Lists, lists, lists. With each passing year there seems to be more of them. The bigger online publications around the world, resorting to a range of best ‘insert genre’ records of the year, watering down their main list, ultimately feeding into the idea of content for content’s sake. The new age where clicks and appeasing advertisers conquers all. 2024, as we know it, folks.
Perhaps that’s me being cynical, because after all, do lists even matter? They do to some, for sure. To others, not a jot. And that’s fine.
I’ve always taken the view that an end of year list shouldn’t be defined by genres. It should be measured by the true emotional impact a record has on someone. Forward-thinking ideas and originality are important, of course, but it’s the feeling you get from a record that is the deciding factor. That timing of when a record comes into your life, freezing a moment that you will remember (for better or worse) forever.
Everyone will have different opinions, but these are the parameters and the thinking behind compiling our list year after year. And speaking of years, it’s been another big one for Sun 13. Readership numbers have increased to a scale beyond anything we ever imagined. That’s thanks to you, dear reader.
Since we began during the first lockdown in 2020, I for one didn’t envisage still being here doing what we do. I’m not going to lie, though. It’s been the toughest year for many reasons, but to see a small operation like this continue to grow has been a vital refuge from all the outside noise that many of us can’t control.
A note of thanks must go to all the labels and PRs who have helped behind the scenes. Without their help, this site wouldn’t be what it is. The same can be said for the artists who submit their work. The power of the artist submission is as strong as ever, and it’s a shame we can’t cover more of it due to resources or lack thereof.
With so many artists out there and so few music writers, it’s impossible to be across everything. Since we opened the doors, our weekly schedule of four to five articles per week hasn’t changed and, moving forward, it won’t. Suffice to say, it’s imperative that we give as much time and thought as possible to the artists we choose to write about. Again, content for content’s sake isn’t something we’ll ever consider, and while it may work for some sites around the world, that’s not the kind of model we’ll ever adopt.
That time and thought is no different with our annual Top 50. It’s always been this way, because, well… new music is worth it. Like every year, there are artists who narrowly miss the cut, and there’s been some restless days and nights trying to shoehorn certain releases into our 2024 edition. 51 albums? Well, those tied for the fifty-first position include releases from Papa M, Chelsea Wolfe, Daren Muti, Fire Nearby, Droneroom, and probably a few more.
For the albums that are included, we’ll let you be the judge. It’s been close to a three-month exercise getting this list finalised, and while there are some familiar faces in it, there are some new ones, too.
Please note that the words below are excerpts from reviews and interviews conducted throughout the year (feel free to read the full articles via the links provided).
So… without further ado.
50.
The Lost Letters: The Lost Letters
Cruel Nature Records
A union between Ben J Heal (who has previously raised hell as cowman, Hitobashira-ni, morimori, Coaxial), and Taiwanese singer, Fulya, the pair began their journey as The Lost Letters in 2023.
Fulya’s sing-speak snippets tower above the competition with something emotionally raw. It runs deep in what is equal parts fraught and broken, and it’s these circumstances where The Lost Letters find their best results.
Something that mirrors those depression-crippled mornings where you can’t get out of bed. It’s these morose realities where The Lost Letters offer comfort.
Full review
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49.
Secret Teeth: New Common Era
Ramble Records
It was inevitable that Michael Sill and Blake Conley would make music together at some point. During the COVID pandemic, the trans-Pacific duo struck up a kinship over experimental and outsider culture.
Despite an ocean’s divide (Sill, based in Melbourne; Conley now in Tacoma, Washington via Las Vegas, Nevada and Nashville, Tennessee), the pair joining forces as Secret Teeth.
Four ten-plus minute compositions inspired by space and how it can offer the best results in a world that barely affords us any, on New Common Era, Sill and Conley effortlessly wander through the sonic haze that really has no end point.
Full review
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48.
SUSS: Birds & Beasts
Northern Spy
The capability to frame certain surroundings through sound has been a hallmark card for SUSS. The New York three-piece have been great exponents of finding inspiration from afar, leaving their immediate environment behind for the desolate vast American landscape.
SUSS’s ability to paint pictures through sound is another key feature of theirs. Soft brushstrokes where the imagery of vast lands adds to their slow-motion grace. It’s seen SUSS explore the emotional well on deeper levels than most, and on their latest full-length, Birds & Beasts, they add brooding new layers to their evolving sound world.
While remaining tied to their escapist ways, SUSS become a crucial player in combating the morbid realities of the now. Where those same open roads and that same tumbleweed across the sun-cracked terrains form as the metropolis we all desire.
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47.
Aidan Baker & Stefan Christoff: Januar
Time Released Sound & Time Sensitive Materials
On the back of last year’s wonderful five-part Trio Not Trio exploit which saw Aidan Baker orchestrate the best collaboration series of 2023, the Nadja leader’s aim to break boundaries is as extreme as it’s ever been.
Baker is back at it, teaming up with fellow Canadian, Stefan Christoff – the multi-instrumentalist who is also no stranger to collaboration, previously featuring alongside the likes Sam Shalabi, Nick Schofield, and Jordan Christoff as Anarchist Mountains.
There have been few artists around the world to shift so seamlessly in style. From the cerebral disorder alongside Fawn Limbs to the neo-classical majesty showcased on Januar alongside Christoff, there is little doubt that Baker’s sound world is ocean sized. Nothing is off the table, and Januar is another wonderful example of that.
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46.
