Every year, warofnature.com selects unmissable new records. Albums that – in our humble opinion – stand out from the crowd. A ‘top 10’ this year, plus some top tunes as a bonus just for you. And a playlist. Reviewed in one sentence, more or less.
But before we get to the list, a summing up, as per.
Last year’s selection was an altogether gentler affair, and featured zithers (Blue lake), found sounds (Mandy, Indiana), and superb electronic records by Avalon Emerson, Atmos Blaq, Phillipi, Aphex and Pangaea (who very nearly made the 10). Sure, there was noise there too, but not like this year. Oh no, this year very much reflected the times – in sheer heaviness (Chat Pile, Moin, Mount Eerie) and sheer blissful avoidance (Bug Club, Bolis Pupul, English Teacher).
Inbetween was the wonky beauty of Cindy Lee’s ‘Disney Girls’ – only absent from the top most end-of-year lists due to the unavailability/cost of the physical product outside the USA. Let’s be honest, most end of year lists are a sales pitch that rarely reflects the true diversity of good shit (honorable exceptions Pitchfork, Jumbo Records, Quietus). The batshit genre of its own that was Hakushi Hasegawa’s latest lay in this cleft too, and if they are too spicy for you and you want more J-Pop in your tune:noise ratio, try ゆっ き ゅ ん , 君 島 大 空 (! It’s track 69 on the playlist below), or Shugo Tokumaru. And there is the very Marmite-ness of Still House Plants, lifted into the top 10 partly as a result of their superb show at ICA in London. There couldn’t have been a more apt venue – and crowd – for such classy artiness.
I left Jessica Pratt’s ‘Here in the Pitch’ off the list because, well, everyone else didn’t, and cos I’ve overplayed it, and need to give all things Jessica a rest for a while.
As for tunes of the year, outside of the top 10 artists, I’d like to draw attention to the following lovelies. Agriculture’s ‘Being Eaten by a Tiger’, Horse Jumper of Love ‘Gates of Heaven’, Glass Beams ‘Mahal’, Richard Thompson ‘The Day that I Give In’, Linda Thompson (oh yes) ‘The Solitary Traveller’, Beak> ‘Strawberry Line’, Toro y Moi ‘Tuesday’, The Smile ‘Zero Sum’, and Thàn Luke ‘Nghich Ly’. And for you dancers out there, Basstripper ‘Time to Go’ and – why not! – Pendulum/Joey Valance/Brae ‘Napalm’.
So, I hope you enjoy. And if you’d like to listen along, here’s a playlist of just over 120 of the best tunes from 2024, including all those mentioned. It features the mighty Pippi The Dog on the sleeve, RIP.
10. The Bug Club – On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System
Non-stop ‘quality tunes’ (geddit?) and inventive garage rock bangers, touched by the hand of ancenstral Welsh geniuses like Gorkys and Super Furries, but more funnier.
9. Bolis Pupul – Letter to Yu
Textured Kraftwerkian pop exploring grief, loss and inter-cultural life, via melacholy as well as the dancefloor.
8. Still House Plants – If I don’t Make it I Love You
Inventive, absorbing, luminous art rock that takes major risks with song structure, vocal style and delivery, and gets away with it big time.
7. Hakushi Hasegawa – Mahōgakkō
In neuro-spicy terms, this is vindaloo – completely hectic, grin-inducing madness over ridiculously catchy pop hooks. Whatever this guy’s on, I’ll have one.
6. Chat Pile – Cool World
An Okie noise metal reaction to Gaza and the very ‘uncool world’ of 2024…think as heavy as that sounds, and double it. This year’s ‘Record that most sounds like it’s album cover’ winner.
5. LYR – An Unnatural History
This just makes me smile out loud from start to finish. Great words from the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage’s residency in Barnsley neighbourhood of Eldon Street, and great Krautrock-esque tunes from Richard Walters and Patrick Pearson. Sample lyric, “November. Pterodactyl on the bird feeder, very keen on the fat balls. Marsh tit calling from the trees, meadow pipit ditto.” – I mean, COME ON, how great is that! The most nature-connected album of the year, hands down.
4. Mount Eerie – Night Palace
Epic in every sense, Phil Elverum’s 11th album as Mount Eerie is richly rewarding in its diversity of approach, scale of production, lyrical sweep, and the kind of atmosphere nurtured by life in rural Washington state. One sentence cannot do this record justice.
3. Moin – You Never End
Slint/Fugazi/Protomartyr/Shellac/Moin/Moin/Moin. Joins Still House Plants as joint winners of the ‘Great drum and guitar sounds of the 2024’ battle.
2. English Teacher – Night Palace
Not just on the list for its pop accessibility – it is accessible, and that’s OK! But this is also a very accomplished first album from a band that complements its grown up indie rockness with expert Krautrock knowledge, sophisticated arrangments and complete mastery of the coda.
1. Cindy Lee – Disney Girls
Undisputed finest record of the year – and next year’s too no doubt, when it’s released outside USA and Patrick Flegel’s maple nation.
Unique for Patrick Flegel’s alternate head and chest voices, soaked like cherries in a rum punch of reverb and 60s atmospherics, off-kilter and out of time instruments, and tune after tune after tune. This is music that sounds as if it’s playing in the next room, no matter how loud you turn it up. A record that never walks or runs, but staggers, wonks, woozes and attaches itself to your brain box like a parasitic amoeba. From an artist brave enough to break up his last band (the mighty Women), walk off stage on the second date of his current tour and cancel the rest, and peform in drag.
All this a good thing, believe me. Find it on Bandcamp now.
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