Ethel Cain’s Perverts is a dark and experimental follow-up to her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter. It takes listeners on a haunting journey through unsettling soundscapes that blend elements of drone, slowcore and dark ambient music.
Rooted in South African electronic styles such as kwaito, amapiano and gqom, the music of Moonchild Sanelly also shows a rich in awareness of US and European hip hop and pop.
Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira are furious. Livid with the rapist cops, sleazy men, gentrifying landlords, nepo babies and, to be fair, a significant chunk of mainstream society.
Travel back in time to the mid 2000s and you would be hard pressed to escape "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand on the air waves. On the radio, music channels, in discos and clubs, what felt like overnight, the track catapulted frontman Alex Kapranos, guitarist Nick McCarthy, bassist Bob Hardy and drummer Paul Thomson into a household UK name with its tension building first section, and iconic riff.
The title Cold Blows The Rain encapsulates it. A mournful, unembellished female voice sings of loss. The musical backing is sparse. Rhythms are measured. Nothing is hurried. If this album was a weather forecast, it would predict impenetrable mist followed by cold rain and wind. Then, more mist.
Sometimes magic really can’t be recreated. However hard it’s strived for.
Czech theatre theorist Ivo Osolsobě’s tick-list for what constitutes an "authentic" musical is quoted in this release’s booklet. Namely that the songs should advance the narrative and express characters’ feelings, that singing, dancing and acting are integral elements, and that the story is rooted in real life.
A gem for me this year has been the collaborative project between the veteran minimalist composer Chihei Hatakeyama and jazz drummer Shun Ishiwaka, Magnificent Little Dudes Vol. 1. It’s an album I stumbled upon, not being familiar with either artist, but which has taken me down many rabbit-holes and soundtracked my year.
Mk.gee has been an unexpected thread in a year of music that’s pulled me in many different directions, punctuating the need for unique, sonically interesting music alongside the huge pop and rock albums that we’ve also been treated to in 2024.
Young eldritch junkie Nick Cave would have struggled to predict his maturity as a font of wry and sacred wisdom, or the fathomless loss he reckoned with en route.