2024 was another brilliant year for music, below are 25 of my favourite tracks of the year, listen to my longer playlist here. As always try and support the artists you love in whatever way you can, its more important than ever!
Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven
On the formidable ‘I Got Heaven’, Mannequin Pussy vocalist and leader Marisa “Missy” Dabice bristles with rage and injustice, a howl of anger at religious doctrines. She is hoisted aloft by the Philedelphia bands colossal rhythm section and ankle-biting guitar riffs, thundering down the road like a dog let off its leash, Dabice switches effortlessly from a caustic, snarling scream to a thread of hooky melody that holds it all together. ‘I Got Heaven‘ is absolutely essential.
Jessica Pratt – Life Is
Five years since her 2019 breakthrough album Quiet Signs, Jessica Pratt marked her reappearance with the exquisite Here In The Pitch. Here she ruminates on the underbelly of California, dark characters from Los Angeles’ strange, seedy history, and the bleak end of the hippy era is explored, as she peers across the sunsetting horizon of the bay.
“Life is. It’s never what you think it’s for. And I can’t seem to set it off. And lately I’ve been insecure” she notes of the elegant opener ‘Life Is‘ as she paints an impressionistic paean to the vagaries of ambition. A percussion roll nods to the grand, orchestral style of ’60s pop hits like the Walker Brothers’ ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’, that drum sound in slow motion as she mellifluously slides down this captivating melody.
Magdelena Bay – Death & Romance
Magdalena Bay are the Los Angeles by way of Miami duo of Mica Tenenbaum (vocals, producer, songwriter) and Matthew Lewin (producer, songwriter).
‘Death & Romance‘ is one of the year’s best pop songs, rippling with a sparkling effervescence, that grows into the sugary sweet hit of the choruses, powered by danceable piano melody that eschews the sound of ABBA and supercharged synths. This luminous soundscape of disco, psychedelia and bubblegum pop, is laden with Mica’s tantalising, vocals and push and pull melodies. It’s vibrant, catchy and endlessly fascinating.
Georgia Ruth – Driving Dreams
Georgia Ruth returned this year with a wonderful and wide-screen new track ‘Driving Dreams’ , gently lapping guitars, bouncing percussion, sighing horns and wrapped in elegantly drawn string arrangements. Ruth’s vocals are gorgeously quivering in an upper register, ripe with a longing for the open road and all the escape, freedom and unknown it represents, and with affectionate echoes of the 60s Americana of Glen Campbell and the sensitive orchestral suites of Serge Gainsbourg or Francoise Hardy records. It’s lifted from her album Cool Head, co-produced with long-time collaborator, Iwan Morgan.
Salute – system
Vienna Austria by way of Manchester artist, salute released ‘system’ at the start of the year through Ninja Tune. Paying homage to the UK’s club culture and French techno with a thumping, euphoric track expertly decorated in neon-lit keyboards textures and heady vocals that capture the rising tempo of joy on the dancefloor, introduced by a fade-in and celebratory lyrics. The song features subtle vocals from Empress Of who also has co-writing credits on the track.
The Allergies & K.O.G. – KOLIKO
A collaboration between veteran DJ / production duo The Allergies & Ghanaian afro-futurist artist K.O.G aka Kweku Of Ghana, is sure to get your body moving and your face similing. It’s a riotous new multi-genre track ‘KOLIKO’ that’s a blast of afrobeat, bass, horns, house, percussion, and nods to sound system culture, littered with K.O.G’s unique delivery that switches effortlessly from swaying singalong to body popping MCing,
Ekko Astral – baethoven
What a fantastic assault of sound! Rattling towards you like a runaway steam train, baethoven is a glam-punk inspired exocet, fired by fleet footed basslines that remind one of the Au Pairs, scurrying and cutting guitar licks and withering vocal asides. Before exploding into an hollering tangle of arms and legs, it’s a thunderous call to arms riven with carthasis and shades of Bikini Kill.
Ekko Astral’s Jael Holzman, guitarists Liam Hughes and Sam Elmore, bassist Guinevere Tully, and drummer Miri Tyler are relatable comrades in arms against the “The pain of being myself / At the open office / On a Friday when nobody’s around / Yellin’ I’ll circle back / To the cataracts,” she sings. “ICYMI, the earth’s coming down / And I’m throwing a fit at the luncheon / But I ain’t calling it quits here for nothing.” Absouletly unstoppable, this is one of the best things I’ve heard this year!
Kelly Lee Owens – Love You Got
“Feel it resonate(wanting pure euphoria)” This is the transcendental crescendo point on ‘Love you Got‘ a standout from Kelly Lee Owen‘s fourth album Dreamstate. It’s an addictive floor-filling song, that finds Owens in the eye of a moment, beckoning on a reconnection with joy and surfing celestial choruses, dappling synths and bouncing beats. It’s one that’s symbolic of the entire record.
