Our Favorite Albums, 2024: Individual Contributor Lists & Reflections, Part 1
Tone Glow writers reflect on 2024 through albums, songs, and more
Each of our writers was asked to submit a list of their 10 favorite albums from this year. They also had the option to list their 10 favorite songs and to create another list of any 10 things of their choosing. Below, find reflections and individual lists from our contributors, listed in alphabetical order by last name.
Vanessa Ague
I’ve often felt scared of the ways that the sounds of night might swallow me whole. That is, until 2024. I started the year walking down Central Avenue at 1am, listening to “Lucky” and hoping to find that glorious day in one of the 365. My heart raced as my mind reminded me, constantly and in so many grotesque ways, that I’m capable of causing and experiencing great pain. 2024 was, mostly, a sharp realization that my fear of harming others and myself was so deep-seated it was hard to envision life without it serving as my ruler. But desperation forced me to finally challenge that, or else be doomed to a never-ending cycle of despair.
In the process, my footsteps felt mostly uneven, untethered to the ground I’d come to know, however unstable it was. Yet choosing to release myself from a life of unsavory mental rituals, no matter how excruciating the ordeal, has ultimately turned out to be a net positive. I can happily report that from how I feel and a test I took that I’m writing to you from a place of joy previously unimaginable to me. That’s not to say contentment is forever or even all that easy, but that I now have the knowledge that I’m capable of working my way to it. That even when all falls apart (not if), I’ll find my way back to solid ground. And maybe that ground will be thicker, deeper, sturdier than before. We’ll see.
Despite my dictatorial irrational fears, my most influential memories this year were made when I was walking past my bedtime, alone but never quite. Since January 1, I’ve learned that while the quiet of the later hours is more stark than that of the morning — it’s the silence left after the party is over rather than that of a day waiting to be filled — there is possibility yet in emptiness. There is life in the screech of subway tires that reliably stop every 20 minutes, in the windows that still shine a dim yellow at 2am, burning a sweet-scented candle in the darkness. There is love waiting to be sparked in the conversations that go on without a clock in sight, past sense and into the intimacy of thoughts only remembered when it’s after midnight. And there is music in footsteps as they reach home, just as Pauline Oliveros prophesied.
So, no, I didn’t find one glorious, miraculous day this year. But kicking and screaming through the rise and fall of each one, I found myself inside the vast unknown and, slowly, gradually, unafraid, I let it lead me to myself and to the people who travel with me into it again and again, and again once more.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Armbruster - Can I Sit Here (Dear Life)
Alan Licht - Havens (VDSQ)
Charles Gayle / Milford Graves / William Parker - WEBO (Black Editions)
Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet - Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet Live (Palilalia)
Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee (Realistik Studios)
Quatuor Bozzini / Jürg Frey - String Quartet No. 4 (Collection QB)
Water Damage - In E (12XU)
Lori Goldston - Convolutions (Nyahh)
Leila Bordreuil - 1991, Summer, Huntington Garage Fire (Hanson)
Laetitia Sonami / Éliane Radigue - A Song for two Mothers / Occam IX (Black Truffle)
Top 10 Shows of 2024
Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers at Roulette (12/4)
Earth at Littlefield (5/19)
24 HOUR DRONE at Basilica Hudson (5/18-19)
Loo King / Alex Zhang Hungtai / Leila Bordreuil / Joanna Mattrey at The Stone (7/12)
Horse Lords at Market Hotel (3/19)
Alan Licht at Sisters (10/1)
Sun Ra Arkestra at Union Pool the day before my birthday (8/25)
Centennial Gardens / Emize / Ohyung / Yaz Lancaster at Undisclosed Location (10/5)
Michael Gordon’s Rushes at Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival (5/5)
Jandek at Widow Jane Mine (7/20)
H.D. Angel
List season gives me a chance to freeze my racing thoughts. It’s an opportunity to look back later at what kinds of spirals I was caught in on a given week in December. I continue to be frustrated by recorded music’s place in the world: its formal limitations, its paratext, its economy and industry, its relationship to its audiences. Maybe those are really frustrations with the world itself and how I remain situated in it. Music still makes me feel things, anyway, even when little else can.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Tems - Born in the Wild (RCA)
Nídia & Valentina - Estradas (Latency)
skaiwater - #gigi (GoodTalk / Capitol)
Caxtrinho - Queda Livre (QTV)
Fwea-Go Jit - 2 Fweavorful (SoFloJook)
Skrilla - Zombie Love Kensington Paradise (Priority / UMG)
Lucy Bedroque - Fête de la Vanille (self-released)
Syclops - Black Eye (BubbleTease Communications)
Or:la - Trusting Theta (fabric Originals)
been - fourfourtwentyfour (self-released)
Top 10 Songs of 2024 (Unranked)
1up Tee & Star Bandz - “Click” (GoodTalk)
DJ Ess - “Get It Sexyy Hard Mixx 170” (self-released)
Olof Dreijer - “Coral” (AD 93)
Jane Remover - “Magic I Want U” (deadAir)
Tommy Richman - “MILLION DOLLAR BABY” (ISO Supremacy / Pulse)
LAZER DIM 700 - “tony dim” (self-released)
SDOT MUSIC ft. SlickGoHam & Kade Young - “GLIDE” (self-released)
Shakes & Les, DBN Gogo, & Zee Nxumalo ft. Ceeka RSA & Chley - “Funk 55” (kreativekornerr/SLB entertainment)
Bryson Tiller - “Ciao!” (RCA)
wolfacejoeyy - “finsta” (self-released)
Music-related Memories, 2024
Jane Remover and quannnic concert in February @ Local 506. First time seeing musicians live in-person from a musical world that had been very formative for me at a distance. Bonded with fledgling young weirdos from all over and felt lots of underground history collectively resonating in one place. Jane is a star for sure. When she sang “Video” it cut through everything.