The Body & Dis Fig: Orchards of a Futile Heaven
Thrill Jockey
“I know I’ve been trained / But I don’t want to behave,” screams Felicia Chen (a.k.a. Dis Fig) on the blistering dreadscape, Coils of Kaa: the penultimate track from the debut collaboration between the Berlin-based vocalist and The Body, Orchards of a Futile Heaven.
It’s a song that fuses together the key ideologies of The Body and Dis Fig. The chaos of the former harnessed by the latter.
As you would expect, Orchards of a Futile Heaven is music made on the fault lines. A scintillating wall of noise destroying all in its wake, underlining the sheer intensity of this creative union. Another addition to the win column for both The Body and Dis Fig.
Interview
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45.
Ghost Dubs: Damaged
Pressure
Ghost Dubs is the alias of Michael Fiedler (also known to many as Jah Schulz), and with his debut LP under Kevin Richard Martin’s Pressure label, the producer takes us on a voyage to escapism.
Damaged is dub for completely going to far out places, namely the Turkish hash den. While a homage to dub and dancehall, Fiedler also goes beyond that. Think of what Bark Psychosis did in deconstructing rock music, and apply those rule here!
Damaged covers big ground. It’s almost like Keith Hudson at half-speed or, hell, even The Bug himself! Press play, sink into the couch and let Ghost Dubs take care of the rest, because take care of it he does.
44.
Jim White & Marisa Anderson: Swallowtail
Thrill Jockey
In between his excellent debut solo album, All Hits: Memories, and the Dirty Three’s long-awaited return with Love Changes Everything, Jim White returned alongside experimental guitarist Marisa Anderson for their second long-player, Swallowtail.
Like White, Anderson is constantly collaborating, and 2024 has been no different – the Portland-based artist appearing on Tara Jane O’Neil’s A Cool Cloud of Okayness and BIG|BRAVE’s A Chaos of Flowers. It’s these collaborations with artists from different creative orbits that makes her alliance with White so unified.
It’s Anderson who takes the lead on Swallowtail, guiding White through the miasma of guitar reverb and warm drones. A result of two master’s at work, the duo unveil something deeply alluring in what is one of the finest works either have produced.
Full review
Jim White interview
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43.
Thou: Umbilical
Sacred Bones
Oscillating between unbridled menace and emotive force, Thou are all about the juxtaposition. Also masters of paradox, while the latter facet could be considered lost in the modern age, whichever way you cut it, Thou are prodigies of obscurity.
Umbilical is the next chapter in this gruelling story, which sees the band barrelling into the abyss. Everyone is fair game. None more so than Thou themselves, who deliver a withering document of self-assessment.
The backend of Umbilical sees Thou casting their barbed net of destruction further afield. The Promise is the band’s searing take on groove metal, while Panic Stricken, I Flee rips and tears with frightening vigour. Ending with Siege Perilous, the band take the sludgy remnants of Heathen and Magus and hurl them into the circle pits of hardcore.
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42.
Audjoins: Light Breaks In
We, Here and Now!
Over the summer there was no better sunny, humid drone record than Audjoins’ Light Breaks In
The project of Montréal-based sound artist Clementine Bourque, on their latest release, Light Breaks In, the warm rush of drones and synths are euphoric. Like the sun swallowing up the ocean, the soundscapes are big, but not intrusive. Think of lying in those green fields, eyes closed and face to the sky.
Echoing the kind of emotive soundscapes that Brock Van Wey comes up with quite often, Bourque creates the sound of hope. And in a world marred by conflict and division, Light Breaks In feels like a worthy combatant.
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41.
Ex-Easter Island Head: Norther
Rocket Recordings
Liverpool’s experimental scene has been one of the most vibrant and consistent, not just within the North West of Britain, but beyond. And Ex-Easter Island Head have been a vital part of it.
While a host of releases under their belt, including Mallet Guitars One (2010), Two (2012) and Three (2013), Large Electric Ensemble (2014) and the excellent one-off piece released in lockdown, Lodge, it’s Ex-Easter Island Head’s live show that has always been the biggest talking point. That’s now changed on the back of Norther, which sees Ex-Easter Island Head firing on all cylinders with their finest work yet.
The thing with Norther is how each composition is so strikingly different, yet still assuredly cohesive. Arcs and swells that take you to different corners of the Ex-Easter Island Head sound world.
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Chris Corsano Interview: “Collaboration is essential for me.”
40.
American Motors: Content
Expert Work Records
Formed last year, it’s been a quick trajectory for American Motors. It’s no surprise with the kind of songs they write. Profoundly relatable, as the worn threads of the working class are woven through an equally faded patchwork, and on Content, the band present a sharp, informed idea of the existential crisis.
Thematically, the band captures these times flush, and whilst sonically abstract in nature, there’s also a liminality that echoes all the uncertainty we face. With one foot in the past and one in the present, where do we move to next?
Often, the key is to move forward, but with the future looking as ominous as it’s ever has been for our generation, is moving forward actually the best way? These are the questions that American Motors ask, and through the lens of the life-damaged, they frame that uncertainty with a street level honesty that few others have matched this year.
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39.
Joachim Spieth: Retrace
Affin Records
Within seconds of listening to a Joachim Spieth composition, it’s evident that he is a perfectionist.
For the most part, Retrace comprises of dreamscapes that take flight. The first two tracks, Recall and Shine, ambient composition exploding with light, tailored for high altitudes in what is essentially surround sound that cascades with wall-to-wall bliss.
While the dynamic Drain takes Spieth’s principles of the past, namely skirting with the dancefloor, closing track Reminiscence transforms fantasy into reality. It’s the fitting end to Retrace. An album in which Spieth’s his crystal clear compositions find new ground in his ever-evolving world of sound.
