of SORCS 80 that included radio edits of all the songs with swears in them. I wish everyone would do that! It’s a very good record. The genre is ‘garage rock’. I like music.
SONOROUS PRESENT | Alex E. Chávez
https://alexechavez.bandcamp.com/album/sonorous-present
At first listen, some of the spoken bits sounded out of place to me; I’m happy to report that after only a few times through the album they lost that quality. Once you get a little familiar with the record it starts to feel like a beloved musical, any vestiges of cheese melting into the overall experience. If you stick with it, it can easily become comfort food. Musically it might be summed up as Latin jazz-folk; the instrumentals are sometimes so lush they conjure vivid colorful visions. As far as the words go, I’ll have to defer to Spanish-speakers; the English poetry though is as soulful and evocative as the music. I hate to suggest it but it’s become even more powerful in a crushing sort of way since the election; it’s only my projections but I doubt I’m alone in this.
CALLS FROM A SEETHING EDGE | L e i l a A b d u l - R a u f
https://leilaabdulrauf.bandcamp.com/album/calls-from-a-seething-edge
Transitioning out of a more formless ambient style, Oakland artist Leila Abdul-Rauf has created something closer to dark new age—no I will NOT be taking any questions about dungeon synth at this time. Via mostly sparse acoustic instrumentation, CALLS FROM A SEETHING EDGE is equal parts meditative and creepy. While it never rises to a roar, its most extreme moments, culminating in the icy “Crimes Of The Soul”, hew close to industrial on a subdued scale. A part of me definitely wants to type “witch house” even though I’m referring not to that specific genre but to a feeling. This song is followed by the disturbing finale “The Summoned”, and I’m THIS close to buying the album again just in hopes that printed lyrics come with a physical copy. Abdul-Rauf’s vocals are so distorted and buried that I can rarely make out her words; the liner notes on bandcamp are helpful but here’s my brief soapbox moment to beg artists to a) put their stuff on bandcamp first of all so I can just buy it because I canceled my streaming service and you’ll make more money from one person buying the album there than you will in streaming in a year, and b) upload your lyrics if at all possible! because then I’m that much more likely to play the airable songs on the radio! Thanks/sorry! This album rewards focused listening but is also more in-your-face than anything Abdul-Rauf has done before; I can hardly wait to see where she goes from here.
SERVICE MERCHANDISE | Previous Industries
https://previndustries.bandcamp.com/album/service-merchandise
I had felt like Video Dave was in the perfect role as pop-in guy for Open Mike Eagle and others, but then he put out the incredible ARTICULATED TEXTILES last year (jointly credited to producer Controller 7), showcasing a surprising lyrical versatility and a singular vision. That made this collab between the two art-rap underdogs all the more exciting, except their third partner, STILL RIFT, was still a virtually unknown…rift. As far as I can determine, he had six total feature credits going all the way back to 2022 prior to the formation of Previous Industries, and as it turns out, he’s the perfect counterpoint to Dave’s extra-chill persona, not a completely manic rapper but more consistently wordy and biting than either Dave or Mike. The best is when they’re interlacing verses like on “Montgomery Ward” and “White Hen”, and it never hurts to throw in a Quelle Chris feature (he also produced a couple tracks; Smoke Bonito also did one and Child Actor handled the rest). “Orbiting the dead mall as a spiritual concept…” says their bandcamp page, yet I assure you, you don’t need to be old enough to know what a “Fotomat” or a “Kay Bee” is to enjoy the shit out of this album.
I’D SAY I’M NOT FINE | Barely Civil
https://barelycivil.bandcamp.com/album/id-say-im-not-fine
“Rock music is dead”, says Gene Simmons, over and over, any time anybody asks him to, a man who has never heard I’D SAY I’M NOT FINE. He says it’s because kids these days never heard of Yngwie Malmsteen or whatever but rock and roll is SUPPOSED to be about forgetting, a fact which Gene Simmons has forgotten. He’s readying his immortal virtual-reality clone for the next evolution of county fairs while the rest of us are rocking out/crying/getting pissed/experiencing catharsis listening to perfectly-sculpted emotional-hardcore songs like “Shifting Blame” and “Not Fine” and “Dwindling”. “Rock is dead in America”, says David Ellefson, because FINALLY people over here might be tiring of his boomer ass heavy metal. Metallica might still sell out the biggest venues that exist, and maybe they ARE garbage; isn’t it time for a reckoning? The only rock that’s dead is the shit punk has been trying to kill for 50 years; good riddance. The best rock and roll is being made right in your town, I’ve said it before. The world is never gonna hear it. People didn’t start playing rock and roll wanting to be heard by the world; they were fed up with the world and couldn’t help themselves. The words and the music had to be gotten out of them or they’d be useless to society; that’s what I’D SAY I’M NOT FINE feels like.
