Blár’s Favorite Albums of 2024

I'm very impressed with Roger Eno. Usually it doesn't translate well to the album format when an artist creates a record out of leftover material from their previous work. However, the skies: rarities (intended as an EP) has such a good flow and structure that it might as well be an album. I find myself mesmerized and constantly engaged throughout its harmonizing string arrangements and minimalist piano melodies. My personal favorite is "Time Will Tell". There's something comforting about this particular composition — it feels like a voice breaking through a prolonged silence, yearning to be heard.

Sometimes your brain just craves some aggressive noise music blasting in your ears. No? It might be an acquired taste but for those of us who do find a sense of relief in the expression of this kind of in-your-face (ears) dread All Are To Return is here to serve. With vocals drowning in static noise evoking the screams of a man being boiled alive in a popping and sizzling darkness, this album skillfully elicits a hellish soundscape. This isn't just your regular, unrefined run of the mill Bandcamp noise — AATR III is a polished and convulsing purgatory neatly wrapped into 32 minutes of pure auditory hell. Blast it to your ears content!

Earlier this year I wrote to an online friend that my first impression of It Means A Lot was that it sounded like how your perception of light changes when you rest your eyes for 30 seconds and then open them again. I suppose it's partly because of the slow tempo and sleepy atmosphere. Ulla (Ulla Straus) and Ultrafog (Kouhei Fukuzumi) have created an exquisite work of ambient showcasing a reverb-heavy electric guitar sound that works as a red thread throughout the various tracks. This is the album you wanna put on during slow mornings or when you're taking a midday forest walk.

Day is one of those records you feel compelled to have playing in the background while doing some chores. It has an extremely calming effect — the intimacy of the production, how you can hear the patter of the keys creaking and moving, and the room resonance makes it sound like you have your own personal Nils Frahm playing live at home. I've come back to it during the year when I needed something relaxing that didn't require too much effort with active listening. It's both anonymous, in the way that it's sonically unassuming, and has character in the way that the various tracks have individuality and variation — you can easily drift away mentally while experiencing the music but still feel its presence. Even if it's not apparent at first listen, the album has pretty interesting compositions. I find the lamenting atmosphere of "Towards Zero" particularly beautiful.

Li Yilei travels back to her childhood to bring us playful waves of ambient realized through hand cranked music boxes, bird whistles, broken toy instruments and samples from old Chinese TV shows. Intercommunicating with sounds of the past and present, using field recordings and self designed electronic instruments to create a feeling of wonder — NONAGE captures a certain space of innocence at the same time as it's contemplative. There's a simplicity to how the music approaches the essence of describing a color or feeling. Cinematic and psychedelic, the different tracks are like portals to Li's childhood memories. We also get to experience present Li transitioning between now and then simultaneously — represented by reversed sounds humming in synchronicity with the rest of the sound image. "Sandalwood, Ivory and Summit" is a particularly breathtaking track with its sweeping, wind-like, vast soundscape.

Icy and swirling, Mosaic's intro track "Heliconia" makes me feel like I'm taking a walk on a cold winter day — so much so that it did make me take that walk, headphones on, during a cold winter day following its early December release. Sharp, guitar-centric with floating electronic snowflakes of sound — Fennesz has created something very hypnotic and soothing with this album. Utilizing a specific "9 to 5" recording process where he basically writes and records the entire work in the span of a couple of months without a break. It is noticable, the album's 6 tracks have a strong unity and there's a clear sonic thread binding them together. There's also variation and experimentation within this distinct sound — this is what an ambient master at work sounds like.

Wanting to merge the religious practice of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist chants with the energy and rhythmical immediacy of club music, Howie Lee went down the path of creating one of the most bewitching electronic albums as of late. The marriage between these two different aspects is a match made in heaven, and whether you're into IDM or not you will definitely find something appealing with this record. At The Drolma Wesel-Ling Monastery is vibrating on a powerful frequency with its intricate layers of sounds that make themselves more noticeable with each consecutive listen. The obscene amount of times I replayed "Mantra of Buddha Amitayus 长寿佛心咒" as a crutch while experiencing anxiety while moving earlier this year definitely gave me a sense of respite and strength in chaos. It's the strong electronic pulse, the potency of intent through the chants and singing, the gongs, the bells, the drums. Thank you.

New Catastrophism, a brooding drone/ambient record was my album of the year 2022 — so I was taken a bit off guard when Locrian's 2024 release End Terrain threaded a brighter post-rock sound. Coupled with an increased amount of songs sporting shorter track lengths, this could be seen as one of the band's most accessible albums to date. However, there's still bite in this record and it has a great flow throughout the album arc. The interplay between highs and lows, going from the lamenting but hopeful guitars wailing at the end of "Utopias" to the droning dimness of "Umwelt" is a great example of this. Locrian ain't no one-trick-pony — they always find a new sonic angle to explore. And the strength of End Terrain is that it always keeps the solemnness right below the surface as it's morphing between glittering synthesizer waves crashing against guttural howls and droning guitars.

A slab of death metal, a chunk of pure rage, a tinge of classical music inclinations — the intro melody to "Shame and its Afterbirth" on Suffer & Become sounds like it could've been written by Beethoven himself. Kyle Rasmussen screams his truth, emotionally raw and furious in a gut wrenching way. Because of the quality in performance, production and writing, Suffer & Become is an outlier in a sea of death metal mediocrity. Vitriol raise their sound above the rest by putting effort into creating something versatile that has both brutal force and finesse in its harmonies. The intensity of the drum performance by Matt Kilner also elevates the expression of the tracks in a way that makes the guitars hit harder — a perfect synergy. I like music that has something to say, be it an expression of individuality or ideas and I think Vitriol have a lot to say.

The hand resting on a stack of yellowing books placed upon a music score on the cover of In A Landscape is reminiscent of how the hands of God and Adam reaches out to each other in Michelangelo's fresco painting The Creation of Man. The scene feels like a testament to how Richter has lent his hand to the pillar of classical music history and composers that came before him. In A Landscape is at its core a love letter to classical music, incorporating the works of Bach and Mozart through field-recording-like "study" tracks that sound like ambient echoes of the past. They are beautifully placed between Richter's own compositions that especially shine at the more string instrument focused pieces that holds the album together. These are some of the most moving compositions I've heard in a long time — it's contemplative and melancholic in a way that makes my being soar.