For most artists, the chance just to break even from their work fades with each passing day, making the EP somewhat of a sweet spot for time and affordability. It’s one of the many reasons the EP is a vital thread woven through the new music patchwork.
The number of EP submissions in 2024 for independent artists alone backs this up, and it’s a feature like this that gives us the opportunity to shine a light on those same voices who may not feature under the spotlight elsewhere.
In many ways, it’s this feature (the second of its kind) that underpins our own DIY principles, and while we certainly cover more well known artists (including several in this list), there will always be space for DIY artists.
While DIY has its own interpretations and meanings to different people, so does the term ‘indie’. The hue and cry of the recent PIAS takeover by Universal got me thinking about the latter. Allegedly one of the last vestiges of indie labels as we know them.
Here’s a question, though. Are big ‘indie’ labels like PIAS part of the independent music landscape as we know it in 2024, or are they playing between the lines of reputation and governance by wider forces?
I’d very much say the latter, to the point where labels of this size are on a different playing field altogether. Hell, a certain player in that same field planted their flag in Liverpool earlier this year and, to be honest, they’re a world away from the one we and many others across independent culture are functioning in.
You only have to scroll through the plethora of labels on platforms such as Bandcamp to understand what indie truly means. These labels never lose sight of how they began, and that’s kind of my point. The purity of ‘indie’ itself should never forget its roots, and while the term itself is very much open to interpretation, it’s also one that is tainted and, to the most cynical, perhaps even void!
Perhaps the topic deserves more space in the months ahead, and while DIY artists dominate this list, there’s room for some slightly bigger players as well. As always, we hope there’s something new for you to sink your teeth into.
Our Top 50 Albums of 2024 will follow this Friday.
25.
Hubert Selby Jr. Infants: Have you ever been a crow… or an eel?
Scene Report Records
With their debut EP, Good Evening, Pricks! It’s… the Hubert Selby Jr. Infants making our inaugural Top 25 EPs of 2023, the four-piece (Jamie Grimes – guitars/ vocals; Peter McNally – guitar; Andrew Bushe – drums; and Kunal Nandi – bass) made it a quick turn-around with their the equally provocatively titled follow-up, Have you ever been a crow… or an eel?
An EP that doesn’t stray too far from its predecessor both sonically and thematically, in fact it wouldn’t have been a surprise had the two releases been combined as the band’s debut LP.
Over the past 12 months there is something that has positively risen from the ashes of ’90s emo and post-hardcore fandom, and alongside fellow newcomers Achers and Big Hug, Hubert Selby Jr. Infants are in the thick of it.
Full review
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25.
The Malefic Grip: Virtue and Industry
Self-released
Bristol-based The Malefic Grip capture these times flush with their latest EP, Virtue and Industry.
The two-piece, Liam S. Wolf (vocals bass, programming) and Helen Kinsella (vocals, guitar) make a brand of industrial noise sludge fuelled by political upheaval. Just by their song titles, the surging noise that ducks an weaves between Death by a Thousand Cunts and Blank Masses, The Malefic Grip paint a pretty morbid picture that we’re all too familiar with.
Along with Newcastle’s Fashion Tips, on Virtue and Industry, The Malefic Grip ensures that the fires in the underground remain ablaze. Those siren calls on the track, Unatural Selection, a chilling warning and one that feels ever so closer.
23.
Laura Cannell: Sealore
Brawl Records
If Gentle Stranger’s Inner Winter is the seasonal record of winter 23/24, then Laura Cannell’s latest Sealore EP is the perfect foil for it.
It was the first in a series of ‘lore’ EPs for Cannell before releasing her latest LP, The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined. Here, through recorder and violin, once again the U.K. composer takes us through the damp, snow-laden forests with a series of compositions that are snapshots of where the origins of folk were born.
Cannell has always been influenced by locality and the atmospheres of different landscapes, and on Sealore the images haven’t been clearer. It’s a fine example of her body-of-work and another important chapter in what is turning out to be one of the richest stories from any underground composer in the U.K. in recent times.
22.
Rip Space: Thank These People
Self-released
The Rip Space story is a diaristic concern. Just by looking through some of the EP titles since the project’s inception two years ago, it’s yet another interesting endeavour from the underbelly of DIY culture.
