Experimental, complicated, unclassifiable and utterly mesmerising. Our favourite albums from 2024 that are ‘really out there’.
MINING
Chimet
A collective - musicians, data scientists, programmers, photographers and designers - have created 67 minutes of quite extraordinary music, data through “sonification” that maps the course of storm weather systems over a full week. The slow and evolving soundscape is just so immersive, with Matthew Bourne adding piano and cello for little flashes of emotion. Like nothing else.
Still House Plants
If I don’t make it, I love u
A complex and edifying experience from the London post-rock trio. You could pick any 30-second section and write about entirely different influences or styles, but zooming out and listening to it as a whole, it is such a fierce and thrilling album, and a very coherent one too. Dark, twisted, frenetic and yelping. So smart, it is an extraordinary listening experience.
Mabe Fratti
Sentir Que No Sabes
The new album from Guatemalan cellist and pop- experimentalist Mabe Fratti. The production is just so interesting, bright and snapping with electronic and pop music tones, but also a fierce and discombobulating sound design. Conversely, her vocals are sultry and full of bewitching charm. Together, it's just wild from start to finish, not much like anything else.
Beings
There Is A Garden
A supergroup that has got us properly hot under the collar. Beings are the combined forces of Zoh Amba, Steve Gunn, Shazad Ismaily and (man of the year) Jim White, and their debut There Is A Garden is a right thriller. Sections of psychedelia that crackle and erupt into full-on squawks and thrashes. They make a right din and really go somewhere with it - it really makes for quite the trip.
Ex-Easter Island Head
Norther
Liverpool’s Ex-Easter Island Head returned in the early summer with the addition of long-standing friend and collaborator Andrew PM Hunt, and it’s one of the year’s most listened-to albums. Pin sharp minimalism and repetition, through to patters of bpm, it is nothing short of a hypnotic treasure. Experimentation as a vehicle to get somewhere, every second is gratifying.
Claire Rousay
Sentiment
An exploration of detachment from songwriter Claire Rousay. The mood is so strong, a laconic soundscape of emotions and low-key beats; it’s like haze and light with sparse gestures. There are lots of off-kilter moments (the use of something vocoderish-sounding takes a few moments to get used to) but she has truly crafted something blissful whilst full of slow-motion melancholy.
Jlin
Akoma
A dazzling and hugely impressive workout from the revered electronic musician and producer. Sonically she really is masterful, and Akoma is meticulous in its tiny beats and clicks. It features guest appearances from Björk, Philip Glass and Kronos Quartet, all contributing to the dense and captivating suites.
Craven Faults
Bounds
The latest album from the mysterious and enigmatic Craven Faults. Inspired by post-industrial Yorkshire, Bounds is a richly dark analogue experience, a 37-minute trip through slowly evolving sonic landscapes. Driven by synthesiser arpeggios, it takes such amazing focus to create music that unfolds and evolves so gradually, whilst remaining bewitching throughout.
BASIC
This Is BASIC
Philadelphia trio Chris Forsyth, Nick Millevoi and Mikel Patrick Avery pay tribute to Robert Quine and Fred Maher’s 1984 Basic LP, with an improvisational swirl of shimmering chorus-pedal guitar washes and complex rhythms. We didn’t know the 1984 LP at all (perhaps this killer album’s raison d'être), but the disorientating and hypnotic grooves of This Is BASIC 2024 just couldn't be further up our street.
O.
WeirdOs
We do love a noisy duo, but this pair are something else.
The economically named O. are the London-based duo of baritone saxophonist Joe Henwood and drummer Tash Keary. Their debut LP - WeirdOs - is a raucous and high-octane set of instrumental bangers, rooted in jazz but also bringing in bass culture tones and increasingly propulsive experimentalism.
Released on the esteemed Speedy Wunderground, the album was also produced by SW main-man Dan Carey and aims to replicate the feeling of being at one of their gigs; a jacked up and explosive experience. Albums that hop through genres can often bemuse as much as impress, but besides the sheer all-out fury of their music, perhaps the duo’s greatest asset is the ability to flow through jungle, dance, jazz and doom metal with such cohesion, really owning their sound. Loud and full-body cathartic, WeirdOs will unlock your inner weirdo.
Shovel Dance Collective
Shovel Dance Collective
The eponymous second LP from London's nine-piece folk group. Although the nonet (yep!) are intrinsically “folk” and rich in traditional hues, this is actually pretty radical stuff, a free-flowing collection that focuses on the more contemporary themes of these old stories. From the whispered and ornate ambience, to the fuller moments of dissociative power, it is really gripping. And the drones... my word!
