#mdou moctar

[jgthirlwell]

2024 Year In Review

2024 was another intense year. It was the first time in twenty years I wasn’t scoring a show for TV, and I got to concentrate on finishing albums and starting new projects. The year began with the premiere of my chamber symphony for Alterity Chamber Orchestra in Orlando and ended with guest-vocalizing with the Losers Lounge Band on a Bowie classic at Joe's Pub in NYC. I completed new albums for Xordox and Venture Bros, to be released in 2025. I released an Archer Soundtrack album and scored a Harry Smith film for L’Etrange Festival in Paris. Worked with Laura Wolf on a new project and premiered my Ensemble project at the Big Ears Festival in Tennessee. Recorded many overdubs for the next Foetus album, also to be released in 2025. Began a new series of sculptural wall pieces. We lost Phill Niblock in January and Steve Albini in May. We lost my colleague Roli Mosimann in September. I still woke up 5am in a panic on too many occasions. As a cultural omnivore, many sights, sounds and stimuli penetrated me.

Albums that I enjoyed in 2024

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum of the Last Human Being (Pelagic) Present This is not the end (Cuneiform) Tristan Perich/Ensemble 0 Open Symmetry (Erased Tapes) Drew McDowall A Thread Silvered and Trembling (Dais) Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan Your Community Hub (Castles In Space) Extra Life The Sacred Vowel (Bandcamp) Geordie Greep The New Sound (Rough Trade) D-en Haut D-en Haut (Pagan) Aksumi Fleeting Future + Lines (Tonal Union) Louis Cole Nothing (Brainfeeder) Uniform American Standard (Sacred Bones) Zeal and Ardor Greif (Redacted) Shellac To All Trains (Touch and Go) Bangladeafy Vulture (Nefarious Industries) Ekko Astral Pink Balloons (Topshelf Records) Kee Avil Spine (Constellation) Fennesz Mosaic (Touch) Marewren Ukouk Round singing Voices of the Ainu 2012-2024 (Pingipung) Elysian Fields What The Thunder Said (Ojet) Melvins Tarantula Heart (Ipecac) Blood Incantation Absolute Elsewhere (Century Media) Aoife O’Donovan All My Friends (Yep Roc) Anna Thorvaldsdottir Aerial (Sono Luminus) Grace Bergere A Little Blood (Casa Gogol) Bob Vylan Humble As The Sun (Ghost Theatre 2) Andy Akiho Kin (Aki Rhythm) Yannis Kyriakides Hypnokaseta (Unsounds) Big | Brave A Chaos of Flowers (Thrill Jockey) The The Ensoulment (Cinéola / earMUSIC) Beth Gibbons Lives Outgrown (Domino) Beak >>>> / Kosmik Musik (Invada) Sebastian Tropic OST (Ed Banger) Chaser Planned Obsolescence (Decoherence Records) Jesus Lizard Rack (Ipecac) Ex East Islander Norther (Rocket Recordings)

Some books I enjoyed

Yuval Noah Harari Nexus Chris Stein Under A Rock Bill Buford Among The Thugs Patricia Highsmith The Talented Mr Ripley Sy Montgomery Soul Of An Octopus Malcolm Gladwell Revenge Of The Tipping Point

Some films I enjoyed

Furiosa ZEF Story Of Die Antwoord Joker Folie A Deux Kneecap Bad Faith Rebel Ridge Hundreds Of Beavers Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Behavior Teachers Lounge

I saw hundreds of concerts in 2024. Some highlights:

01.24.24 The Chisel at Bowery Ballroom 02.15.24 Jack Quartet play Austin Wulliman at Roulette Intermedium NYC. 03.09.24 Louis Cole / Genevieve Artadi at Brooklyn Steel 03.14.24 Kate NV at the Atrium at Lincoln Center 03.18.24 Sleepytime Gorilla Museum at Elsewhere in Brooklyn 03.23.24 Secret Chiefs 3 at Big Ears Festival 03.23.24 Hatis Noit at St John’s Cathedral in Knoxville TN for the Big Ears Festival 03.24.24 Kenny Wollesen’s Sonic Massage at Knoxville Art Museum for the Big Ears Festival 03.24.24 Elliott Sharp’s Void Patrol (with guests Cyro Batista and Colin Stetson) at Big Ears Festival 03.24.24 Aoife O'Donovan with the Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra at the Big Ears Festival 04.01.24 Caleb Landry Jones at The Sultan Room i 04.06.24 Lovely Little Girls at Hart Bar. 04.19.24 Keith Fullerton Whitman performs ‘Playthroughs’ at Ambient Church 04.23.24 Mandy Indiana at Elsewhere in Brooklyn 04.26.24 Knower at the Brooklyn Bowl 05.04.24 Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, directed by Tim Weiss, play Alex Paxton at Long Play Festival 05.04.24 Fuji|||||||||||ta at Long Play Festival 05.05.24 Ligeti Quartet perform Ligeti + Anna Meredith at Long Play Festival 05.17.23 Swans at Music Hall of Williamsburg 05.23.24 The Rolling Stones played at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey. 05.24.24 John Zorn’s ensemble, the New Masada Quartet 06.08.24 Rebekah Heller’s Bassoon Ensemble 06.25.24 Mdou Moctar at Bowery Ballroom NYC 07.12.24 C.Gibbs Review at Barbes 07.23.24 Bangladeafy at The Sultan Room in Brooklyn 08.18.24 Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds at Union Pool 08.23.24 Alarm Will Sound play Marcos Balter’s Code-Switching, 09.30.24 Uniform at Bowery Ballroom 09.04.24 King Dunn aka King Buzzo (Melvins) and Trevor Dunn (Mr Bungle etc) at Music Hall of Williamsburg + White Eagle Hall in Jersey City. 09.13.24 Steven Bernstein and Nels Cline with the Arturo O'Farrill Latin Jazz Orchestra, playing James Bond themes. At Bryant Park in NYC. 09.15.24 PJ Harvey at Terminal 5, NYC 10.11.24 John Zorn’s Cobra in a 40th anniversary performance at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn 10.17.25 The The played at the Beacon Theater 10.22.24 Die Antwoord at Brooklyn Steel, 10.23.24 Boris played at Racket in NYC. 11.01.24 William Basinski for Age Of Reflections 11.04.24 Growing performing for Abasement at Artists Space in Manhattan 11.06.24 Pioneer Works presented a concert of Louis Cole Choral Music. 11.08.24 Lankum at Warsaw in Brooklyn 11.17.24 sunn o))) at Lincoln Center for the Unsound Festival 11.21.24 Extra Life at TV Eye. 11.24.24 Zeal and Ardor at Le Poisson Rouge NYC 11.25.24 Axiom, comprised of Juilliard students and conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky playing Solstice Ritual by Augusta Read Thomas 11.26.24 Blood Incantation at Elsewhere 12.01.24 Pharmakon’s awesomely unhinged performance at Union Pool. 12.11.24 Jesus Lizard played a great set at Brooklyn Steel 12.28.24 Grace Bergere / Jon Spencer / Gogol Bordello Capitol Theater Port Chester