Interview
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38.
Kim Gordon: The Collective
Matador Records
Since they disbanded, the members of Sonic Youth have meandered towards different corners of the creative landscape. Kim Gordon has ventured across the most fertile ground of all, arguably delivering her most defining work.
The Collective is another example of that. Here, Gordon makes a punk record with a futuristic twist. Taking the ideas of her collaboration with Bill Nace as Body/Head and melding them with the origins of trap for something cataclysmic. With the likes of I’m A Man, Trophies and Shelf Warmer, she is fearless, vaporising everyone and everything in sight.
It’s the ideas that interlace the past with the present that make The Collective the radical triumph that it is. After all these years, Gordon is still leaving the competition for dead.
37.
Twine: New Old Horse
kitty records
With several singles under their belt and tours all around the country including a visit across the pond to New Zealand, Adelaide’s Twine have organically grown a healthy listenership. And so they should, for their debut album, New Old Horse, is the breath of fresh-air the country needs where guitar-orientated music is concerned.
The coming years will see many bands smashing together the same ideas as Twine, but make no mistake, they were the first. Concocting ’90s post-hardcore energy with the hysteria that folk music can sometimes command, the result is the same vibrant spirit Fugazi captured all those years ago.
It’s this bristling urgency and frayed, youthful energy that makes New Old Horse what it is: the best guitar-based debut out of Australia this year.
36.
Maar: Airelocks
The Garrote
The collaboration between Chicago underground stalwarts, Joseph Clayton Mills and Michael Vllera, Maar are the quintessential architects of exploration. Mills, a writer, composer and one third of Chicago experimentalists Haptic, while Vallera has, most recently, been sparking the senses as leader of Chicago post-punk behemoth, Luggage.
Alongside Mills, Vallera continues to tap into new reserves as Maar, making new ground in their voyage for purity. While the haunted house apparitions of Luggage are dotted throughout Airelocks, Mills and Vallera conjure up something that extends beyond that, with the kind of illusions that oscillate between worlds both old and new.
It’s brought about by two purveyors that have meticulously explored the inner grains of sound. Airelocks is open-source experimentalism where industry, environment, space and politics form a unique hybrid that is a rolling haze of new possibilities.
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Luna Honey Interview: “Everything before leads to everything after”
35.
KRM & KMRU: Disconnect
Phantom Limb
Kevin Martin’s alliance with Nairobi-born Berlin-based experimentalist, Joseph Kamaru doesn’t directly draw a line to the horrors previously explored alongside Roger Robinson as King Midas Sound, but it certainly occupies the same orbit. On Disconnect, Martin and Kamaru cultivate the sorrow in more abstract ways.
While one can choose their own path with Disconnect, essentially it leads to the same destination. A fractured world and one that is exactly what the album title suggests. One where technology has dismantled the physical aspects of communication. One where capitalism and misinformation has created an unimaginable chasm.
Martin and Kamaru frame it all perfectly, in what is a dystopian soundtrack fit for these times.
Full review
The Bug interview
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34.
Winged Wheel: Big Hotel
12XU
While their name is a nod to their native Detroit, you don’t have to be familiar with the Red Wings logo or ice hockey to understand the mechanics behind Winged Wheel.
while stretching the mind to far corners with their 2022 debut, No Island, Winged Wheel take it to another level with their follow-up, Big Hotel. With each member drawing from their involvements from other projects both past and present, these ideas are the nucleus to Big Hotel. Concepts from contrasting sound worlds that coalesce for something beautifully off-kilter.
It’s music that is a celebration for lifers, and while Winged Wheel should be reaching a far wider audience than they are, for those already immersed in this journey, well… consider it a privilege.
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33.
Einstürzende Neubauten: Rampen (apm: alien pop music)
Potomak
The German experimental pioneers have basically summed up their latest album with the last three words of its title.
Slightly removed from the wonderful 2020 release Alles in Allem, Blixa Bargeld and Co. return with an album that stretches their sound world to unimaginable places (no surprise, considering they’ve spent a career doing this). It’s a band growing old gracefully but managing to deliver their art in fresh and vital new ways.
The one fact about Einstürzende Neubauten is their dry sense of humour and on Rampen (apm: alien pop music) there’s plenty of that. The band seems to be in as good a head space as they’ve ever been, and the seamless feel to Rampen (apm: alien pop music) underlines that.
32.
Haruspex Palace: Haruspex Palace
Geographic North
At any point in our history, no matter what’s in vogue, there is always a viable alternative. In the case of underground music, that alternative is often one that skirts along the dark frontiers, and that’s where we find Casey Proctor who emerges under her solo recording project, Haruspex Palace.
On Haruspex Palace’s self-titled debut album, Proctor travels across slightly different terrains, guiding us through a sleepy-eyed cosmic trance. Elusively drawing from the influences of ’70s radio and lo-fi, Proctor delivers a distorted, dream-pop document that leapfrog’s every other pop-leaning trope out there.
By masquerading her songs in mystique, Proctor brings something completely new to the world of chamber pop, and that’s what makes Haruspex Palace as enticing as anything released in this space.
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31.
Poppy H: Grave Era
Cruel Nature Records
Under the Poppy H moniker and following last year’s October release, Nothing Is Perfect, Everything Is Perfect, the Suffolk-based producer returns early in 2024 with Grave Era.
