A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #75

ACL 2024: Sound Propositions

Dear Listeners, Joseph coming here from the south of Spain for a late edition, finally forcing myself to sit down and finish writing up my personal favorites of 2024.

I’ve also got a Top 20 Mix going live on CAMP Radio on 19 January, with biweekly mixes to follow throughout 2025.

As I alluded to through the year, 2024 was a difficult year for me. I listened to a lot of music, and while there were some records I returned to again and again throughout the year, there were many that I only had a chance to listen to once. Due to the upheaval in my personal life, I ended up listening to less music than usual, while those that I returned to gained additional weight. I wrote this newsletter with greater frequency than in past years, so I’ve mostly already shard my thoughts on those records that didn’t appear on the blog.

Some scattered thoughts more widely… I was surprised to see decent albums from so many veterans: Slum Village will always be haunted by their departed members, but their latest is highly enjoyable. Common and Pete Rock joined forces for a solid effort, and LL Cool J and Q Tip’s The Force was surprisingly more than a reminder that LL deserves a spot in the conversation for GOAT. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a new record from Italian icon Mina, 65 years after her debut, truly legendary stuff. Like so many other left-of-center reviewers, I also enjoyed Cindy Lee and Still House Painters and so many other records, but the following reflects my personal favorites from throughout the year.

So, once again, a bit of preamble for context:

Our ACL end of year lists are always culled solely from records we reviewed on the blog that year, and voted upon by our entire staff. I wrote about many of my favorite records as part of our ACL 2024 lists, but I’ve also included my personal top 20 of those lists. My “Under the Radar” list doesn’t quite live up to its title, but there are 20 records that weren’t eligible for our 2024 ACL lists, as we didn’t cover them. But eagle-eyed Listeners will have noted that I’ve written about most if not all of these releases here in this newsletter’s Mini-Review column. And, as I have done the last few years here, I have included a list of BEATS and/or RHYMES, as ACL has never covered hip hop regularly. Finally, since it was a strong year for compilations, I’ve included my five favorite compilations from 2024. Happy Listening!

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ACL 2024: Sound Propositions

ACL TOP 20
my picks from what was reviewed on the blog this year (alphabetical)

Daniel Bachman ~ Quaker Run Wildfire (10/24/23-11/17/23) (Longform)
GY!BE ~ “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” (Constellation)
Jlin ~ Akoma (Planet Mu)
Kali Malone ~ All Life Long (Ideologic Organ)
Kate Carr ~ Midsummer, London (Persistence of Sound)
KMRU ~ Natur (Touch)
Patrick Shiroishi ~ Glass House (Otherly Love)
Philip Jeck ~ rpm (Touch)
Manja Ristić and Tomáš Šenkyřík ~ Vstal (Skupina)
Marcus Fjellström ~ The Last Sunset of the Year (Miasmah)
Moor Mother ~ The Great Bailout (Anti-)
ØKSE ~ ØKSE (Backwoodz)
Otto A. Totland ~ Exin (LEITER)
Rafael Toral ~ Spectral Evolution (Moikai / Drag City)
Ryuichi Sakomoto ~ Opus (Milan)
Sarah Neufeld, Richard Reed Parry, Rebecca Foon ~ First Sounds (One Little Independent/Envision)
Taylor Deupree ~ Sti.ll (Greyfade/Nettwerk)
The Necks ~ Bleed (Northern Spy)
V/A ~ harkening critters (forms of minutiae)
Yara Asmar ~ Stuttering Music (Ruptured)

UNDER THE RADAR
some of my favorite records that might have slipped under your radar or that we otherwise didn’t manage to cover (alphabetical)

أحمد [Ahmed] ~ Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
Anna Butterss ~ Mighty Vertebrate (International Anthem)
Ben Vida ~ Vocal Trio (Blume)
Darius Jones ~ Legend of e'Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye)
Eiko Ishibashi ~ Evil Does Not Exist (Drag City)
Fred Moten / Brandon López / Gerald Cleaver ~ the blacksmiths, the flowers (Reading Group)
Fuubutsushi ~ Meridians (Cached Media)
Giuseppe Ielasi ~ unfamiliar music vol​.​1 (guitar duets) (Senufo)
Jeff Parker ETA IVtet ~ The Way Out of Easy (International Anthem)
Ka Baird ~ Bearings: Soundtracks for the Bardos (RVNG)
Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice ~ Phantasy & Reality (Moon Glyph)
Mary Halvorson ~ Cloudward (Nonesuch)
Mattie Barbier ~ paper blown between the spaces in my ribs (Dinzu)
Nzʉmbe (Miguel Prado) ~ Ardor or Entropy (Drowned by Locals)
Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin ~ Ghosted II (Drag City)
Rubbish Music ~ Fatbergs (Persistence of Sound)
Sarah Hennies ~ Motor Tapes (New World Records)
Shabaka ~ Perceive its beauty, Acknowledge its Grace / Possession (Impulse!)
Wendy Eisenberg ~ Viewfinder (American Dreams)
Qoa ~ Sauco

BEATS and/or RHYMES
we don’t cover vocal music at ACL but I’ve been covering more and more via this newsletter (chronological)

Angry Blackmen ~ The Legend of ABM (Deathbomb Arc)
AKAISOLO ~ DREAMDROPDRAGON (Break All Records)
Armand Hammer ~ BLK LBL (self-released)
Beans / Vladislav Delay ~ ZWAARD (self-released)
Big Flowers x Messiah Musik ~ Save The Bees (PTP)
blackchai x August Fanon ~ OTHERWISE A BLUR (self-released)
Blu x Evidence ~ Los Angeles (Bigger Picture)
Cavalier ~ Different Type Time (Backwoodz)
Cavalier x Child Actor ~ CINE (Backwoodz)
Fatboi Sharif and Duncecap ~ Psychedelics Wrote The Bible (Fused Arrow)
ELUCID ~ REVELATOR (Fat Possum)
Mach-Hommy ~ #RICHAXXHAITIAN (self-released)
Nappy Nina x Swarvy ~ Nothing Is My Favorite Thing (Lucid Haus)
Navy Blue ~ Memoirs in Armour (Freedom Sounds)
Ka ~ The Thief Next to Jesus (Iron Works)
Lungs and Phiik ~ Carrot Season (POW)
Previous Industries ~ Service Merchandise (Merge)
Rich Jones & SINAI. ~ Sour Dub (Three Dollar Pistol)
Roper Williams ~ Too Beautiful to Die (self-released)
Semiratruth ~ The Star of the Story (self-released)

COMPILATIONS

ENOUGH! (Dreaming Live)

Padre, fammi partire! (a tribute to Franco Battiato) (Canti Magnetici)

RESIST COLONIAL POWER BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY (PTP)

TRAИƧA (Red Hot Org)

Temporary Stored II (OFNOT)

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We’ll be back next Wednesday with the latest Out of the Box, and the following Wednesday will see the return of our regular bi-weekly roundups.