Albums Quarterly #16

Our last quarterly of the year always feels a bit strange, given so many publications around the world begin to share their end of year lists. It seems to be getting earlier and earlier each year on that score, and while we are in the privileged position of receiving advanced releases, that extra few weeks in December to digest things can make all the difference. (Depending on how much you actually care about lists, of course.)

So with that, our stance will never change – always the third week December. If you like your lists, there will be plenty elsewhere in the coming weeks to keep you satisfied. Now, back to the task at hand…

It’s been an interesting last quarter of 2024, not least the last few weeks for obvious reasons, adding to the uncertainty of a world already filled with conflict and turmoil.

The refuge is music, and whilst that may seem trite, sometimes it feels like that’s the only solace we have. Lucky for us that there’s been plenty of it, with the last three months arguably being the year’s strongest. The first week in October especially, boasting so many releases, I’m still coming to terms with just how many there were!

Since, there’s been a smorgasbord of fine releases, too, led by Papa M, Luna Honey, Fire Nearby, Rafael Anton Irisarri (stay tuned for him next week), Mount Eerie and the return of Karate.

There have been others of course, which is exactly why you’re here. So on that score, apologies for the rambling.

As said above, our Top 50 Albums along with our 25 EPs of the year will follow in the third week of December. There will be much more between Christmas and New Year, too, with some special guests providing some column inches, so stay tuned.

For now, though, here’s what’s been on the decks over the past couple of months, including Broken Candles, who today releases the video for new single, Waterfall. Exclusive to Sun 13, you can watch the video below.

Assisted Living: Is Coming
Strange Mono / BLIGHT.Records

Let’s just get it out of the way… if you’re going to discover your new favourite band in this feature, then it will probably be Assisted Living.

Featuring previously members of Sun Organ, Nxy Nyx, Ugh God, Golden Apples and Bad History Month, on their debut, Is Coming, Assisted Living deliver the kind of assured proto-rock that splits the storm clouds. There’s equal parts aggression and sunroof sway here that makes the mind run ten to the dozen.

Channelling their inner-Mission of Burma through the vitality of their native Philadelphia, Is Coming is another great DIY success stories from the city (the other recent act, the great Luna Honey). Just press play and let it all shake out from there.

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Big’N: End Comes Too Soon
Computer Students™

It’s been a big year for noise-rock, and Chicago veterans, Big’N, are yet another to throw their hat into the ring with their latest, End Comes Too Soon.

Recorded at Electrical Audio Studio, one would think the title is tribute to the late Steve Albini. It’s actually coincidence, despite End Comes Too Soon holding more weight in the months after Albini’s passing. As for the songs? The fire continues to rage for William Akins who alongside guitarist Todd Johnson, bassist Fred Popolo and drummer Brian Wnutkowski, basically redefine sound and fury.

On End Comes Too Soon, Big’N don’t miss a beat, and while veteran bands may retread past glories, it’s not the case here. There’s far too much to be pissed off about in 2024, and Big’N harness the rage as good as anyone else.

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Bondo: Harmonica
Day End Records

There’s been a lot of Unwound and Duster worship floating around these past couple of years, and no one has done it better than Bondo.

Following their excellent 2023 debut long-player, Print Selections (as well as a collection of B-sides), the Los Angeles four-piece return with Harmonica. An album that showcases four musicians locked in the groove, following their nose and bringing us a form of hypnotic, slowcore jams in the process.

Oddly enough, there’s a jam band echo about Bondo. If Jerry Garcia ever phased on ’90s post-hardcore in his halcyon years, it may have sounded something like Bondo’s Harmonica. A lingering, whirring delight that reveals more and more with each listen.

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Future Shock: In Conversation with The Bug’s Kevin Martin

Francesca Bono: Crumpled Canvas
WWNBB

Francesca Bono can write a song. On the Italian songwriter’s debut album, Crumpled Canvas, Bono gives us the kind of unpretentious electric folk that rises above just about everything else in a space that’s rife with artist spinning insipid tales.