Consisting of field recordings from all across the country in a wide range of places not limited to construction sites, train stations and coffee shops, Poppy H captures a beautiful street-level vitality, illuminating the mundane through a myriad of grainy sonics that slowly seep into the pores.
Believe it or not, Grave Era makes for a good walking companion. Soundscapes that make the mind wander, releasing you from the burden of a fast-paced world. Essentially, this is the circuit breaker we all need.
Interview
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30.
Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin: Ghosted II
Drag City
With a slew of collaborations under his belt over the years, Oren Ambarchi’s latest alliance continues alongside Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin, and following their acclaimed 2022 debut, Ghosted, the trio return with the equally excellent Ghosted II.
As Ghosted’s cover art evoked the minimalism of a nighttime intensity one usually captures through the blur of a moving vehicle, Ghosted II is more tailored towards out gunning AI. And sonically, Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin transfer this imagery to sound in purely evocative ways with afro-beat and psychedelia at Ghosted II’s forefront.
The trio bend in ways they have never bent before, and not only does it make for compelling listening, but also the results are as wonderful as ever. So much so that Ghosted II exceeds the grandeur and dynamism of its predecessor.
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29.
Drug Church: Prude
Pure Noise Records
Like fellow punk-inspired post-hardcore speedsters Turnstile and Touché Amoré, Drug Church are the lexicon of what the genre stands for in 2024. More direct with a stronger whiff of melody, it’s a recipe that has an uncanny knack of scratching an itch you thought you never had.
On their fifth album, Prude, Drug Church make a huge stride. It’s the album they’ve been threatening to make, and while 2022’s Hygiene was another strong statement, it lacked the consistent, punchy weight on offer here.
As Patrick Kindlan sings “Too much time inside your head/ You lose sight of what it is” it’s a salient point, and something all of us have been guilty during this current era. That’s why Drug Church have always hit the way they have. Kindlon has always taken the get-to-know-your-neighbour approach, and it’s this attitude which helps build communities. It’s how Drug Church have ultimately built theirs.
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28.
Fennesz: Mosaic
Touch
Mosaic sees Christian Fennesz’s shift the goalposts once again. Composed and recorded at the end of last year in a new studio space, like Agora, Mosaic is a product engineered via strict routine. But unlike the preconceived ideas and mapping out of concepts that eventually formed Agora, Mosaic’s foundation was built within the working paradigm of nine to five.
It’s the psychedelic experience Fennesz has always been immersed in. Stripping it back, and Mosaic reveals his deep lying passion for rock music. And by dismantling and reconfiguring it in ways only he knows how, Fennesz makes guitar music sound sexy.
While his work has been echoed and pilfered throughout the years, there’s only one Fennesz; his methods of refining tone and texture simply can’t be replicated.
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27.
A-Sun Amissa: Ruins Era
Gizeh Records
For those constantly scouring across largely uninhabited frontiers in search of that moment, not only does A-Sun Amissa’s Ruins Era capture it, but also lands within its ire. From the first notes of A Sad, Pathetic End to a Long Downhill Slide, it’s the first of six compositions that open new possibilities.
What Bardo Pond do for pysch-rock is what A-Sun Amissa do for drone right here: a purification of tone that goes unmatched, and if Sunn O))) were ever to pass through the dark portals of drone-rock, then it may sound something like this.
It’s the purity of sound that makes Ruins Era the triumph that it is. Cascading drone-rock that is a ghostly echo from the void. It’s music that constantly has you struggling for equilibrium; a feeling only the best art can produce, and with Ruins Era A-Sun Amissa have accomplished it.
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Richard Knox interview
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26.
Dead Bandit: Memory Thirteen
Quindi Records
Dead Bandit make music that travels up the phone lines like a veil of smoke. The duo, consisting of Chicago underground songwriter Ellis Swan and Chicago-based Canadian multi-instrumentalist James Schimpl, gave us the first dose of Dead Bandit in 2021 with their debut album, From the Basement (also on Quindi Records).
There’s an elegant freedom of movement with the compositions that make up Memory Thirteen – a record that changes shape revealing more with each listen. With soft, roaming sonics and subtle tape hisses, this is anxious, homespun despair that everyone can relate to.
Memory Thirteen sees Dead Bandit creating the kind of soundscapes that move like a parade of ghosts. Sculptured dreamscapes with scarred textures that illuminate a certain reality and produce emotive results.
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Godspeed You! Black Emperor: NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD
25.
WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN: “NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER”
Constellation Records
Featuring Godspeed You! Black Emperor figurehead, Efrim Manuel Menuck, BIG|BRAVE’s Mat Ball and Ada’s Jonathan Downs and Patch One, WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN are every bit as good as this suggests on paper.
Quite often, it’s when Menuck assumes the role as vocalist where he offers the best results. His strangled cries adding to the emotional weight these compositions command, and one of the many reasons why “NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER” covers new ground for all involved.
While “NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER” is another avenue for Menuck to channel his polemic rage, alongside Ball, Downs and One, he finds fitting allies, who together create the desolate atmospheres of noise that rest heavy on the heart.
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24.
Pallbearer: Mind Burns Alive
Nuclear Blast
Written at the same time as 2020’s Forgotten Days, Pallbearer’s Mind Burns Alive is every bit as poignant in what could be considered their most defining work yet. Aesthetically, the doom titans shift the needle, led by the themes of seismic loss and the crawling horror of bereavement. Circumstances that become more prevalent as we grow older, and here Pallbearer tackle it head on.
From the literal titles to the direct narratives themselves, Pallbearer don’t obfuscate, instead hoping their audience will bear some of the emotional weight these songs carry.