Honorable mention to the multiple concerts I attended at the Abasement series at Artist Space, as well as multiple shows by S.E.M. Ensemble and Wet Ink Ensemble

[pitchburgh]

Interesting article from Paste Magazine today (10/9/2024) exploring which albums have defined the 2020s to date. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about music, but much of this list was surprisingly unfamiliar to me!

How about you?

Bonus points if you mention which listed artist(s) are your favorite in the tags 😎

[jt1674]

[dustedmagazine]

A good year for music if nothing else: Jennifer Kelly’s 2024 review

Ben Chasny came to VT in 2024, go figure.

Things have been feeling very end of the world for a few years now, and 2024 (especially from November on) only intensified my sense of doom. It’ll get worse, too, in 2025. The vilest, stupidest people on earth are in change, and oh boy, do they have a lot of ideas, all of them bad.

But you lived through last year, too, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get to experience whatever hell 2025 brings. It’s scary shit, but also deeply tedious, so let’s talk about music instead.

Because music came through in a big way this year. There was so much of it, and so much that was great.

Live music, for instance, continued to flourish, even in very small markets like Western Massachusetts and southern Vermont and New Hampshire. Bang, right off the bat, we caught Makaya McCraven in February holding court at Brattleboro’s Vermont Jazz Center. With Junius Paul, Brandee Younger and Marquis Hill, he hit the highlights from 2022’s In these Times, mixing up trad jazz, improvisation and hip hop in an intricate mesh, and it was wonderful.

Makaya McCraven and friends

Now let’s jump ahead to May and the always remarkable Thing in the Spring, where Myriam Gendron (with Jim White and Marisa Anderson), Mark Ribot, Earth and many others visited Keene, NH. Wadada Leo Smith played an astonishing set with Shazad Ismaily…even more astonishing, he had to yell at the crowd for quiet.

I even had the chance to see a couple of bands that rarely play live. In August, my friend Chris Liberato booked the super-ish group Winged Wheel to play at a nondescript bar near Springfield Mass. It was revelatory, worth getting lost trying to find 91 in the middle of the night afterwards.

Winged Wheel

Then in November, right around the time, things started getting dark, I hit the lottery. First Haley Fohr and Bill Nace raised the spirits in Keene, a day later the NYC post-punk legends Love Child with Lupo Citta in Easthampton, and a couple of days after that, Ben Chasney and Tashi Dorji in Brattleboro in front of the towering pipe organ at Epsilon Spires.

Love Child

Tashi Dorji

Recorded music came in an avalanche in 2024, just so many good records, month after month after month. I narrowed my favorites down to a list of 42, harder than you’d think, and there are plenty of discs I enjoyed plenty that didn’t make the cut.

Top Ten

Rosali—Bite Down (Merge) My favorite all year long for Rosali’s lovely voice, the instant classic-ness of the songs and the kicking band in Mowed Sound.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Wild God (PIAS) What I’d really like is another Grinderman, but this lush, string-heavy iteration of the Cave art form is very fine in its own way, not least because it leans on the Bad Seeds more heavily than the last couple. Time for joy indeed.

The Cure—Songs for a Lost World (Polydor) It is not easy to crack my top five in November, but Robert Smith did it with the bleak, soul-stirring grandeur of this late-life epic. It doesn’t hurt that he still sounds exactly like he did in my misspent youth.

Oneida—Expensive Air (Joyful Noise) Oneida has been my favorite working band for decades, and this one follows the song-structured Success with more bangers but also more weirdness. Thalia Zedek sings on two tracks with her signature ragged power.

Miriam Gendron—Mayday (Thrill Jockey) These are just surpassingly beautiful songs about love and death, gorgeously played and sung.  Gendron continues to get more comfortable with her art, taking a few more well-worth-it steps from her folk music origins.

PYPY—Sacred Times (Goner) Unhinged post-punk from one of the best in Montreal’s thriving scene. “Lonely Striped Sock” crosses ESG with Delta Five and contains the craziest keyboard lick I’ve heard this year.

MJ Lenderman—Manning Fireworks (ANTI-) One of 2024’s consensus favorites, and for all that, more idiosyncratic and complicated than you’d expect. Genuinely intriguing writing coupled with an incendiary rock roar.

Cassandra Jenkins—My Light My Destroyer (Dead Oceans) A bigger, denser, more accomplished sound for Jenkins than on her magical debut, but no less quirkily intelligent for its beauty.

Mdou Moctar—Funeral for Justice (Matador) Mdou Moctar is maybe the best guitarist in rock music right now, and here’s the kicker, he’s not really in rock music. Searing, wrenching, politically charged Afro-rock from the master.

Another Dancer—I Try to Be Another Dancer (Bruit Direct Disques) This charmingly odd Brussels ensemble skips from detuned Lewsberg-style minimalism to glowing Stereolab raves. Unexpected and intoxicating.

The rest

Winged Wheel—Big Hotel (12XU)

Uranium Club—Infants Under the Bulb (Static Shock)

E—Living Waters (Silver Rocket)

Luppo Citta—S-T (12XU)

Six Organs—Time Is Glass (Drag City)

Des Demonas—Apocalyptic Boom Boom (In the Red)

Guided by Voices—Strut of Kings (GBV Inc.)

