Album Roundup 2024

Whatup, readers! My birthday is here (woohoo), and as eager as I am to receive prizes for turning 26 (independently insured, be assured), I also feel compelled to look back on the many gifts my year of jubilee has brought me in the form of albums—new listening experiences from artists that I love or didn’t know I loved until this year. So, here’s a roundup list, a compilation of releases detected by my radar, featuring a complimentary Top 10 which highlights several albums with a little more focus on why I liked them, and the impression(s) they made on me.

Compiling this list was somewhat of a meditation: while balking at the sheer quantity of music I’ve absorbed this year on Spotify (20,840 minutes less busy than Fantano, let’s table the conversation about how I am my own most-played artist), the many hours have also inspired me to dig deeper for the reasons why these are the cream of the crop. What is it about the quality of music? Did I really like the album, or did I just really want to like it? Does it represent a memorable moment in my life? Or is there some more acute artistry to be recognized? It’s a nice exercise, and whether you relate at all or would rather wax critical on the reviews, I’ll leave it up to you in the comments ;).

Top 10:

*Hint*-clicking the album cover art will link you to either Bandcamp or YouTube, depending on availability.

1. Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet: The Way Out of Easy

When I first heard the single, “Late Autumn,” a cerebral improvisation of 17:21 in length, I was transported. In “Late Autumn,” you may begin listening by atomizing into the melding tones of the quartet, strung along at the pace of a drifting leaf, cued by Josh Johnson’s saxophone silhouettes, Jeff Parker’s perennial guitar movements, Anna Butterss’ skipping bass, and Jay Bellerose’s portentous splashes of percussion, until as that leaf, you find yourself at once snagged lugubriously in the hole of a wired fence beside a freeway memory, suspended in that frantic fluttering motion not unlike the sail of a distant offshore schooner as nautical winds pick up, urging the stringent balance and attention only a mariner could hold together in the dissonance before a storm, as unbridled hoots and whoops of the audience crew are cut loose on the canvas of gray skies and darker days ahead. If you let it, this album will spin you down the groove, owing to the fresh improvisational outpouring of its talent. I had the fortune of listening to it weeks before its online release through a vinyl pre-order from IARC’s Bandcamp page, and having played it back more than a few times, chasing the developments on each track to the heart of their intrigue, it feels like an easy out to put The Way Out of Easy at the top of my favorite albums released this year.

2. STRFKR: Parallel Realms

STRFKR’s latest LP, Parallel Realms, is one of the most just-plain-fun albums that released this year. By fun, I mean it’s great to put on at parties and listen to with friends. One of my favorite memories this year was driving back into the Milwaukee city skyline with my friend Matt after a weekend lakeside vacation with this album playing beginning to end. It’s great on its own, too: cohesive, catchy, with the right blend of lurid psychedelia. It’s always nice when a band can evolve their sound, sounding “bigger” without going too far off the rails or selling out by half-assing. Boasting loads of great tunes, a pop-enough social essence, and mind-altering qualities to boot, Parallel Realms is my 2024 runner-up.

3. The Smile: Wall of Eyes

This came out early this year, and I remember it vividly for the winter’s sentiment (solitary, somewhat void), stemming from the uncertainty of what the year would bring. The Smile’s Wall of Eyes is much more than a Radiohead fix: it’s a fractured reflection of modernity, it’s a complication of art situated in a saturated world, it’s an abolition of our desire to experiment, as much as it’s about the reconstructed hypothesis. Because of Wall of Eye‘s artistic quality and tucked-away Yorke-ness, it stands as 3rd on this list.

4. Vince Staples: Dark Times

I don’t always have my radar tuned to the hottest drops from rap, but this year, Vince Staple’s Dark Times tugged my ear. The album is very well produced; Staple’s flow is like a lighter-flick over a gas line of lowriding night-on-the-rooftop type beats. As a whole vehicle, the album feels toned-down, more ethereal and less bombastic than a majority of mainstream rap, an invitation to take a step back and assess while still wearing the vibe. “Étouffée” stands out as an especially star-sighted single, in the way tracks off Outkast’s ATLiens can sometimes sound, and it slaps. In fact, because of its laid back nature, I am more prone to the emotional frequencies Staples is expressing through his unique shade of lyrical and tonal textures. Dark Times strikes me as sincere, trying to be something different in a competitive industry while remaining listenable, and as my favorite rap album of 2024, it earns a spot at #4.

