Top 25 Records of 2024
I swear these years whip by quicker and quicker. There’s a theory that our perception of a year feels shorter as we get older because 12 months are a smaller slice of our entire existence. So, in percentage terms, we’re dealing with a slimmer slither compared to those school days when the long summers seemed to stretch out way beyond the glittering horizon, almost into infinity. Endless, some might say. Christian Fennesz ought to write an album about that. Anyway, despite knowing all of that, 2024 flew. Here we are at the end and I’m once again writing that thing I do around this time each year… although I’m still not entirely sure why.
Good lord there’s been some music. There were grand returns, huge losses, and a record so big that a candidate to become president of the world’s foremost superpower was eager to be associated with it. I’m not going to talk about any of that. Those albums have already been gifted column inches better calculated in mileage.
Before I get to the main event here are a few that didn’t quite make the cut.
Two artists with previous here - Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements - paired up for a buoyant set of atmospherics. Sarah Davachi immersed us in admirably painstaking drones. So did Kali Malone (read my full review here). Smote explored that idea with a heavier focus (and I caught up with Daniel for Boulderdash Zine), Midwife’s latest continued her enthralling evolution, there was a much welcome full-length outing from the trio made up of Karl O’Connor, Liam Andrews, and Boris Wilsdorf (I reviewed that one for the Quietus). The Bug was on no less devastating solo duty (another review if you’re so inclined), there were a particularly intriguing set of processed field recordings from Max Julian Eastman & Cyess Afxzs, Steve Von Till supplied not one, not two, but three Harvestman records (I spoke to him about those here), The Deafening Veil from J Doursou considered the Ukraine war through an intensely personal lens, Sumac delivered their finest statement yet (and I got to chat to Aaron Turner about his favourite records), and we were unexpectedly bestowed fresh Throbbing Gristle via this recently uncovered live document.
Speaking of TG, one of the best compilations of the year was inspired by the industrial legends and came courtesy of the ever-reliable Industrial Coast. IC/TG/UT – A Sickening Outrage is a dazzling artefact, bursting at the seams with experimental talent all turning their attentions to one of the most influential bands ever to batter an audience with feedback. This one features such gilded characters as Andrew Nolan, Like Weeds, Himukalt, George Rayner-Law, Pale World, CM Von Hausswolff, and so many more.
You can read a chat I had with Steve of Industrial Coast for Bandcamp’s Tape Label Report here.
Brachliegen Tapes’ Request Stop was another favourite from this year’s compilation game. It came in early February and delivered 16 cuts of bus-bliss-not-bliss from names including Degradation, Heavy Cloud, Sly & The Family Drone, Jo Montgomerie, and Like Weeds. Yep. If Like Weeds is on a compilation, I’m probably going to dig it.
And last but certainly not least is the exquisite True Listening Is Love In Action comp from Outsider Art. This one also brings with it reams of devastating noise, hand-picked from 13 artists across OA’s stellar back catalogue, all delivering something new to mark the 100th release on the label. We’re talking about the likes of Plague Mother, Cremation Lily, Fleshlicker, Slow Murder, Beheading, Viimeinen, and, of course, Knifedoutofexistence. Highly, highly recommended.
OK. Here are the 25 releases of 2024 that had the biggest impact on me. In alphabetic order, as is now tradition:
J.G. Biberkopf – The Seed, The Sinkhole, The Flower, and The Flare (Subtext Recordings)
I first stumbled across J.G. Biberkopf’s work with 2015’s Ecologies. It was a jaw-dropping smudge of electro-acoustic wares that signalled incredible things to come. Which they did with Ecologies II and Fountain of Meaning, landing in quick succession. Signalling the end of a 7-year silence, this triumphant return imbued a haunting emotional heft to the digital swirls, pulses, and flurries that stack up across an ever-mounting workout for the mind, body, and soul.
The Body & Dis Fig – Orchards of a Futile Heaven (Thrill Jockey)
Famed for their inventive and often surprising collaborations, The Body teamed up with Dis Fig for a fully blown-out partnership. This is a melding of minds, voices, and production. Their complimentary aesthetics perfectly syncing up to generate a genuinely affecting set of atmospherics that dares to go far beyond the sum of their already daunting parts. If the deep-burning sludge blisters or massive, whomping drums don’t get you, the unholy duet of Chip King’s immolated howl and the spacious croon of Dis Fig undoubtedly will.
Leila Bordreuil – 1991, Summer, Huntington Garage Fire (Hanson Records)
Tense and brooding. The opening track on this album is an incredible live recording of Leila utilising her cello and myriad electronics to go to town on audio from a fire insurance home video. It builds and burns, flitting, decimating, and downright lacerating all in its path as she channels God-knows-what into this vigorous and rigorous trail of carnage. If it was just that 23-minute opener, this would be an astounding piece but, couple it with the remaining 6 tracks of repurposed atmosphere, and you’ve got something quite special indeed.
British Murder Boys – Active Agents and House Boys (Downwards Records)
“BMB expand on Coil’s elegant blend of sinister electronics, occult leanings, and dirt black sense of humour to include writhing beats, shrieked feedback, and submission to rhythm as their own form of ritual. The album title also recalls Sleazy’s post-Coil outfit – The Threshold Houseboys Choir – and BMB’s use of imagery purloined from Pasolini’s infamous anti-fascist work Salò mirrors Coil’s own interest in the murdered director.”
Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee (W.25TH)
What’s Tonight To Eternity meshed together the art pop sensibilities of Patrick Flegel (Cindy Lee) with an avant-garde strain that occasionally dipped into furious feedback. Of course I loved it. This goes in a different direction entirely. It’s an epic of sixties heartbroken pop colliding with fuzzed-out vintage psych on a spine of spindly funk. It’s rock and roll’s alternate timeline where hazy vulnerability and a knack for open-heart poetry kicked machismo right off the roost. And did I mention that this is a 2-hour opus absolutely heaving with sultry hooks that’ll keep you locked in for the duration? That and you only need to go 5 songs deep to hear my song of the year. Insert ‘take my money’ and ‘hook it directly to my veins’ memes here.
Container - Yacker (Gentle Defect)
“Yacker is eighteen-wheeled carnage. It rockets forwards like a spanked shark, chumming in shallow water using your ears as bait. It’s all crashes, groin-girding bass, and cacophonous fire-alarm electronics.”
Dhangsha - Broadcast Signal Intrusion (Brachliegen Tapes)
Doing exactly what it says on the tin, Dhangsha’s Broadcast Signal Intrusion takes oddly familiar snippets of sound and winds them up into a taut coil that then bursts out in an exhilarating expulsion of propulsive rhythms. Reimagining, upsetting, and recalibrating your expectations in the process as its jacked transmissions unspool like a feral hound tearing after its own tail.
Jacken Elswyth – At Fargrounds (Wrong Speed Records)
Formed from a banjo, a shruti box, and not much else, the 3rd solo release from Shovel Dance Collective’s Jacken Elswyth dances delicately across the old synapses, fizzing life and light across weary minds with each plucked string. She seamlessly blends instrumentals from the Western tradition with improvised runs, muddying the chronology and borders of each piece, implying that the where and when that we might think of as here and now, really is of little consequence. This music resonates through tapped feet, in the increased beating of hearts within rib cages, and along hands resting gently upon pliant shoots of grass.
Ghost Dubs - Damaged (Pressure)
“Early in the twentieth century, the Italian Futurists envisioned music that mimicked the sounds of war. Early Industrial peddlers Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire reflected the cacophony of assembly lines and machinery onto braying audiences. With manufacturing and industry a vanishing prospect in the Western world, the emptied, oxidising warehouses and steel carcasses stand as lonely monuments to decaying ideas. In their midst, Ghost Dubs utilises the low-end workouts of King Tubby, Raime’s spatiotemporal acumen, and the industrial tinkering of Missing Brazilians to haunting effect.”
Green Tea – Owl Arcana (Satatuhatta)
I knew this one was going straight into the top 25 from the moment it entered my ears nearly 6 months ago. Nick Forté’s second release for the frankly phenomenal Finnish label, Satatuhatta, is a playground of experimental sound activity that lists and lurches from soft synth melodics and gently rumbling field recordings to cacophonic feedback that roars like a lit lion. It’ll make your ears prick up. It demands your attention. Each repeated listen unveils something anew from within these warped waves sloshing across the mangled mixing desk. It’s far more than a grab bag of sonic trickery, however, there’s something stirring, startling, and deeply moving about these compositions. As if Forté has buried his soul within every sound so that each distorted perambulation allows a snipped glimpse of racked woes, aching hurt, and precious, precious hope.
Jabu – A Soft and Gatherable Star (Do You Have Peace?)
“Through little more than fragile instrumentation, poetic lyricism, and spacious production, the Bristolians have crafted aural gloaming. Some balk at darkness’ incessant creep as the nights draw in but, if you find comfort in its obsidian embrace, Jabu will meet you there, lit by the light of the moon.”
KRM & KMRU – Disconnect (Phantom Limb)
Concentrated, patient, and looming with sub bass, this collaborative incursion from two masters of bowel-loosening frequencies and sublime electronics carves out a novel trench of heaving musical matter. The tracks on Disconnect crawl along at a plodding pace but hit with such potency that they leave huge craters in their wake. If you’ve encountered either Kevin Richard Martin (AKA The Bug) or Joseph Kamaru before, you’ll know that you’re in for a treat and, if this is your first rodeo, hold on tight.
Chloe Lula – Oneiris (Subtext Recordings)
Somehow filling that Raime Quarter Turns… era hole that we all have in our lives. Lula’s cello exploits are made up of the same cavernous dramatics that Andrews and Halstead employed to such a devastating degree on their 2012 debut. This also draws in the type of low-end rumbles that you might expect from MMMD or Sunn O))) gone acoustic, elevating Lula to the dizzy heights occupied by Resina, Lucy Railton, Hildur Guðnadóttir, and the aforementioned Leila Bordreuil, all pushing the cello forward into fascinating aural realms.
Moor Mother – The Great Bailout (Anti-)
Regular readers of this blog will know that I struggle to make it through a year without raving about a Moor Mother release. She’s a modern-day musical Midas with so much to say and so many innovative ways of saying it. Here are some words I pulled together for my day job: “Camae Ayewa continues to astound with every fresh iteration of her Moor Mother alias and The Great Bailout is no exception - this poetic assemblage incorporates experimental turns, free jazz, and facets of noise as it lights a deep & righteous fire, laser-guided with ire at a self-congratulating establishment unwilling to face up to its grotesque past.”
Bill Orcutt – How To Rescue Things (Palilalia)
Landing in the first week of December, Bill’s wondrous interplay of dextrous fretwork and reappropriated easy listening cuts managed to sound exactly like the Christmas album of my dreams whilst simultaneously upending the recent trend towards fashionable Country and Americana. There may well be church bells and yuletide choirs, but this is a sun-scorched effort that finds Orcutt shredding like a madman as gentle harps vriiing out through a saccharine cloud of ecclesiastic crooning. It doesn’t take too many finger-flinging flurries before the flickering candle of this generous reframing melts even the most ice-hearted of listeners. And, once you’re on board, you’ll likely get stuck, as I did, listening to it over and over and over again. I mean, why wouldn’t you want this soundtracking every waking moment of your day?
Misha Phillips – Moulin Rouge Is Next (Outsider Art)
Another late entry, sneaking in just before the year drew to a close. This is a sterling work of quiet, whispered vocals, volatile guitars, tape manipulation, prying drones, and total, engulfing distortion. It was released exactly one year to the day following a devastating housefire in which Misha lost near enough everything. Incredibly, she was able to reclaim these recordings from the wreckage and pieced together this deeply moving release which ends on its most poignant note: a wobbling sample of Jimmy Campbell’s ‘In My Room’, in which he lists the contents of his room and announces that he’ll “burn them all”, being brutally interrupted by a tempestuous firework display of exploding toms, snare shots, kicks, smashed cymbals, and blasts of fiery feedback before woozing out with stunning time-warped drones that gradually peel off into the ether.
Quiet Husband – Religious Equipment (Drowned By Locals)
“Religious Equipment takes us on a pain-strewn journey from birth to death. The gaping void spanning those two events are filled, here, with a mixed, yet tonally focused, cornucopia of artistic expression. Desperate hedonism tips towards nihilism. There are waves of aggressive distortion which obliterate everything, muddying waters and sandblasting minds, and there’s a sort of pathetic hilarity, primarily on third track ‘Klonopin’ which features a recording of two people discussing the importance of health and family. I say discussing, it’s actually a stonewall back and forth with one evangelising, in a desperately sad tone, that “being healthy is the main thing in your life” whilst their gruff interrogator roughly retorts “what else?”. The frail melody in the former’s jaunty hopelessness just makes it seem all the more pitiful. Culver’s framing of this tired grin-and-bear-it resignation is both heartbreaking and widely relatable.”
Rainfall Widens The Cracks In The Concrete / Stonecirclesampler – After Dark / Searching For The Green Man Inn London, After Dark (Industrial Coast)
A form of obsidian ambience that creeps in through windows that should have been locked shut the moment that the lights went out. Pooled together like separate puddles merging upstream of a blocked drain, these conjoined releases from Stonecirclesampler and Rainfall Widens The Cracks In The Concrete conspire to dollop Soho sirens and pattering rain with undulations of churning bass and a dual feeling of uncertainty and excitement. They paint with just enough suggestion for us to impress our own narratives upon the wyrd and darkened soundscapes. Set ‘em up and sink right in.
Secret Boyfriend – Listener’s Guide (Enmossed)
Technically a compilation of some of Secret Boyfriend’s finest wares from across the past 8 years, this release flows together so perfectly that it’s now difficult to place the tracks back into their original contexts. It feels as if this was how they were always meant to be discovered, how newcomers were intended to be introduced. It’s a beautiful welcome into Ryan Martin’s tenebrous world of distortion, gloom, and wraithlike pop elements. That and I couldn’t resist slipping Secret Boyfriend onto a list with Quiet Husband.
Sly & The Family Drone – Moon is Doom Backwards (Human Worth)
These proper avant-psych-jazz bruisers are perennial awardees of the “best live band” accolade. This outing veers slightly away from their recent live shows, with its careful and thoughtful build up. Don’t worry - they still absolutely slam. Their dual drummer + multiple percussionist + skronked out sax + double noise pedalboard formula ain’t changing anytime soon. Ever increasing in both sonic depth and deployment of serpentine rhythms that carefully and oh-so-slowly ratchet up the tension until bedlam has gripped your every available limb and pinned you to the wall, this pummels your existence stratospheric just when you think it’ll send you subterranean. It might take a listen or two to grasp the almost uncharacteristically subtle evolutions occurring at the heart of Moon Is Doom Backwards but once you’re in, you won’t want out.
Tourette - Matière Arrachée (Flag Day Recordings)
An astounding cut up noise assault that only made it to my ears a few days ago. Just 30 minutes long, it rips through deranged assaults seemingly composed of bottled wind, treadmill pulses, gargling volcanos, wooden beams that crackle then creak then crumble, demented fax machines, and all manner of inanimate objects that seem to have developed the ability to jostle and jerk around. It’s a cerebral workout which demands you pay attention well beyond what your mind might be saying. Right up there as one of this year’s finest.
UKAEA – Birds Catching Fire In The Sky (state51)
Total brain disruption. Like transmissions sent from a dystopian future back to warn us of the dangers of our current path. This is powered by the buzz of belligerent energy, a long melancholy shadow of international remorse, utter discombobulation, and beats that will cause full-throated frothing from even the hardest of gabber heads. If you haven’t caught this dazzling beast, made up of Dan Jones and amassed crew, in the flesh, I cannot recommend the experience enough. It’s one of those live shows that fine-tunes your neurons, leaves your inspiration flaring, and your ears aflame with a voice that sounds oddly similar to your own, hysterically bellowing for more.
Unglee Izi - MUSIQUE de L'A.S.M.A._CHRONOS de TELEHOR et SPACE MODULATOR_Plan I, II, III, IV (Nashazphone)
The sort of sonic experimentation that reminds you that there are still innovative sounds, structures, and approaches to be experienced. If you find yourself tiring of yet another band writing yet another song that follows blueprints which felt hackneyed 30 years ago, pop this little set (just 2 whip-quick hours) of sonic transcendence on and blow the dust off those lesser travelled pathways in your noggin. It is synaptic excellence. A total delight that finds incredible radical ways to surprise exhausted ears even upon second, third, or fifteenth listen. The double CD edition has been a firm fixture on my stereo for almost 12 months now and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Vanishing – Shelter Of The Opaque (state51)
There’s something about anguished spoken word that I’ll always have a soft spot for. Here Gareth Smith enlists a crew studded with stars from the UK underground - Karl D'Silva, Sam Weaver, Agathe Max, Ecka Mordecai, Otto Willberg, and Howard Jacobs – to craft a sensational tapestry woven from yawning sax, stuttering strings, rising woodwind, and a slew of electronic burbles, gurgles, and beats. The ennui and uncertainty that riddle the lyrics crashes up against a bolshy and certain edge. This intriguing juxtaposition gifts the entire enterprise with the sense of having stumbled across a secret performance that was never intended for your ears. A clandestine creation that threatens the listener with fear of discovery. If you ask me, these are all symptoms indicative of a sturdy Blue Jam diet.
Xiu Xiu - 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips (Polyvinyl Recording Co.)
Despite having loved Xiu Xiu for years, this one totally side-swiped me. It’s a step above for a band that I assumed had already peaked. Here are some sentences I wrote for the old 9-5: “An absolute must-listen from the now Berlin-based duo - it swerves fantastically into a hook-fuelled pop sphere without losing a single ounce of Xiu Xiu’s visceral and experimental approach. It booms and blasts new ground, taking no prisoners in the process. It just might be *whisper it* their masterpiece”
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