Not Bono, though. Co-produced by Mick Harvey, Crumpled Canvas sees her using razor-sharp metaphors and fragile melodies that envelope the heart.

With eight songs at 30 minutes, Crumpled Canvas doesn’t outstay its welcome. However, so good, I for one wish there was more of it, and with this in mind, the only logical thing to do is start from the beginning and experience it all again.

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Broken Candles: Falling Asleep in the Sky
Cruel Nature Records

If anyone is hankering for an Elliott Smith fix, then Broken Candles might be the most worthy alternative.

The solo project of Luca Corda (formerly of Manchester noise-rock collective, Groves),the lonesome traveller returns with his second Cruel Nature release, Falling Asleep in the Sky, which follows his 2020 debut, Left With This Feeling. These songs are fragile, framing lonely, deserted landscapes where the only sound that cuts through the beautiful noise is tumbleweed.

Alongside Parisian songwriter, Daren Muti, in 2024 Corda is the architect of songs designed to melt the heart. And with Falling Asleep in the Sky, consider the heart well and truly melted.

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Chat Pile: Cool World
The Flenser

The title of Chat Pile’s much anticipated follow-up to 2022’s God’s Country says a lot. Cool World sees the Oklahoma noise-rock wrecking ball basically commit a panic-attack to tape. Raw, anxious fits of noise conceived from sweat-riddled fleapits, and it’s here where Chat Pile dispense their best work.

Whether or not Cool World mirrors the combustible nature of God’s Country is merely splitting hairs. Both albums, raucous documents capturing the unhinged nature of this world as good as anything within the noise-rock pantheon.

Along with Big’N’s End Comes Too Soon, with Cool Word, Chat Pile continue to fly the flag for the grizzled husks that we are all slowly becoming.

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Luna Honey Interview: “Everything before leads to everything after”

Days For Nights: Days For Nights
Sparrows & Wires Records

Days For Nights is the supergroup spearheaded by poet, Karen Schoemer with an all-star cast behind her in Zak Boerger, Mike Watt, Dan Sullivan, Dan Bitney, Benjamin de Kock and Neil Hoffman.

On their self-titled debut, in front of woodsy instrumentation that radiates with the same warmth as a roaring bonfire, Schoemer steals the show with beautiful abstract tales inspired from the street-level. Her timbre, so calm and always a welcoming facet in any project she’s a part of.

Every song on of Days For Nights just lines up, and while it is overshadowed by Boerger’s ongoing battle with cancer, just for a moment, the warmth these recordings possess imbues hope and an escapism from reality.

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Kim Deal: Nobody Loves You More
4AD

Does anything more need to be said other than, thank the heavens for a Kim Deal solo album!

The Breeders lynchpin branches out for an expansive, wonderous set of songs on Nobody Loves You More. With everything from orchestral serenades (title track, Summerlands) Velvets and Jefferson Airplane echoes (Wish I Was), to punchy indie rock (Big Ben Beat), Deal gives us the full banquet, reiterating why she is the undisputed champion of alt-rock.

Nobody Loves You More embodies the kind breezy swoon rock designed for poolside sipping Piña coladas, and while winter is here, Kim Deal gives us a worthy escape route. Turn it on and turn it up.

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E L U C I D: REVELATOR
Fat Possum Records

While it feels like it’s been a lean year for hip-hop, E L U C I D quickly reminds us of what we’ve been missing out on with his latest cut, REVELATOR.

Following collaborations with Billy Woods, the former Armand Hammer member delivers more vibrant tales that tap into the world of conscious rap, cutting through all the braggario bullshit that has often diluted certain spaces in the rap and hip-hop sound world.

Alongside Woods, E L U C I D proves to be one of the most vital sources in the space. A safe pair of hands, whatever he produces just seems to resonate more than most, and REVELATOR is the latest statement.

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Empty House: Dream Lounge
Cruel Nature Records

It’s been another solid year for Fred Laird’s Empty House vessel, and the North West experimentalist offers one last dose of bliss with Dream Lounge.

At two tracks under 40 minutes, Dream Lounge sees Laird toning it down a notch, drawing from contrast from all corners of the globe. If Marty Rev was invited to your house party for a DJ set, then the end result may have been something like this.

