Favorite Music :: 2024
Some singles, some EPs and some full-length albums.
These have been 50 of my favorite releases of 2024. Selections are in alphabetical order because you can’t rank music.
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Tidiane Thiam :: Africa Yontii
Not everyone in my life gets my many musical obsessions.
I grew up in Phoenix, which means that I didn’t have a whole lot of cultural options, but Bob Corritore and the Blues was always a constant in my life. I remember sometimes thinking: “How can this guy play five hours of Blues every week and not get tired of it?”
Years ago, I also knew someone that hosted a regular Reggae radio show that was 3-hours each week and I remember thinking: “How can this guy play five hours of Blues every week and not get tired of it?”
And here I am having professed my love for Tuareg guitar music and music from the Sahel region in general recommending yet another album. I could easily play five ours of Tuareg music, and no, it’s doesn’t all sound the same. In addition to the newest album album by Etran De L'Aïr :: 100% Sahara Guitar, the fabulous Sahel Sounds label recently put out the newest album from Tidiane Thiam :: Africa Yontii.
This one is laid-back.
Relaxing.
Meditative yet driving.
Exquisite interplay. With overlapping melodies.
Enjoy.
Watch “Yewende”:
Etran De L'Aïr - 100% Sahara Guitar Gets The Video Treatment
By now you’re familiar with my love of Tuareg guitar music and music from the Sahel region in general. One of my favorite labels, Sahel Sounds, is releasing the newest album by one of my favorite acts, Etran De L'Aïr.
Entitled 100% Sahara Guitar, the album will be out next month. To celebrate, the band has released a video for one of their live staples, “Imouha.” Filmed on a green screen at Vancouver BC's Shoreline Studios Vancouver BC by Christopher Kirkley with additional footage courtesy of Abdou Hamani (Discothèque Ambiance de Tchiro), the song is a great teaser for the full album.
Enjoy.
Goat :: Live at Le Guess Who? (2022)
We recently highlighted Goat’s fabulous 2023 album “Medicine” as one that we heard too late to make our favorites list. I still can’t believe we missed it. Goat has been a long-time favorite around the Holiday at the Sea Fake Offices.
In penance, I offer you this short but terrific live set from 2022.
From the Youtube page: “Swedish psych outfit Goat perform live at Le Guess Who? 2022 following the release of their latest album 'Oh Death' via Rocket Recordings.”
Setlist:
Under No Nation
Gathering of Ancient Tribes
Do The Dance
Disco Fever
Goatman
Deets and Credits:
Captured at TivoliVredenburg’s Ronda on Saturday, 12 November during Le Guess Who? 2022.
Direction: Dammes Kieft
Camera: Anaïs Saebu, Jonathan Sipkema, Nicky Pajkić, Rikash Gobardhan, Yuma Eekman, Dammes Kieft
Production: Claudia Rison, Studio Dammes
Coordination: Barry Spooren Montage: Nicky Pajkić S
ound recording: Marc Broer
Chitinous Mandible
When asked to describe his music in 3 words by Secret Eclectic, Tom Herman Jr. (aka Chitinous Mandible) responded with:
Enveloping surrealistic familiarity
That seems to be as good a description as any.
Prior to the Chitinous Mandible moniker, New Jersey’s Herman recorded as Old Smile, who Aquarium Drunkard described as “a wave of lo-fi, bedroom psych,” and of whom The Quietus said: “After countless recent waves of revivalist bands embracing jangly psych and sixties music - Temples, Tame Impala, Ty Segall, etc. - Old Smile is the best I've come across.” That’s high praise indeed! And as The Quietus points out: “And this dude managed to do it all himself at home!” Herman continues to ride tht independent spirit, saying of this new, self-titled project as Chitinous Mandible: “I wrote/performed/recorded/mixed everything on it aside from a couple tracks where my dad plays drums.”
Rolling in like a lo-fi swamp fog and wrapping you up in its shimmery swirls, this is music to get lost in or focus down on the details. Because there are layers if you’re willing to dig. And dig, I do. cosmic psychedelic blues for the laid-back set. Hints of Krautrock throb over Devo keyboards. More quirky non sequiturs for great music here.
I asked Hermon how his songwriting has progressed over the last few albums. He said:
“In Arches the sound was kind of slow and melancholy. The sound of Old Smile was more all over the place, there were a lot of detours. Chitinous Mandible is a bit all over the place too but it’s more concise.”
