2024 :: Q3
Heeeyyyyyyyyyyyy…………
Firstly, please forgive this edition of my 2024 quarterlies being as late as it is; aside from my days predominantly being held under a heavy shroud of forlorn helplessness as worlds both familiar and far away careen ever more violently towards oblivion, there’s no real excuse for the tardiness honestly.
I had tried to draft something resembling a more carefree opener earlier in September with my lukewarm-to-cold take about how both Alien Romulus and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice weren’t that bad for the exercises in brand integrity that they were, plus how absolutely meh that thing with Nicole Kidman and Bono’s daughter on Netflix was despite Jack Reynor being as incorrigibly adorable as ever and Liev Schreiber graduating into Mitch Pileggi-tier daddyness.
But no; if the immediate and wider world around me is falling into disrepair as quickly and devastatingly as it is, I would sooner focus on what good is being brought into it from creators bringing to bear equal reserves of integrity and talent to fully realise something worthy of my and maybe even your time, especially considering I have spent over 1150 album’s worth of listening for these past nine months, even if it is to make sure my playlist for the post-end-times is the absolute fuckest-uppest.
I know it’s certainly not enough to offer solace to anyone reading this whose lives have been desolated by the present-day world order, be it by destructive artillery or governmental indifference, but it’s all I can muster right now.
And on that downbeat note, let’s put our best outside-world-muffling sand-helmets on to discuss some of the best music to see release over the past three months, shall we?
A Late Submission From Q2 2024
Yours Until The War Is Over by Amigo The Devil
Adding another fifty entries into my listening schedule for the past three months was all of those “Best Of The Year So Far” lists popping up near the end of June, and though most of these late entries mainly consisted of K-Pop (thanks, NME) and cloud-rap (thanks every other music review aggregate site trying to be as ‘down-with-the-kids’ as Pitchfork), it may have all been worth it for my discovery of one of the best folk albums of the year, courtesy of singer/songwriter Danny Kiranos’ fourth album under his murder-folk persona.
Though Kiranos’ storytelling zeal for gritty and grisly tales of American Gothic probably tapped into my particular tastes better due to the Florida-hailing musician’s latest album being released during a truly batshit US election year, there’s no denying the craft and diligence with which the troubadour acquits himself here via vividly wrought vignettes of displaced souls searching for money, vice, love and redemption in the more emotionally desolate environs of the American experience, Kiranos essaying each of his characters and their stories with enough compassion and humour to not render them as miserable pastiches of country-folk idioms from the past.
My Preferred Albums 10 Albums Of 2024 Q3
And now, ten of the best examples of people understanding the assignment from July onwards that I was able to keep up with…
BETA बेटा by Peter Cat Recording Co.
Still going strong fifteen years after forging in their home city of Delhi, the alternative rock quintet’s eighth album finds them travelling through space and time in a most multi-culturally stimulating fashion, recording over three continents to deliver a heady enmeshing of jazz, pop, R&B, disco and house that is truly timeless.
The most impressive facet of this album though is that despite all of the influences and genre flourishes on display, it never feels overstuffed or heavy-handed, with each element instead given its moment to breathe and shine rather than fighting for space and delivering a guilelessly entertaining journey full of charm and vitality.
Cascade by Floating Points
Of the current crop of electronic music wunderkinder, Sam Shepherd easily ranks among the most prolific, most versatile and most frustratingly absent in terms of mainstream exposure, the DJ and producer somehow finding time to score anime sagas and ballet productions as well as deliver Mercury Prize-nominated avant-classical-jazz projects and unadulteratedly sweaty dancefloor long-forms without nearly as much notice as the likes of Fred again.. or Jamie xx.
Ideally, his third solo album ought to change that; composed in nightly tandem with his daytime work on the aforementioned ballet assignment, Cascade stands proud as one of the most consistently propulsive electronic music albums of the year, delivering some of the most sumptuous, astutely-realised IDM-infused house music the past nine months has yet heard thanks to his keen ear for the rise-and-falls and the beauties in the breakdown that can be found amidst all this synthey chicanery.