There are few concocting the kind of ideas that Laird does. Yes, we’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. He is the exponent of some of the best collage psychedelia coming out of the country. And Dream Lounge continues the odyssey. 

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The Escape Artist: In Conversation with David Pajo

Envy: Eunoia
Temporary Residence / Pelagic Records

Japanese post-rock veterans, Envy, have always thrived on turbulence and that doesn’t change on their latest and first in four years, Eunoia.

Eight tracks at 30 minutes, Eunoia sees Envy framing their fury in shorter bursts. It works of course, as the band feed new energy through a seam of blistering post-rock and post-hardcore.

With the likes of Imagination and Creation and the closing January’s Dusk, Envy produce some of their best work, and continuing on from The Fallen Crimson and their landmark 2010 release, Recitation, Eunoia is another string to their bow.

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Experiments & Observations on Electricity: The Ascension
Cult Image Music

Liverpool’s Hell on Hearth has spent the last several years stitching together the unique patchwork of dungeonwave, and it appears he’s starting to gain a few disciples.

One being Experiments & Observations on Electricity, who returns with his second LP, The Ascension. More designed for abattoirs than the dungeon, The Ascensions sees the U.K. experimentalist conjure up noisescapes that permeate and fall in line with the current dystopian dread.

There’s a dead-eyed nature to these four compositions, but also, there’s the kind of sonic debris left by the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor from their earlier days. While The Ascension requires some patience, the results are grand if you stick to the path.

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Human Potential: I Write Wedding Songs
What Delicate Recordings

Los Angeles-based shapeshifter, Andrew Becker, returns with the latest Human Potential dispatch, I Write Wedding Songs.

Award-winning filmmaker and drummer for Medication (Dischord Records) and Brooklyn agitators, Screens, Becker returns with something that combines the ideas of Ed Drotse and Daniel Rossen with the gnarled post-punk of Total Control. The result? A multicolored fever dream.

Juxtaposing conventional songcraft with glittery off-kilter sonics, I Write Wedding Songs is wonderfully untethered and compelling. With songs like Idiot Moon, and the beautiful closing cut, Altamrya, really, the Human Potential project should be reaching more ears than it does. Here’s hoping that’s the case on the back of I Write Wedding Songs.

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Worriedaboutsatan Interview: “More people should be bass players!”

Idaho: Lapse
Arts & Crafts

Alongside Robby Fronzo, Jeff Martin has reignited the fire that is Idaho – the underrated slowcore project that Martin has used as a vessel for songs that everyone needs in their lives.

The first Idaho full length since 2011 You Were a Dick, Lapse took shape in 2022 following a New Year’s Eve party in Martin’s native Twentynine Palms. There’s no hangover here, for these songs are as strong as ever (West Side); Martin, using locality to tell stories of a lost world. That disconnect between major cities and small towns and how that chasm gets bigger every day.

Whilst mainly steered by Martin himself over the years, either way you look at it, Idaho are one of the unsung heroes from the indie music landscape. And Lapse is further proof of that.

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The Innocence Mission: Midwinter Swimmers
Bella Union

It’s probably all being written about The Innocence Mission, but whenever new music of theirs lands it’s not just a cause for mention, but also celebration. Karen and Don Peris make effortless music, and on their latest LP, Midwinter Swimmers once again the renaissance couple deliver songs that wet the corners of the eyes.

While there’s wistfulness to these songs, there’s also borderless kind of freedom that underpins Midwinter Swimmers. Songs that slowly sink into your bones, becoming part of your DNA.

And that’s the thing with The Innocence Mission. Whether it be from their humble beginnings or for relatively newcomers, once The Innocence Mission leads you into their world, there’s no turning back. That doesn’t change with Midwinter Swimmers.

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Moin: You Never End
AD 93

The London three-piece, consisting of Raime’s Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead and percussionist and collaboration extraordinaire, Valentina Magaletti, return with their latest long-player, You Never End.