Weak Signal—Fine (12XU)

Bonnie “Prince” Billy—Hear the Children/The Evidence (No Quarter)

Yasmin Williams—Acadia (Nonesuch)

Bill Mackay—Locust Land (Drag City)

Hard Quartet—S-T (matador)

The Bug Club—On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System (Sub Pop)

Black Pus—Terrestrial Seethings (Thrill Jockey)

Dummy—Free Energy (Trouble in Mind)

Horse Jumper of Love—Disaster Trick (Run for Cover)

Itasca—Imitation of War (Paradise of Bachelors)

West of Roan—Queen of Eyes (Spinster)

James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg—All Gist (Paradise of Bachelors)

Workers Comp—S-T (Ever/Never)

Jessica Pratt—Here in the Pitch (Mexican Summer)

Aluminum—Fully Beat (felte)

Mary Timony—Untame the Tiger (Merge)

Mount Eerie—Night Palace (P.W. Elverum & Sun)

Penny Arcade—Backwater Collage (Tapete)

Rail Band—S-T (Mississippi)

The Softies—The Bed I Made (Father/Daughter)

Thine Retail Simps—Strike Gold Strike Back Strike Out (Total Punk)

Unknowns—East Coast Low (Drunken Sailor)

Ava Mendoza—Circular Train (Palilia)

Ned Collette—Our Other History (ever/never)

Amelia Courthouse—broken things (Spinster)

The Osees—Sorc 80 (Castle Face)

[mudwerks]

(via Mdou Moctar – The Agadez Folders: Live at Sultan’s Palace)

Mahamadou Souleymane, known professionally as Mdou Moctar (also M.dou Mouktar), is a Tuareg songwriter and musician based in Agadez, Niger, who performs modern rock music inspired by Tuareg guitar music. His music first gained attention through a trading network of mobile phones and memory cards in West Africa. He sings in the Tamasheq language.

[orendarling]

Mdou Moctar

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

July, 2024

[raggedclawsscuttling]

Mdou Moctar is such a trip. It's like, here's a poem about the impacts of French colonialism. Here's a blistering guitar solo.

[phonographica]

Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice (2024)

[anamelessfool]

One of my favorite bands just announced a new acoustic album for 2025. Their performance in NYC was absolutely transcendent and now reading the origin for this acoustic album is poignant. The genre is called "Desert Punk" for a reason.

From their Bandcamp:

If Funeral for Justice was the sound of outrage, Tears of Injustice is the sound of grief. Mdou Moctar’s new album is Funeral for Justice completely re-recorded and rearranged for acoustic and traditional instruments. It is an evolution of the band’s critically-adored breakout – the meditative mirror-image to the blistering original. In July of 2023, Mdou Moctar was on tour in the United States when the president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, was deposed by a military junta who made him prisoner at the presidential residence. They ordered the nation’s borders closed, leaving band members Mdou Moctar, Ahmoudou Madassane, and Souleymane Ibrahim unable to return home to their families. Plans to record a companion to Funeral for Justice – then still many months from release – had been in the works already, but the idea now took on new urgency and gravity. Two days after the tour wrapped in New York City, the quartet began tracking Tears of Injustice at Brooklyn’s Bunker Studio with engineer Seth Manchester. We wanted to prove that we could do it on a record, too. And there’s a whole other side of the band that comes out when we play a stripped down set. It becomes something new.” They chose to track Tears sitting together in one room, keeping the session loose, stripped down, and spontaneous. “We didn’t really work on the arrangements prior to going in,” recalls Coltun. “We’d just play, find the feel, and do the song.” Things came together quickly, with principal recording wrapped in only two days. The hypnotic 8-minute take of ‘Imouhar’ is actually two distinct passes through the song performed in quick succession – Moctar didn’t stop playing long enough to split the takes apart. After a month, the band was able to return home to Niger and, when they did, Coltun gave Madassane a Zoom recorder to take along. The rhythm guitarist used it to record a group of Tuaregs performing call-and-response vocals, which were later added into the final mix. On Funeral for Justice, anger at the plight of Niger and the Tuareg people is plainly expressed in the music’s volume and velocity. On Tears, the songs retain that weight sans amplification. They are steeped in sadness, conveying the grief of a nation locked into a constant churn of poverty, colonial exploitation, and political upheaval. It is Tuareg protest music in raw and essential form. “When Mdou writes the lyrics, he typically writes them with an acoustic guitar. So you’re getting closer to that original moment,” says Coltun. “It retains heaviness, but it’s haunting.” credits releases February 28, 2025

[teledyn]

Mdou Moctar - Tarhatazed (Live on KEXP)

[jgthirlwell]

06.25.24 Mdou Moctar at Bowery Ballroom NYC

[innervoiceart]

Mdou Moctar - Imouhar (Official Music Video)

Imouhar is the Tuareg equivalent to "brother" or "comrade.” It’s a familial way to say “Tuareg people” that expresses a shared bond. 

Taken from Mdou Moctar's upcoming album 'Funeral for Justice' out on Matador Records, May 3, 2024

[jt1674]

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year 2024, Part II (Lumpeks to Z-Ro)

Rosali

Part two of our mid-year round-up provides a second perspective on albums that at least one Dusted writer loved.  Here we cover the second half, alphabetically by artist, with entries from Lumpeks to Z-Ro. 

If you missed Part I, check it out here. 

Lumpeks — Polonez (Umlaut)

Who nominated it? Bill Meyer

Did we review it? No

Ian Mathers’ take:

I’m honestly not familiar enough with either jazz or traditional Polish dance music to be able to spot or articular exactly where this intriguing and very enjoyable fusion of the two has joined them. There’s a similar feel to other acts I’ve heard that both clearly deeply respect the traditional music they draw on and are unafraid to put their own spin on that source material (both Xylouris White and Black Ox Orkestar came to mind), and as with those other cases the results on Polonez could equally be ancient or brand new. That the quartet’s main instrumentation (which also includes Louis Laurain on cornet, Pierre Borel on alto sax, and Sébastien Belief on double bass) includes steady, deep frame drumming (using a local variation called a bębenek obręczowy) from Olga Koziel (who also sings) gives it plenty of distinct character. And the mostly French group cares enough about actually understanding and respecting that traditional Polish music they made a short documentary about the field research that went into making Polonez. There’s an energetic, joyous swing to both the jazz and folk sides of Lumpeks’ music that makes the result much more than just an academic curiosity.