Bnny – Crazy, Baby
Bnny is the Chicago band fronted by Jessica Viscius, ‘Crazy, Baby’ was lifted from their album One Million Love Songs, It’s an ode to fated relations that you know won’t last but can’t help pursuing anyway. Gliding through fuzzy guitar and a pleasingly laid-back percussive section it swells into an evocative gem, it’s both heart-breaking and yet bloody catchy. “I’m crazy, baby,” Viscius admits, “I thought you knew […] I’m just born blue.” sings Viscius with a tone of knowing and doleful regret. of a love built on sand, It effortlessly resides somewhere between early Big Thief and Phoebe Bridgers.
Elkka – Make Me
Composed over 18 months, Prism of Pleasure is Cardiff producer Elkka stepping into her own light as a woman who explores, sensuality and freedom: with such a wide vista of vibrant sounds there’s still an intimacy to her work. Heady and ripe with anthemic floor-filling cuts brimming with sensuality and adventure, Prism of Pleasure bringing you into the mind’s eye of the female gaze. ‘Make Me’ is a standout ripe with addictive floor-filling beats, seductive mantras.
Crumbs – You’re Just Jealous
Crumbs deliver an invitation to dance and a plea for understanding on the quickfire hook-laden ‘You’re Just Jealous’ with bounding bass, jagged riffing and vocal sparring that ripples with a playfulness and a withering kiss-off. Underpinned by the scampering rhythm section of Jamie and Gem, with a side order of riot grrl and post-punk, but also a knack for addictive melodies, it’s like as the press release puts it “like Delta 5 meeting Le Tigre in a dark alley in Leeds.” Which is as good as it sounds!
Y Dail – Silly Boy
‘Silly Boy’ is another tightly packed melodic gem from Y Dail, replete with a carousel of hooky 60-style riffs and lilting slightly wry melodies that sketch out a slightly tragic character, it’s redolent of The Kinks, early Gorkys Zygotic Mynci or Fuzzy Logic era Super Furry Animals, yet is spinning in its own orbit. It’s lifted from Y DAIL (aka Huw Griffiths) ‘s debut album the God Is In The TV Neutron Prize-winning Teigr, he describes the record as “a collection of songs written in my bedroom between the ages of 16 and 19, high on lapsang souchong tea and jaffa cakes.”
Goat Girl – ride around
Goat Girl – Lottie Pendlebury, Rosy Jones and Holly Mullineaux – released their third album Below The Waste through Rough Trade Records last week. Co-produced by the band and John “Spud ” Murphy (Lankum, Katie Kim, Perculator, black midi). It’s the South London trio’s most ambitious, adventurous and sprawling work to date. First single ‘ride around’ swings and sways from crunchy guitars and shifting percussion, to illuminating melodic couplets, and a cavalcade of instrumental parts that hove into view and speed past.
The Indelicates – Cold War Bop
Julia and Simon aka The Indelicates returned this year with their seventh album AVENUE QANON. A huge,l labyrinthine record full of songs about conspiracy theories the rise of the populist right, and how even ordinary people can fall down the rabbit hole. They say its about “being old and sad and silly amid the bathetically surreal discourse of one of history’s all-time stupidest decades and it sounds like Fleetwood Mac playing the theme tune to Laverne and Shirley.” ‘Cold war bop’ is great, it sounds like an apocalyptic boogie, a lustrous jive as the world is ending, it also touches on the nostalgia industry and embraces the sound of Iron Curtain and German radio stations.
Annie Dressner – Black and White
Annie Dressner hails from Cambridge but is New York-born. A seriously impressive songwriter I’ve been following for over a decade, it’s great to see with the release of her new album I Thought It Would Be Easier – her best yet, she is starting to gain the attention she deserves. One can see why, her intimate, heartfelt songs are ripe with yearning and sewn with her endearing personality, there are hints at the down-to-earth delivery of Suzanne Vega, the longing, affecting tones and strums of ‘Black and White‘.
Half Happy – Well Done Honey
Cardiff group Half Happy released a string of brilliant singles in 2024 culminating in the release of their awesome debut EP ‘Conversation Killer’ ‘Well Done Honey‘ might be the best, here they pair a glistening strum with simmering backdrops that frame Rosalie Miller‘s wistful vocals, her honest and open observations inspired by an emotional journey home after traumatic day at work, are both relatable and insightful. Swelling into an emotive shot of superior widescreen song writing in its second portion, laden with tremulous guitar licks, propelling drums and a rushing yet intimate melodic hit from Rosalie, that plunges you into a feeling of hurt after being undermined and sonically echoes the blur out of the windows on the trip home.
Grace Cummings – On and On
Grace Cummings‘ ‘On and On’ was the first single to be taken from the Australian artists third album Ramona, a song of subtlety shifting and enveloping emotive atmospheres and powerful vocal crescendos, a nagging percussive section garnished in gentle piano notes possess echoes of Kate Bush‘s ‘Running Up That Hill’, as warm brass enters like the sun warming your face. Cumming’s vocals are primal, and sinuous, frayed at the edges but housing an emotional heart that mirrors carrying the struggles and abuses of life on your back and carrying on anyway. It bristles with emotiveness and vulnerability rarely seen in today’s sanitised mainstream. It’s a wonderful song full of rich textures and vivid imagery, anchored by Cummings’s extraordinary vocal performance that crashes like giant waves in the ocean.