Chitinous Mandible is a bit all over the place, but more concise. That’s as good a description as any. Swampy music for sweaty afternoons. The best thing you can do is go listen for yourself. I highly recommend.
For those interested, Bandcamp reveals that "Pops plays drums on the songs "Time Design" and "Summertime Drive."
Watch “Summertime Drive:”
Watch “Connection In A Parking Lot”
RIYL: Rose City Band, Los Halos
Dogwood Tales :: 13 Summers 13 Falls
The days get shorter and the nights get longer. And colder. As the darkness settles in we wrap ourselves in Harmonies, heartbreak, and hope. The ashes of loss still contain the embers of hope.
Wilco, Son Volt, and Whiskeytown will be obvious touch-points for many, but Dogwood Tales have crafted their own voice (with killer harmonies).
Album opener circles the refrain:
“It’s hard to be in the right place
for the right thing all the time.
It’s hard to be anywhere when I got you on my mind.”
There’s a sense of being caught in a winter storm here sometimes. Our protagonists sometimes don’t quite sure where’ they’re going or even who they are. But there is a pervasive sense of hope throughout the EP. Pedal steel laces through the often forlorn lyrics ushering us in to moments of hope. Even though the nights are long, morning’s on its way. These songs explore love, loss, and heartbreak with clear-eyed honesty. Sometimes it’s hard and we’re not sure where we’re going or if we’ll make it, but the days will again wash in and the light will eventually return. Sometimes the best we can do is hold out for the hope of a better day to see us through the long winter nights.
“Hold You Again” doesn’t back down from the truth of lost chances and lonely new realities. “I know I may never feel it again,” they sing, but we get the sense that it was still worth it. The bright melody and washes of feedback are a sonic blanket against the cold reality. The push and pull; the give and take of life and love try to find their balance in these 5 songs. “It feels like a matter of time before the dark gets hold of me.”
“25” opens with the lines “I just want to wake up and feel like I’m alive because I’ve got some cousins that didn’t see 25.” There is a stark wrestling with reality. These lyrics don’t shy away from death and loss but they don’t swirl the pity party drain either. There’s a search throughout these songs; here’s the reality; we love, we lose, we die, and we try to make sense of it all. What’s it all about? What’s it’s all for? Is the power of love enough to see us through these long dark nights? Dogwood Tales think so and invite you into their sunbaked cosmic Americana world to see what you think. Whatever your conclusion, this is music for those long dark winter nights when we need to be reminded that the light will eventually return. “we’ve still got miles of road to go” they sing on the title track and there is a sense of surety that we’ll get there eventually.
Highly recommended
The Deets:
WH065
Dogwood Tales - 13 Summers 13 Falls
01. Hard To Be Anywhere
02. Hold You Again
03. 25
04. Since Yesterday
05. 13 Summers
credits
releases November 18, 2023 on WarHen Records
Kyle Grim - Acoustic Guitar, Vocals
Ben Ryan - Electric Guitar, Vocals
Stephen Kuester - Pedal Steel
Danny Gibney - Bass, Organ, Wurlitzer & Piano
Jake Golibart - Drums & Percussion
Produced by Erik Kase Romero
Recorded by Erik Kase Romero and Danny Gibney
All tracks Mixed by Danny Gibney except Hold You Again by Adrian Olsen
Mastered by Garrett Haines
Photograph by Kyle Grim
Check out a recent live session from earlier this year:
Staraya Derevnya :: Boulder Blues
Staraya Derevnya is a psychedelic/kraut-folk collective based in London and Tel Aviv. Active since 1994, the group’s newest album Boulder Blues will be out August 5th on Ramble Records. Recorded between 2020 - 2022 in Israel and the UK, the album percolates and bubbles with creativity. A collective of varying size and members, this iteration consists of 11 people, and album credits include “cries and whispers,” silent cello (which apparently is a very real thing, though somehow it would still make sense even if it wasn’t), “objects,” and a marching band kazoo.
How does one make sense of such music? Maybe that’s not the point, but if we need landmarks to help find our way; then maybe the meditative groovy bass foundations of Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin and Natural Information Society or some of the murkier moments from Animal Collective or Paavoharju come to mind, but only as touchpoints. They are the friendly neighbors you meet on the path to Staraya Derev. Like the cover artwork, one is left with more questions than answers, and sometimes that’s the point.