June Denver trip - my first solo plane trip. Saw Sarah McLachlan @ Red Rocks and watched my friends (new and old) put on their own amazing cross-genre show the next day.
Interviewing Simon Pyke (Freeform) for Tone Glow, and seeing feedback from him and his peers.
Playing Guilty Gear: Strive at my friend L.’s house and listening to Freeform, Olof Dreijer and DJ Danifox on bookshelf speakers
Getting back into DJing with my friend N.
Making lots of playlists for people
Singing “Rodeo Clown” and “Lilac Wine” on the guitar at my friend L.’s apartment
María Barrios
Este año decidí que no hay suficientes reflexiones sobre música o arte escritas en Español de este lado del mundo, entonces, voy a escribir esta solamente en en ese idioma. Hay momentos del año en que mi capacidad de escribir y hablar en Inglés se agotan, y las fiestas son una de ellas. En Argentina, donde nací y me crié, la Navidad y año nuevo pasan en verano. Hay fuegos artificiales, platos gigantes de pan dulce y turrón, asados kilométricos y música hasta altas horas de la noche. Acá, en la costa este, es invierno pero hay sol; la nieve y lluvia se pega en la vereda y hay un silencio sepulcral en la calle, que va a durar hasta el 26 y me va a inspirar a ir al cine, comer comida china, y quedarme en casa leyendo. Este año fue medio una mezcla de hacer cosas mientras veia el continuado colapso de algunos (o varios) medios publicitarios. Me llevaria mucho mas que algunos parrafos explicar todo, pero tambien fue el año en que escribí, sostenidamente, una columna sobre música Latina en la que mayormente hice lo que quise y pude escuchar muchisimos discos. Fue un ejercicio constante, acompañado de dos trabajos part time pegados con plasticola y alambre (uno en un sello discografico, el otro en un bar). De alguna manera pude hacer todo. Parece que a los lectores les gustó y va a seguir en 2025—un regalo, o oportunidad, que me llena de alegría y orgullo. Me gustaría escribir más en 2025. Dicen que nadie lee pero no es cierto. Dicen que nadie va al cine o lee libros etc. pero estuve en varias ciudades y las salas de cine, librerias, shows, estan llenos de gente curiosa que quiever ver que onda, o conocer a alguien, o escuchar o ver algo. A veces llena de tristeza pero mayormente llena de vida: eso me llevo de 2024. Felíz 2025.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Caxtrinho - Queda Livre (QTV)
Kim Gordon - The Collective (Matador)
Helado Negro - Phasor (4AD)
Various Artists - Land Day Compilation يوم الآرض (Majazz Project / Palestinian Sound Archive)
Charli XCX - Brat (Atlantic)
Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal (Top Dawg/Capitol)
Xavi - Next (Interscope)
Ahmed Malek - Musique Originale De Films (Volume 2) (Habibi Funk)
Susumu Yokota - Acid Mt. Fuji (Musicmine)
The San Lucas Band - La Voz De Las Cumbres (Les Disques Bongo Joe)
The Placid Nature Is Genuine: Some Things I Did in 2024
I had pho and Vietnamese iced coffee every Saturday at Phở 75 (1122 Washington Ave F, Philadelphia, PA 19147), a tradition I plan to keep next year.
Dumplings at Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao (Manhattan). Heaven is real, sometimes.
I played a show with my band, Drawn, at Dew Drop Inn in Washington, DC. I felt loved, and the music was great.
Whisky neat in a plastic cup at a bar in Baltimore. The jukebox was playing The Dramatics. You don’t always have to pay over $20 for a drink but when you do, tip your bartender.
Walking around or getting lost in Koreatown in New York.
The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han.
Fashion designer Batsheva Hay makes the most beautiful dresses. Her shop (166 Elizabeth St, New York, NY) is worth visiting.
The occasional cigarette after midnight.
Daiquiris. Get on with the program.
Going to the movies. Perpetual life-saving, sacred activity.
Billdifferen
Reflection: I feel like if anything, 2024 has taught me patience - Whether it’s patience throughout hardship or patience whenever Joshua is trying to test every last nerve within me, that has been something that has been reverberated through my mind and body during the year. Especially in a year where I felt the most dejected and not within this sphere of music people, the folks at Tone Glow are really my saving grace as to why I continue to love this shit. Whether it’s Corrigan peeping their head out for the first time in weeks just to shit on me in the most hilarious way, Jude making the most 2014-ass reference just for a cheap pop, or Holly being the quirked up Gen Z girl with a lotta swag, I really cannot think of a day where it isn’t brightened by those folks. Here’s to more great times of being music nerds. Long Songs Out 2025.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
d.silvestre - d.silvestre (self-released)
Lazer Dim 700 - Injoy (self-released)
Syzy - The weight of the world (self-released)
Cash Cobain - Play Cash Cobain (Giant Music)
Loidis - One Day (Incienso)
Joshua Chuquimia Crampton - Estrella Por Estrella (Puro Fantasía)
Klein - Marked (Parkwuud Entertainment)
AraabMuzik - AGGRO DR1FT (Milan)
SahBabii - Saaheem (self-released)
DJ Anderson Do Paraíso - Paraiso Sombrio (Nyege Nyege)
Top 10 Pablo Skywalkin Songs of 2024, Rap’s Most Improved Player of the Year
Pablo Skywalkin - “Be the man”
Pablo Skywalkin - “Why you aint call”
Pablo Skywalkin - “Dress Shoes”
Pablo Skywalkin - “4 Mama”
Pablo Skywalkin - “Hot & Ready”
Pablo Skywalkin - “Trap Close”
Pablo Skywalkin - “my kidz”
Pablo Skywalkin - “irritating”
Pablo Skywalkin - “Lean On”
Pablo Skywalkin - “Apologize”
Top 10 Racing Moments of 2024
2024 British Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton finally winning after a three-year drought in front of his home fans—most emotional I’ve been in ages about racing. The greatest to ever do it.