L E M F R E C K – Slip Away
Welsh Music Prize-winning, Newport artist L E M F R E C K returned recently with ‘Slip Away‘ a vibrant track that speeds through breakbeats, atmospheric R&B textures and slow motion breaks. It is laced with Lem’s unique delivery invested with a realisation about a relationship and the ensuing back and forth with the decision. It’s another vital offering from an artist who is set to break through to a wider consciousness.
Sunday (1994) – Tired Boy
Sunday (1994) are an Anglo/American band that formed when Paige Turner met Lee Newell, and the enigmatic drummer Puma. They have been capturing our hearts all year with a string of fantastic indie pop singles ladled with cinematic textures, the gorgeous vocals of Turner, and earworm melodies, scattered with some surprisingly brutally honest couplets.
Introducing themselves with their gorgeously swooning debut single, ‘Tired Boy, ‘ one of the best songs of the year; a golden slice of dreamy pop songwriting, that will wrap itself around your heart with its honesty and melodic sigh, Turner explains, it’s about “being in love and ultimately jealous with someone so careless and clumsy, yet somehow everything always falls into place for them.”
Noah Bouchard – Sometimes
Noah Bouchard released his excellent debut album Love Of My Live earlier this year, produced alongside Minas, these songs are bedroom productions that shine with elements of hip hop and electronica, rife with downtempo tales and vulnerability, it’s a fascinating journey toward self-acceptance. ‘Sometimes’, rustles with plaintive piano, a shuffling scuffed-up beat and wistful down-tempo vocals that speaks right into your ear. Atmospheric and bittersweet, it still has a hook and a catchy sway, allied with a diaristic charm.
Punchlove – Guilt
This Brooklyn collective craft some of the most fearsomely beautiful sonic gut punches(pun intentional) we have felt in some years. Abrasive yet bittersweet, crunchy and exultant, capturing the distortion peddle nirvana of acts like early My Bloody Valentine and sewing it with elements of intricate and shifting post-rock dynamics, and underpinned by an appreciation of the lineage of New York art sound of Sonic Youth, yet retaining an explorative imagination and spirit all of their own. ‘Guilt‘ is a standout; serrated guitars scale skyscrapers whilst melodic peaks and valleys are shattered and intoxicating, this is arresting and fantastic! We are definitely punch drunk and in love with them!
King Hannah feat Sharon Van Etten – Big Swimmer
King Hannah (Hannah Merrick and Craig Whittle) released their album Big Swimmer, in May was produced by Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius) and finds wide-screen inspiration from the band’s time on the road over the past few years across the US, with stints supporting Kurt Vile and Thurston Moore.
The awesome album opener and title-track, featuring guest vocals from Sharon Van Etten, who the band connected with when Van Etten posted about their debut single ‘Crème Brûlée’. The track opens with a starkly vulnerable vocal, Van Etten and Merrick’s voices entwining across this enveloping, rich, and rolling ‘70’s American folk rock influenced track, with subtle strums and cinematic percussive textures, there are echoes of Mazzy Star, marrying darkness with light and carrying home the final message of ‘Big Swimmer’ – never stop swimming.
Babehoven – Birdseye
Babehoven are New York-based duo of Maya Bon and Ryan Albert released Water’s Here In You, in April. The beguiling and gorgeous, lead track Birdseye is built in the arms of golden widescreen strums and big drums, and Bon’s lucid and fantastic vocals. “I forgive you” she sings in a swoop of melody, invested with bristling empathy, it’s utterly heart warming.
‘Birdseye’ is about the fragility and mystery of life, forgiveness, and reconnection,” Bon says in a press statement. “The bird’s eye view with “one long arrow pointed at you” represents love from afar, a cardinal direction. It is a song about warmth, represented by the aromatic spices ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon in the heat of a stew. Steeped in a perfumed simmer of care, we move through the pain and find a way to forgive.”
The Cure – Love is a Fragile Thing
The Cure returned this year with Songs of a Lost World their first album in sixteen years. What strikes you is how much Robert Smith’s remarkable songwriting and voice has endured even as he nears his mid-60s. ‘Love is a Fragile Thing‘ deals with loss, the fleeting nature of life, and the tenuousness of love, with the above tumbling crushing percussion, and bass lines that shift like the tectonic plates, and spidery guitars and a vocal that isn’t just wistful but steeped in a barely concealed rage at the realisation that everyone leaves you in the end.
El Perro Del Mar – Silence
Sarah Assbring, Swedish singer, multi-instrumentalist, and composer known as El Perro del Mar released her stunning record Big Anonymous in February. In Silence’ is extraordinary, Assbring’s bewitching vocals, that reside with echoes of everyone from early Kate Bush to Gazelle Twin, blanket this nightmarish landscape of cinematic and shifting atmospheric instrumentation. She hauntingly plunges us into the themes of grief, loss, mortality and darkness. Offering you a glimpse of unplumbed depths as she is holding on for dear life. It’s an extraordinary listen.