My son calls it “spooky alien music but in a good way.” Krautrock grooves underpin an ever evolving sound collage. Instruments, voices, and noises sometimes float by barely notices and sometimes shock you back into the groove. Concrete Islands uses the phrase “murmurations from unknown tongues” to describe the bands music, and that seems about as apt as any description we’re likely to conjure.
The title track emerges from primordial squigglings over an ever-reliably-chugging bassline and builds upon a repeated phrase dervishly swirling and repeating and building and repeating and building and swirling. The piece doesn’t so much resolve as exhaust itself in experimental ecstasy. ‘Tangled Hands’s fleeting fog swirls through the atmosphere punctuated by skronks and ambient waves.
The album’s centerpiece, the nearly 21-minute ‘Bubbling Pelt’ was recorded live at TUSK Festival 2020. The piece bubbles and swirls over minimal but hypnotic bass rumblings. Percussion skitters back and forth until becoming one with the ether. As the bass returns, wind instruments and electronic squiggles reveal themselves from the fog, forming a nice relaxed groove which gives home to all sorts of vocalizations.
Though heavy on krautrock repetition, this is not background music. Though it requires your attention, it grooves in unexpected ways.
Boulder Blues is out August 05th on Ramble Records and is highly recommended.
Watch ‘Bubbling Pelt’ performed live at TUSK Festival 2020 here:
Sons of Kemet Live at Big Ears Festival (2019)
“This concert was recorded at The Mill & Mine on March 24, 2019, as part of the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tenn.”
Setlist:
"My Queen is Ada Eastman"
"My Queen is Angela Davis"
"The Itis"
"Breadfruit"
"Mo' Wiser"
"My Queen is Harriet Tubman"
"My Queen is Mamie Phipps Clark"
"Inner Babylon"
"My Queen is Berta Cáceres"
"My Queen is Albertina Sisulu"
"Afrofuturism"
Players:
Shabaka Hutchings (saxophone)
Theon Cross (tuba)
Tom Skinner (drums)
Eddie Hicks (drums)
Derek Piotr :: Making and Then Unmaking
Nearly every human story centers around conflict and character development. In many of these stories, we find many reoccurring characters.
The wise but enigmatic bearded wizard.
The strong but faithful hero; sure of who they are and their calling but not always sure of their circumstances.
Or, maybe the trickster, who is a cunning, sly usurper of the status quo, who can often shapeshift (including gender). leaving you to wonder who or what you just encountered; or didn’t.
The trickster might know who they are, but most people never will. Leaving everyone to wonder of even the trickster knows who they are. We can only ever know the trickster as they reveal themselves to us; in ever-changing form; in all the ups and downs; the tricks and turns; the slides and tumbles. Derek Piotr’s new album asks us to ask such questions.
Creating what he calls an “Appalachian cowboy record,” Piotr weaves trickster imagery and energy through a powerfully haunting and playful set of songs exploring the question of who we are versus who others think we are. In keeping with the up-ending energy of the trickster, Making and Then Unmaking is a sharp turn for the Piotr. The presskit calls the album his “most musically ambitious and emotionally raw project to date.” Most notably, this is Piotr’s first work to feature the guitar. Piotr has made his name so far in modern classical and DJ settings. He says that he: “had a massive taboo against guitar for my whole career... I felt it was extremely common, pedestrian, coffee-shop stuff, represented the most middling and mundane music on the planet.”
But thankfully, he changed his mind.
Throughout the album, guitar, dulcimer, pedal steel guitar, clavichord and banjo work to support these explorations of identity and loss and Piotr’s unique voice. That voice and its rawness is much of what makes these songs feel like we’re privy to some sort of intimate self-exploration rather than just being academic explorations of a musical genre. Piotr’s presskit says:
“The composer’s voice is foregrounded throughout, operating in a different register to that of the more recognisable singing voice used on previous albums.”
On the opening track, “From Your Window,” Piotr sings “I consume the wind who consumes me” over a hypnotic repeated rhythm and we can’t help but wonder if the life of the trickster; a life of continually changing and keeping up while keeping others at bay will ultimately consume those of us who chase this life.
