#060: Nala Sinephro – Endlessness
Released September 6th, 2024 on Warp Records
Subtle jazz, so subtle it’s almost not there. This the intersection of ambient music and soft jazz, a blissful meditation record that doesn’t seem structured so much as it moves forward of its own accord. There are so many things going on in the mix that it will take several listens enveloped in your headphones to piece them all apart.
#059: Pharmakon – Maggot Mass
Released October 4th, 2024 on Sacred Bones Records
It’s not accessible, never think that. However, it is somehow more accessible than previous Pharmakon records. While I am fairly certain that any Pharmakon record could be titled Maggot Mass, (literally, see the covers of Abandon and Contact) this one really brings the fly larvae together en masse to approach actual songs. Does this make it noise crossover? What does that even mean?
#058: ScHoolboy Q – Blue Lips
Released March 1st, 2024 on Interscope Records & Top Dawg Entertainment
For the first time in 12 years, Black Hippy alum ScHoolboy Q gets out of his own way and just lets himself flow. The result is a banger of a record, proof that even a lengthy trip through mediocrity doesn’t mean the end for an artist if they’re determined enough.
#057: Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven
Released March 1st, 2024 on Epitaph Records
Pop did punk no lasting favors; scenes got packaged, mythos became lore, and capitalism took the genre into its breast and neutered its revolutionary power. As someone once said of rock ‘n’ roll, however, punk can never truly die, because in every generation of kids there are those who will dig up its corpse. You could play a Misfits song to soundtrack this if it wasn’t a distressingly post-Danzig one. At any rate, Mannequin Pussy are here to tell you that punk rock is still a viable, beautiful form of music, howling, dynamic, and confident.
#056: sonhos tomam conta – corpos de água
Released March 29th, 2024 on Longinius Records
More than anything, the most incontrovertible proof yet that shoegaze and black metal share DNA. Unlike a lot of the other bits of evidence, however, sonhos tomam conta have a local flair all their own. Their blackgaze/dread pop/whatever mixture has a great deal of their native Sao Paulo in it, sprinkling all that heaviness and fog with a great deal of bossa nova rhythms and instrumentation. It’s the perfect day at the beach, only the beach is on fire.
#055: Remi Wolf – Big Ideas
Released July 12th, 2024 on Island Records
Remi Wolf has an outsized voice, and on Big Ideas it gets paired with massive pop explosions full of funky synths, slamming drums, and a bass that sounds like a hand grenade going off every time it hits. Many would-be pop stars play it safe, and end up drowning in a big vat of so-what. Remi Wolf doesn’t mind taking chances, though, and the left-turns on Big Ideas are often the best part.
#054: English Teacher – This Could Be Texas
Released April 12th, 2024 on Island Records
Light post-punk with more than a splash of progressive tendencies, English Teacher’s debut makes a strong case for why their subsequent albums should be watched carefully for signs of regrettable brilliance. An exquisite mixture of pop and brash mathy guitar, This Could Be Texas sets the bar high for the next round of British post-punk records.
#053: Vince Staples – Dark Times
Released May 24th, 2024 on Def Jam
The skies are grey and the ocean is grey and the concrete that sweats in the high summer heat is also grey. These are, as the artist intimates, dark times, but the breadth of emotional response and illustration that can be found within those dark times is staggering. More complicated and less accessible than he’s ever been before, Dark Times shows Vince Staples as a multivariate artist with an awful lot to say, none of it particularly joyful.
#052: The Decemberists – As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again
Released June 14th, 2024 on YABB Records
In the aftermath of a major label debut in 2006 the patron saint band of English Majors ran around for nearly 15 years trying everything – being a prog band (Hazards Of Love), being Neil Young (The King Is Dead), being a self-aware version of themselves (What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World) and being an ‘80s synth pop band (the regrettable I’ll Be Your Girl). Landing once again in 2024, the band has decided to just be themselves circa 2006 again, only a little more indie country. Except, of course, the closing track – a nearly twenty minute fusillade of rising tension, ambient post rock, and pure ‘70s level hard rock that is probably the best thing they’ve ever done in their entire career.
#051: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD
Released October 4th, 2024 on Constellation Records
The Montreal post-rock standard-bearers are as confrontationally political as ever, but their music is more joyful here than it ever has been before. Moving between pastoral wonder and thrilling sky-cracking anthem-making, the group lean into being human and making us all aware of our own humanity as well. “Raindrops Cast In Lead” is of particular note, as the last portion sounds uncommonly like Galaxie 500 dropping acid and just jamming out all the way to heaven.