NASCAR at Watkins Glen: Shane van Gisbergen vs Chris Buescher battle to end that felt like a movie. Incredible angles, insane crowd reaction, and an all-time call from Leigh Diffey.
NASCAR at Kansas: 0.000. Closest. Finish. In. History.
2024 Indy 500: Josef Newgarden breaking both me and Pato O’Ward’s heart with one of the most insane last lap passes I have ever seen in the most historic race of all time.
NASCAR at Daytona: Harrison Burton Hopecore
2024 Brazilian Grand Prix: Max Verstappen’s greatest ever drive to cement him as one of the greats, winning from 17th position. Accompanied another insane race at one of F1’s greatest ever tracks.
NASCAR at Atlanta: 3-Wide Photo Finish that literally felt fake because it’s just like the scene in Cars where Lighting McQueen stuck his tongue out.
Getting to Attend the 6 Hours of COTA live: First time seeing an endurance race in person (with 90 degree temps killing me) and it was an experience like nothing else. Insane race too.
2024 Canadian Grand Prix: Probably my favorite overtake this year where Alex Albon does an incredible double overtake in wet and tricky conditions. Can watch it over and over again.
High Limit Racing: When this sprint car Die Lit’d out the track.
Matthew Blackwell
Top 10 Albums of 2024
[Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
Dirty Three - Love Changes Everything (Bella Union)
Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution (Moikai)
Ambarchi/Berthling/Werliin - Ghosted II (Drag City)
Sunik Kim - Tears of Rage (Rope Editions)
Able Noise - High Tide (World of Echo)
Joshua Chuquimia Crampton - Estrella Por Estrella (Puro Fantasía)
Toshiya Tsunoda / Taku Unami - Wovenland 3 (Erstwhile)
Astrid Sonne - Great Doubt (Escho)
Amen Dunes - Death Jokes (Sub Pop)
Corrigan Blanchfield
Thanks man, internet diggers unite!
If you pay attention we are all the same few hundreds that comment on videos, keep lists and stuff. It sometimes feels like a little group of friends digging music together. Have a nice day man.
—@Defeshh, 5 years ago
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Astrid Sonne - Great Doubt (Escho)
Bilal - Adjust Brightness (self-released)
Callahan & Witscher - Think Differently (PPM)
CCL - A Night in the Skull Discotheque (T4T LUV NRG)
Chibuguzo - Outrageous (self-released)
Fwea-Go Jit - 2 Fweavorful (SoFloJook)
Guerra / de Paiva / Hornsby / Konradsen - Contrahouse (Ulyssa)
Lifted - Trellis (Peak Oil)
SDOT MUSIC - Suspended Animation (self-released)
username - god bless (self-released)
Top 10 Songs of 2024
BabyBaby - “sit with fantasy” (self-released)
Eddie Logix & Jo Rad Silver - “Callin’ Dybbs” (Akka + BeepBeep)
El Blanco Nino - “You Will See” (self-released)
Jordan Adetunji - “KEHLANI” (300 Entertainment / Indigo Kid Ltd)
JoKer Zulu - “Sun Hits 2” (self-released)
J.P. - “Bad Bitty” (Equity Distribution)
Laila! - “Not My Problem” (IIIXL Studio)
skaiwater - “play” (GoodTalk / Capitol)
Stefan Ringer - “ATL Sh*t” (ft. Ash Lauryn, Divine Interface, Niyah, Kai Alće) (FWM Entertainment)
Z Money - “Ain't My Fault” (ft. Jeremih) (Fake Shore Drive / 4Ever Paid)
Dominic Coles
In August, 2023 I heard a performance of Luigi Nono’s La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura. In this realization, the opening tape part primarily consisted of dense, superimposed harmonic structures which were followed by a sudden cut. Within this cut, the tape performer began working with a different set of materials: extremely quiet voices seemingly in conversation. Given the complex interaction of the space’s architecture, its acoustics, the speaker system itself, and the placement of the diffused material in the multichannel system, it wasn’t immediately apparent that the voices were part of the music. In fact, in the moment of its performance, the diffused tape sounded more like a quiet conversation taking place amongst members of the audience. On hearing this, I practically lost control of my body: I turned to see who would dare speak during the performance! As I felt my head turn, I watched as practically the entire audience turned theirs too. We quickly realized that these voices were in fact part of the composition, that the “speaker” we had turned to police was not the speaker we had anticipated. On recognizing this, the audience burst into laughter: an energy was released on identifying and working through one of the social forces that had been mediating our listening up until this point.
I’m not sure that we had actually been listening to the piece before this recognition occurred – rather, we were unconsciously listening for a cue; one that would catalyze our enforcement of certain modes of attention. Every moment of the composition - every sound - was mediated by the possibility of our disciplining other listeners, which is to say, mediated by our desire to do so. The music was secondary in this context - a kind of cover through which to express this desire; Nono’s work, incredibly, managed to bring attention to this fact.
