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Ritual, Jon Hopkins (2024)

When Jon Hopkins does ambient music, he does it in a way that is brasher, louder than anyone else; on Ritual, however, those ambient bits are overshadowed by bits of even brasher, even louder progressive electronic stuff. Loud or quiet, it’s all richly crafted but rarely particularly captivating. 

Pick: ‘part iv – the veil’

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In Dreams, Duster (2024)

Considering Duster’s recent astounding success, expecting anything radically different from the band is, frankly, a bit stupid. But that isn’t to say I wouldn’t appreciate a bit of variation, a little bit of adventure every now and then. In Dreams is Duster doing what they do, albeit not quite as good as before. 

Pick: ‘Isn’t Over’

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WOOF. Fat Dog (2024)

Embrace the goof and Fat Dog are great fun; stupidly brash dance-rock with several (but not actually that many) delightfully filthy, gargantuan smackers. Looking for snootier, more cerebral rock music? Go elsewhere. 

Pick: ‘Running’

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#Notes of Forestry, Motohiko Hamase (1988)

Motohiko Hamase’s best-known release, much of 1988’s #Notes of Forestry is of a very pleasant, slightly jazzy strain of orchestral minimalism – that is, aside from an astonishing final track. Over 17 minutes closer ‘Nude’ blends post-minimalism with ambience, each layer interweaving and overlapping with confounding grace. One cannot listen to it and not get lost within. 

Pick: ‘Nude’

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Gekiatsu NENE (2024)

Pop rap doesn’t have to be bloated and overblown; NENE’s Gekiatsu is proof the style can be clinical and trim, twenty-two minutes of punchy, sexy bops. 

Pick: ‘Hebii

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MSPAINT (2020), Post-American (2023), MSPAINT

Who’d have thought rap rock would be my thing, but here we are. I managed to catch MSPAINT live twice in a week last month and they totally converted me: proper proof that support slots, despite all the disinterested audience chatter, are an invaluable platform for emerging artists. MSPAINT fuse rap-rock with synthy post-hardcore, ear-worming hooks and political urgency; the big tunes are massive, the rest samey but stellar.

Pick(s): ‘Hardwired’, ‘Delete It’

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Endlessness, Nala Sinephro (2024)

Can Nala Sinephro concoct as much magic over several tracks on Endlessness as she did on the singular piece of Space 1.8? Silly question – of course she can. Somehow Sinephro manages to conjure musical worlds just as lush and expansive, just as captivating and transportive as before, not just in each track but as an overall album impression. Masterful. 

Pick: ‘Continuum 1’

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Manning Fireworks, MJ Lenderman (2024)

The name of MJ Lenderman’s game on Manning Fireworks is refinement; clarity in a hi-fi sound and further profundity to his nonchalant, DeLillo-esque dissections of the quotidian. For a wistful and romantic yet uncommitted, insincere Catholic like me, it’s all as irresistible as ever. 

Pick: ‘Wristwatch’

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Power Illuminati Hotties (2024)

Following years of making – increasingly captivating – punk-inflected indie tunes, Sarah Tudzin’s latest Illuminati Hotties record ditches the punk entirely for a tuneful and well-written indie pop work. In shaking off punk, however, Tudzin loses one of her music’s main points of interest; Power is, as a result, lacking any sort of distinction or memorability. It is very, very lightweight. 

Pick: ‘I Would Like, Still Love You’

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Wild God Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (2024)

Up to this point I’ve stuck by Nick Cave, and enjoyed doing so. His grief-induced turn (or at least his set of releases obviously impacted by grieving) has produced excellence; Skeleton Tree, Carnage and Ghostern may not be his absolute best – his catalogue is ferociously high calibre – but they’re exceptional nonetheless, and few artists in my mind have pulled off such a bold mid-career shift.

On Wild God however, and for the first time with any Cave work or side project, I’m totally disinterested. Cave’s preacher persona is now a personality ruined by his earnest (and missguided) belief in his own everyman wisdom; Cave’s preaching is now not his own twisted gothic gospel but one of mundanities and platitudes. Wild God primarily wields gospel rock, billowing and plodding, but the core of its unappeal is Cave himself, trotting out the same themes – I could swear, often the very same lines – as before. Tired, repetitive, dull. 

One can sympathise and respect how Cave’s recent emotional experiences have shaped his music – after all, his grief is something most won’t ever have to endure  – but one doesn’t have to enjoy the results. Wild God marks something bigger than simple failure; it is the shattering of Cave’s untouchability. At no point in Nick Cave’s career so far (aye, not even the Nocturama years) had I doubted his artistic singularity and greatness. Once shattered, can untouchability and enchantment return? 

Pick: ‘Final Rescue Attempt’

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Every Bridge Burning Nails (2024)

Nails return with another mega-crunchy, mercilessly heavy and technically superhuman record, and it’s almost like they’ve never been away, almost. I know not enough about the various genres to know why, but Every Bridge Burning doesn’t quite land as powerfully – or not all of it does, anyway.

Pick: ‘Give Me the Painkiller’

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Starchris, Body Meat (2024)

Tectonic and grandiose with battering beats, vast landscapes of sound, fascinating use of textures, Body Meat’s Starchris is a musical monument but also, as an entire artwork, lethargic. Even if such exhaustion and weight has a purpose, it makes repeatedly listening to Starchris in its entirety somewhat difficult.

Pick: ‘Ōbu no Surei’

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Terminal (2018), Lambda (2024), Zuli

It is understandable that music which is truly radically ahead of its time goes underappreciated – after all, the masses aren’t up to comprehending it. Zuli’s two major records so far boast that sort of avant-gardism, among this century’s most singular electronic works. Terminal’s mix of thwacking post-industrial, grime and glitch and spatial ambience and field recordings still questions and challenges its listener, six years later; this year’s Lambda makes no fewer concessions, with vaster, denser sonic atmospheres

Pick(s): ‘Vulnerbody’, ‘Myth //’

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Romance, Fontaines DC (2024)

Grian Chatten isn’t Yeats or Wilde or Joyce or Beckett. He’s a Gallagher, an Albarn, a Pizzorno. Fontaines DC ditch the lyrical pretensions and embrace the dark side (stadium rock bangers) on Romance, and it suits them mightily.

Pick: ‘Favourite’

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Your Day Will Come, Chanel Beads (2024)

Chanel Beads’ lush acoustic post-Dean Blunt psychedelia has immediate appeal in its easy-going melodies and rich atmospheres, but most enchanting is its craft. Your Day Will Come is the work of someone dedicated to the details.

Pick: ‘Police Scanner’

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Allegory & Self, Psychic TV (1988)

Genesis P-Orridge’s finest Psychic TV work left behind the nursery rhymes and hymns (thank god) of the project’s first two albums for beats and pop, subversing not through spooky solemnity but through sleek and irresistible dance rock. Psychic TV as a project is rightly best remembered by Allegory & Self, P-Orridge and Alex Fergusson’s final collaborative piece and a delightfully odd pop rock record. 

Pick: ‘Godstar’

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All At Once, Ebbb (2024)

Blindfolded, someone, somewhere threw two darts at a spinning wheel. The first dart chirpily leaped through the air and planted itself in a pizza slice named ‘Fleet Foxes / Beach Boys’; the other thunked between the boundaries of a more murkily toned segment titled ‘post-industrial electronica���. Thus Ebbb were (probably) born. Odd the combo may be, Ebbb execute it marvellously; music that is both dark and rumbling but also innovatively constructed and really, really beautiful in an out-of-body, boundlessly skyward sort of way. 

Pick: ‘Swarm’