5. Junior Varisty: My Star (EP)

One of the best gifts the Spotify algo-rhythm brought me this year was this EP treat from LA alt-rock indie trio Junior Varsity, called My Star. After being introduced by the single, “Cross the Street,” I was like, WHAT? YES, TURN THAT SH** UP! It’s giving Broken Social Scene and Two Door Cinema Club rallies for us youth on the joint athletic-alternative and hyperactive Flash-kid block. I’m right there with that female vocalist’s cheer squad shout-singing, peaking at the register of a punk brattiness once-removed, retrofitted over distorted 2000s alt-rock guitar chords as the two star singers team up on the mic. Accompanied on workouts and short runs, it provides the right amount of blitz to keep me going at a strong stride. And with its touch of high-achiever’s melancholy, My Star jumps in as an album worth top 5.

6. Cindy Lee: Diamond Jubilee

I’ve already used the word “jubilee” once in this post, but whereas the first time referred to my 25th year of birth, here it’s reserved for talking about Cindy Lee’s opus Diamond Jubilee. This one is more of a time and place pick for me; I was listening to it on a family road trip travelling out west to California in the car as we wound up and around mountain passes in the Sierra Nevadas. The album is long, spanning 2 hours, ergo>> great for listening in my pair of over-ear cans to fare those far stretches of highway with my parents at the wheel. Diamond Jubilee has been covered broadly by music journalists for its anachronistic, classic jukebox, 70s hippie appeal, and for the artist’s choice to opt out of streaming, instead releasing the album exclusively to download as FLACs gratis on their DIY GeoCities site. Cindy Lee’s sound is raw, incensed, and a little bone dry, bearing shrill falsettos, rough-cut independent production, and a lonesome sense of artistic responsibility, the cumulative pressure of which distills the album down to the thrill of a diamond #6.

7. Haley Heynderickx: Seed of a Seed

The sophomore album Seed of a Seed by Haley Heynderickx was a release I had burned into my calendar. Her debut LP I Need to Start a Garden had been in steady rotation since I first heard it on record in 2019; when her latest dropped this year in November, it did not disappoint. Heynderickx’s acoustic harmonies are like gateways to arboreal mysteries, and the wonders of being human in a perfectly disharmonious world: to be Dasein. It’s as if she employs music to point to the moon while understanding the pointing cannot replace the moon in-itself, to paraphrase Alan Watts. “Sorry Fahey” is my favorite track, for the sheepish lyrical humor, forlorn horns, and implicit references to Fahey as she speaks his native language of spiritual guitar plucking. I took the chance to see Heynderickx perform Seed of a Seed at The Vivarium in Milwaukee on her tour with harpist Lily Breshear. The pointing was even clearer in a live setting, in a crowd full of people whose presence could bloom together like the bell-shaped plumes of a foxglove under the moon in its #7th phase.

8. Frail Talk: Microspirit

Frail Talk’s Microspirit was another welcome surprise from the discovery algorithm gods. It is gentle and cozy, but not lacking a certain shape(shifting). The root of its power lies in a sense of comfort amidst insecurity, at home knitting a sweater, amplifying the more existential stripes; simple, like a child’s playroom, imbued with a charm that makes you appreciate the feeling of being small, earning Microspirit #8 of 10.

9. Dominic Fike: 14 minutes

Dominic Fike bestows us with 14 ,,euphoric” minutes of indie-leaning pop bangers. Perfunctory, like this review. 14 minus 5 is #9. What more needs to be said?