The various spaces in which “experimental music” is presented - the art gallery, the DIY venue, the club - are all simulacra of the concert hall. With their own specific flavor, these spaces reproduce the attention-discipline enforced in the symphony hall. To quote Chris Mann:
It's again what we use music for. Music education in primary schools is about making ears Peter Drucker. It's the symphony orchestra thing, it's about organizing a bunch of people to do things… It's just nothing more than what it is. The thing which is most disappointing about it is that it's not something else…
It may be useful at this time to consider what exactly “experimental music” in its current iteration is trying to teach us. How exactly does this music work to organize us as listeners? How does it operate on us as subjects to be disciplined? This year I’ve found that: the presentation of “experimental music” is underpinned by a series of assumptions structurally opposed to experimentation if not the listening act itself.[1] It may be that a different kind of composing is required at this conjuncture: perhaps we need a music, like the Nono, which brings attention to the disciplinary forces that structure the presentation space and mediate our encounter with its musics.[2] Perhaps after recognizing these forces - the way they operate on us, on our attention - we can begin to listen with a bit more intention and a bit more openness?
Works I returned to throughout the year—older and newer—in alphabetical order
[Ahmed] - Wood Blues (Astral Spirits)
Andrea Ermke - Walks (Sacred Realism)
Ben Bennett - Music for Idiophones Vol. 1 (self-released)
Catherine Lamb & Bryan Eubanks - Untitled 12 (After Agnes)
Herbert Brün - Sawdust (Electronic Music Foundation)
Kieran Daly - SYLVESTER ARIAS PLUS TWO (tokinogake)
Luciano Maggiore + Louie Rice - Whistle Posse (901 Editions)
Pat Thomas - The Solar Model of Ibn Al-Shatir (OTOROKU)
Peter Ablinger - Against Nature (Kairos)
Toshiya Tsunoda / Taku Unami - Wovenland 3 (Ertswhile)
[1] This is nobody’s fault. Rather, this is a symptom of a larger structural issue which the music - its presentation - has become an expression of.
[2] Rather than musics which actively repress these forces—thereby further naturalizing them—or musics which aimlessly rail against them.
Rae-Aila Crumble
This year, I found God and started going to Gurdwara. There is so much beauty in submission. This was a submission I had already been familiar with. No need to convince myself of the existence of someone or fake it with blind faith. My entire life, I’ve believed that God is in everything and everyone. I’ve believed that we must take care of one another, defending ourselves if necessary. These are conditions that come with Blackness and Transness to some extent. But there was a feeling that I was alone in these thoughts and that I couldn’t connect them to a bigger picture. Every time I’ve stepped inside the Gurdwara with my bare feet, I’ve felt at home. My moral actions feel rewarded. My body shudders when the tabla fills the room. Misguided hours of slouching and looking down while I walked turned into time spent gazing hard, challenging Earth’s pressure points. And truly, there is nothing better in this world than to look!
Then, everything became something. I started playing the harp. I love the feeling of the strings blistering my thumbs just as much as the sounds they release. Pulling on the guts of a sheep is delicately cyclical, two creatures from different times constantly reinventing each other. The harp loves me dearly, and I’m grateful. I began to pursue writing with focused intentions--not out of emotional immaturity. My words have as much meaning as I designate them, and it was about time I started acting like it. I’ve accomplished a lot with this new approach, but more importantly, writing has begun to feel like loving myself.
All that to say, things feel good now. I can live now and be happy if the things that I love disappear tomorrow. Having faith is good. Working towards disappearing is good. Deg Tegh Fateh.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Lia Kohl - Normal Sounds (Moon Glyph)
Still House Plants - If I don’t make it, I love u (Bison)
[Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
Tyla - Tyla (Fax / Epic)
Doris - Ultimate Love Songs Collection (Janine)
Xavi - Next (Interscope)
SahBabii - Saaheem (self-released)
Mk.gee - Two Star & the Dream Police (R&R)
454 - Casts of a Dreamer (self-released)
Elyanna - Woledto (Universal Arabic Music)
5 Shabads Found on SoundCloud
Bibi Dileep Kaur Ji - Eik Ardas Bhaat Keerat Kee Gur Ramdaas Rakhahu Sarnaee
Bibi Harkiran Kaur Ji - ਨੈਨਹੁ ਸੰਗਿ ਸੰਤਨ ਕੀ ਸੇਵਾ
Gupt Kaur - Darsan Maago Deh Pyare
Bibi Simrit Kaur Ji - ਭ ਜੀ ਤੂ ਮੇਰੇ ਪ੍ਰਾਨ ਅਧਾਰੈ ॥ // ਕਰਿ ਕਿਰਪਾ ਵਸਹੁ ਮੇਰੈ ਹਿਰਦੈ ਹੋਇ ਸਹਾਈ ਆਪਿ
Pushpinder Kaur - Kar Kirapa Vasahu Maerai Hiradhai
Mark Cutler
The people united will never be defeated. No matter which way you go, the song gets louder. It hurts your ears; it never stops. People on the street look afraid of each other. But they cut each other off anyway. I tell myself I help people for a living. Always trust a Tesla to run a red light. The song is about FYPs and nepo babys and Designer x Designer collabs. It’s about labor and capital; people are sick of me saying it’s about labor and capital but it is. You imagine the past as across a vast gulf from here. The maze isn’t bad but the food is mostly slop in bowls. If The One Is Not: people are cruel and they don’t know it. They aren’t even present for their own cruelty. Monday: green slop, Tuesday: purple slop…—but at least you never have to leave. Picture a model universe L* where he absolutely, demonstrably did think that—would his behavior be different than it was in ours? If There Is Not One: others are cruel and do know it. What most people want is exactly the way things are now. You turn on the TV but it’s just people live reacting to the song. Over and over and over again. The people united will never be defeated. But nobody is talking about all the dead ones.
