My albums of 2024

Annual round-up time again. Just sneaking this into the first week of January…

Another banging year for dance music, retro and modern. Honourable mentions here go to Paranoid London, Korea Town Acid, and Low End Activist (even though, okay, it would be a push to call that last one banging per se).

Obviously I listened to a bunch of ambient / modern classical / drone / et al stuff, too, and I’ll call out Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri, Erik K Skodvin, KMRU, and the mighty Sarah Davachi here (honestly, that record really deserves a medal).

Moving into a more folky direction, runners up include Magic Tuber String Band (drone-folk), Old Saw (experimental folk), and Sam Lee (actually kinda just folk… who knew this was even possible!).

The beautiful, genre-curious Winter Family record would have been a strong contender except that they made the cut a couple of years ago — which is harsh, but I have to have some way to whittle the list down.

I’m giving a bonus track-of-the-year prize (there is no prize) to Sisso & Maiko‘s bonkers chiptune singeli number Kivinje. Honestly, I could have picked almost any track from the album (and, yeah, using this slot to make myself feel better about having not found room for it in my final five), but this one has a smashing video as well.

And so, drum-roll please, here is my actual albums of the year list:

• Kaya Fyah’s 1994: Born In The Jungle. This combines some classic examples of the genre with some exploration of its Jamaican roots with lashings of style.
• Jlin’s Akoma. I see that I called this post-footwork. At any rate, it’s hugely inventive rhythmical stuff driven by an awesomely restless energy.
• Lex Amor’s Forward Ever. About the most laid-back hip hop you’re likely to hear, it’s bewitchingly brilliant and quietly but persuasively hopeful.
• Mariska Baars, Niki Jansen, and Rutger Zuydervelt’s Hardanger. The best electronicky drony folky music I’ve heard all year, and it was a strong field.
• Rafael Toral’s Spectral Evolution. He calls it “post-free-jazz”. I called it “a gang of robots who are stoned out of their tiny silicon minds auditioning to be Tom Waits’ backing band”. Either way, it’s brilliantly strange and strangely brilliant.

Okay folks, that’s it for 2024, see you soon I hope with the first record of 2025!