Mdou Moctar — Funeral for Justice (Matador)

Who nominated it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? No, but we did a Listening Post. In the intro, Jennifer Kelly wrote, “The new record is as sharp and impassioned as any Moctar and his band have done so far, and it is inflamed with political energy.”

Andrew Forell’s take:

Mdou Moctar is an extraordinary guitarist and must be incredible in a live setting. The rhythms, the vocal back and forth and the moments Mochtar sprays power chords and shards of riffs that explode like bombs are all great. You feel his rage and frustration even when you don’t understand the lyrics. But the super intricate, high-speed soloing, whilst impressive, had the same effect on me as listening to electric blues-rock. I’m caught between the passion of the band, the eloquence of their anti-colonialist, pro-African politics, and the technically brilliant guitar noodling. The title track is a fantastic meld and it’s hard not be carried along but I really prefer the slower tracks, particularly “Takoba” and “Imajighen”, which lope along behind the drums while the bass darts around between entwined guitar lines and call and response vocals. Funeral for Justice is an album I admired and enjoyed hearing but, for me, the pyrotechnics get in the way.

Jessica Moss – For UNRWA (self-released)

Who picked it?  Ian Mathers

Did we review it?  Yes, Ian said, “sorrow and elegy and rage and strength all course throughout the piece.”

Bryon’s take:

This is a beautiful album born from an ugly situation.  Violinist Jessica Moss released this Bandcamp-only album to raise money for the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) after nation states halted funding when it was erroneously thought a few of its members were aligned with Hamas.  It’s a 42-minute suite of violin, electronics, and vocals that Moss captured at a live set in Berlin.  As someone who hasn’t had the pleasure of investigating her solo work but is enamored with her contributions to Silver Mt. Zion and other bands, I find this album to be an effective port of entry.  It swells with all the emotions that Ian describes in his review, unfurling with a beauty and grace that at times evokes stillness and at others exudes passionate fervor.  Based on this piece alone, I’ve decided that I need more of Moss’ music in my life.    

NYSSA — Shake Me Where I’m Foolish (Six Shooter)

Who nominated it? Alex Johnson

Did we review it? No.

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

NYSSA gets its kick from the charisma of the eponymous front woman, a wailing, belting, crooning dynamo, whose delivery is part punk, part roots rock, part blues and part adrenalized, corruscating confession. NYSSA’s first album, Girls Like Me, was long-listed for the 2021 Polaris Prize. This follow-up is less synthy and more rock, fleshed out by a ripping band. It’s larger in every way, from the stomping, vibrato-laced rager, “Werewolf,” to the torchy, piano-bar introspection of “Blessed Turn.” “I’m good for nothing but the hell I raise,” NYSSA intimates on the rollicking “Hell I Raise,” but she’s wrong. She’s good at lots of things.

Rosali – Bite Down (Merge)

Who picked it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes. Christian Carey wrote: “Rocking out is on the menu” and “the connections between pleasure and pain seem to coalesce in Rosali’s work.”

Alex Johnson’s take:

It’s a ferocious album, but intimate too. I hear a lot of Christine McVie in Rosali’s vocal. The way her delivery of “I want to feel right at the end of the day/I’m letting things come as they may” on “Rewind” contains warmth and sadness and joy and a sense of power in powerlessness that’s somewhere between cynicism and hope. It’s right out of Rumors. There’s some Fleetwood Mac in the groove of the title track too. But the spaciousness and spontaneity that Rosali and Mowed Sound capture remind me more often of the Oldham family — Will, Ned, et al. — from the raucous and inviting Viva Last Blues of “My Kind” to the clanging Anomoanon-ish country rock of “Hopeless.” 

This is music that not only lets you in but keeps you there. Like how the primordial bass drum in “May It Always Be on Offer” both grounds the rhythm and carves out a space you can practically sit in. The charismatic draw of Bite Down, though, is the guitar work. There’s so much texture and dimension in, say, the fraught duet that rips through “Change is in the Form” or the gravelly solo patched under the strings of “Slow Pain,” echoing the toughness of “maybe I’m just used to it/maybe I don’t give a shit.” With their various yelps and rumbles, the guitar tones that run through “Hills on Fire” don’t so much create the atmosphere as define it, adding a palpable, tectonic heat to the song’s otherwise easy daze.

Bite Down is a big, organic album, full of sensations — heard, articulated, and felt. Someone yells “act natural” as “My Kind” gets revved up — I’m surprised the band needed a reminder.

Thou — Umbilical (Sacred Bones)

Who nominated it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes, Jonathan wrote, “If we set aside Umbilical’s thorny thematics, we still have a superlative metal record, loud, as aggressive as it is palpably aggravated.”

Andrew Forell’s take:

At the end of his typically on point review of Umbilical, Dusted’s Jonathan Shaw pondered whether Thou singer Brian Funck might agree with his assertion that “pleasure isn’t what we need most from culture right now” and asked, “Should we listen to him?”. On the first point, there’s not much pleasure evident on Thou’s new album, which perversely or not appears to be this half year’s metal album de jour with even The Guardian unguarded in its praise. And yes, there are so many reasons right now when pleasure seems futile in the face of No Future. To the second point, a definite yes! Once you acclimatize to Funck’s voice, a dyspeptic shredder of a thing which renders his lyrics nigh indecipherable, the wall of sound coming at you is a caustic bath for the ears. The drums and bass a thumping foundry shaking and burning whilst the guitars surround you like a swarm of rusting chainsaws. Amidst this maelstrom, Funck screams as if his spleen is about to join his word splatter. Now, that’s a t-shirt I’d wear again without washing. Umbilical is a nasty, irate fury that I will be revisiting.

