2024 - The Year Politicians Looked The Other Way - an end of year list

END OF YEAR MUSIC ROUND-UP 2024

Best live performance (tied):

Limpe Fuchs at The Rose Hill Arts Hub, Brighton 13^th July

L’Anarchie Flotant at KozFest 2024

Basil Brooks (Zorch / Space Falcons) / Brian Abbott (Invisible Opera Company of Tibet) / Shankara Andy Bole / Ashenashae Farnham (Daevid Allen) / Mark Huxley (Dark Zen Kollektiev)

Top 9 live performances

Dhangsha at Hundred Years Gallery, Hoxton, London 29^th June

BANTU at Spirit of Gravity, Rossi Bar, Brighton 5^th September

Mark Wastell / Steve Beresford / Sylvia Hallett / Maggie Nichols / Dirk Serries / Benedict Taylor / Colin Webster at Hundred Years Gallery, Hoxton London 31^st March

Armatures at The Bee’s Mouth, Hove 23^rd June

Emily Burridge & BJ Cole at Semley Music Festival, Semley, Wiltshire 6^th July

The Glissando Guitar Orchestra at Lewes Con Club, 9^th November

Paradise 9 at Lewes Con Club, 9^th November

Mark Wastell / Bill Thompson / Dominic Lash at MOM, Canvas & Cream, Forest Hill 24^th October

Julian Lage at CHALK, Brighton 24^th November

Best “studio performance”

Entropy Zero (Brian Abbott, Andy Roid, Bob Hedger) at Visual Radio Arts

Kavus Torabi at Visual Radio Arts

Best YouTube performance

Helene Vogelsinger - any

Look Mum No Computer - Buel & Kjaer Room at This Museum Is Not Obsolete

Most Returned To album of the year (tie-break)

Normil Hawaiians – Empires Into Sand – Upset! The Rhythm

This Celestial Engine – This Celestial Engine – Discus Recordings

Top 7 “ambient” albums

Modulator ESP – Hydra Equinox  -  www.modulator-exp.co.uk

Laurel Halo – Atlas - Awe

Ah! Kosmos & Hainbach -

Ian Boddy & Dave Bessell – Polarity  -  DiN

Martin Taxt – Second Room – SOFA Recordings

Bruno Duplant – quelques instants d’eternité – Moving Furniture Records

Brighton Ambients – With Dhangsha On Our Minds  –  The Slightly Off Kilter Label

Top 3 improv/modern composition albums

Bee Reiki Trio (Beresford/Afifi/PKM) – bee Reiki – Discus Recordings

Fredrik Rasten – Lineaments – SOFA Recordings

Bill Thompson – and the sky breaks open  -  Ash International

Top 5 electronic albums

Sonic Arcana – Ecliptical Drift  -  Sonic Arcana

The Utopia Strong – The BBC Sessions – Rocket Recordings

Jah Buddha – Live at Control Voltage

Dhangsha – Broadcast Signal Intrusion – Brachliegen Tapes

Polypores – The Album I Would Have Released In An Alternate Universe  -  Moonbuilding / Castles In Space

Top 6 “rock” albums

GONG – Unending Ascending  - k-scope

Ulrika Spacek – Compact Trauma – Tough Love Records

Ozric Tentacles – Lotus Unfolding – k-scope

Thurston Moore – Flow Critical Lucidity – The Daydream Library Series

Deviant Amps – The Castle In The Sky – D Amp Recordings

Paradise 9 – Science Fiction Reality – Flicknife Records

Best event of 2024

KozFest 2024

Top 3 events of 2024

Mirror System et al at Lewes Con Club

Julian Lage at CHALK, Brighton

New Avalon Ballroom at The King Arthur, Glastonbury

My This Year’s Favourite Song of All Time Song

Karen Dalton – There’s Something On Your Mind

 

 

DISCLAIMER - Some of these records may not actually be from the current year.  I may have only heard them for the first time this year.  Anyway, I don’t care – I like them.

Laurel Halo - Atlas

 

On these hazy evocations of another time and a mischievous subversion of the ambient genre, LA-based Laurel Halo takes only the merest suggestion of jazz standards and ingeniously manages to create something simultaneously relaxing, perplexing and disorienting.  Played at low to medium volume, Atlas creates a mysterious ambient soundscape.  At higher amplitudes the detail of Halo’s compositional ideas and creative approach to  production and sampling come to the fore of this dense but rich confection.  Plus, there are contributions from Lucy Railton on cello, James Underwood on violin, saxophone by Bendik Giske and the vocals of Cobey Sey spread over the ten pieces presented here.  These “natural” elements help solidify the music into a seamless fine aggregate coating every surface of our existence.  I used it daily as an effective relaxation tool for a couple of months back in the summer.  Having moved on in lightyears from 2015’s dubstep-filtered In Situ or her cinematic compositions on Raw Silk Uncut Wood from 2018, I feel Halo is developing an important catalogue – her recent release Octavia (INA / grm) is a composition for piano and electronics – a way of truly seeing/hearing the past in new and bewildering detail.  Pretty special, and unmissable.

www.laurelhalo.bandcamp.com

Ian Boddy & Dave Bessell - Polarity

 

Ian Boddy & Dave Bessell

Polarity

CD / DL  DiN87  DiN  2024

One of my favourite electronic albums from 2024, this.  Beautiful drift.  And it’s a live performance!  If you dig synthesiser music and you’re not familiar with the UK’s DiN label I urge you to address that at your earliest convenience.  DiN is a long-running label featuring the top-quality output of many interesting modular and synthesizer boffins, not least that of label head Ian Boddy himself.  Polarity was recorded at Awakenings; a music event organised by Phil Booth, Dave Buxton and Jez Creek at Lea Hall Pavilion, Rugely on 25^th November 2023.  Ian Boddy plays a modular set-up augmented by Moog Matriarch and Buchla Easel Command, while Dave Bessell uses his own Eurorack equipment with Minimoog and Moog Sub 37 alongside a Vermona Perfourma and electric guitar.  The music engages me from the get-go; propulsive, although definitely on the “ambient” side of electronica, the ideas flow fast and don’t let up.  The sheer presence of the material is impressive, as you would expect from modern synthesiser music, and extra props should go to Phil Booth, the evening’s soundman.  One of the best live electronica recordings I’ve heard this year, and I’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to some great live electronic performances this year from Mirror System, Entropy Zero, Armatures, Mazenta Z, and l’Anarchie Flotant.

www.DiN.org.uk