Kim Gordon - The Collective (Matador)
uboa - Impossible Light (The Flenser)
Merzbow - Circular Reference (No Holiday)
.cutspace - marble index - 4013 (score) (soundcloud)
Yeat - Lyfestyle (Lyfestyle)
우륵과 풍각쟁이들 - '23 - '24 (self-released)
Valee & Black Noi$e - Partridge (self-released)
People Skills - Subalternity Interlude (Regional Bears)
Sunik Kim - Tears of Rage (Rope Editions)
Robert Turman & John Wiese - Past Present Future (Helicopter)
Samuel Diamond
2024 was a year when headless chickens came home to roost. All my enemies are dead.
Albums from 2024 that I thoroughly enjoyed but that didn’t make the “Favorite Albums” list I’ve compiled at Joshua Minsoo Kim’s invitation include Azomali’s Music for Solo Camping Vol. 1, Blu & Evidence’s Los Angeles, Cavalier’s Different Type Time, the Christopher Dammann Sextet’s self-titled debut, Elucid’s Revelator, Fawning’s All, Godfather Don’s Thesis, Max Jaffe’s Reduction of Man, Kurious’s Majician, Mach-Hommy’s #Richaxxhaitian, Roc Marciano and the Alchemist’s Skeleton Key, Olof Melander’s Tangles, MLK-Ultra’s Come On Die Hard, Økse’s eponymous debut, PTP’s Resist Colonial Power By Any Means Necessary, Shabaka’s Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, Suzi Analogue’s Onez, ---__--____’s Night of Fire, and, of course, anything by Spaghetti Blacc.
I continue to listen to as much old music as new. Records that came out prior to 2024 and that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this year include Ruth Brown’s ‘65, Sandy Bull’s Fantasias, Betty Carter’s ‘Round Midnight, Alice and John Coltrane’s Cosmic Music, Crustified Dibbs’ Night of the Bloody Apes, the Klaus Doldinger Quartet’s Blues Happening, Eric Dolphy’s Status, Hus Kingpin & Smoovth’s Paid In Full, Luscious Jackson’s In Search of Manny, Marcello Melis’s The New Village on the Left, Charlie Mingus’s self-titled 1969 album on the Everest Records Archive of Folk & Jazz Music label, Thelonious Monk Plays Duke, Ishmael Reed’s Conjure, Carlos Santana and Mahavishnu John McLaughlin’s Love Devotion Surrender, Cecil Taylor’s Cecil Taylor Unit, T La Rock’s Lyrical King, McCoy Tyner’s Fly With the Wind, War’s Deliver the Word, and Jody Watley’s self-titled album; plus, a whole lot of the Beggaz and the Supremes.
Peace to Tone Glow. Thanks for welcoming me back into the fray. Listen to the 19th Annual Memorial Day BBQ Playlist here.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Jessica Ackerley - All the Colours Are Singing (AKP Recordings)
Blaq Kush - There's Always Hope Vol. 4 and Vol. 5 (self-released)
Rob Cave - God Dose (self-released)
R.A.P. Ferreira & Fumitake Tamura - The First Fist to Make Contact When We Dap (Ruby Yacht)
Charles Gayle / Milford Graves / William Parker - WEBO (Black Editions)
Kaze - Unwritten (Circum-Disc)
Rhys Langston & Steel Tipped Dove - Polyglot on Chloroform (Fused Arrow)
LL Cool J - The FORCE (LL Cool J, Inc. / Def Jam Recordings / Virgin Music Group)
ShrapKnel - Nobody Planning to Leave (Backwoodz Studioz)
Skyzoo - The Mind of a Saint Deluxe Edition (First Generation Rich, HiPNOTT Records) | Keep Me Company (Old Soul Music, First Generation Rich)
Hannah Edgar
While most folks wind down this time of year, music journalists wind up. Long before I got into the year-end rat race, my high school friends and I — separated by many miles, as we’ve been for a decade now — kept up an annual tradition of swapping playlists: 23 songs for 2023, 24 for 2024, and so on. It’s been a beautiful document of their lives, like an aural postcard. Besides, I appreciate any invitation for deep, considered retrospection — not something I tend to pursue in my own life/psyche unless I’m, like, cringing at something I did 10 years ago.
I also got married this year, which issued thought-provoking prompts to my wife and I. What music represented us individually? Our relationship? Our values? (No artists with known histories of sexual violence or predation made our playlist, for example.)
But even with incentives professional, personal, and plentiful, this time of year somehow always takes me by surprise, which is sort of embarrassing for a music journalist. I finally thought ahead in 2024. Starting Jan. 1, I kept a running list of music that spoke to me this year, then I revisited that list in recent weeks. Most of the albums and songs that made the cut then still make the cut now. Very little of it reflects releases from the past few weeks or months. (That’s not a critical judgment; I just got so busy this fall that my “recreational” listening totally fell off.)
I wanted to know if other folks shared my neuroses around listening, so I pitched a story to the Chicago Tribune on the subject. Keep an eye out for that, coming in a couple weeks. In the meantime, all best to you and yours. Rest up now so we can fight later.