Uranium Club — Infants Under the Bulb (Static Shock)

Who picked it? Alex Johnson

Did we review it? Yes. Alex wrote, “these enigmatic Minneapolitans fling their conceptual heft in a new direction and expand their musical objectives without ceding much, if any, of their signature, careening tension.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

When I first heard Infants Under the Bulb in the spring, it was with only a cursory commitment; I understood its tinny, furiously strummed contours, but the full thrust of its oddball conceptual heft passed me by. A second, much closer listen for this midyear exchange has proven far more rewarding, and while Alex pretty well nails what makes this record so interesting in his review, what I keep coming back to are the myriad voices across this record. I think core members Brendan Wells, Harry Wohl, Ian Stemper and Matt Stagner all take a turn behind the mic, though liner notes prove frustratingly (appropriately?) limited, and Molly Raben drives the four-part “Wall” sequence. A few points of order unite the Club and its associates — namely, all of them take pointed barbs at contemporary society in different ways, all of them play with noticeable tightness (even Raben in the New Age-y “Wall” songs), and none of them can sing. Musically, “Small Grey Man” might be an obvious single to that effect, but it’s the guitar licks in “Game Show,” “2-600-LULLABY” and “Abandoned by the Narrator” to which I keep returning. More than anything else in Alex’s review, what hits home hardest is very succinctly tucked away in its middle (my emphasis): Chorus of voices aside, Uranium Club has been and remains a great guitar band.

Waxahatchee — Tigers Blood (Anti-)

Who picked it? Christian Carey

Did we review it? Yes, Christian said, “Tigers Blood doesn’t have a weak cut on it. One imagines it will be in heavy rotation for many long after its release.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Tigers Blood starts out promisingly enough. On opening track “3 Sisters” it’s immediately evident that Katie Crutchfield has an intensely expressive voice, plus the skill to wield it with nuance. There’s plenty of space for her to emote, then when the song takes off, it feels well earned. From there, things start to feel too rote to fully engage. The band is clearly playing in the country-rock pocket, but there are no surprises to be found in the songwriting to capitalize on the promise of that opening song. Ultimately, it mostly ends up sounding a little hokey. A genuine shame, as I had high hopes coming into this one.

Whitelands — Night-bound Eyes Are Blind to the Day (Sonic Cathedral)

Did we review it? Yes, Ian said, “Right from the start, there’s a clarity and focus in the songs here that belies their sometimes diaphanous settings.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Right from the opening blare of guitars, British quartet Whitelands nail a particular shoegaze aesthetic: Ride’s Going Blank Again. The six-strings are loud, but with enough delay and reverb to create a blurry wall of sound, while the rhythm section keeps things punchy to give the songs plenty of momentum. Can’t say there’s anything here that quite rivals the first wave of shoegazers who combined hallucinatory sonics with catchy songwriting, but Whitelands are clearly tapping into some inspiring sounds, which will hopefully mean their next release will have its own distinct personality. 

Winged Wheel — Big Hotel (12XU)

Who nominated it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? Yes, Bryon wrote, “No Island hinted at Winged Wheel’s ability to craft such a sonic space, but that record was merely an appetizer for the hefty dose of momentum that Big Hotel provides.”

Christian Carey’s take:

A collection of artists who also belong to other bands, Winged Wheel coheres far more fluidly than most “supergroups.” On their second recording, Big Hotel, the band recorded in the studio together rather than remotely collaborating as they did on 2022’s Big Island. The difference is palpable, particularly in the power and execution of the rhythm section, which now includes Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley. At the beginning of the recording, the one-two combo of the spacy and clangorous “Demonstrably False” and “Sleep Training,” on which Whitney Johnson supplies beguiling singing amid a raft of guitar textures. The songs tend to move directly into one another, underscoring their interconnectivity. Most of them stretch out a bit, clocking in at around the six-minute mark, but “Aren’t They All” and the album-closer ��From Here Out Nothing Changes” are both under three minutes. The former is a bustling instrumental featuring oscillating riffs and urgently rendered and foregrounded percussion. The latter begins with a brief, disjunct, nasal wind solo and a discordant guitar duo, that rhythm section punching away. Johnson shares a brief, delicately delivered vocal, which then disappears into a concluding maelstrom.

Z-Ro—The Ghetto Gospel (One Deep Entertainment)

Who nominated it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? No

Jonathan Shaw’s take: Much contemporary hip hop is lost on me, and The Ghetto Gospel doesn’t do much to convince me that I should be paying more attention. That judgment has little to do with the record’s sonic qualities, which I am in no competent position to evaluate closely; but I like the mix of late-1970s hard funk, R&B swooniness and occasional flashes of (yep) gospel’s dramatics. And Z-Ro’s flow and vocals are pretty great to groove on. His seamless, artful shifts into more conventional singing, especially at some tracks’ refrains, are deft and pleasurable. But the constant focus on money—having it is unassailable proof of virility, craft, power, self-worth; when one’s antagonist doesn’t have it, or doesn’t have as much of it, that confirms he’s a fool and a loser—is by turns tedious and sort of depressing. The just as constant self-aggrandizement, endemic in the genre, is so ever-present that it’s completely unconvincing. When I can tune out the lyrics’ content, The Ghetto Gospel is just fine. Patient, cool, smooth. When, inevitably, I begin paying attention to Z-Ro’s rhymes and their themes and figures, the record irritates me. If I had the savvy to place his performances of black masculinity in hip hop’s regionally or generically specific modalities, I might find them more engaging. But that would require plowing through a lot more music, much of it singing the praises of cash as an end in itself and celebrating “pimpin” as a variety of socially compelling activity. It ain’t for me.

[mudwerks]

(via Mdou Moctar - "Imajighen (Injustice Version)"

[voodoochili]

My Favorite Albums of 2024

I'm typing this on a groggy New Year's Eve, my first one as a dad. It's been a life-changing year, to be sure. But as much as my life has changed, I still made a point to listen to new music–the thrill of discovery never goes away.