Those who have travelled through the same blast zones as Pallbearer do on Mind Burns Alive will know just how emotionally draining this encounter is. It’s an album that triggers, demanding you to recount your demons.
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23.
SUUNS: The Breaks
Joyful Noise Recordings/Secret City
SUUNS manipulate the mind to great effect. Since their first mind-bending crusade fourteen years ago in Zereos Q.C., the Montreal band has always tackled art from different angles.
The Breaks sees the band take the less-is-more approach to new places. And those new places are where art-rock and ambient psychedelia meet in what is a beautiful concoction of ideas. Music that washes over you but also asks the questions you can never answer with any great confidence.
In that sense, there’s an unsettling quality to the SUUNS experience, and that’s what’s made them such a curious act to indulge over the years. And while that doesn’t change on The Breaks, with their approach slightly removed from previous endeavours, the results are as powerful as ever.
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22.
Rafael Anton Irisarri: FAÇADISMS
Black Knoll Editions
Rafael Anton Irisarri is an artist who deals exclusively in the immersive experience. From the school of influential ambient composers that includes Christian Fennesz, Tim Hecker, Benoît Pioulard and Adam Wiltzie, Irisarri has spent over 15 years scouring the darkest frontiers of experimentalism.
On FAÇADISMS, the first record under Irisarri’s own name in four years, it comes at an interesting time. Whilst coincidental, at times the compositions that comprise of FAÇADISMS run along the same faultiness that continue to cause aftershocks following the recent US elections.
Here, not only does Irisarri capture time, but he freezes it in what is yet another immersive experience and the composer’s best work in years.
Interview
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21.
James Jonathan Clancy: Sprecato
Maple Death Records
James Jonathan Clancy has spent the last decade cultivating off-kilter landscapes for outliers to seek refuge. Namely under the monikers of His Clancyness and Brutal Birthday, however the songwriter not only makes a barnstorming return with his first solo release in seven years, it marks the first under his own name.
Sprecato is cosmic folk through a shattered lens where broken dreams that feature David Bowie, Scott Walker and an all-star cast of modern-day underdogs are the chief protagonists.
Sprecato is exactly the kind of loner record that underpins the foundations of outlier music and why it’s so evocative and, furthermore, why it’s so often the best.
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20.
BIG|BRAVE: A Chaos of Flowers
Thrill Jockey
Nature morte’s follow-up and so-called sister album, A Chaos of Flowers sees BIG|BRAVE dialling down the ferocity with something that washes over you as opposed to rearranging your internal organs.
Whilst contrasting, there remains a lineage between nature morte and A Chaos of Flowers, not least through the artwork, but with the quiet/loud juxtapositions of the two linked purely through tone. And with it, on A Chaos of Flowers, there’s an argument that – despite its notable quietness – BIG|BRAVE sound and feel as heavy as they’ve ever been.
This isn’t something that has immediate effect. While as absorbing as ever, A Chaos of Flowers is cerebral. There’s a new dimension here, but it unravels slowly, requiring patience to reap the greatest rewards.
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19.
Pissed Jeans: Half Divorced
Sub Pop
Half Divorced is Pissed Jeans’ unmistakable punk record. A host of straight, burning arrows that hit the bullseye every time.
Pissed Jeans remain assuredly austere throughout, launching into the acerbic Anti-Sapio and (Stolen) Catalytic Convertor. Songs that see the band at their straight-shooting best.
With Brad Fry’s lightning guitars, SeanMcGuinness thunderous drum rolls and Randy Huth’s swampy bass weight, sonically the band hasn’t sounded so sharp and clinical. Alive with Hate, Pissed Jeans simply at their most venomous, and the same could be said of Half Divorced. An album where the band maintains a distinct talent for the truth.
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18.
Mount Eerie: Night Palace
Elverum & Sun
Sonically, for the most part, Night Palace sees Phil Elverum moving on from the skeletal woodsy threads that have run through his more recent works for something more electric. Folk music for cathedrals and not campfires, and it’s evident from the first note that Night Palace is an unbridled tour-de-force.
A ‘best of’, panoramic version of Mount Eerie that slowly unravels as a reset album, Night Palace is something that opens up to the future frontiers Elverum will explore in time.
The sheer, naked honesty that runs as deep as the lo-fi touchstones that came before him in Doiran, Lou Barlow, and even Holy Sons. Anything less would make the 2024 version of Mount Eerie void, and Night Palace is anything but, as Elverum expresses and frames his reality as poignant as ever.
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17.
Zelienople: Everything Is Simple
Shelter Press
One of the biggest mysteries in this life is that Zelienople remain an elusive force. Since the turn of the century, some of the most beautiful soundscapes to come from alternative culture have been from the enigmatic Chicago veterans.
On their highly anticipated new album, Everything Is Simple Matt Christensen, Brian Harding and Mike Weis welcome Monastral records founder and multi-instrumentalist, P.M. Tummala, and Eric Eleazer to the line-up.
With their addition, the vague space Zelienople have always operated in becomes deeper and wider with Everything is Simple. In many ways, it’s an album that mirrors these times, and I can’t think of another band who could explore this uncertainty as well as Zelienople.
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16.
The Cure: Songs of a Lost World
Lost Music Limited
Although it’s been 16 years, the Cure were always going to return if only to remind us how bleak the world really is.
Any new release from the Cure will welcome a wide range of opinions, sparking debate and where it should be placed in their oeuvre. There will be adoration and disappointment, but ultimately (like always) there is no right or wrong. Just moments. And Songs of a Lost World has many.