Favorite Albums (With Lyrics)
Salt Cathedral - Before It’s Gone (Independent / The Orchard)
theMIND - Dancing While Crying in The Middle of Nowhere (A Terrible Thing to Waste)
Hannah Frances - Keeper of the Shepherd (Ruination Record Co.)
Tasha - All This and So Much More (Bayonet)
Hana Vu - Romanticism (Ghostly International)
Alex E. Chavez - Sonorous Present (Artivist Entertainment)
Meshell Ndegeocello - No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin (Blue Note)
Alex Sopp - The Hem & The Haw (New Amsterdam)
Jackie West - Close to the Mystery (Ruination Record Co.)
Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk (Mom+Pop)
Favorite Albums (Instrumental Releases)
SML - Small Medium Large (International Anthem)
Kronos Quartet and Red Hot Org - Outer Spaceways Incorporated: Kronos Quartet & Friends Meet Sun Ra (Red Hot Org)
Jeff Parker IVtet - The Way Out of Easy (International Anthem)
Moth Cock - HausLive 3: Chicago Twofer (Hausu Mountain)
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten - Breezy (Sonic Transmissions)
Juanma Trujillo - Howl (Endectomorph Music + Falcon Gumba)
Arushi Jain - Delight (Leaving)
Imani Winds and Andy Akiho - BeLonging (Aki Rhythm Productions)
Things I Got Weirdly Into
Singer-songwriters who write depression anthems, clearly
Bolero
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Vivaldi
Chicago blues
Music you would have heard at a bar mitzvah circa 2009
Frank Falisi
Sometime around January 2023 I stopped writing about myself. That’s not all the way true. ‘I’ still crop up. I think it’s basically delusional to think our writing isn’t at least primordially ours, that even the most convinced declaration doesn’t exist in the shadow of an unworded “I think.” But I’d got it in my head that the personal essay was writing fungal rot onto contemporary criticism, that the understandable—unavoidable!—practice of reflecting personal perspective off the cultural object was being replaced by a tendency to treat cultural objects as mines to strip personal meaning from.
The state of the state of criticism is both more complicated and more boring than the above gut speculation, of course. Personal essays are sites of extraction for readers-gawkers—that’s why they have a market in the economy. And myths about a purely objective prose are responsible for: a joyless relationship to the ineffable, a false sense that art exists outside of daily life, the notion that clarity and pleasure are incompatible. More seriously, “objective” actors are why we live inside institutions that can’t suitably write about (let alone against) the genocide being enacted with our collective tacit approval and tax dollars. More than self-criticism, we need critical comradery. The goal (I think) is to keep in motion, to not perch, to write to the contradiction of a self amid other selves, especially when it seems like there is no such contradiction.
This year’s self-criticism: I broke up with someone. I acted in a different play. I went on first dates, went to Sleepy Hollow. I sent an email to someone. I started working at a library. A friend got married in an off-season shore town. It was a ceremony based in true affection and left me in totalizing loneliness. I saw Neil Young play his guitar. And I’m getting old. I got back together with the someone I broke up with. Irresponsible. I was scared, we broke up. I watched Le Samouraï. I texted the person I sent an email to. We drank red wine and talked about what happened and I worried that this was what life was like, pushing and pulling rust. And then we fell in love and my life changed. I drove to Florida, directed another play with my best friends, went to the Stone Pony twice in one weekend. I drove to Ithaca, New Hampshire, airport cell phone lots, Point Pleasant, New Jersey. And there was music and wonderful roses.
How intolerable, to say, I fell in love and my life changed. But: is there a better reminder that objectivity isn’t enough, that we are subject to one another, and so subject to changing what life is like? How passe and essential to say: whoever you are, I hope you fall in love.
Favorite Albums of 2024
Adrianne Lenker - Bright Future (4AD)
Agriculture - Living is Easy (The Flenser)
Charli XCX - Brat (Atlantic)
The Cure - Songs Of a Lost World (Fiction / Capitol)
Eiko Ishibashi - Evil Does Not Exist (Drag City)
Kendrick Lamar - GNX (pgLang / Interscope)
Mount Eerie - Night Palace (P.W. Elverum & Sun)
Romance - Endless Love (ECSTATIC)
Various Artists - Why Don’t You Smile Now: Lou Reed at Pickwick Records 1964-1965 (Light in the Attic)
Yasmin Williams - Acadia (Nonesuch)
Favorite First Watches of 2024
The Unknown, Tod Browning (1927)
On Dangerous Ground, Nicholas Ray (1951)
The Apartment, Billy Wilder (1960)
A Different Image, Alile Sharon Larkin (1981)
The Wounded Man, Patrice Chereau (1983)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Jack Sholder (1983)
Comrades, Almost a Love Story, Peter Chan (1996)
The Ice Storm, Ang Lee (1997)
End of the Century, Lucio Castro (2019)
Life Story, Jessica Dunn Rovinelli (2024)
Victim of Circumstance, Kalil Haddad (2024)
Alex Fields
The year was shit, but I survived with the help of cognac and country music. It’s only getting worse so let’s organize to build a world where art and human beings can survive.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Still House Plants - If I Don’t Make It, I Love U (Bison)
The Handover - The Handover (Sublime Frequencies)
Shovel Dance Collective - The Shovel Dance (American Dreams)
Or Best Offer - Center (Ba Da Bing)
Hurray for the Riff Raff - The Past Is Still Alive (Nonesuch)
Leila Bordreuil - 1991, Summer, Huntington Garage Fire (Hanson)
[Ahmed] - Wood Blues (Astral Spirits)
Billy Strings - Highway Prayers (Reprise)
L - Marilyn Monroe - All of Us (radical documents)
Tyla - Tyla (Fax / Epic)
Top 10 Films of 2024
Periphery of the Base (Zhou Tao)
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
Adrift Potentials (Leonardo Pirondi)
Poem of E.L. (Maya Gurantz)
Carroll Gardens (Ernie Gehr)
A Sense of Nothing (Francisco Rojas)
Msaytbeh, The Elevated Place (Rawane Nassif)
In Place of a Hollow Tree (Eislow Johnson)
Archipelago of Earthen Bones - To Bunya (Malena Szlam)
Buseok (Park Kyujae)
Us and the Night (Audrey Lam)
Unstable Rocks (Nuno Barroso and Ewelina Rosinska)
Cloud Film (Tristan Ives)
On the Battlefield (Little Egypt Collective)
Normandie (Vadim Kostrov)
UNDR (Kamal Aljafari)
Careless Passage (Jerome Hiler)
Orlando, My Political Autobiography (Paul B. Preciado)
Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The World Drops Dead (Brandon Colvin)
Sam Goldner
This year I made a concerted effort to finally watch all the movies that have been piling up in my watchlist for ages, and to really try and give myself a basic working knowledge of film history despite never going to film school. It’s made me even more thankful to live in a place like L.A. where it’s so easy to constantly catch screenings of old movies, even if I am losing more patience with my fellow theater-goers with each passing day. Besides that, I once again attempted to flee the bounds of the city on at least a monthly basis, and managed to fit in more camping trips and travel plans than I ever have in my life. So basically this year I was either inside with the lights off watching movies, or outside drinking fresh spring water directly from the side of a mountain.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Bladee - Cold Visions (Trash Island)
Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media)
Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee (Realistik Studios)
Charli XCX - Brat (Atlantic)
Total Blue - Total Blue (Music From Memory)
Body Meat - Starchris (Partisan)
Mk.gee - Two Star & the Dream Police (R&R)
James Devane - Searching (Umeboshi)
This is Lorelei - Box for Buddy, Box for Star (Double Double Whammy)
Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God (Debemur Morti)
Top 10 Places I Went Outdoors This Year
Crater Lake National Park (Klamath County, Oregon)
Khao Sok National Park (Surat Thani, Thailand)
Olympic National Park (Port Angeles, Washington)
Mammoth (Mammoth Lakes, California)
Chiricahua National Monument + Saguaro National Park (Tucson, Arizona)
Doi Inthanon National Park (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Big Sur (Big Sur, California)
Joshua Tree National Park (Twentynine Palms, California)
Myakka River State Park + Lido Key Mangroves (Sarasota, Florida)
Pearl River (New Orleans, Louisiana)
Marshall Gu
You might remember 2024 fondly for the music — for Cindy Lee sticking it to Spotify and reminding us that music can be coveted; for every alligator bite that didn’t heal; for holy pussy (holy, holy); for a-minorrrrr. You might remember the vibe of the city sewer slut; you might remember being a nasty gurl (nasty nasty); you might have docked your own houseboat at the himbodome. I won’t remember any of that. I’ll remember 2024 fondly because it was the year I crossed out a bucket list to do a powerlifting meet, a goal I set for myself ten years ago but I was always scared. I’ll remember hitting top 64 in a 378-person regional championship in Magic: the Gathering. I’ll remember walking through an arch and seeing the Taj Mahal in person, more breathtaking than any photograph could ever render. I’ll remember getting on one knee and opening a small box with a ring in it, my dog standing on her hind legs so she could see, and proposing to the love of my life.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Geordie Greep - The New Sound (Rough Trade)
Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution (Moikai)
Adrianne Lenker - Bright Future (4AD)
Still House Plants - If I don’t make it, I love u (Bison)
Tyshawn Sorey Trio - The Susceptible Now (Pi)
Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin - Spin (Ronin Rhythm)
MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks (Anti-)
Kali Malone - All Life Long (Ideologic Organ)
Vijay Iyer, Linda Oh & Tyshawn Sorey - Compassion (ECM)
Lia Kohl - Normal Sounds (Moon Glyph)
Favorite Songs of 2024
Geordie Greep - “Holy, Holy” (Rough Trade)
Kendrick Lamar - “euphoria” (Interscope)
Adrianne Lenker - “Free Treasure” (4AD)
Waxahatchee - “3 Sisters” (Anti-)
MJ Lenderman - “Wristwatch” (Anti-)
Kelly Moran - “Butterfly Phase” (Warp)
Bolis Pupul - “Doctor Says” (Deewee)
Vampire Weekend - “Hope” (Columbia)
Four Tet - “Loved” (Text)
Amina Claudine Myers - “When Was” (Red Hook)
Raphael Helfand
Every year is a good year to listen to Alice Coltrane, but 2024 would have been impossible to get through without her music. In the past 12 months, I’ve found myself constantly returning to Kirtan: Turiya Sings, Mrs. Trane’s only vocal album. Recorded in 1981 (in a 15-hour marathon session at Redwing Sound in Los Angeles), issued as a super-limited-edition cassette by the Vedantic Center's Avatar Book Institute, and wide-released 40 years later via Impulse!, it comprises nine Hindu devotionals, all delivered in the unspoken language of Sanskrit and set to sublime organ.
These songs, averaging roughly seven minutes per, are works of impossible beauty, soft and calm but cosmically vast. They contain within them massive waves of sound, borne on the tides of a greater truth, often suspended mid-break by swells of dissonance that slowly smooth out rather than crash.