THE THIEF NEXT TO JESUS | Ka
(Since his passing somebody took down his bandcamp and now you have to pay $20 to even hear this if you don’t have streaming, I’m sure that’s what he would’ve wanted.)
Age 52; cause of death still unrevealed to the public. This fever-dream of an album is all the more disturbing in this state of limbo, Ka’s voice now forever silenced. The final track, “True Holy Water”, if that was somehow INTENDED as a sendoff, it’s almost too excruciating to contemplate. It feels like a personal cataclysm. Increasingly as the world goes to shit, artists feel more open to taking their audiences to darker places; critics seem to see this as an intrinsic virtue. I probably subscribed to that idea for a long time; I’m not so sure any more. The past decade has given us some of the most depressing music ever made, music so dark I could only handle a single listen if that AND I’M NO SPRING CHICKEN. I’m sure it’s therapeutic for the artists; I hope it is for some others too, but looking around at the world I’m beginning to wonder. Ka however superimposes his dark tales on uplifting gospel-heavy music; the record doesn’t fit any traditional definition of spiritual music, yet there’s a deep, un-dogmatic sense of the beyond running through the album. Hopefully to call it ‘haunting’ doesn’t diminish its power in this respect; that’s what it is. But it takes a little longer for it to sink in than, say, recent ultradepressing albums by Nick Cave or Mount Eerie (who both made great heyyyy-heh-heh-come-on-guys-we’re-not-THAT-depressed albums this year); those were a struggle to even get through once, whereas for a white guy from the Midwest this one took some context and contemplation before I had to say enough is enough. Maybe I’ll return to all of them some day.
THERE IS A GARDEN | Beings
https://beingsnyc.bandcamp.com/album/there-is-a-garden
Tempted to leave this off the list out of spite because they canceled the tour…FINE. It surprised even me how familiar and welcoming these mostly-improvised pieces became through fairly haphazard listening throughout the year. With all due respect to Dr. Sushi I wouldn’t call free jazz one of my specialties. I’m not sure this record technically qualifies; the range of sonics from delicate beauty to droning discord defies the urge to categorize it. The mixture of acoustic and electric guitars (Zoh Amba and Steve Gunn, respectively) creates some magical tonal shifts, especially in “God Dances In Your Eyes”; it’s like a lifetime in under seven minutes, and the fact that it’s the longest piece on the record taunts me; these are supposed to be jumping-off points! Well maybe some day. And since I haven’t yet decided to give Shahzad Ismaily his own yearly section, I need to point out that his old band, Badawi, also put out THREE releases this year totaling three-and-a-half hours of experimental but much more song-focused and beat-driven music (helmed by “illbient” pioneer Raz Mesinai: https://badawidub.bandcamp.com/; also featuring fellas like Marc Ribot, Eyvind Kang, etc.) that you should absolutely check out.
PARTNER | Caley Conway
https://caleyconway.bandcamp.com/album/partner
It’s almost painful to think about all the great bands Caley Conway has put together over the years to perform these amazing songs she writes and the world at large is so slow to take notice. This latest batch, though, sounds to me like Conway went in with no restrictions on what musical directions the songs could take, incorporating the most eclectic bunch of instruments and stylistic swings she’s yet committed to an album. Thinking about this in terms of live performance, you might expect a lot of noisy crescendos or improvisation, but PARTNER is more about the subtleties. If anything’s going to clobber you over the head, it will have to be the lyrics, and there are some disarming one-liners throughout as well as a cumulative thrill of songs about lots of things pulling together into a larger statement. As I see it, it’s about the quest for connection and staying tethered to your here and now amidst the vast void of the digital globe. Admittedly, there’s a deeper level of appreciation to be had if you’re a Milwaukeean; I can’t necessarily separate from that, but the local references roll off like maybe you don’t know YET but you will, and PARTNER does an amazing job of synthesizing modern issues with timeless universal themes without patronizing or feeling like it’s going to go out of date tomorrow—even “Sky Blue”, we gotta keep believing, somehow, right?
THE COLLECTIVE | Kim Gordon
https://kimgordon.bandcamp.com/album/the-collective
I may be overrating THE COLLECTIVE a tad because it doesn’t necessarily break any new ground, expanding out naturally from Kim Gordon’s excellent 2019 solo debut NO HOME RECORD, sacrificing some of that pre-pandemic wry humor for some harsher extremes and a more intense overall album while retaining a very similar aesthetic and songwriting approach. The songs, once again, are so GOOD though. Working in tandem a second time with Justin Raisen, who produced and co-wrote NO HOME RECORD with Gordon after the two met randomly at an airbnb, she’s made an album that comes off less bitter, more pissed, but also possibly more world-weary. There aren’t any purely subdued tunes this time around, though; even during quiet moments we get the impression that noise is always on the other side of a door, straining against it, getting ready to bust in. And when she decides to really pummel us—“It’s Dark Inside” or “The Believers”—I don’t know that Sonic Youth ever made such harrowing sounds. And then there’s “Psychedelic Orgasm”, which I can’t help hearing as a sequel to “Anti-Orgasm” off the final Sonic Youth album (and one of my favorite songs Gordon has ever written). For many years, I felt like that record and tour were essentially how I inadvertently bid farewell to Kim; Body/Head was never likely to bowl me over and she seemed more focused on visual arts and other pursuits anyway. Recent solo shows of hers meanwhile have turned out to be every bit as riveting as any SY show I saw. This is one triumphant nth act for the godmother of grunge.
BRAT | Charli XCX
While nothing could’ve actually lived up to the hype of ‘brat summer’, this was the one consensus hit of the year that featured interesting music and worthwhile lyrics. Listening to it in the dead of ‘maga winter’, though, it definitely dropped downward on my list. I don’t know why my love of BRAT was somehow tied to a sense of hope about the future but it feels a little unimportant now. Not that it’s some major political statement album; I think it’s just getting harder for me to stomach the trappings of celebrity and Charli XCX embraces that status with all the sonic glitz available. A celebrity is about to become president of this country I live in, AGAIN, and I’m fucking sick of them. The more I listen to BRAT the less it reminds me of SOPHIE, the more it reminds me of Drake. The repetitive nature of “Von Dutch” and “Everything Is Romantic” can be a little grating, and a lot of Charli XCX’s concerns on the album are starting to make me question why the hell I was so into this a few months ago. (I still love the first three tracks, and “Rewind” is still fun, and starting with “Girl, So Confusing” it’s still easy to sink back in and I think “B2B” is still my favorite…) So I’m gonna probably stop listening to it after today, but it stays on the list; just because something has ephemeral appeal doesn’t mean it has less value, and it’s still a strong artistic statement, I’m almost positive.
MY METHOD ACTOR | Nilüfer Yanya
https://niluferyanya.bandcamp.com/album/my-method-actor
This became my surrogate ALL OF THIS WILL END for 2024, a slick pop album on its surface with nooks and crannies that reveal themselves the more you listen. In fact it took me too long to get into that Indigo de Souza album; it didn’t make the list last year ‘cause I didn’t really crush on it until January or so. Thanks, other people’s lists! I ended up cramming on MY METHOD ACTOR in the latter portion of this year, though, lucky YOU. I might not even say this if I feared Yanya herself might read it HOWEVER: I feel a little bit like the way I used to feel getting to know a new Sting album. The writing is so economical and catchy, with vestiges of jazz and bitterness keeping otherwise straight-up eclectic pop music far from any sense of pandering. The melodies flow out so naturalistically and there’s a sonic wistfulness intrinsic to most of the songs, and Yanya isn’t afraid to use acoustic guitars or violins nor to get noisy, but nothing is superfluous; every note is in service to the song. Created solely by herself and longtime producer/creative partner Wilma Archer, the album would take one heck of a band to play live properly, but you can imagine so many of these songs popping up in DJ sets around the globe; Yanya’s breathy vocal style is ultra-modern and if there’s still room for iconic hooks out of the sub-mainstream, I didn’t hear anything in that illennium set last summer for instance that topped “Like I Say” or “Call It Love”. I think if she’d found a more attention-grabbing way to end the record it would’ve sunk in with me more quickly and maybe turned more heads, but she kinda went the Sting route in this sense too, the mellow wind-down across multiple songs. That’s called playing the long game.
WHAT NOW | Brittany Howard
I put this in the ‘dance’ genre because it encompasses virtually every type of music you could feasibly dance to. Heavy doses of old-school soul and R&B inhabit some songs and shadow the rest. I’m reminded of the glory days of TV On The Radio at times (during the title track especially). Brittany Howard sounds like a zillion different singers throughout the record; whether treated or raw, her voice is the main attraction, so many layers and stylistic approaches it sounds like a congregation at times. There are interludes of pure club beats and jazzy slow jams, and transitions between songs tend to be suspenseful as you wait to see which direction Howard will go in next. It’s a lot like listening to a Prince album, including brief flashes of guitar heroism, and I can only assume it’s a lack of syrupy pop hooks that prevented WHAT NOW from reaching more people—it’s not like there ARE no hooks, but this album is a much deeper listen than, say, your typical Beyoncé album, so given the resounding blandness of this year’s critical darlings, Howard’s timing was apparently off; this record was bound to please nobody. Except, y’know, fans of powerful complex heartfelt body-movin’ music. We’re still out here.
MONARCH OF MONSTERS | Vylet Pony
https://vyletpony.bandcamp.com/album/monarch-of-monsters
If you happen to visit rateyourmusic dot com at the right moment to look at their user-generated album chart for the current year, you might come across some dark-horse albums that initially slip through their mysterious algorithms to land temporarily on the front page. MONARCH OF MONSTERS was the beneficiary of this phenomenon—or more accurately, I was the one who benefited. I’d never heard of Vylet Pony and most likely never would have; all I can tell you about the artist’s backstory is that there seems to be a wayyyy deeper My Little Pony fan culture than I ever would’ve dreamed and I’m definitely not up for learning more about that. What we have here, musically, on the 164th release available on Vylet’s bandcamp page WTFFFF, is an epic fantastical allegory about trauma and some of the wild ways it can twist a person, with music every bit as unpredictable and exhausting as your little mind can fathom. On first listen it’ll be a bit much for older folks (unless you were weaned on stuff like Naked City or The Mars Volta); persist, and you’ll be taken on a journey that gets more rewarding every time you embark. Even if you can’t scream along with the ferocity of Vylet Pony, there are powerful extended moments of catharsis on this album and an overall clarity of vision and impeccable musicianship that are impressive even if you can’t jive with some of the more extreme aspects. Plus there are enough bona fide hooks on the album that you could almost consider it hyperpop. It’s music that’s way too much work for the average listener; this blog clearly isn’t FOR those people.
ABSOLUTE ELSEWHERE | Blood Incantation
https://bloodincantation.bandcamp.com/album/absolute-elsewhere
Saviors of American progressive death metal Blood Incantation have always maintained a SLIGHT psychedelic edge but on ABSOLUTE ELSEWHERE they go positively Baroness at times, in the process edging closer to the classic Opeth approach than perhaps any band in the U.S.A. ever has (without straight-up ripping them off). Each of the six tracks is labeled a “Tablet” and each is a journey unto itself; the first song is just over eight minutes and you feel like you’ve taken in a feature film as it’s fading out. A Cluster-esque zone-out emerges and becomes a pastoral flute-driven piece before skewing into a math-rock stomp and then exploding into furious post-rock noise with intermittent double-kick propulsion; that all transpires in five minutes. There’s plenty of traditional death metal on the album for those who crave it but in terms of composition and arrangement, that genre couldn’t possibly contain Blood Incantation any more. Admittedly, some of the antecedents are so apparent that I’m surprised the Randy California trust lawyers aren’t all over it but maybe we as a society have finally moved past that impulse now. This album shows that Blood Incantation aren’t afraid to touch on anything they like; I can’t wait to find out if it’s a crowning achievement or a mere stepping stone.
THE INSURRECTIONISTS AND THE CARETAKERS | Auriferous Flame
https://auriferousflame.bandcamp.com/album/the-insurrectionists-and-the-caretakers
First, a salute to Ayloss, the mononymous Greek artist behind Auriferous Flame, for showing everyone how easy it is to put “!NSBM FANS FUCK OFF!” right there in their bandcamp bio. Every black metal artist who hates nazis should do this. Secondly, although Ayloss proclaims their allegiance to “old style black metal”, this album plays more like a dissection of the early-‘90s style, excavating all of the thrash and death and folk and hardcore elements that led to black metal’s formation and implementing them all in a ferocious single-minded attack. The double-vocal approach is at times so invigorating, you could almost imagine it stirring people to action as these songs are meant to do; the music is extreme yet the clarity of production makes it stand out amidst the majority of old-school mud-worshippers. In a perfect world these would be rallying cries as the oligarchy crumbles, but not enough people are angry enough yet.
FIGHT THE REAL TERROR | My Brightest Diamond
https://mybrightestdiamond.bandcamp.com/album/fight-the-real-terror
The album title is a clear nod to the dearly departed Sinéad O’Connor; anyone over 40 will recognize the reference even if it’s the only thing they know about her. Almost universally disparaged at the time for ripping up a photo of the pope, O’Connor never did find redemption in the public eye; the industry wasn’t interested in Sinéad on her own terms, and the catholic church continues to wield an inexplicable sway over gazillions of people despite having been exposed as a systemic haven for sexual abusers. What was that thing MLK said about long arcs and justice? Anyway Shara Nova made this album in the wake of O’Connor’s passing and she pays loving/angry tribute in the title track, lashing out (poetically!) in several directions on the album but also taking us to the opposite extremes of serenity and gratitude, and as sparse as the instrumentation is, we get some of the most stark and intimate Nova singing we’re likely to get on record, what a gift. Every time she sings “Have You Ever Seen An Angel” out of my little PC speakers I feel like I don’t belong so close to what I’m hearing; what would it take for such a marriage of folk and classical music to reach the masses? That’s what this record is, all sung and played by Nova, and occasionally it does get electric and loud, not unlike the simmering Irish doom-folk of Lankum. But I don’t need to get in the genre weeds here; these songs, these performances captured, could bring any person to their knees under the right circumstances. (Also I couldn’t find a way to fit this naturally into the paragraph but “Rule Breaker”, who writes songs like this? I still laugh incredulously every time I hear it.)
PLEASE DON’T CRY | Rapsody
This album was a major case of not living up to my hopes for it, until I got over that and sank into what it IS. There’s this vicious cycle of demanding our visionary stars take up certain mantles and then accusing them of messiah complexes, and diminishing degrees of this phenomenon filter down into the indie world. I’d been sitting here thinking Rapsody has the talent and the vision to lead the revolution; I don’t get to put that on anybody. “I think the most beautiful shit is when you can be the most honest with yourself. Like, that’s when you, I think that’s when you the most free, when you can be vulnerable. And allow yourself to not be perfect, ya dig?” That’s the intro to “That One Time”, a little contrived in context yet it explains the album really well. And if that means not leaning into the righteous indignation, not trying to incite riots, rather letting all the complications of life roll out poetically and letting sly one-liners (oh, and the entirety “Diary Of A Mad Bitch”) be occasional provocative moments but not RULE HER LIFE maybe. I think it took until after the election for me to even appreciate this album; now it’s becoming a salve as I’m diving back in again. It may not be Rapsody’s most cohesive statement yet but it’s all-encompassing, without question harkening back to the glory days of Native Tongues except the dorky skits are a little more meaningful. And it closes on such a profound note. And there I was holding her to some kind of higher standard yet? Expectations are a funny thing.
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT | Opeth
I’m getting sick of relaying this narrative BUT: when Opeth ditched metal entirely on 2011’s HERITAGE album, I ditched Opeth, but only because HERITAGE was a boring-ass album, as had been the one before it. The writing had been on the wall for many years, and secretly I blamed Steven Wilson for dragging Mikael Åkerfeldt into this mellow prog obsession. Nevertheless, Åkerfeldt (who has always been obsessed with ancient prog I know I know) proceeded to turn this retro phase into a legit new direction for Opeth on subsequent releases, shedding most of the Wilson influence along the way (I’ll write the Steven Wilson essay the next time he puts out a decent record okay?) while valiantly avoiding becoming Dream Theater. Despite the hype surrounding Åkerfeldt’s return to death-metal growls, THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT isn’t THAT much heavier than 2019’s IN CAUDA VENENUM in any other respect; in fact in some respects it’s lite-er than anything Opeth have ever done before. The dynamic swings within songs sometimes border on grotesque and would be impossible to pull off live; you’re going to need a strong tolerance for what progphobic critics have always labeled “pretension” in order to appreciate this album, even though the longest song is only seven-and-a-half minutes. Orchestral interludes, archaic acoustic instrumentation, narration (spoken by none other than IAN ANDERSON! He also plays flute on three tunes!), shifting time signatures and keys, this album has it all. Obviously it SCREAMS ‘return to form’ but if so the return has been gradual; once I got over my jilted-metalhead phase I had to admit SORCERESS was a pretty terrific album, and VENENUM as well featured some great material. However on the new album they’ve shaved off the cheese almost entirely—despite inviting Joey Tempest THE KING OF CHEESE to sing backing vocals on a song!—and created something that’s at once more ambitious than anything they’ve done in decades and more accessible on first listen as well. That’s coming from a longtime Opeth fan’s perspective, though; Mikael’s death growls were so crucial in my awakening to extreme music long ago, they’re extremely “accessible” to me now, whereas for you maybe the average screamo vocalist is more intelligible. In the end we only understand what we decide to tune into. There’s so much beauty and so much intensity to find on this album; if you can handle Gojira at the Olympics you have to at least give this a shot.
AKOMA | Jlin
https://jlin.bandcamp.com/album/akoma
This is the one I always get excited to put on, the one that if I have no better idea, if it’s lunchtime and I don’t want to bug my wife with my noisy bullshit, whether I need to be soothed or motivated, I can always turn to Jlin. These days my exposure to EDM amounts to artists I already know about plus those I stumble upon; that world is far too vast for me to get a full grasp of any more and I usually have higher priorities even if I’m at a festival. If you’re a regular reader here you might guess that I gravitate towards the more experimental/uncategorizable side of electronic music, or you may also astutely guess that my ‘raver days’ were the ‘90s and thus I’ll be tickled by nostalgia if it’s throwbacky to those heady days. You’re right on both counts in regards to AKOMA; inasmuch as any of Jlin’s mad collection of tones and beats can be singled out as specifically retro, this album does take me back at times, and if those DJs could’ve made songs like THIS back THEN, maybe I would’ve taken that route over the Phish route to body movement and, well, I doubt I’d be typing THIS. Where were we? Oh, right, my admission of not being an expert on this kind of music. That should give you at least somewhat of a sense of its potential universal appeal. It’s a great full journey but every time I listen to it I single out a new song as a favorite, ‘cause these are all self-contained ingenious compositions.
SONGS OF A DYING WORLD | The Cure
Small regional labels can sell vinyl records for $20 but The Cure demand $35 for this single disc. I’m pretty sure it costs way more per unit for a local artist to produce their product, but where The Cure are concerned, Polydor, Fiction, and Capitol Records all have to get their cuts and god knows who else. And The Cure are more concerned than most mainstream acts about fairness in concert ticketing, or so I’ve read, making the high cost of this glorified keepsake all the more frustrating. There’s no good reason a single album should cost that much unless the cost itself is part of the artistic statement; we’ve seen plenty of this over the past decade or so but I highly doubt Robert Smith put any thought into it. It’s simply this delusion of inflation we’ve fallen for as corporations rake in record profits year after year. It’s interesting, how we as a society say the same things over and over, like ‘social media is bad for us’, and ‘Fox News is brainwashing half our country’, and then we do nothing about it and it becomes so endemic all we can do is pretend it’s not actually true. But it is true, all of these things are true. I even broke down and bought this stupid record, because the first time I listened to the album it brought on such a powerful emotional catharsis I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t buy it. I did my part to further enrich those who are oppressing the other 99% of us, because I’m caught in the same capitalist death machine that Robert is. He wails about the futility of it all and it connects with my soul; the way it all gets swallowed up into nothing is part of the experience. To have it, is definitely WORTH $35. So if Capitol Records would be willing to offer a soul-connection money-back guarantee, fine. Failing that, I encourage you to steal this record in whatever sense you can because streaming it only enriches the cunts.