It’s interesting because Rip Space isn’t just a breaker of rules: he has a flagrant disregard for them. Taking ideas that, on paper, shouldn’t really go together, this perpetual outsider philosophy incessantly goes beyond the borders of guitar music, and there’s no better example than the latest Rip Space EP, Thank These People.
In all its demented aura, with so many boring guitar tropes contaminating alternative culture and, indeed, the email inbox, it’s refreshing to see someone going against the grain in uncompromising new ways.
Full review
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21.
Ekocam & More Cables: EP
On the Shelf Records
What do you get when a Stockholm-based Energy and Climate Professor teams up with a UK-based sound designer? Ekocam & More Cables.
On their debut EP, simply titled EP, Chris Amblin (Ekocam) and Will Usher (More Cables) bend electronica into pretty interesting shapes. Think worriedaboutsatan on an all-nighter with Mount Kimbie as Jon Hopkins and Floating Points sit at the bar trading ideas.
It results in a rainbow coalition of sounds inspired by the dancefloor, and EP emits some pretty serious heat from the speakers over these six tracks. While it may be winter, these are summery sounds that thaw out the ice.
Mila Cloud Interview: “This music is not your typical drone”
20.
Leaves: Leaves
Self-released
Hailing from the country’s Southwest, Leaves comprises of John Davidson (vocals/guitar), Tom Stephens (guitar) and Tom Gilbert (drums), and to little fanfare, they released their debut self-titled EP at the end of March.
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Gilbert, Leaves is a product born out of deep record collections, mixed tapes, and magazine culture. Lifers that are clued-up on the ’90s American underground and the burning influence it maintains to this day.
Injecting a new energy into many of the touchstone artists they echo, Leaves is a solid start from a band that will hopefully move on to bigger and better things in the near future.
Full review
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19.
News from Neptune: The Cars That Ate Widnes EP
Self-released
News from Neptune is the Merseyside duo of Craig Sinclair and David Miller who make pop-inspired self-professed “nightmare exotica”.
With the duo having spawned a fistful of EPs including The Cold Open (2016), and following the duo’s double A side 2023 release, Gordon Bennett Presents…St Michael’s / The Whispering Arch (which followed several EPs in the series), Sinclair and Miller returned in November with the aptly titled The Cars That Ate Widnes EP.
While nightmare exotica it may be, think of that family holiday on a Mediterranean cruise, only you disappear into psychedelic drug haze which leads you through the casino all the way to a bandstand in the main foyer. The artist occupying the stage? No other than New from Neptune, friends. And with The Cars That Ate Widnes, they make this shit holiday into something, well, interesting!
18.
Antietam: Pitch & Yaw
Motorific Sounds
Celebrating their 40th anniversary – as they often do – Antietam surprised us with a new EP, Pitch & Yaw. Formed 40 years ago on Derby Day, the band entered a Jersey City basement and haven’t looked back since.
All told, the steadfast trio of Tara Key (vocals/guitars/keys), Tim Harris (bass/vocals) and Josh Madell (drums) should have been as big as Yo La Tengo.
That said, Antietam remain comfortable in the shadows, going about their business for their devoted followers to savour every moment etched to tape. And like an absent friend that’s in your orbit but sporadically seen, Pitch & Yaw sees Antietam remind us of what’s important about music and why we fell in love with it in the first place.
Full review
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17.
Twin Coast: noie! noie! noie!
Self-released
With the slogan “noise for yr ears”, Twin Coast are another to rise from the fertile landscapes of Chicago.
Consisting of siblings Reid and Kira Isbell, judging by the dissonant waves of noise that the pair conjure up on noie! noie! noie!, it feels like they were brought up on a steady diet of their parents’ record collection.
Noie! noie! noie! is an endorphin rush. Sound that lands blow after blow, and while Chicago has been a hotbed for acts carrying the torch for the ’90s American underground with Lifeguard and Horsegirl leading the charge, it’s the likes of Uniflora and Twin Coast that are the next to reach wider audiences.
Interview
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16.
Careen: Cycle 3
Death Metal, Florida.
Bellingham Washington-based outfit, Careen, now consisting of Desi Valdez (vocals/ guitar), Bryan Foster (bass), Neto Alvarado (drums) and Aiden Blau (guitar, and also nephew of Washington underground veteran, Kurt Blau), have spent the last seven years bending post-hardcore into new shapes and sizes.