On Endsong, Smith finds similar desolation and the bitterness that he toasts on Alone. “No hopes / No dreams / No world”. It’s another stark reminder of the morbid truths we’re faced with today. Not that we needed Robert Smith to tell us that. But oddly enough, he proves to be a rather comforting conduit during a time where there doesn’t feel like any comfort at all.
15.
Cowardice: Atavist
Burning World Records / Riff Merchant Records
While the intention of New York’s Cowardice may be to melt the heart, with Atavist, instead they rip it out completely.
The New York five-piece harness Thou’s doom-laden Heathen-era aesthetic. In doing so, they master the brand of sluggish, heart-wrenching riff-a-rolla that excavates to new emotional depths across the landscapes of metal.
There have been vital records that have occupied shelves and changed the lives of those who care to indulge, and Atavist is yet another. Whilst epic, Atavist isn’t a grandiose statement. It’s too frayed, too raw, too hard-edged to be that. It ticks all the boxes of that list buried in the subconscious, alleviating those unspoken verities. It’s the record you’d want to make.
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14.
Verity Den: Verity Den
Amish Records
From the first note of Verity Den’s Priest Boss – the lead track from their exceptional self-titled debut album – it was evident this band unlocked a part of the mind exclusive to those of the upper echelon.
With and Verity Den, the Carrboro, North Carolina-based three-piece – Casey Proctor (Haruspex Palace) Trevor Reece and Mike Wallace (both of Drag Sounds) – offer something fresh, vital, and valiantly original. Splicing together wonderful ideas that many others would consider square pegs in round holes, Verity Den is a scuzzy, blissed-out torrent of sound that stands completely on its own two feet.
It’s an album that captures those moments where all the senses are sparked. Those wonderful moments of artistic expression that conceive infinite possibilities.
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13.
Duster: In Dreams
Numero Group
In Dreams is Duster’s fifth long-player and follows the lineage of their excellent 2022 release, Together. A cosmic blur that drew the line from one world to another, and In Dreams gains further ground with something that grows so strong with each listen.
No one has replicated the ‘Duster sound’, and even the band themselves expand on it here. The second release without co-founding member, Jason Albertini, Clay Parton and Canaan Amber conjure up hazy emotional vistas that blur the lines between generations.
“I’m so high in the cloud” confesses Parton on Starting to Fall. Not only does it encapsulate what In Dreams is, but also the band as we know it. A band who have spent decades creating windows that lead to a world of alternative realities. Make no mistake, there’s still conflict in Duster’s world, but there’s also a freedom that exceeds the one most of us experience.
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12.
Arab Strap: I’m totally fine with it👍don’t give a fuck anymore👍
Rock Action
The Glasgow-based duo of Aidan Moffat’s and Malcolm Middleton have worn out barstools of many of the city’s free houses, reciting the characters that keep such establishments afloat. Spaces populated by the depressed, the sad, the crazy and the lonely, all scraping for vestiges of hope from the ale-riddled floors.
On I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore 👍, Arab Strap trade in the ale house for home comforts (of sorts), offering a fierce indictment of the digital age and all the misinformation and toxicity that comes with it.
The questions have never been sharper, and the results have never been more definitive, and while online culture will never offer a watershed moment in our history, at the very least it can be the inspiration for one. Arab Strap’s I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck anymore👍 is proof of that.
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11.
Early Day Miners: Outside Lies Magic
Solid Brass Records
Some bands conjure up an emotional response where it feels like they simply exist for your ears only. Over a lifetime there are several acts that spark such sentiments, and Early Day Miners are one of them.
On Outside Lies Magic, the band first LP in 13 years, alongside Martin Sprowles, Daniel Burton’s songwriting covers new terrains. This is a band both growing old gracefully and extending their dynamic songcraft with some of the best songs they’ve ever written.
Outside Lies Magic is one of the year’s finest ‘comeback’ albums. Burton’s songs unveil a naked intimacy and fragility like never before, and backed by Sprowles, Jeff Massey and Matt Sklar, Early Day Miners stir up the embers with the kind of emotionally driven songs that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
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The Dark Arts: In Conversation with Emil Amos & Duncan Trussell
10.
Weak Signal: Fine
12XU
Mike Bones has a distinct talent for the truth, and with a salvo of ringing guitars, Sasha Vine’s bass lines and Tran Huynh’s drums, the Weak Signal experience is like having electricity running through the veins. On Fine, their fourth album and first for 12XU, the trio deliver a hybrid of dynamic downer rock that has the desired effect.
There are echoes of Lou Reed in Bones’ musings. Like listening to alternative versions of Walk on the Wild Side. Except it isn’t. Bones’ songcraft possesses a new edge. A dark humour brought about by a mental dexterity that is as quick as a flashing blade, and expertly guided by Vine and Huynh, it makes Weak Signal a celebration for the lifer.
Deceptive and direct, Fine contains the kind of songs that make you feel like yourself, untethered from the daily grind and turning bleak days into bright ones.
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9.
Uniform: American Standard
Sacred Bones
American Standard is the the New York band’s most poignant declaration yet. Centred on Michael Berdan’s life struggle with bulimia nervosa, American Standard is delivered with an emotional force that bores through bone, obliterating all boundaries Uniform have previously set down.
Throughout the band’s bourgeoning discography, including the three-pronged attack of Wake in Fright (2017), The Long Walk (2018) and Shame (2020), as well as collaboration releases with The Body and Boris, Uniform have delivered a hybrid of maximalist punk that has seemingly been conceived through the flames at the belly of a dumpster fire.
