My 100 favorite albums of 2024

2024, as I’m sure you’re all aware, was an utter dogshit year for the universe, and it was a pretty dogshit year for me personally as well. Keeping up the motivation to get anything done this year has been a struggle, and I wasn’t even sure if I was gonna make another year end list. Every year I question whether the world really needs another fucking year end list, and why anyone should give a shit about my favorite albums of the year as opposed to any other asshole with a computer. These lists are always inherently flawed, because no one can listen to all the music all the time - certainly not myself - and what music people enjoy is constantly changing. If there are any glaring omissions on this list you can likely chalk it up to me simply not getting around to listening to it - I think I did an ok job of listening to as much new music as I could and there’s still a bajillion albums I missed. I never look at these lists after I finish them because it’s entirely possible that my actual favorite album of the year will be one I won’t know about until the next year, or the year after. The dearly departed Steve Albini said in his infamous letter to the Chicago Reader “clip your year-end column and put it away for ten years. See if you don’t feel like an idiot when you reread it,” and that quote has haunted me throughout the process of putting this list together. But I keep making these lists, because I like talking about the music I love and I like sharing it with all of you. Most of all, the year end list is an opportunity to bear witness and keep stock of how people coped with the changes of an ever-evolving world through music. In these terrifying times, this music is a reminder that people will always continue to create. I still think that’s important.

Anyways, here’s my dumb list.

Top Ranking

أحمد [Ahmed] - Wood Blues (Astral Spirits)

Andrea Belfi & Jules Reidy - dessus oppen alto up (Marionette)

Astrid Sonne - True Doubt (Escho)

Carlos Giffoni - Dream Walker (Ideologic Organ)

Carme López - Quintela (Warm Winters)

Daniel M Karlsson - Towards a Music for Large Ensemble (Fönstret)

Extra - Coiled/Leave (Steep Gloss)

Fangyi Liu - Dian Qi Xia 電氣夏 (tsss tapes)

Jean-Luc Guionnet + Eric La Casa + Philip Samartzis + Dan Warburton - Parking (Swarming)

Jlin - Akoma (Planet Mu)

Joshua Chuquimia Crampton - Estrella Por Estrella (Puro Fantasía)

Kavain Wayne Space & XT - YESYESPEAKERSYES (Feedback Moves)

Klein - Marked (Parkwuud)

Makoto Oshiro - Stacked (enmossed / Psychic Liberation)

Mark Baron/Mark Vernon - post-chance (Erstwhile)

Pablo Diserens - Turning Porous (Forms of Minutiae)

Philip Sulidae - Circulator (LINE)

Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution (Moikai)

Sholto Dobie - 23 (Infant Tree)

Sisso & Maiko - Singeli Ya Maajabu (Nyege Nyege)

Best of the rest

A Large Sheet of Muscle - Dracula Completo (Trilogy Tapes)

a0n0 - Exploders_We (Dinzu Artefacts)

Able Noise - High Tide (World of Echo)

Alberto Gilbert Balon - The Magnesia Suite (Recital)

Alma Laprida - Pitch Dark & Trembling (Outside Time)

Amirtha Kidambi's Elder Ones - New Monuments (We Jazz)

Andrea Ermke - Walks (Sacred Realism)

Antonina Nowacka - Sylphine Soporifera (Mondoj)

Arek Gulbenkoglu - The Greek Tape (Index Clean)

BEANS - ZWAARD (Tygr Rawwk)

Beatrice Dillon - Seven Reorganisations (hi-music)

Caxtrinho - Queda Livre (QTV)

Cergio Prudencio - Antología 1: Obras para la Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos (Buh)

Concepción Huerta - The Earth Has Memory (Elevator Bath)

Container - Yacker (Alter)

CS + Kreme - The Butterfly Drinks the Tears of the Tortoise (Trilogy Tapes)

Diego Behncke - Severe Chronotropic Leakage (Tokinogake)

DJ Anderson do Paraíso - Queridão (Nyege Nyege)

El Jardín de las Matemáticas - S/T (Penultimate

Ernst Karel / Bhob Rainey - 47 Gates (Erstwhile)

