My Favorite Albums of 2024
Hi, everyone. Today is the final day of 2024, so I thought I’d write a bit about my favorite albums released this year.
1. Tigran Hamasyan - The Bird of a Thousand Voices
This is one of my favorite new albums in a long time. It’s filled with the stuff I love - well designed and original sounds (the synth work is simply stunning, particularly on songs such as the title track, and Bells of Memory), heavy riffs in odd time signatures (check out Red, White and Black Worlds and Forty Days in the Realm of Bottomless Eye), singable melodies (to this day, I still whistle the first theme from The Saviour is Condemned when walking in the street), complex yet balanced harmonies, and meditative soundscapes intertwined with top-notch virtuosic playing. The album showcases Tigran’s authentic connection to his Armenian heritage, weaving traditional musical elements throughout the compositions while creating something entirely contemporary, and rounded together by the folk tale of Hazaran Blbul (also known as The Firebird or The Bird of a Thousand Voices) that also allows us to reflect on our own time, on our own world, and in the role that music can play in our lives, when greed tramples generosity and we are left in search of meaning. As if it were not enough, we also have the beautiful visuals and illustrations by Khoren Matevosyan, the videos by Ruben van Leer, and the online video game, Truly: a total artwork for the 21st century.
2. Kim Gordon - The Collective
A noisy masterpiece for our contemporary world, addressing our shortening attention spans, ravaging capitalism and the illusion of happiness in social media. It’s bold and brave, with carefully crafted loops and trap-like beats, which create a very heavy background for the piercing lyrics and social commentary (I’m a Man is both heavy and funny in the way it ridicules the performance of masculinity). It feels fresh all throughout and it’s not at all surprising that one of the albums that better captures 2024’s zeitgeist comes from 71 year old Kim Gordon. The album’s dense, layered production poses intriguing questions about live performance, where replicating its intricate sonic textures - from heavy, feedback-driven guitars to complex electronic loops - will be a challenge. Still, I’m very glad to see feedback and distortion-heavy guitars feature so prominently on such as important album.
3. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD
One of GY!BE’s best albums yet, a slow-moving, ever-evolving collection of deeply contemplative pieces whose extended instrumental passages and gradual builds demand our sustained attention. Maybe this is the ultimate form of political protest: to make beautiful music that resists our culture of distraction, forcing you to contemplate and reflect on our lives and the world we live in. The band pairs this musical resistance with their characteristically clear and direct message, made explicit in the album’s title tracking the mounting death toll in Gaza. I have the feeling that this album could have been made 20 years ago, and, usually, that’s a downside for me. There’s nothing on their sound, meter, harmony, textures - that is, in their music - to distinguish 2024 GY!BE from 1999 GY!BE. But maybe that’s because their message is authentic and timeless, not because they got stalled artistically. The cathartic and ecstatic crescendi work as well now as they did 25 years ago. The world needs more of those, not less. So why not keep doing them?
4. Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution
When I first listened to this album, I was blow away by how carefully curated and balanced all the musical elements are. And when listening to it again and again, I keep finding it a very special collection of sounds, with new colors and atmospheres jumping at you with every new listen. The whole thing is only a single, uninterrupted track, from start to finish, but we get the impression that everything is where it needs to be. The bird on the cover suits it well - it feels like a symphony of voices, birdsong, alien languages, all trying to communicate and find space at once, set into a drony background which is punctuated by guitar interventions. These come from the most inconspicuous origins: old radios, modular synths, processed field recordings and the like, worked in a way such that they all fit with one another, in a contrapuntual balance. While drawing from ambient and jazz traditions, the music speaks with its own distinctive voice.
5. Nala Sinephro - Endlessness
Endlessness masterfully blends ambient electronics and modular synthesizers with jazz sensibilities and chamber music intimacy. An ever-evolving arpeggiated theme threads through the album, transforming organically through an inventive palette of synths, harp, and piano. The form reminds me of Floating Points, Pharaoh Sanders and London Symphony Orchestra’s album Promises from 2021, in that a particular motive is repeated and reorchestrated throughout the album. Initially, that comparison was the reason why I didn’t think Endlessness was worthy of being on my end-of-the-year list. But with each new listen I kept on discovering new things, and remembering that with minimalist and ambient music, the space that is left to the listener allows us to embark on our own musical journey, drifting through different combinations of sounds and soundscapes. And, I have to say, the remarkable balance and inventiveness of this album create an expansive sonic landscape that rewards repeated exploration.
Have a great 2025, Óscar