The Uniform experience has always been a perilous one, and on American Standard, Berdan and Ben Greenberg reach new dark frontiers. It’s Uniform at the peak of their powers.
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8.
Lilacs & Champagne: Fantasy World
Temporary Residence
Following last year’s excellent Anches En Maat, Emil Amos and Alex Hall took the Grails adventure through another gateway of their ever-evolving sound world. And this continues under the Lilacs & Champagne banner with Fantasy World: outlaw psychedelia with no currency.
Oscillating between the vestiges of glam, hip-hop, cinema and the carnival of horror the Butthole Surfers left in their wake, Amos and Hall orchestrate a brand of open-source malevolence through technicolour portals. It’s all brought about by the pair zeroing in on boundless creative instincts, maintaining the principles of their “no rules” mission statement.
Masters of the cosmic conscience, Amos and Hall reach this point through the sheer rebellion against organisation and the dismantling of parameters. The rule book, and with Fantasy World, Lilacs & Champagne exists to vaporise it.
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7.
Touché Amoré: Spiral in a Straight Line
Rise Records
Touché Amoré have always maintained a talent for evoking nostalgia through sound and mixing it with themes that become more prevalent as we get older. It’s this union of past and present that makes Touché Amoré one of the few cinematic hardcore bands out there.
Once again harnessed by Ross Robinson from behind the studio glass, on Spiral in a Straight Line, Touché Amoré’s high-wire intensity and big-hearted choruses hit the mark as flush as ever.
“We’re tangled up and it’s not easy / We’re spun around / We’re unravelling”, Jeremy Bolm confesses on Mezzanine. It’s a vital snapshot to Spiral in a Straight Line, suggesting that it’s sometimes easier to stay in a relationship than face the ultimate reality. Like always, there’s shirking the problem, and it’s this approach that sees Touché Amoré’s music as unnerving as much as it is cathartic.
6.
Xiu Xiu: 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips
Polyvinyl Record Co.
Over the course of the last 22 years, Jamie Stewart, later joined by multi-instrumentalist Angela Seo in 2009, have oscillated between obscure sound worlds whilst also creating their own. From Dear God, I Hate Myself (2010) and Always (2012) to Ignore Grief (2023), they have existed primarily to unlock the gates that lead to new possibilities.
This continues on their thrilling new album, 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips (take that, Fiona Apple). This is Xiu Xiu coursing through the mainlines. An extravagant collection of emotional vistas that are among the band’s most accessible works.
Like Knife Play, the title 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips follows a similar lineage: a reference to Stewart’s knife collection. And speaking of, 13″… could be considered Xiu Xiu’s Swiss army knife record. Songs that are all-purpose, immediate and radiating with forward-thinking ideas.
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5.
BUÑUEL: Mansuetude
Overdrive / SKiN GRAFT
While it’s been a solid year for all things noise-rock, the fierce contrarian that is Eugene S. Robinson continues to smash any pre-existing boundaries and reconfigure the template.
Alongside guitarist Xabier Iriondo, bassist Andrea Lombardini, and drummer Franz Valente, BUÑUEL’s latest train-wreck committed to tape, Mansuetude, moves beyond chaos of the trilogy, A Resting Place for Strangers, The Easy Way Out and Killers Like Us. Mansuetude is more instinctual. It’s the loose cannon of a record that BUÑUEL have finally unleased.
Mansuetude is an album that sees BUÑUEL dismantling their sonic ideology for something disturbingly pure. The concoction of pace and vigour with Robinson’s hardened narratives, pulled from the most dangerous, grimiest corners this world has to offer.
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4.
Water Damage: In E
12XU
With their third album in as many years, the new music orbit wouldn’t be the same without Water Damage in it. Last year’s excellent and widely underappreciated 2 Songs contained the band’s most hypnotically beautiful moment captured within the studio walls.
Raw, anxious energy committed to tape, on follow-up, In E, Water Damage dispense motorik, long-form psychedelia that spits and crackles, bending into new shapes and sizes every time you listen. It makes them one of the most exciting experimental concerns walking the face of this god forsaken earth.
The compositions Water Damage produce on In E swell with spirit and melt the mind. There are no limits with this band, and that’s why they are one of the most essential out there today.
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3.
Cedie Janson: the river
Self-released
Like hearing politics purely through sound, in context, I think liminality can be heard, too, and I can’t think of another artist who has captured this like Cedie Janson on his excellent sophomore full-length release, the river.
Following Janson’s 2021 debut release, Thoughts on the Top Floor and this year’s stitched together with magnetic tape EP, the river is an undisputed marvel. Underpinned by tape loops and distant echoes, Janson orchestrates something that swings back and forth from the dream-state and reality.
Astonishingly crafted, over the years there have been so many artists who have attempted to engineer a record like this, but none have come close to capturing the energy and emotional power of Cedie Janson’s the river.
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2.
Six Organs of Admittance: Time is Glass
Drag City
Through the Six Organs of Admittance lens, Ben Chasny has executed some of the most magical moments committed to tape. From his 1998 self-titled debut, through to Dark Noontide (2002) and For Octavio Paz (2003), these works were the foundations for what would become Chasny’s golden period, including School of the Flower (2005), The Sun Awakens (2006), and his most defining statement, Luminous Night (2009).
In tandem with lightning-fingered guitars, Chasny’s voice holds infinite allure. Everything seems so effortless, and with Time is Glass, Chasny’s woodsy mind-maps wander as gracefully as ever across those open terrains.