IMAGINAL DISK | Magdalena Bay
https://magdalenabay.bandcamp.com/album/imaginal-disk
This album took only a few listens to transform from ‘highly-touted album I need to familiarize myself with’ into something I listened to for pleasure and intrigue; after a few more spins it became something I craved frequently. That’s the perfect arc for pop music, unusual though; normally, at least for me, pop music is a quick fix and then I rarely think about it again. I’m too old to be making deep associations with this stuff. But when they make it into a BLACK MIRROR-type conceptual thing that…like even now I’m teetering on the edge of ACTUALLY entering the rabbithole of the Magdalena Bay cinematic universe…it makes sense that the effects would be longer-lasting. The thing is, you don’t need to know a thing about the story for these songs to worm their way into you. My first listen gave the impression of pure bubblegum; that was inaccurate even on a basic musical level but I was multitasking okay? So why did the songs already sound soooo welcoming the next time I listened? Stupid pop music! Only now does it dawn on me how easily otherwise smart people could be brainwashed by a simpleton. Anyway what this album is is mindfuck pop; most songs individually can twist you different ways the more you hear them, and then as a whole, like I said, I haven’t even let myself get fully twisted yet. I mean, did I FIGURE OUT the end of the third season of TWIN PEAKS? In any case I’m prolonging the hunt. With IMAGINAL DISK this duo have made something that’s rewarding on so many levels I don’t wanna spoil any more for you. I love how people will still try to tell you the album format is dead.
A LONELY SINNER | samlrc
https://samlrc.bandcamp.com/album/a-lonely-sinner
One cool thing about modern life is that ever since bands like Tortoise and Mogwai broke down the barriers between rock music and whatever comes after rock, the nebulous expanse of guitar-based music outside the verse-chorus-verse paradigm became instantly timeless. The term “post-rock” could just as easily be replaced by “post-1994”; there’s nothing about samlrc’s A LONELY SINNER that couldn’t have been done in the mid-‘90s, just as Tortoise could release MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE tomorrow and be hailed as pioneers. It always did come down to songwriting; no amount of improvisation or cranking the volume in a live setting can mask the absence of a seed of imagination and/or craftspersonship. Unlike most post-rock records, there are lyrics on this one, and I’m almost embarrassed to admit it’s yet another concept album about a semi-anthropomorphized hooved animal’s romantic travails. The very fact that these popped into my awareness (and there was at least one other in a similar vein…!) suggests something about young people and pan-species fantasies but I’m not planning on doing that research at the moment; all I know is these fantasies are inspiring incredible music. The lyrics don’t come to the fore in samlrc’s songs the way they do with Vylet Pony, though; this is more about slow-burning and heavy-surging music that gave me all the feels even before I could make out any of the words. The quieter interludes plunge me into surreality; some of this music must almost be in the realm of happy accident, fortuitous twists of knobs or permutations of an algorithm holding the ever-shifting ghostly atmospherics together, suspended in unease. The heavier parts are as wicked as the heaviest Godspeed or Swans or Isis or whatever your standard-bearer may be. It can be a painful album to get through but it’s worth hanging in there to get to the final two songs. There’s a current of joy running through “For M.” (a poignant Björk tribute at its heart) that’s reminiscent of Sigur Rós; it tends to catch me off guard after all that preceding angst, making it possible to take the final track, “The Beauty Of The Present Moment”, at face value; it’s two and a half minutes of Apollo Vermouth-esque droning serenity.
AMERICAN STANDARD | Uniform
https://unifuckingform.bandcamp.com/album/american-standard
I can’t tell you how excited I am for you if you’re a fan of heavy, abrasive guitar-driven music and haven’t heard this yet. Don’t squander that first listen. Or at least give it your focused attention one time through. Taking a cue from the Melvins’ (terrific) 2024 release TARANTULA HEART, Uniform put a single 20-minute epic on side A and a handful of shorter songs on side B. I could go on with some Melvins comparisons, although despite a lot of mathematical similarities in their music, Uniform’s intent is starkly different and the songs don’t FEEL remotely Melvins-ish. There’s no irony, no humor on AMERICAN STANDARD, and you don’t have to catch the lyrics to sense the profound darkness. When you do eventually get a sense of what the title track (side A) is trying to say, that’s when the er ‘uplifting’ Godspeed-esque section towards the end becomes all the more sickening. And it should sicken you, the way the trajectory of American society should sicken you. The lyrics don’t land nearly as well on side B; the imagery devolves into mindless violence and undercuts the mission, and unfortunately that problem extends way beyond Uniform and music so I can’t really dock points for the nature of their movement. “You can’t change who you are”, screams Michael Berdan in “Clemency”. “You can’t begin to take back/What you have already done”. It’s the gospel of non-forgiveness, whether directed outward or inward; I don’t agree with it but I can still recall the self-hatred that drew me to artists like Neurosis and Henry Rollins back in the day and these songs are so fucking good. If I based this list solely on first impressions, or if I could jive fully with the album’s overall message, this would probably be my #1 of the year; as is, side B is excellent but pales in comparison to the absolute masterpiece the title track is. Uniform are taking non-metal heavy guitar music to the extremes that a dying nation craves; it’s just tough to inspire change when you don’t even believe it’s possible.