Farida Amadou - When It Rains It Pours (Week-End)

Fine - Rocky Top Ballads (Escho)

Francis Plagne - Asleep in a Beached Boat (blickwinkel)

Free Magic Show - Royal Oxygen (czaska)

Gerald Cleaver - The Process (Positive Elevation)

Germ Lattice - Gipping Through the Ages (Horn of Plenty)

Ghost Dubs - Damaged (Pressure)

Giovanni Di Domenico, Pak Yan Lau & John Also Bennett - Tidal Perspectives (Basilic)

Harry Gorski-Brown - Durt Dronemaker After Dreamboats (GLARC)

Hiroyuki Ura / Zhu Wenbo - Jyunishi (Aloe)

Holy Tongue & Shackleton - The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now (AD93)

IEOGM - Tentative Price (Steep Gloss)

Jennifer Walshe & Tony Conrad - In the Merry Month of May (Blue Chopsticks)

Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 62 (self-released)

Jim Strong & Al Margolis - Correspondences (Regional Bears)

Jürg Frey / Ian Antonio - Outermost Melodies (Another Timbre)

K. Freund - Trash Can Lamb (Soda Gong)

Ka Baird - Bearings: Soundtracks for the Bardos (RVNG)

Kate Carr - Midsummer, London (Persistence of Sound)

Kevin Drumm - Disintegrating Day to Day Incorporeal Matters (self-released)

KMRU - Natur (Touch)

Laetitia Sonami - Éliane Radigue - A Song For Two Mothers / OCCAM IX (Black Truffle)

Leila Bourdreuil - 1991, Summer, Huntington Garage Fire (Hanson)

Léo Dupleix - Resonant Trees (Black Truffle)

Li Song, Zhao Cong & Zhu Wenbo - 3 lines and balloons (Zoomin’ Night)

Li Yiilei - Nonage (Métron)

Lisa Ullén - Heirloom (Fönstret)

Manja Ristić - Ma (LINE)

Mariam Rezaei - Fractured (Heat Crimes)

Mark Templeton - Two Verses (Faitiche)

Lechuga Zafiro - Desde los oídos de un sapo (TraTraTrax)

Mohammad Syfkhan - I Am Kurdish (Nyahh)

more eaze, Pardo & Glass - Paris Paris, Texas Texas (OOH)

Mu Tate - Wanting Less (Warm Winters)

Nika Son - Drift (Futura Resistenza)

Olivia Block - The Mountains Pass (Black Truffle)

Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin - Ghosted II (Drag City)

Otomo Yoshihide & Chris Pitsiokos - Uncanny Mirror (Eleatic)

Pinkcourtesyphone - Arise in Sinking Feelings (Room40)

Rhodri Davies - Telyn Wrachïod (Amgen)

Rie Nakajima - Unshaping (ato.archives)

Rory Salter - On the Floor, by the Door (Index Clean)

Rosso Polare - Campo Amaro (Students of Decay)

Sachiko M - Sine Wave Solo at Ftarri 2022 (Hitorri)

Saint Abdullah & Eomac - Light Meteors Crashing Around You Will Not Confuse You (Drowned By Locals)

Sarah Hennies / Ensemble 0 / Talea Ensemble / Ensemble Dedalus - Motor Tapes (New World)

Seiji Morimoto & Eric Wong - Dzan-puku (Aloe)

Seth Nehil & Bruno Duplant - (else)where (Auf Abwegen)

Sholto Dobie - 23 (Infant Tree)

Slowfoam - Transcorporeal Portal (Somewhere Between)

Stefan Maier - Nervous Systems (Party Perfect!!!)

Still House Plants - If I Don't Make It, I Love U (Bison)

Takashi Masubuchi, Ayami Suzuki & TOMO - 水鏡 (Suikyo) (An’archives)

Takkak Takkak - S/T (Nyege Nyege)

Tashi Wada - What Is Not Strange (RVNG)

The Necks - Bleed (Northern Spy)

Tongue Depressor & Austin Larkin - Landau Bar (Redscroll)

Ulla & Ultrafog - It Means a Lot (Motion Ward)

Zheng Hao - Breaks (Krim Kram)