I LAY MY LIFE DOWN FOR YOU by JPEGMAFIA
It’s fair to say that 2024 has not been my year for hip hop, especially considering most of the year’s oxygen in terms of the genre’s release slate has been governed my hazy trap-hop, a sub-genre I have never really been able to see through the smoke enough to find truly arresting; so thank goodness the alternative hip hop scene can count on someone like JPEGMAFIA to keep things if not robust and alive then at least twitchy and interesting.
Granted, I may be grading this on a curve that is far less steep than what was afforded to Peggy’s collaboration with fellow left-of-centre wordsmith Danny Brown last year, but there’s no denying that the producer/rapper’s rambunctious energy is still as impishly ribald as ever, in turn delivering one of the most genuinely punk albums of the year, this latest smirk-filled compilation filled with as much bile, recrimination and anger as it is entertainingly trollsome non-sequiturs.
Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay
In terms of music trends at least, 2024 will most likely be remembered as the Gregorian passage of time where female-fronted pop ensnared the public’s imagination with the likes of Sabirna Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Charli XCX governing the singles charts whilst Taylor Swift endeavoured to release a new version of her two-hour beige-athon The Tortured Poets Department each week to maintain an unrivalled superiority over the album sales and streaming formats.
That being said, there has also been an upswell of independent electronic pop entering the fray this year, the best of which (so far anyway) being synthpop duo Magdelena Bay’s rapturous second album of wistfully amused tunes; holding sway with percolative authority via a winsome mix of throwback disco and pitch-perfect sophisticated pop, they straddle that charismatic line of being able to make you swoon and dance at the same time with nary a shimmering synth or breathy vocal out of place.
Mendelssohn: Piano Trios by Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis & Jeremy Denk
Somewhat ironically depending on how wide your tastes may range, the same predicament I have found with hip hop music releases this year is somewhat similar to the mire I have ended up with regards to classical, in that I have been increasingly swarmed with overlong album after overlong album to the point where it has become something of a blur, and as a result ending up a little out of my depth.
Still, even my limited association with everything classical could not deny the superiority with which the three principal players featured on this recording essay the fabled German composer’s works for violin, cello and piano, each of them imbuing every piece with a technical prowess matched only by the fabulous synergy that truly captures the Mendelssohn’s work in all of its slow-burning brilliance.
Migratory by Masayoshi Fujita
Ambient electronica with a refined, nu-classical twist takes a turn at the stereo now, courtesy of Japanese instrumentalist Fujita’s transpotive new album, a plaintive journey into the unknown via the beautiful environs of his homeland that beatifically taps into precious soundscapes that are built around the composer’s fabled percussive tool of choice, the vibraphone.
What makes this particular project even more special though is the sensitive duality at play throughout, inspired by the wondrous natural environment of his newfound home in the Kyoto highlands to create pieces that evoke both the furtive buzz of wanderlust and the spiritual succour that can only be felt when returning home, each composition holding this gorgeous balance of yearning and reconciliation with evermore moving subtlety and grace.
No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin by Meshell Ndegeocello
Currently enjoying quite the impressive run over the past twelve months in terms of content and delivery, Meshell Ndegeocello follows up both her epic 2023 album The Omnichord Real Book and her collaborative tribute to jazz luminary Sun Ra with Red Hot Organization earlier this year with another tributary, this time honouring the excellence in both the work and person of one of black literature’s true heroes, James Baldwin.
Using the author and activist’s words as inspiration alongside her committed band of performers, Ndegeocello produces a gorgeous body of work that mixes jazz, spoken word, soul and folk music to arrestingly evoke the hope, struggle, pain and joy Baldwin elicited from his own musings, a heart-breaking channelling of the rage and beauty felt both by the truth speaker and his contemporaries as well as Ndegeocello and her compatriots in the present day.