Diving in to folk, rural, Appalachian, and Irish music. Piotr finds a musical world in which he can explore not only the trickster imagery, but himself. Asked about the album title, he suggest:
"Making and Then Unmaking" refers to building and destroying relationships ... ideas ... past selves ...”
We find this theme of changing, reconciling, growing and the accompanying confusion highlighted in “Invisible Map,” where Piotr sings:
“Things I hold on to make me want to change, but the more I change, the more I find myself holding on.”
It’s this internal struggle of identity that weaves the album together, and here, with slowly stirring strings over plucked rhythms Piotr sings out life’s eternal question: Who Am I? The solo a capella “Bolakins,” (Found at the Wikipedias as “Lamkin”) offers up terrifying answer to that question in the tale of a wronged mason who vows to get even. With only his voice, Piotr lays bear this tale of revenge and sorrow.
While “Bolakins” is certainly a standout track, I wonder if “The Stake/De'il in the Kitchen” most encapsulates the album’s themes. A song with plucked banjo and bagpipes about feeling like cyborg trying to find love seems to get right to the heart of it. What is programmed? What is real? Who can be trusted and why? The organic wistfulness of the banjo plays against Piotr’s mechanical thought: “I am a cyborg.” The bagpipes highlight the confusion; are we programmed? Does it matter? What is free will? Is love free will or something that takes us over? The metallic cyborg tinge plays against the organic instruments and feels like a metaphor for many of the album’s themes.
“Snow in Paradise” continues these themes:
“It’s a wall of snow in paradise / All of us changing for that better life / Did you manifest what means most to you? / Because you can’t resist?”
Later in the song, a saxophone weaves in and out of the melody asking us to reflect on these questions. I have time for music like that, and I hope you do too. These nine songs explore the notions of identity, change, love, and free will; all while Piotr challenges himself to take on a new musical identity. I can’t think of anything better than an artist who models what they explore. Form and function. Cyborgs looking for love, all somehow without losing hope.
Highly recommended.
Pre-order the album at Bandcamp (out 05/14/21). Watch the Electronic Press Kit here.
Wordless Flight Emerges
Caleb Nei bills himself as: “Washington DC Area Event & Cocktail Pianist,” usually playing “about 180 jazz dates each year throughout Virginia and Washington DC.”
Nei’s newest project Wordless Flight. “Emergence,” Nei’s first release under the new moniker is a collection of improvisations “Recorded on a felted upright piano, a Mason & Hamlin reed organ, and a collection of analog synths.” Nei says that “Emergence” is the first of several releases in this vein, with lots more music already recorded.
“Recorded in the early-morning hours before the family wakes,” Nei’s improvisations are meditative pieces walking the border between minimalism, new age age, and contemporary classical.
Opening track “Another Morning” is representative of the rest of the album in all of the good ways. Interesting melodies over ambient background noise unfolding and swirling up and around to greet the day before folding back into itself.
“Murmur” propels these themes forward, while “1997” begins to push into Ambient territory and “Landscape From A Bus” pulses with an Ambient loop and “Moored Boats” makes you wonder if this wasn’t an electronic album the whole time.
This is music created with the sun rise to fill your while day.
Sahel Sounds presents "Music from Saharan WhatsApp 03 by Jeich Ould Badou
Over the past couple of months, I have been pleased to pass along the announcement that 10 years later, the Sahel Sounds was following up their fantastic Music From Saharan Cellphones compilation with the ground-breaking compilation, Music from Saharan WhatsApp.
“For the year of 2020, Sahel Sounds presents "Music from Saharan WhatsApp." Every month, we'll be releasing an EP from a musical group in the Sahel. Every album will be recorded on a cellphone, and transmitted over WhatsApp, and uploaded to Bandcamp - where it will live for one month only. Available for pay as you want, 100% of the sales will go directly to the artist or group. After one month, the album will be replaced by another one, until the end of the year.”