From the David Pajo-inspired riffs that stalk pitch-black hallways and haunt dreams, to the void echoes of post-punk sentinels Total Control, Careen’s venom and panache is among some of the best in modern-day post-hardcore, and it’s all on display on their latest release, Cycle 3.
Here Careen obsessively pore over the masters of indie-rock and post-hardcore from the last 30 years, and when it’s done so meticulously, the result is a track like Model Kit. In a world where they might pass most by, DIY culture will always remain with bands like Careen leaving an indelible mark on it.
Full review
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The Floating World Interview: “There’s something about places that I find very haunting”
15.
Asteroide & Fiorellas16: Suni A Través del Espejo
Cruel Nature Records
Peru is home to one of the most vibrant underground scenes in the world, and two of the country’s DIY purveyors, Asteroide (consisting of brothers David and Marco Rivarola) and Fiorella16 (Jose María Málaga) combine for a series of discordant drone-rock with Suni A Través del Espejo.
With glitchy textures and an exotic dose of psychedelia, this collaboration takes us through stranger portals than most, with the echoes of noise-rock, industrial and hard-biting no-wave all weaved through this wicked patchwork.
Fans of The Dead C will rejoice the birth of this collaboration which, I for one, hope is just the start of this screaming hell storm of noise.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
14.
Pelican: Adrift / Tending the Embers
Pelicansong
Writing their first songs as the original line-up since 2012, Pelican returned with their new two-song EP, Adrift / Tending the Embers. Reconvening with long-time producer, Sanford Parker (FACS), there is little doubt that Pelican have resumed their ceaseless march through the mire.
This isn’t a band finding their feet or going through the motions. Anyone who has witnessed the Pelican live experience will know about the boundless synergy between each band member and what the results can bring.
Tumultuous times call for bands like Pelican who sonically dial in and mirror the dread. And with more new music from the band in the offing, not only is Adrift / Tending the Embers a wonderful new dawn for band.
Full review
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13.
Zemlya: Zemlya
Bonambi
The Brussels duo, consisting of Maan Methven and Geraldine Vanspauwen formed via a long-time exploration period during residencies in Brussels and Bruges where the pair struck up a kinship for the dark arts.
A morbid range of sparse, gloomy sonics, on their self-titled release, Zemlya take doom to interesting places, as a host of strings, organs, and guitars see Methven and Vanspauwen create a whirring maelstrom, likened to a militia of tormented ghosts hosting a seance.
On Zemlya, Methven and Vanspauwen feminise the core of doom, intersecting its most visceral aspects with raw tenderness. The juxtaposition works, so much so that Zemlya feels like a band built for alternative meccas such as the Roadburn and Supersonic festivals.
Full review
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12.
Guiltless: Thorns
Neurot Recordings
Featuring members of Intronaut, Generation of Vipers, Battel of Mice, and A Storm of Light, Guiltless arrived in the colder months of 2024 to deliver their debut EP, Thorns.
And it’s as the title suggests. Rolling sludge metal ploughing through the terrains Neurosis once conquered. Vocalist / guitarist Josh Graham leads the charge into the ire of capitalism (“We have failed everyday / the fragile earth is screaming – All We Destroy ) in what was the first furious indictment on this world in 2024.
Thorns was needed then, and it’s needed now. Given our current predicament, expect more of the same from their debut LP which hopefully lands sooner rather than later.
11.
Hell on Hearth: One Hundred and Twelve
Self-released
Another year, and Liverpool noise wrangler, Sean Wárs, continues to find untapped resources across the terrains of his chaotic sound world.
With a swathe of releases already under his belt in the first quarter of 2024 (he dropped another just yesterday), One Hundred and Twelve is was the latest document of dread in the Hell on Hearth canon. Disturbing minimalism that feels like been tossed into the primordial soup.
Two tracks clocking in at just over 20 minutes, One Hundred and Twelve reaffirms Wárs’ position as the producer of the most frightening noisescapes out of Merseyside. Noise music for haunted houses. Enter if you dare.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Rhubiqs Interview: “I’m not at all inspired to create the same song over and over”
10.
Pink Warm Belly Of A Dying Sun: Pink Warm Belly Of A Dying Sun
Adventurous Music
Lukasz Polowczyk is a poet and a damn good one at that. The mastermind behind the excellent Aint About Me, he returns returns under a different guise, Pink Warm Belly Of A Dying Sun alongside Marc Jacobs.
While Aint About Me held more inflections of hope, on their debut self-titled EP, Polowczyk and Jacobs return with something a little more aligned to these times. Yes, this is darkness, not just via reality, but also from your dreams. Through tonal despair and abstract poeticism.
Perhaps Polowczyk puts it best on Glacial Gospel (“Apocalypse isn’t the end / It’s just a realisation that you’ve been living a lie.” Fans of dread poet, Roger Robinson, rejoice, because there’s a beautiful alternative here in Pink Warm Belly Of A Dying Sun who don’t fill the void, but are immersed in it.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
9.
Poem Rocket: LEND-LEASE
Silver Girl Records
Spearheaded by the husband-and-wife duo, Michael Peters and Sandra Gardner, alongside drummer Peter Gordon and his Gapeseed bandmate Mike Knowlton, Poem Rocket emerge from the wilderness with LEND-LEASE – a lost release of sorts, which was recorded in 1999 and intended for public consumption between the two above-noted albums.
What has always made Poem Rocket essential listening is the vocal trade-offs between Peters and Gardner. Their quite/loud contrasts, like melody through the miasma. It’s always been the band’s greatest strength, and two decades on that doesn’t change.
The only problem with LEND-LEASE is that there isn’t more, and while it may be a lost recording that has been finally liberated, speaking of, and it may just be the gateway for those yet to delve into the world of Poem Rocket.
8.
Jayve Montgomery: some folks’ heaven
Self-released
Tennessee multi-instrumentalist Jayve Montgomery is the architect of some of the most beautiful ambient compositions out there.
It’s been another great year of new music for the experimentalist, and on his some folks’ heaven extended play, he opens up the gates with a series of recordings that are the perfect starting point for those yet not attuned to his sound world.
Once again adopting a range of instruments including bowed bells, alto and soprano saxophones, on some folks’ heaven, Montgomery carves out the kind of ghostly dreamscapes that almost feel like Sun Ra at quarter speed. Astral bliss that teleports you to a place where freedom awaits. It’s the quintessential mediative experience, and something everyone needs in their lives.
7.
Golomb: Love
Self-released
It’s been a couple of years since we last heard from the Ohio three-piece, and Love is a welcome return indeed.
On Love, Mickey Shuman (guitars/vocals), Xenia Shuman (bass / vocals) and Hawken Holm (drums) splice dizzying Neil Young-inspired electric folk with ’90s post-hardcore, and the results are glorious.
While there may be a hole left by the Eleventh Dream Day having not released new music for a couple of years, consider it filled by Golomb. On Love, the trio are raw, rustic, and dispense choruses that catapult the spirit into orbit. For those yet to be acquainted with this band, Love is, indeed, the drug to be guided into their world.
6.
Pile: Hot Air Balloon
Exploding In Sound
Last year’s All Fiction marked a first for Pile – an album recorded largely to click track, and the results were a swift departure from the brawny punk/ post-hardcore aesthetic which has seen the band deliver some of the most vital records in this space(2010’s Magic Isn’t Real and 2012’s Dripping).
Hot Air Balloon consists of leftovers from those recording sessions. Such as the seamless nature of this release, you instantly wonder what All Fiction would have been like had these tracks been included on it.
Rick Maguire is one of the few masters in indie-rock who can navigate seamlessly between beauty and brutality, and it all makes for a thrilling uncertainty. It’s what makes Pile what they are, and Hot Air Balloon is another shining example of that.
Full review
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5.
Gloop: Tension
Self-released
Baltimore’s Gloop are a bit more than just a steady hand in the noise-rock pantheon.
On their latest release, Tension sees Gloop calling upon the unhinged nature of The Icarus Line, twisting it with the kind of off-kilter magic of early-era Pixies. Led by Dominic Giannanoto, whose performance is raw, gritty, and primal, at times sounding like a young Black Francis being attacked in a park by a family of pit bulls.
New music is never far away in the world of Gloop. It’s a band that needs to keep moving forward in a bid to shake off the anxiety. It’s this urgency that makes Gloop the band they are. A band fuelled by tension, and as it says on the tin, their latest release is another strong statement that will delight those already familiar with Gloop as well as those new to the band.
Full review
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4.
Still Ruins: Still Ruins
Smoking Room / Cercle Social Records
Formed in 2018, Oakland three-piece, Still Ruins (consisting of Frankie Soto, Jose Medina, and Cyrus VandenBerghe), are exponents of the kind of dream wave that stays with you for days on end. On their debut self-titled EP, the only inevitable thing to do is press play again, again, and again.
What Still Ruins do on their debut release is take the essence of Roxy Music’s Avalon and intersect it with the melodic textures of The Chameleons. A throw-back concern, however this is the kind of nostalgia that does wonders for the soul, making you realise why you fell in love with music in the first place.
Darkened with tone and texture and unafraid to wear hearts on sleeves, Still Ruins fly the flag for dark wave with flair and vigour.
Full review
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3.
LA TERMINAL: LA Terminal
We, Here & Now
While the Asteroide & Fiorella16 collaborative EP, Suni A Través del Espejo, was more of thousand yard stare in the direction of psychedelia’s greater horrors, LA TERMINAL, the two-piece noise-rock affair where Chuquitaype is joined by drummer Jorge Alfonso Ramirez Gonzalez Del Riego, is something that’s far more direct.
Two-piece noise-rock is hard to fashion, but with LA Terminal, the pair release something that buckles the walls with sweltering, white-hot noise. A tension that is almost implausible considering it’s just two people making it.
In all its unmoored glory, LA Terminal is a howling mess that will even have your worst nightmares running scared. While Peru has been a hotbed for underground music over the past couple of years, LA TERMINAL may just be the shining beacons of it.
Full review
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2.
Seefeel: Everything Squared
Warp Records
Following sporadic live shows, London’s Seefeel made their long-awaited return with the Everything Squared EP.
Seefeel are good at making brief returns, as they did with their 2011 self-titled comeback record, and while that didn’t capture the heights of their landmark 1993 album Quique, at times Everything Squared most certainly does, with brief flashes of majesty throughout its 26 minutes.
Everything Squared is glitch-laden, dubbed-out ambience to zone out to in lonely dark corners. Only those corners aren’t so lonely when this gets into your ears, and with more new music from Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock released just last week, reportedly there is even more in the offing from one of the shining beacons of post-rock.
1.
MJ Guider: Youth and Beauty
modemain
Under the MJ Guider moniker, Melissa Guion has made some of the most daunting ambient music over the last decade. With her debut LP, the brilliant Precious Systems (2016) and the dream-pop-inspired Sour Cherry Bell (2020), not only are both Kranky staples, but also records that topped end of year lists, respectively.
On Youth and Beauty, Guion’s latest release, the EP (mastered by Khanate’s James Plotkin) sees the multi-disciplinary artist reconnect with the flute – an instrument she played periodically during her formative years.
While the vortex has played a crucial role to the MJ Guider story, Guion takes a left-hand turn on Youth and Beauty instead taking us through the steaming marshlands. And through the warped world of improvisation and locality, it’s a terrain that Guion explores to great effect.
Full review
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Top 25 recap:
25. Hubert Selby Jr. Infants: Have you ever been a crow..or an eel?
24. The Malefic Grip: Virtue & Industry
23. Laura Cannell: Sealore
22. Rip Space: Thank These People
21. Ekocam & More Cables: EP
20. Leaves: Leaves
19. News from Neptune: The Cars That Ate Widnes
18. Antietam: Pitch & Yaw
17. Twin Coast: noie! noie! noie!
16. Careen: Cycle 3
15. Asteroide & Fiorella16: Suni A Través del Espejo
14. Pelican: Adrift /Tending the Embers
13. Zemlya: Zemlya
12. Guiltless: Thorns
11. Hell on Hearth
10. Pink Warm Belly of a Dying Sun: Pink Warm Belly of a Dying Sun
9. Poem Rocket: LEND-LEASE
8. Jayve Montgomery: some folks’ heaven
7. Golomb: Love
6. Pile: Hot Air Balloon
5. Gloop: Tension
4. Still Ruins: Still Ruins
3. La Terminal: La Terminal
2. Seefeel: Everything Squared
1. MJ Guider: Youth and Beauty
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