Odyssey by Nubya Garcia
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic pond, one of the UK jazz’s most exciting performers returns with her second album as bandleader and principal player, with saxophonist Nubya Garcia following up her vitally fabulous 2020 debut with a gorgeous offering that finds her skills maturing more and more impressively than what had been previously heard.
Enjoying a somewhat flashier company of players this time around including fellow female stalwarts Esperanza Spalding and Georgia Anne Muldrow, Garcia’s continued ascendence in craft, composition and technique takes on a more magisterial quality than her previous album, the album’s title a somewhat on-the-nose shorthand for both the beauteous journey itself and its progenitors own ever-maturing sonic evolution as an artist.
The Thief Next To Jesus by Ka
A bona fide veteran of the underground New York rap scene since the mid-1990s, Kaseem Ryan’s career is that of a journeyman who creates tracks and rhymes purely out of integrity and expression, especially considering that when he’s not self-releasing one album every year he is serving his homestead of Brooklyn as a registered firefighter.
His delivery weathered and wounded but never out for the count, Ryan’s latest LP is one of the most consistently moving albums of the year, Ka offsetting his bitter stories of gang violence and desperate poverty customary with inner city life with gospel samples that tow the line between darkly ironic and soul-crushingly sad, Ryan vividly realising in audio form that old proverb of honour amongst thieves.
3+5 by Melt-Banana
And if you’re not quite ready to snap back to reality yet, please find this playfully brutal onslaught of chirpy noise rock, buoyed by the kind of gleefully anarchic spirit that allows its creators after a decade-plus absence to put influencees such as Sleigh Bells and 100 gecs in their place.
For those not privy to the Japanese duo’s charms, its basically the kind of music Radical Edward would listen to, and if you got excited by that reference, this is definitely for you!
Further Listening
And in the name of making sure that we have something for everyone, a few tidbits about the Best of the Rest album-wise reads below…
Noteable Notations:
As I mentioned previously when waxing lyrical about Messrs Bell, Isserlis and Denk in my Top Ten, I had quite the glut of classical offerings to get through over the past three months (thanks, The Guardian), but in the interest of making myself look like an absolute noob, the clutch of releases I personally found rather illuminating are as follows.
In terms of canonical reverance, you can do far worse than casting an ear towards either the debut collection from operatic upstart Aigul Akhmetshina, the fabulous Yannick Nezet-Seguin navigating the Chamber Orchestra of Europe through Johannes Brahms‘ symphonies, or Trio Bohemo tackling both Bedrich Smetana and Franz Schubert with adept virtuosity.
For something a little more iconoclastic in terms of post-modern compositions, both Rose Wollman and Dror Baitel’s collaborative project celebrating female composers from the 1800’s right up to the present day should quell such qualms, as well as Quatuor Molinari’s powerful playing through abstract composer Giacinto Scelsi‘s string quartets and trios.
And for the more contemporary-minded, listed in no particular order of merit here are the avant-classical/orchestral jazz hybrid marathon that is Daniel Inzani’s three-disc compilation, a more electronically-infused effort from Lance Gurisik, and a timely reminder of Middle Eastern beauty from past and present from Turkish pianist Beyza Yazgan.
Aigul by Aigul Akhmetshina – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Brahms: Symphonies by Yannick Nezet-Seguin & Chamber Orchestra Of Europe – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Breaking Glass Ceilings: Music By Unruly Women by Rose Wollman & Dror Baitel – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Human Cocoon by Beyza Yazgan – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Proffer by Lance Gurisik – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Scelsi: Integrale des quatuors a cordes et Trio a cordes by Quatuor Molinari – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Selected Worlds by Daniel Inzani – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Smetana & Schubert: Piano Trios by Trio Bohemo – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
More Modular Movements:
For those who prefer their suites to be a little less “Proms-ey” though, there was plenty of releases on the electronic music front to keep the more rave-minded listener sated too.