The label says of this third installment:
“This month we go to Mauritania to one of the premiere players of the tidnit, Jeich Ould Badou. Coming from a hereditary family of musicians, Jeich's tidnit (the Mauritanian lute) is updated, with built in phasers and pre-amps. Jeich is well known in Nouakchott, where he regularly gigs in weddings and invitations. Here he presents a series of WZN recordings, instrumental classic Mauritania music, for dancing: three songs recorded at home with the drum machine, and one live invitation recording with percussion.”
credits
released March 16, 2020
Jeich Ould Badou - Tidnit
Boss DR-770 Drum Machine (Tracks 1, 2, 3)
Recorded by Jeich Ould Badou on iPhone 7, March 2020
Album Art by Christopher Kirkley
Sahel Sounds presents "Music from Saharan WhatsApp 02 by Oumou Diabate et Kara Show Koumba Frifri"
Last month I was pleased to pass along the announcement that 10 years later, the Sahel Sounds was following up their fantastic Music From Saharan Cellphones compilation with the ground-breaking compilation, Music from Saharan WhatsApp.
“For the year of 2020, Sahel Sounds presents "Music from Saharan WhatsApp." Every month, we'll be releasing an EP from a musical group in the Sahel. Every album will be recorded on a cellphone, and transmitted over WhatsApp, and uploaded to Bandcamp - where it will live for one month only. Available for pay as you want, 100% of the sales will go directly to the artist or group. After one month, the album will be replaced by another one, until the end of the year.”
The label says of this second installment:
“This month we present mother and son duo, Oumou Diabate and Kara Show Koumba Frifri (Youssouf Drame), from Bamako, Mali. Playing traditional Mandingue music, these lowkey recordings are a snapshot from a griot family home. Oumou Diabate has been performing all her life, and is honored as one of the first griots to perform on television when it first arrived in Mali. Kara Show carries on his family tradition, a renowned performer of the Tamani drum. A founding member of the Balani Show outfit Group Mamelon, Kara Show is a regular guest performer in Bamako’s modern music scene."
Preview the second EP here (THIS WILL DISAPPEAR AT THE END OF THE MONTH):
Sahel Sounds presents "Music from Saharan WhatsApp"
The Sahel region of northwestern Africa, spans several countries including: Mauritania, Mali, and Niger, and includes dozens of languages and dialects. This region produces some of my favorite music in the world (browse my posts tagged “Tuareg”). And one of my favorite labels putting out some of my favorite music is Sahel Sounds.
Pitchfork says that at least part of the reason label owner Christopher Kirkley chose to work in the Sahel region was “in part because it was so hard to find English-language information about it.” The label’s website says:
“We work directly with artists that we represent and aim to have input and control over artistic endeavors. All profits are shared 50/50. We’re committed to using culture as a means of communication, helping our artists build careers, and listening to good music.”
Preview the trailer for 2016 German trailer about the label (which is available to watch at Amazon Prime):
In 2010, the label put out the terrific and fascinating Music From Saharan Cellphones compilation. The compilation’s Bandcamp page provides some context:
“Music from Saharan cellphones is a compilation of music collected from memory cards of cellular phones in the Saharan desert.
In much of West Africa, cellphones are are used as all purpose multimedia devices. In lieu of personal computers and high speed internet, the knockoff cellphones house portable music collections, playback songs on tinny built in speakers, and swap files in a very literal peer to peer Bluetooth wireless transfer.”
The compilation not only helped highlight music from the region but was, for many, the first exposure to Tuareg guitar wizard Mdou Moctar, whose album Ilana (The Creator) was one of my favorites of 2019. Now, 10 years later, the label presents the follow-up to the ground-breaking compilation, Music from Saharan WhatsApp.
“For the year of 2020, Sahel Sounds presents "Music from Saharan WhatsApp." Every month, we'll be releasing an EP from a musical group in the Sahel. Every album will be recorded on a cellphone, and transmitted over WhatsApp, and uploaded to Bandcamp - where it will live for one month only. Available for pay as you want, 100% of the sales will go directly to the artist or group. After one month, the album will be replaced by another one, until the end of the year.”
The label profiles the first installment at the Bandcamp page:
“This month's release comes from Agadez guitar band, Etran de L'Aïr. Translated to "Star's of Agadez," Etran is one of the longest running wedding bands in a city renowned for guitar. Constantly playing in the outdoor weddings, both in the city and the surrounding countryside, Etran play exhaustive concerts, late into the night. Even for a guitar band, they push the instrument to the extreme, with three guitars playing simultaneously, soloing over one another, creating a dreamy cacophony of sound. This session was recorded at night in their home in Abala, just outside the center of Agadez. "We invited friends over to the home, for encouragement," says Moussa "Abindi" Ibra. "But we asked them not to make too much noise, for the sake of the recording."
Preview the first EP here: