2024, My Albums of the Year

the 40 best albums from the worst year of all of our lives

As you may, or may not, have noticed, I have not been particularly active this month. For me, November 2024 has been a “month where whole years happen”, and so the newsletter has taken a back seat, but I have been very reflective, and listening to a lot of music that will make its way to you all eventually.

2024 for me, has been a dramatic and exhausting year. I think back to this January, watching ‘Ran’ on my birthday, and it feels like a whole different era of my life. I don’t think I’m the only person to feel like this either, as London, Britain, and probably everywhere else are in the same state of having had enough. As I write here, in my Moin review for tQ: “Everyone I know is depressed; everyone you know is depressed. And every time you venture to a major population centre, it looks like Disco Elysium: everyone there is also depressed.”

One of the few comforts I’ve managed to draw has been a constant stream of beautiful, strange and emotional music, as I’ve been forced to navigate the most difficult year of my entire life. According to rateyourmusic, I have logged 750 new-to-me listens this year, including 200 from this year, and I feel like I am listening to the best music I have ever heard in my life right now.

Weirdly, in spite of it all, it really does feel like music is getting better. We live in times of recession and degradation, and all logical impulses suggest that this shouldn’t foster a brilliant worldwide music scene, but I think this has inexplicably been the best year for music, especially weird rock music, of the past decade. Every album on this list is amazing, and everything

For your viewing pleasure, I have decided to put my End of Year lists up on this newsletter. I will also put up a “best things I’ve heard for the first time”, alongside some posts on things that I discover from other peoples’ lists, but I thought I’d start with the biggie; these are my albums of the year, for the year that was 2024.

Find below a Bandcamp embed, and a one sentence summary of the best 40 albums of the year.

1. Still House Plants - If I Don’t Make It, I Luv U

Scottish group deconstruct rock and glue it back together again in a way that is wilting, woozy and completely wondrous.

2. Mabe Fratti - Sentir Que No Sabes

Guatemalan cellist, soundscapist and dabbler makes her most focused, poppy and industrial album yet. my review here.

3. Geordie Greep - The New Sound

Black Midi frontman soars to new, weird heights with this salsa-fuelled jazz-pilled avant-rock odyssey. my review here.

4. d.silvestre - d.silvestre

Outrageous baile-funk masterwork, a dizzy, industrial romp through Sao Paolo.

5, Able Noise - High Tide

Another fantastic deconstructed rock album, melting tapes of conniving guitars from a Hague-based duo.

6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - "No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead"

Their best since ‘Yanqui’, stark and arresting music for walking around a new city to.

7. Camila Bañados - Viento 1

Luscious and bewitching chamber-jazz, a Spanish language Ichiko Aoba here to whisk you away to another place.

8. Julián Mayorga - Chak Chak Chak

The 2020s’ Tom Ze returns, a goofy, inventive and groovy collection of songs from the Colombian iconoclast.

9. 王若琳 [Joanna Wang] - 破爛酒店 (Hotel la Rut)

Dizzy, dizzy collection of short and genre-skipping hit songs from the Taiwanese oddball popstar.

10. Natalie Rose Lebrecht - Primordial Sky Palace

Odyssean chamber-jazz undertaking, very much in the same vain as Joanna Newsom’s more daring piano songs – fantastic.

11. milkweed - Folklore 1979

Deeply strange and unsettling tape collage of freak-folk and 20th century English field recordings from the Shovel Dance associates.

12. Joanne Robertson & Dean Blunt - Backstage Raver

A marriage made in heaven, the best shoegaze album in years.

13. Bill Callahan - Resuscitate!

He’s backed by a real gnarly, blitzin’ band, making this live album a real highlight from the year’s listening for a Bill Calla-head like me.

14. Myriam Gendron - Mayday

Tender French Canadian folk music that will haunt you til your dying day.