UNPRECEDENTED SH!T | Ani DiFranco
https://anidifranco.bandcamp.com/album/unprecedented-sh-t
Ani had a bit of a fallow period, sayyyy starting around 2007 or so. She put out a pair of incredible and radically different records right in a row in ’04 and ’05 but suffered some severe tendonitis in the wake of playing those punishing tunes off EDUCATED GUESS on the guitar, and it seemed her songwriting suffered as well. At that point she was approaching 40; plenty of artists lose the muse for good around then and…well not that many musicians can ever afford to RETIRE but if they coulda they shoulda? Dylan was around the same age, for instance, when he entered his ‘Christian’ phase, soooo. Not that DiFranco didn’t come up with a brilliant new song now and then, and her 2021 album REVOLUTIONARY LOVE was mostly damn good, but she hadn’t composed a full collection nearly as powerful as UNPRECEDENTED SH!T in nearly 20 years. For one thing, her guitar playing is often right in the foreground and impossible not to drool over, never showy or especially aggressive, just…perfect for each moment. For another thing, these lyrics. For years she oscillated mostly between weighty dirges and a contentment bordering on disconnection, but on this album she mixes something like her old quirky whimsy with a more gentle and complex urgency, letting the subject matter and deliberately simple language convey the weight while her imagination runs wild through the music. It’s not enough to say that I find self-evident wisdom in songs like “New Bible” and “The Thing At Hand” and “The Knowing”; it now seems very unlikely that a majority of Americans would find the wisdom in them at all. But maybe that’s because people just haven’t thought about these things enough, or haven’t heard them put so beautifully.
THE CIME INTERDISCIPLINARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE | Cime
https://theccg.bandcamp.com/album/the-cime-interdisciplinary-music-ensemble
Yes, I did say in the introduction that nothing spoke directly to me in an AOTY-type way this year. However, there’s no question in my mind that this IS the album of the year; the more I listen to it, it’s not even close. I waited until the very end to write this paragraph so I’d be done thinking about all the other albums, so I could get as close as possible to discovering the album again. In some ways it’s the second listen that’s the most rewarding, because after you’ve lived through it once, you will not recognize it the next time you hear it as a fetus. You’ll be like ‘wait how did THAT album…stem from THIS…?’ And about four minutes later it will all have come rushing back to you, how it felt when it all built to this the first time, and you might recall that refrain of “Just in case I die” and how your mind went into what the kids used to refer to as a ‘time slip’ and nothing. will ever be the same. Oh how quickly they grow up. I’m guessing it was about the fifth time I listened to it and in my mind I was stringing together these stupid words like ‘funk’ and ‘math’ and ‘jazz’ and ‘hardcore’ and thinking what an unusual yet cooperative amalgamation the record is and how unnatural it was trying to fit the stupid words together and that’s when I realized the genre was actually Beefheart. Maybe emoBeefheart? Fusion? POST-? If you think about the way people (/I as a kid) interpreted Beefheart’s incredulous rage as grotesque comedy you might start to understand how his influence has permeated beyond the ‘weirdo’ realms we normally associate with his name. Once again I can only understand the English portions of CIME’s music but I did do some hack translating so I could edit out some potentially objectionable Spanish cursing and play “DIYUSA” on the air. This song alone hit me in a way that few others have this year; it plays like if Al Jouregensen walked in on a Meters jam session and immediately commandeered it and then laid back after getting some aggressions out. After that it’s the breakneck “Lempira (Or, The Lencan Crusade)” which sounds like Sweep The Leg Johnny with The Mascara Snake on vocals, and then it’s a 25-minute opus called “The North”. I doubt anything I could type beyond what I’ve already told you about CIME could either prepare you for or convince you of its glory but I bet there’s way more flute than you were expecting. Also I’m terrible about ‘trigger warning’ conventions but there should be a ‘self-harm’ one on this album I’m pretty sure. There’s a part of me that can hardly believe someone would put this work out into the world, and it’s fully enveloped by the part that’s immensely grateful.