10. Four Tet: Three

This year has brought me deeper into the techno sphere, given my frequent excursions to Golfshoe Music’s bimonthly synth-meet events, where I got to connect a bunch of fella/fellow audio tech enthusiasts and acquire a richer taste in electronic music. Four Tet has been one of my strongest nodes of connection to this scene; I’ve always liked Four Tet, but I really got into them when New Energy dropped during my freshman year of college in 2017. In the interim albums between then and now, I have sneakily become a consistent fan of Kieran Hebden’s projects, catching up on live concert videos and listening to remix playlists, which accounts for the fact that they made number one on my Wrapped this year. While nothing has induced me quite as substantially as New Energy, Three is certainly an above-adequate ’24 electronic record with transcendental melodic flavors and a broad appeal to electronic listeners of all walks. In total, Four Tet’s Three plus 7 makes #10.

Honorable Mentions:

Here is an achronological list of 2024 albums that I have listened to throughout the year:

-Kid Cudi: INSANO
-OMA: Bread ‘n’ Butter
-Kota: Lyrics to GO, Vol. 5
-Helado Negro: Phasor
-Real Estate: Daniel
-Vampire Weekend: Only God Was Above Us
-Woods: Five More Flowers EP
-Hovvdy: Hovvdy
-Blockhead: Luminous Rubble
-Andrew Bird (Trio): Sunday Morning Put-On
-Good Morning: Good Morning 7
-Good Looks: Lived Here For A While
-This is Lorelei: Box For Buddy, Box For Star
-Beak>: >>>>
-Clairo: Charm
-Jake Xerxes Fussell: When I’m Called
-Dr. Dog: Dr. Dog
-Zach Schimpf: Figure Flourescent
-Lupe Fiasco: Samurai
-Jack White: No Name
-BBNG: Mid-Spiral
-No Hands: JVB
-Duster: In Dreams
-Toro y Moi: Hole Erth
-Dayglow: Dayglow
-Floating Points: Cascade
-Jamie xx: In Waves
-The Alchemist: The Genuine Articulate
-Skinshape: Another Side of Skinshape
-Pony Baby: Pony Baby
-Leon Bridges: Leon
-American Football (Covers)
-Pixies: The Night the Zombies Came
-Tyler the Creator: CHROMAKOPIA
-Radical Face: Mixtape
-JW Francis: Sunshine
-Blockhead: Mortality is Lit!
-Peel Dream Magazine: Rose Main Reading Room
-The Academy: Lutalo
-Kendrick Lamar: GNX
-Apollo Brown: This, Is Not That
-TV Girl & George Clanton: Fauxllenium
-Kota: Once in a Blue Moon
-Good Morning: The Accident
-Orchid Mantis: i only remember the good parts
-Tycho: Infinite Health
-Caribou: Honey
-Khruanghbin: A La Sala
-Goth Babe: Lola
-Loving: Any Light
-Crumb: AMAMA
-Still Woozy: Loveseat
-CASTLEBEAT: Stereo
-Horse Jumper of Love: Disaster Trick
-Bnny: One Million Love Songs

Best Albums Discovered 2024:

For fun, I also kept an inventory of albums I discovered released before 2024 that I listened to and enjoyed. Anything with an astericks by it means it was a favorite.

*-The Durutti Column: Return of the Durutti Column
-Spin the Globe: Connor Price
-The Symposium: self-titled
-Riton Kah-Lo: Foreign Ororo
*-Frank Dukes: Way of Ging
-Yesway: Yesway
-This is Lorelei: Move Around
*-Floating Points: Vacwm EP
-Sentridoh: Forever Instant
*-Sounds From the Thievery Hi-Fi
–Seriously, Eric? #1
*-Kid Loco: A Grand Love Story
*-Pete Rock: Center of Attention
-Shakarchi & Stranéus: Steal Chickens From Men and thr Future From God
-Photek: Modus Operandi
-Coriky: Coriky (2020)
-Black Heart Procession: 2
-Dutch Interior: Blinded by Fame (‘23)
-Magic Al: Good Grief (‘23)
*-Penguin Cafe Orchestra: self-titled (1981)

That’s all I have. There’s an infinity of great music out there. Keep a lookout and support the artists you like the most. Thanks for reading and continue to tune into (In)Sitze for more updates!