Since their wonderful genre-bending debut, Moot!, the trio have explored further afield and, to be honest, the results have been mixed. You Never End, however, captures the sparks of Moot!, and featuring a swathe of vocal guests, it sees Moin cover new ground with something totally removed from their past.

Stirring the ghosts of post-hardcore for something aggressive and hypnotic, in terms of experimental and rock, on You Never End, Moin combine the two in new forwarding-thinking ways. 

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The Cure: Songs of a Lost World

Thurston Moore: Flow Critical Lucidity
Daydream Library Series

Since Sonic Youth closed the curtains, Thurston Moore has gone down the experimentation wormhole, which has resulted in a mixed bag.

On Flow Critical Lucidity, Moore goes into streamline mode with arguably the best set of songs since his underrated 2007 solo release, Trees Outside the Academy. With a track like Sans Limites (featuring Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier), Moore captures some of the magic of Rain on Tin and basically all of what made Sonic Nurse the triumph that it is.

There’s more of it on Flow Critical Lucidity, too, as Moore catches the sweet stop, and just when you thought his best work was behind him, there’s plenty of life in the old dog yet.

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Gvantsa Narim: Enigmatic Reflections
Cruel Nature Records

Tbilisi, Georgia experimentalist, Gvantsa Narim, returns with her latest Cruel Nature release, Enigmatic Reflections.

Following last year’s Apotheosis Animae and her 2022 debut, Gvantsa, Enigmatic Reflections sees the sound artist drill further down into the well of minimalism. With a series of hushed, long-form compositions, this is a sound bath that washes away the daily grime.

There’s an earthy, spiritual aspect to these recordings, and it’s something you wouldn’t have associated with Narim’s previous recordings. The central figure in the past being the drone, on Enigmatic Reflections, there’s an emotional intensity that recalls past spirits. It captures the heart in the same way Winterwood and Kenneth James Gibson have over the last couple of years.

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Shrimp: Brine Shrimp
Panurus Productions

Plague Rider’s James Watts returns with another searing hot mess of noise, leading the charge with Shrimp’s latest sonic befuddlement, Brine Shrimp.

Joined by guitarist, Esmé Newman (Fashion Tips and Watts trusted cohort in All The Heavens Were A Bell), Japanese snare drum soloist, Ryosuke Kiyasu, and guitarist Jon O’Neill, Brine Shrimp consists of four looong-form jams (two of which land past 39 and 40 minutes) that travel well beyond sensory overload.

With plenty to sink the fangs into, this is free-form expression that reaches the most sordid corners on God’s green. Raging with Beefheatrtian spirit, if Mr Von Vliet ever chose to explore something even more extreme than Trout Mask Replica, then it may have landed in the same orbit as Brine Shrimp.

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Weirdo Rippers #15

The Wolfgang Press: A 2nd Shape
Downwards

29 years? Listening to A 2nd Shape, The Wolfgang Press’ much anticipated return, and it’s hard to find where they’ve missed a beat.

While tracks like The 1st and Knock Knock tap into the sci-fi post-punk that Total Control have refined over the last 15 years, there’s plenty of room for The Wolfgang Press to add their own embellishments.

And that’s just it. As post-punk has been dragged through the mire by a litany of sound-alikes over the last couple of years, Mike Allen musters the troops to show this new generation how it’s done. And with A 2nd Shape, The Wolfgang Press do just that with an absolute earworm of a record.

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Yesness: See You at the Solipsist Convention
Joyful Noise Recordings

Yesness is the new collaboration between El Ten Eleven’s Kristian Dunn and Don Caballero’s Damon Che. Having been introduced via email by Joyful Noise curator Karl Hofstetter, it’s led to their debut album, See You at the Solipsist Convention.

Combining the playful aspects of El Ten Eleven and the pummelling junctures of Don Cab, Yesness carve out a kind of post-rock blur that plays between the lines of everything around it. It’s not immediate by any stretch, but certain moments spark the senses, pulling you closer to their world.

There’s a sound of hope on See You at the Solipsist Convention, and given what’s transpired earlier this month, well… Yesness’ arrival in the new music sphere is timely.

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