I am rapidly fading, so I will keep this short! It felt, to me, like an exceptional year for music. I've compiled my 100 favorite albums of the year, and I easily could have found 100 more. Read on to hear great new albums from Portugal's coasts, the rainforests of Brazil, the wards of New Orleans, and the deserts of the Sahara.

Check the blurbs for my thoughts and feelings about the best music 2024 had to offer, and scroll down to the bottom for a playlist I compiled of selections from the full list of albums.

Oh, and if you were wondering what kind of music my 7-month-old digs, he mostly likes The Traveling Wilburys. Something about Jeff Lynne's spit-polished studio sheen really calms his tiny little nerves.

And now, here are my favorite albums of 2024.

10. Mdou Moctar - Funeral For Justice: Mdou Moctar’s music reverberates with a righteous fury. Funeral For Justice, the Tuareg artist’s second album for Matador Records, is an incendiary screed against the foreign and domestic forces attempting to rob his home country of Niger blind. He takes aim at African leaders in the title track, excoriating them for protecting foreign interests to enrich themselves and their kin while their citizens’ “rights are trodden upon.” “Imouhar” is a plea to his Tuareg people to preserve their language and culture, no matter where they travel or what domestic pressures may arise. “Modern Slaves” painfully details the horrific practices of foreign (mainly French-owned) mines that work citizens to death and extract resources without providing their bounty for the local communities. Even if you can’t understand the lyrics, sung in Moctar’s native Tamasheq, you can’t mistake the rebellious intent of his searing guitar playing. Funeral For Justice trades some of the intricate picking and twisty songwriting of previous album Afrique Victime with a dose of pure muscle, turning the distortion up to ear-splitting levels. Moctar’s punishing guitar assault hits like a balm in trying times–as many other artists look to provide escapism, Mdou and his band are not afraid to confront oppressors head-on.

9. Being Dead - EELS: While nostalgia-crazed zoomers valorize the early ‘00s gestalt of “indie sleaze,” it’s important to remember that there was plenty of indie wholesomeness around, as well. Acts like Animal Collective, The Moldy Peaches, and The Unicorns strived to approach their music with a childlike wonder, delighting in experimentation, not caring whether something sounded "right" as long as it felt right to them. Austin, TX duo Being Dead brings back that attitude in a big way. I was charmed enough by their debut album When Horses Would Run to rank it in my top 20 albums of 2023, but for 2024’s EELS, they added some new arrows to their quiver. The duo of Falcon Bitch and Shmoofy (yes, those are the names they have chosen to use) have weaponized their naive, Sarah Records-style harmonies, turning rockers like “Firefighters” and “Godzilla Rises” into thrilling experiences. At times, like on album highlight “Van Goes,” they sound like a Goth version of the B-52s, while songs like “Ballerina” and “Blanket Of My Bone” channel the mutated rockabilly of early post-punks like Devo. They splatter ideas on their musical canvas like Jackson Pollock, with songs like “Big Bovine” warping from a pleasant motorik groove to a halting, shouting jingle (that reminds me of nothing less than “Palm Tree Girls” from I Think You Should Leave) and back again, while keyboard experiments like “Storybook Bay” and the closing “Lilypad Lane” (maybe recorded on this toy cat sound keyboard)  provide brief, but catchy breaks in the action. Just when the tweeness threatens to become overpowering, they unleash moments of true beauty, like the haunting “Gazing At Footwear” and the sighing “I Was A Tunnel.” At no point when listening to this glorious record will you know what’s coming next.

8. DJ Lycox - Guetto Star: Born in Lisbon, DJ Lycox is one of the foremost purveyors of batida, a style that blends sounds from Portugal and Africa into a percussive slurry. Lycox’s blend of batida, as shown off on his excellent album Guetto Star, is a particularly intense and aggressive one, each track layering several interlocking percussion parts to create head-spinning rhythms. The result can be intense and punishing, as on the visceral “Pedale Ku El,” with its trash lid snares and squelchy 808s underlying chaotic vocal samples, and the closing song “Energia,” which sounds like if Berghain moved under the sea to Rock Bottom. Just as often, though, Lycox plays around with lighter sounds: the guitar-driven “Edson no Uige” echoes the feathery bounce of Ivorian coupé-decale, “Staring At The Moon” beguiles with panpipe melodies and rubbery synth bass, and the glorious title track coasts by with a gentle, Afrobeats-style gallop, the signature batida 5-beat pattern adorned with playful vox synths and splashy pianos. It’s a record that works equally well in your earbuds on the subway or at a beachside Portuguese club.

7. Stacks - Want: Amsterdam-based label Knekelhuis consistently releases music that is so cool that it's nearly intimidating. The coolest of them all is Stacks, a duo of Belgian brothers, Jan and Sis Matthé, a pair of brilliant atmospherians who craft icy synth landscapes, over which they stack (duh) and manipulate their vocals until they resemble a choir of sorrowful robots. Seeming to emanate from an isolated corner of the Arctic (or a bedroom studio in Antwerp), their 2024 album Want is as stark and barren as an expansive tundra–the skeletal ”Seagulls” sounds like the ghost of Kraftwerk, while the enveloping “In Mazes” floats with the cold precision of a Gregorian chant. But the duo’s frigid affect is merely a mask for deeply romantic feeling: the propulsive “On The Heels” waits for a lover who may never return; “Is It Ever” pleads to reverse unrequited affection. Aching with melancholy, but never losing hope, Want is as sophisticated as the best 80s synth pop. Never resorting to nostalgic signifiers, it instead evokes the era through loving songcraft and a palpable sense of yearning. 6. Wishy - Triple Seven: What flavor of 90s rock do you prefer? Gauzy shoegaze? Slacker poetry? Doomy grunge? Indiana band Wishy makes it so you don’t have to choose, throwing all of the decade’s alternative styles into a blender and pureéing them into a sugary noise pop package. With bands like Teenage Fanclub, Mazzy Star, My Bloody Valentine, and Dinosaur Jr. as lodestars, Triple Seven is an album that revels in pulling guitars into strange shapes, from the graceful acoustic strums of “Just Like Sunday,” to the flanged-out bliss of “Triple Seven,” to the punishing brick-walled riffage of “Game.” These genre exercises would come across as mere imitations of a classic sound if the performances weren’t so tight, and the hooks so sticky. To their credit, Wishy doesn’t sound like a band from a bygone era, but a modern group with songs that work best in a 90s sound font, and like the best of that era’s guitar music, they create a wall of noise thick enough to swim in.

5. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk: Magdalena Bay have dedicated their careers to uncovering the mysteries that exist within the digital ether. Part Joseph Campbell and part Weird Science, Imaginal Disk loosely tells the story of an android that rebels against its creators, searching for meaning and humanity through the power of music (I think?). If there’s anything I love in an album, it’s a goofy, borderline incomprehensible concept (aliens have taken over Earth and have banned rock music…but a teenager has discovered the world’s last remaining guitar!), but the real draw is how the story provides a through-line for Mica Tenenbaum and Matt Lewin’s immaculately-arranged and compositionally-intricate take on pop music. Each song has a calling card that keeps you coming back: the driving 12/8 shuffle of “Killing Time”; the rubbery robot funk of “Image”; the spritely piano rhythm of “Death & Romance”; the theatrical bubblegum of “Tunnel Vision.” The record reaches an even higher gear in the final four songs, as the story of Tenenbaum’s character draws to a close, especially the brain-teasing “That’s My Floor” (which features the blown-out distortion that OG Mag Bay fans will recognize), and “Cry For Me,” a sweeping ballad with a grandeur that evokes peak ABBA. When the album’s introductory melody recurs in “The Ballad of Matt & Mica,” it’s a satisfying and cathartic conclusion to the album’s journey, and the emotional coup-de-grace on one of the most ambitious pop albums of the decade so far.

4. Chief Keef - Almighty So 2: In the decade since the release of his classic mixtape Almighty So, Chief Keef has been following his own muse, spawning new genres with offhand experiments, never trying the same thing twice. Released after several delays–he was tinkering with the album up to the very end–the self-produced Almighty So 2 feels like a conscious attempt by Sosa to make a classic album. I understand fans who prefer him off-the-cuff–or in the sneering smack talk mode he achieved in DIRTY NACHOS, his other 2024 full-length, produced by Mike WiLL Made It–but I was inspired by the totality of the artist’s vision: he structures his verses with a crescendoing intensity, giving weight to his boasts and bite to his punchlines; he piles kick drums atop one another, giving his epic soundscapes a footwork bounce. It’s an album of incredible moments, like the delayed entrance of the horns on the Wilson Pickett-sampling “1,2,3,” or the choir and piano breakdown in “Treat Myself,” or the bizarre hunting-related rant from “Believe” (“I could live in the jungle and come out with a hyena hat”), or the crunk horn riff that echoes through “Grape Trees,” or the impish flutes from “Drifting Away,” or Tierra Whack’s career-best verse on “Banded Up.” What sticks with me the most is how grateful Chief Keef seems to be to be alive and thriving: “How life been?/It's been beautiful Seven thousand square feet, n**** coming from a damn cubicle,” he spits on “Drifting Away.”

3. Mk.gee - Two Star & The Dream Police: According to the Book of Genesis, mankind once shared a common language. Uninhibited by communication issues, humans were able to build the Tower of Babel, a structure so great that it threatened the power of God, who struck down the tower and cursed humanity to speak a variety of unrelated tongues. Enter Mk.gee, a legendary mumbler, who seeks to return humanity to its pre-lingual glory through the power of emotional exhortations and chorused guitars. Forgive the labored intro! I mentioned in my Best Songs of 2024 post that I can hardly understand a word that Mk.gee says. But the man born Michael Gordon is better than almost anyone at communicating a feeling through sticky melodies and fleshing out his compositions with simple, yet effective musical ideas (my favorites include the underwater talkbox-esque guitar on “Rylee & I,” the splattering snares on “Candy,” the gauzy, “Crimson & Clover”-style riff that runs through “Breakthespell”). He seamlessly melds wildly divergent sensibilities, echoing high-budget ‘80s MOR (like solo Sting, or Mr. Mister, or Mike and the Mechanics) and blog-era bedroom pop (like Toro Y Moi or How To Dress Well) in equal measure. His enigmatic approach encourages close listening, inviting us to clock the intricate detail that lies beneath the lo-fi murk. He creates a world both inviting and foreboding, whispering sweet nothings even as he keeps the listener at arms length. When the skies open up, though, on highlights like “Alesis,” “Candy,” “Are You Looking Up?,” and others, it is glorious, hinting at new possibilities for pop music’s relationship with its past.

2. Cavalier - Different Type Time: When we tell the stories of our lives, we often think of the big, earth-shattering moments that change our trajectories and shape us who we are. But those momentous occasions are a mere fraction of our experiences. We mostly spend life, well, living–waiting for a subway, sitting on a windowsill, idling away the hours with an active mind. The music of New Orleans-via-Brooklyn rapper Cavalier revels in the spirituality of these small moments: the sleepless nights on the couch spent watching surreal infomercials; the offhand mistake that spawns an inescapable new nickname; a glance at a map that reminds you of all the places you will never visit. A return to music after a six-year sabbatical, Cavalier’s Different Type Time is a remarkable achievement, the product of a veteran in full control of his considerable abilities, and with a surety of purpose reflected in the wisdom of his internal monologue. Like most signees of billy woods’s Backwoodz Studioz, Cav can rhyme in dense, dazzling, labyrinthine circles (and he does, c.f. the “Tydro ‘97” outro to “Deja vu”), stacking entendres that reward repeat listens. Cav is a student of hip-hop, peppering his rhymes with references to the genre’s history and effortlessly evoking its greats: “Told You” feels like a lost track from Nas’s early days in Queensbridge, while “Badvice” echoes the soulful, loping vibe of Common’s Resurrection and “Yeah Boii” features a particularly epic sample of Flavor Flav’s signature ad-lib.