Musically at least, the environment Chasny currently inhabits is one conducive to capturing those defining moments, and Time is Glass feels like another one. A record that could be considered a gateway for a new generation of listeners, who have the potential to be just as enthralled in the Six Organs of Admittance sound world as those of us who have been here from the beginning.
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1.
The Hard Quartet: The Hard Quartet
Matador Records
Pillars of the ’90s underground as we known it, the four-piece that is Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, Emmett Kelly and Jim White need no introduction. While each has carved out their own sound world over the past four decades, there’s a common path that leads to the same destination: namely The Hard Quartet’s self-titled debut long-player.
Over the years, there have been similar collaborations that have failed to hit the mark, but this isn’t one of them. 15 songs-deep ranging from two to five minutes, The Hard Quartet is the album’s album. A cohesive triumph that is like a reunion of your favourite band from another universe.
“I would like to surrender to the illusion / Sound in vacuum wandering the planet alone,” sings Malkmus on Hey. Messing with the mind by marrying random words and thoughts that shake out differently every time, ultimately, it’s how he stole the hearts of a generation all those years ago. And with this new one all but shunning the concept of the album, as strange as it may sound, the songs on The Hard Quartet have the power to do the same.
It’s the reason why it’s Sun 13’s album of 2024.
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Top 50 recap:
50. The Lost Letters: The Lost Letters
49. Secret Teeth: New Common Era
48. SUSS: Birds & Beasts
47. Aidan Baker & Stefan Christoff: Januar
46. The Body & Dis Fig: Orchards of a Futile Heaven
45. Ghost Dubs: Damaged
44. Jim White and Marisa Anderson: Swallowtail
43. Thou: Umbilical
42. Audjoins: Light Breaks In
41. Ex-Easter Island Head: Norther
40. American Motors: Content
39. Joachim Spieth: Retrace
38. Kim Gordon: The Collective
37. Twine: New Old Horse
36. Maar: Airelocks
35. KRM & KMRU: Disconnect
34. Winged Wheel: Big Hotel
33. Einstürzende Neubauten: Rampen (apm: alien pop music)
32. Haruspex Palace: Haruspex Palace
31. Poppy H: Grave Era
30. Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin: Ghosted II
29. Drug Church: Prude
28. Fennesz: Mosaic
27. A-Sun Amissa: Ruins Era
26. Dead Bandit: Memory Thirteen
25. WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN:“NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER”
24. Pallbearer: Mind Burns Alive
23. Suuns: The Breaks
22. Rafael Anton Irisarri: FAÇADISMS
21. James Jonathan Clancy: Sprecato
20. BIG|BRAVE: A Chaos of Flowers
19. Pissed Jeans: Half Divorced
18. Mount Eerie: Night Palace
17. Zelienople: Everything Is Simple
16. The Cure: Songs of a Lost World
15. Cowardice: Atavist
14. Verity Den: Verity Den
13. Duster: In Dreams
12. Arab Strap: I’m totally fine with it👍don’t give a fuck anymore👍
11. Early Day Miners: Outside Lies Magic
10. Weak Signal: Fine
9. Uniform: American Standard
8. Lilacs & Champagne: Fantasy World
7. Touché Amoré: Spiral in a Straight Line
6. Xiu Xiu: 13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips
5. BUÑUEL: Mansuetude
4. Water Damage: In E
3. Cedie Janson: The River
2. Six Organs of Admittance: Time is Glass
1. The Hard Quartet: The Hard Quartet
Previous Sun 13 Top 50 Albums of the Year:
27 replies on “Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024”
Nice list, one of the best I’ve seen so far this year. Good call on the Verity Den and Lilacs & Champagne. I’ve gotta check quite a few of these out. Thanks!
[…] Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 […]
[…] Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 […]
[…] a day after the release of Irisarri’s excellent solo LP, FAÇADISMS (which featured in Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2025), this live recording perfectly captures the intensity of their performance. The Jacobikerk’s […]
[…] “Mansuetude is an album that sees BUÑUEL dismantling their sonic ideology for something disturbingly pure. The concoction of pace and vigour with Robinson’s hardened narratives, pulled from the most dangerous, grimiest corners this world has to offer.” – Simon Kirk for Sun-13 – n.5 on the best 50 albums of 2024 […]
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[…] Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 […]
[…] Co-produced by Franzmann and Turner alongside Nick Huggins, who recorded the Dirty Three’s 2024 comeback release, Love Changes Everything, Turner’s 2013 solo LP, Don’t Tell the Driver, and McKisko’s album, Southerly, Jay Marie, Comfort Me also features Keeley Young and Kishore Ryan from the live band, as well as cellist Stephanie Arnold, and percussionists, Bree van Reyk and Jim White (who’s latest band, The Hard Quartet landed Sun 13’s Album of 2024). […]
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[…] Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 […]
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[…] Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 […]
[…] Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 […]
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[…] Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024 […]
[…] Whilst different aesthetically, the hushed, moonlit quality of 3am slowly finds its way into the Dead Bandit sound world, and the results are fascinating. The duo’s 2024 sophomore release, Memory Thirteen, a rolling mist of dreamscapes and reverb as Swan and Schimpl shone a light into dusty, cob-webbed-riddled corners. It was one of the year’s most dynamic instrumental releases, featuring in Sun 13’s Top 50 Albums of 2024. […]
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[…] their Grails side hustle, Lilacs & Champagne, in anticipation of the project’s 2024 release, Fantasy World, the former spoke of not having the burden of commercial responsibility. In the same interview, […]
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