Summer may be officially over, but just in case the freak bursts of sunshine and heat catch you off-guard, appropriately sweaty vibes abound with a more international bent courtesy of works from experimental Congolese collective KOKOKO!, Italian drummer Valentina Magaletti and Portusguese beatmaker Nidia joining forces with sinuous results on their first collaborative effort, and South African DJ and producer DJ Lag continuing to give house music a more Africanised, rebellious flavour.
For those seeking something a little more esoteric, you can divert your attentions to either the more art-pop-inspired sonic environs of American musician Chris Taylor’s electro-alt-pop project Body Meat, art-rock folktronica vibes curated by producer John Vanderslice for his Google Earth outift (even if searching for this online can prove to be a bit tricky to search for some!), and lush minimal techno with added orchestral weight courtesy of Olafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen’s ten-years-later follow-up to the eponymous release of glacial beauty.
And finally, you can cap things off with some no-frills, instant-classic blasts of old-school jungle music courtesy of duo Tim Reaper and Kloke bringing the beats hard and fast on their Hyperdub debut.
BUTU by KOKOKO! – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Estradas by Nidia & Valentina – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
II by Kiasmos – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
In Full Effect by Tim Reaper & Kloke – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Starchris by Body Meat – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Street View by Google Earth – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
The Rebellion by DJ LAG – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
The Genreless Rest:
If neither concert halls and dusty warehouses aren’t really your venues of choice though, there may be something amidst this grab-bag of a roster that could tickle your pickle…
Following through on the current trend of prodigiously talented sisters doing it for themselves, you also have new albums from alt-pop mavens Paris Paloma and Nilufer Yanya helping to break through the glass ceiling, as well as ambient jazz composer Nala Sinephro‘s scoring major swoons on her sophomore effort.
In terms of R&B and hip hop, you can enjoy either Rosie Lowe‘s latest LP of sultry alternative soul, or American rapper Logic‘s high concept sonic accompaniment to his debut sci-fi novel, which thankfully totally stands on its own in terms of imperious cool.
And finally, for the more elegiacally-inclined amongst you, there were at least two pieces of warmly-rendered redemptive feels brought to bear in Q3 by my reckonings, namely the reverb-drenched goth-pop found on Danish beatmaker Trentemøller‘s seventh album, and the bombastic uplift sung in the face of mortal adversity throughout Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds‘ latest longform.
Cacophony by Paris Paloma – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Dreamweaver by Trentemoller – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Endlessness by Nala Sinephro – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Lover, Other by Rosie Lowe – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
My Method Actor by Nilufer Yanya – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Ultra 85 by Logic – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Wild God by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Q3 Top 5 Eps
Before we go though, just a bite-sized cadre of sonic liquers to wash the veritable smorgasbord of albums down with, courtesy of the extended play format keeping these artists’ release schedules busy for their most dedicated of fans.
Deceltica by Koreless; longtime collaborator with fellow Young Turks labelmate FKA twigs finally follows through on some new solo material after their mercurial debut LP from 2021 with something more minimalistic, sweatier and sexier. // Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Everything Squared by Seefeel; the post-rock/dream-pop/IDM London outifit returns to the scene thirteen years after their presumed sign off album saw release with nary a swoon out of place. // Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Segmente by JakoJako; Berghain-resident DJ and performer Sibel J. Koçer offers something a little more playfully pummeling with her specific brand of distorted techno beats and modular synths. // Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Sophcore by Moses Sumney; even when deviating further away from their established alternative-soul sound with something a little more acclimative to the current pop status quo, Sumney never fails to melt any listener’s heart. // Spotify / Tidal / Apple
These Heavens by gyrofield; closing things out with a Next Big Thing callout courtesy of XL Recordings’ latest signing, who across four tracks displays a truly impressive command for shapethrowing amidst various dance music sub-genres. // Spotify / Tidal / Apple
Got all that? If not, please find a cheatsheet-style tome of answers courtesy of those swindling bastards over at The Worst Of All The Streamers…
2024: Q3
So, yeah, that be that for the 2024 Q3; here’s hoping the last gallop to the end of the year is one of fewer surprises than the last three months, but in the meantime, please take care.
xxxo