But despite that lyrical complexity, Different Type Time is very approachable, with warm production and distinctive sounds that tease the ear: the Hawaiian slack key guitar on “Pears,” the out-of-tune upright on “All Things Considered,” the early-digital bloops on “Doodoo Damien”–while Cav spins his webs. With its only guest rap appearances coming from “The Unhoused Brothers,” two homeless artists that Cav welcomed into his studio, Different Type Time inspires you to take stock of your life, encouraging us to be our best selves and to pause every once in a while to reflect on the beauty we experience every day. 1. Amaro Freitas - Y’Y: I listen to a lot of music and write a lot of words but I scarcely have the musical vocabulary to describe Y’Y, the latest album by Brazilian composer and pianist Amaro Freitas. The concept of Y’Y (pronounced “eeh-yeh, eeh-yeh,” an indigenous Brazilian phrase for water) is relatively simple: the album’s first half is dedicated to the buzzing rainforests and rushing rivers of Freitas’s native land, paying tribute to the crucial ecological zone and the life-giving oxygen it provides. Freitas’s piano resembles cascading raindrops and clapping thunder, as he attempts to render the fearsome beauty of his homeland into musical form. In the past, Freitas has spoken about his desire to “decolonize” Brazilian jazz–which in its dominant styles like Bossa Nova has often incorporated European song form–using his training to distill a new style that could only have emerged from Brazil. He prepares his piano with muted strings, transforming the instrument into a percussive force, giving heft to his polyrhythmic playing. The statement piece of the first half is the avant-classical epic “Danca dos Murtelos,” which double-tracks Freitas’s traditional piano with his rattling prepared instrument–when his left hand enters at the track’s halfway point, it feels like the descent of a vengeful god. While the second side isn’t as transportive and revolutionary as the first, it still brings some of the finest jazz I’ve heard all year, and furthers the artist’s mission to bring indigenous Brazilian sounds in the global jazz scene. He works with luminaries like London woodwind maestro Shabaka, searing guitarist Jeff Parker, and prolific harpist Brandee Younger to create a suite that implements his grand theories into action. On the title track, Amaro’s clattering left hand accompanies his traditional right, while Shabaka provides ethereal flute filigrees. “Mar de Circandeiras” finds Freitas and Parker trading solos as they work around a hypnotic theme. The final song, “Encantados,” is the culmination of the album’s many theses: arranged as a quartet, it combines polyrhythms, piano cascades, panpipe melodies, and dime-quick tempo changes, giving a thrilling preview of the shape of jazz to come.

Thanks for reading and happy New Year to all! Check below for the full list of 100, and find a Spotify playlist featuring selections from my favorite albums HERE

Amaro Freitas - Y'Y

Cavalier - Different Type Time

Mk.gee - Two Star & The Dream Police

Chief Keef - Almighty So 2

Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk

Wishy - Triple Seven

Stacks - Want

DJ Lycox - Guetto Love

Being Dead - EELS

Mdou Moctar - Funeral For Justice

Naima Bock - Below A Massive Dark Land

454 - Casts of a Dreamer

ScHoolboy Q - Blue Lips

Fievel Is Glaque - Rong Weicknes

Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu, Marta Sofia Honer - The Closest Thing to Silence

SahBabii - Saaheem

Tapir! - The Pilgrim, Their God and The King of My Decrepit Mountain

Fabiana Palladino - Fabiana Palladino

Chanel Beads - Your Day Will Come

Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us

Arooj Aftab - Night Reign

E L U C I D - Revelator

Hana Vu - Romanticism

upsammy - Strange Meridians

Brijean - Macro

Milan W. - Leave Another Day

Moin - You Never End

Nilufer Yanya - My Method Actor

Empress Of - For Your Consideration

Caxtrinho - Queda Livre

Total Blue - Total Blue

Helado Negro - PHASOR

Ka - The Thief Next To Jesus

Kelly Moran - Moves in the Field

Nino Paid - Can’t Go Bacc

Clairo - Charm

glass beach - plastic death

Dummy - FREE ENERGY

Geordie Greep - The New Sound

Josh Johnson - Unusual Object

XAVI - Next

Six Organs of Admittance - Time Is Glass

The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch

La Luz - News of the Universe

Anysia Kim - Truest

Astrid Sonne - Great Doubt

Rema - HEIS

Nala Sinephro - Endlessness

Loe Shimmy - Zombieland 2 

Myriam Gendron - Mayday

Mach-Hommy - #RICHAXXHAITIAN

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - Woodland

Howie Lee - At The Drolma Wesel-Ling Monastery

Loidis - One Day

Kendrick Lamar - GNX

Shane Parish - Repertoire

Sideshow - F.U.N. T.O.Y.

Bilal - Adjust Brightness

Church Chords - elvis, he was Schlager

Djrum - Meaning’s Edge

Future - MIXTAPE PLUTO/We Don’t Trust You/We Still Don’t Trust You

Saagara - 3

SML - Small Medium Large

WizKid - Morayo

El Cousteau - Merci, Non Merci

MESSIAH - The Villain Wins

FLO - Access All Areas

MAVI - Shadowbox

Blue Bendy - So Medieval

This Is Lorelei - Box for Buddy, Box for Star

Mike & Tony Seltzer - Pinball

Tems - Born In The Wild

Chuck Johnson - Sun Glories

Valebol - Valebol

CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso - BAÑO MARÍA

LL Cool J - The Force

Sinkane - We Belong

Reymour - NoLand

RiTchie - Triple Digits [112]

Nidia & Valentina - Estradas

Crumb - AMAMA

Vayda - VAYTRIX

Yasmin Williams - Acadia

Sisso & Maiko - Singeli Ya Maajabu

Liquid Mike - Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot

FearDorian - FearDorian

Amen Dunes - Death Jokes

Raphael Roginski - Zaltys

Lucky Daye - Algorithm

Che - Sayso Says

Kelly Lee Owens - Dreamstate

Floating Points - Cascade

Salute - TRUE MAGIC

Chow Lee - Sex Drive

Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee

G.S. Schray - Whispered Something Good

Boldy James - Across The Tracks (w/ Conductor Williams) / Penalty of Leadership (w/ Nicholas Craven)

MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

Charli XCX - brat