Turiya Sings came to me exactly when I needed it. Alone in my room for days on end last winter after a breakup, marathoning pulpy action and neo-noir films and dime-a-dozen TV series, I’d pause in rare moments of clarity to listen to Alice’s quavering alto and her glacial, perfect chord progressions; it was the only low-effort activity that made me feel like I belonged to the world of the living.
In these depressed weeks, “Jai Ramachandra” was the song that raised my spirits the most. There’s something about this track—perhaps its majestic minor-key melody, perhaps the chords that hang like rainclouds but dissipate unburst, revealing a sun-soaked sky—that makes it awesome in the biblical sense. Few other religious songs have ever made me feel like I’m staring into the face of a god.
A year on and somewhat healed, I still listen to Turiya Sings—and “Jai Ramachandra” in particular—as much as I did in those early days. It’s an album that makes one ponder both their smallness in the universe and their connection to it, one that uplifts and humbles. At my worst, it made me feel human again. At my best, it makes me feel like something more.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Bladee - Cold Visions (Trash Island)
DJ Anderson do Paraíso - Queridão (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee (Realistik Studios)
Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution (Moikai)
Mount Eerie - Night Palace (P.W. Elverum & Sun)
Thou - Umbilical (Sacred Bones)
Squanderers - If a Body Meet a Body (Shimmy-Disc)
Mabe Fratti - Sentir que no sabes (Unheard of Hope)
Julia Holter - Something in the Room She Moves (Domino Recording Co.)
---__--____ - Night of Fire (Orange Milk)
Top 10 Songs of 2024
Bladee feat. Black Kray - “Otherside” (Trash Island)
NLE Choppa - “SLUT ME OUT 2” (Warner)
wokeups - “fragged aht” (self-released)
Mabe Fratti - “Quieras o no” (Unheard of Hope)
Thou - “Unbidden Guest” (Sacred Bones)
POLO PERKS <3 <3 <3, FearDorian, and AyooLii feat. Current Joys - “Rockband Tees 08 Denims” (3500)
Mount Eerie - “Broom of Wind” (P.W. Elverum & Sun)
Cali Bellow - “LFG!!!! (i just died)” (Kosher Salt Recordings)
Nia Archives - “Cards on the Table” (Universal)
CeeChynaa - “Peggy” (self-released)
Best Shitty Movies I Streamed on Tubi When I Was Sick or Depressed:
F/X (Mandel, 1986)
Cold Deck (Bernbaum, 2015)
Payback (Helgeland, 1999)
Vault (DeNucci, 2019)
City of Industry (Irvin, 1987)
Kill the Irishman (Hensleigh, 2011)
Last Days of Frankie the Fly (Markle, 1997)
Confidence (Foley, 2003)
Hard Cash (Antonijević, 2002)
Man With a Gun (Wyles, 1995)
Taxman (Nesher, 1998)
Even Money (Rydell, 2006)
Traveller (Green, 1997)
Top of the World (Furie, 1997)
The Badge (Henson, 2003)
Michael Hong
At the end of October, my partner was hospitalized for a heart condition. ER visit turns to admission turns to surgery turns to discharge turns to readmission until somewhere at the end, we finally find ourselves safe at home, hoping that the next time we go back won’t be unscheduled. To make this about me: it’s back-and-forth between the hospital by bike, by car, by however fast my stupid legs can carry me and containers of fruit and a spare change of clothes. It’s tiring and it’s exhausting, but but I come back to Jessica Pratt’s “The Last Year.” I think it’s gonna be fine / I think we’re gonna be together.” All you can do is hope. And goddamn, I really hope she’s right.
Top 10 Albums of 2024
Cassandra Jenkins - My Light, My Destroyer (Dead Oceans)
Charli XCX - Brat (Atlantic)
Homecomings - see you, frail angel. sea adore you. (IRORI)
Japanese Ape - Jape Rondo (self-released)
Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch (Mexican Summer)
LUSS - Is there anything on the Moon? (Wayfer)
Reyna Tropical - Malegría (Psychic Hotline)
tripleS - ASSEMBLE24 (MODHAUS)
Wang Yiling - Ode to Wither (self-released)
Zhang Xingchan - No, no! (self-released)
10 More Songs
Beanies - “Angry Book” (YHYS 6243)
Hovvdy - “Bad News” (Arts & Crafts)
Luna Li - “Confusion Song” (self-released)
NICKTHEREAL - “Talking to You” (Wish You a Good Life)
Quanzo - “EDEN (feat. Sabrina)” (Shabby Boyz)
Raveena - “Lucky” (Moonstone)
SIRUP, SUMIN & A.G.O - “Roller Coaster” (Suppage)
Tems - “Love Me JeJe” (RCA)
You Dayeon - “Keep It Low” (DOT)
4EVE - “Situationship” (self-released)
10 Steps to an Easy Pork Chop (and a Jar of Something Extra)
Peel, core, and chop apples.
Boil for 30 min, water level should be just under the apples.
Add cinnamon, lemon juice, and sugar to taste.
Jar it! (and eat it!)
Season a pork chop with salt and black and white pepper.
Melt butter and sear the edges of a pork chop.
Top with thinly sliced onions and cover with apple sauce then bake at 425 F for 20 min.
Laugh because apple and pork sound ridiculous to you, cry because it’s your first meal together in a while. Fill half an hour with something lively.
Take the meat out and let it rest for 3 min.
Serve with rice (or mashed potatoes), some bell peppers and carrots, and love.