15. Sisso & Maiko - Singeli Ya Maajabu

Truly crazy, liberating Tanzanian dance music – I found it very annoying at first but now it’s just good.

16. Martha Skye Murphy - Um

Soft-as-snow art-pop album. my review here.

17. Mohammad Syfkhan - I Am Kurdish

The album Syfkhan made after he fled to Ireland from Kurdistan, two worldwide hotspots for the bouzouki – guy’s a virtuoso.

18. Meridian Brothers - Mi Latinoamérica sufre

Glorious tropicanabalismo from Colombia, electric cambia-shaped guitar pop.

19. Shellac - To All Trains

R.I.P Herr Albini. As good as ever, right to the end. my review here.

20. various artists - funk.br: Sao Paolo

Off-the-wall baile-funk taster from NTS.

21. Maruja - Connla’s Well

Manc post-rock band really find their feet here, glorious gothic skronk a la BCNR and Slint.

22. Clairo - Charm

I don’t know why but I just find myself thinking ‘so true’ every time I hear a Clairo song.

23. ||Ala|meda|| - Spectra 02

Gqom! Writhing dance music from South Africa.

24. DJ Anderson do Paraíso - Queridão

Another instant classic baile-funk album, this one from the amazing Nyege Nyege label. Demonstrates the instant, fragmented, confused headrush of the genre.

25. Jacken Elswyth - At Fairgrounds

Another Shovel Dance associate, Elswyth makes wistful and exquisite Appalachian folk music.

26. Julia Holter - Something In The Room She Moves

Not her best, but a compelling collection of throbbing electroacoustic pop songs from one of - in my opinion - the 21st century’s greatest artists.

27. Moin - You Never End

Fragmented, frayed and ‘fraid rock music created by electronic guys, sounds very of its time (as in 2024, and in the worst possible timeline of world events). my review here.

28. Koki Nakano - Ululō

Minimalist composer Nakano makes glacial and tender music, where every single note feels consequential. I listened to this walking around Berlin for the first time, and it felt like a cannon life event.

29. Or Best Offer - Centre

Noodly, scuzzy noise rock from NYC – 2024 truly the year of rock music.

30. Avalanche Kaito - Talitakum

Collab between a Belgian noise group and a Burkinabe griot, particularly compelling fusion on show.

31. Tyler, the Creator - Chromakopia

The best mainstream rap album of the year, the one that finally, finally, sold Tyler to me as someone I should really care about.

32. Crizin da Z.O. - Acelero

More brutal Brazilian music, this one more like deranged hip-hop than phonk.

33. Tristwch Y Fenywod - Tristwch y Fenywod

Welsh language witchy, droney folk music – you wish The Cure still sounded this bewitching.

34. Blue Bendy - So Medieval

Literary melodic post-punk that seems to wilt to the whim of the loud northern frontman. my review here.

35. Papangu - Lampião Rei

Writhing Brazilian prog rock, which reminds me of Black Midi more than any of the old-head bands.

36. Wendy Eisenberg - Viewfinder

Improvised jazz guitar music from one of the key axes in Bill Orcutt’s guitar quartet, this comes out the end of it all sounding a bit like Gastr Del Sol.

37. Sahra Halgan - Hiddo Dhawr

Somalian refugee Sahra Halgan makes absolute dynamite rock music that blends the Qarami of back home with the beat music of her adopted European home.

38. ØKSE - ØKSE

A great jazz-rap collection, with some great features to boot; ØKSE’s free, expressive playing makes genuinely compelling beats.

39. Bianca Scout - Pattern Damage

In a just world, Bianca Scout would be the biggest alternative pop star in the world and we would have had a Pattern Damage Summer.

40. Good Sad Happy Bad - All Kinds of Days

National treasures return, jammy and jolty, this is like a really good version of what it sounds like every time I try and make music.

That’s all for now folks. Be excellent to each other. If you have a different, wrong opinion, feel free to comment it below. Adieu.