Some Other Ones
Thank you for coming on this ride with me. You know what, here go a few more for you.
Desde los oídos de un sapo – Lechuga Zafiro
I actually regret not putting this in my top 10. It would have been a much cooler pick than the Adrianne Lenker record. This is a truly wild, completely alien take on the Latin American club sounds of raptor house, dembow and guaracha. Everything about this record is unconventional and thrillingly unintuitive. Zafiro’s whole schtick is being a frog. And though his music sounds like it occupies only cyberspace, his MO is to craft his tracks from field recordings – snapping sticks, thumping logs, cracking glass.
Ultimate Love Songs Collection – DORIS
DORIS (aka the artist Frank Dorrey) also does the Niontay thing of rapping from his cheeks. In 2024, it remains completely infectious. You want goofy, clever, infatuated new-gen New York hip hop? Here’s 50 tracks, take it or leave it. They’re short, at least! Giggle giggle giggle.
Truest – Anysia Kym
This 1 makes you feel so nice! I spotlighted it as one of my mid-year best-ofs before a bit of a powerhouse second half of 2024, and even though it didn’t make my top 10 it remains really heartwarming. I like what I said at the time: “Truest reminds me of listening to good music in traffic, rolling forward and easing up in equal measure, particularly when a car horn honks out of nowhere on ‘Pool of Life’.” Call it sexy jungle or something.
It Means A Lot – Ulla and Ultrafog
This is a delicate but generous helping of the classic Ulla sound that everyone wants a piece of these days. Chopped and looped unintelligible vocal samples bathe in a soft ambient glow, but you can’t really describe it, and that’s fine because it’s a really nice sound so the recommendation holds. This one takes a second to capture your attention but from ‘lame mart’ on is simply spellbinding.
Ephemera – Fergus Jones
I tweeted on my burner the other day that there’s something about the Scottish DJ/producer Fergus Jones (formerly Perko) that is really alluring. He gave the tweet a shoutout which was nice and unexpected. And it’s true! His October LP of dubby pop-not-pop goes a long way to developing that aura – it’s sleek and sexy and curious, and it sticks around in your memory because its best tracks are end-of-year-list level good.
The New Sound – Geordie Greep
The New Sound, the solo debut of the irreverent former black midi frontman Geordie Greep, is like Ephemera in that they are both great albums that lean on the strength of their best songs more so than some other great albums. Those songs are ‘Holy, Holy’, ‘As If Waltz’, and ‘If You Are But A Dream’, but many of the other tracks are very good as well. This album of rock music is very Brazilian, then very rhythmic, then very proggy, then very traditional.
Night Palace – Mount Eerie
Phil would make a fantastic, important teacher. I am a newcomer to the Elverum-verse but my abiding impression of his art is that it makes the elemental difficulty of life digestible. Night Palace studies the intractable problems of keeping the family close, preserving a relationship with the land, and reckoning with colonial legacy for nearly ninety minutes and you never want to look away.
Estradas – Nídia & Valentina
Percussion maestro Valentina Magaletti was suddenly everywhere this year, a development I learned following her meeting-of-the-minds collaboration with Príncipe alum Nídia. The album works in Nídia’s familiar kuduro shapes, but to my ear, the result of Magaletti freeing Nídia from primary percussion duties is a less chaotic but altogether grimier take on the Lisbon sound of the moment.
Great Doubt – Astrid Sonne
Try but you won’t stop me from claiming this is a more interesting cult-classic Danish experimental pop record than ML Buch’s Suntub. Great Doubt also gives me a reason to mention Tirzahcore, my favourite new genre tag (thank you Chal Ravens!).
moon tan – RAMZi
Bubbly, cheeky midtempo dance music as if that isn’t what dance music was supposed to be all along? Ask Larry Levan if he was chasing fun or art first at the Paradise Garage. His answer, my guess? Function over form.
Sam Gollings
24 December 2024