I’ve come to see this chart as not just a follow-up to the Albums Of The Year list, but its essential companion. Looking back at 2024’s music purely in terms of studio albums makes for a beautiful picture, but doing so while also taking into account all these other bits and pieces turns that picture into the multi-dimensional, multi-temporal, paradoxical sprawl that music listening in the 2020s really is – where something from decades ago can reemerge at just the right time, a live performance can summon ephemeral magic, a mix can make something greater than the sum of its constituent parts, a remix can turn a song completely on its head.
I wrote in the introduction to last year’s reissues chart that the lines between old and new music became increasingly blurred for me in 2023, but 12 months on I’m seeing things slightly differently – the two sides dovetailing with one another, still distinct, but ultimately complementary.
I’m writing this as a litany of Spotify Wrapped screenshots begin filling my feed, so I can’t help but compare the two. Though at first, I admit, I elicited a chuckle at the declaration of this February – which I was considering a period of important folkloric exploration – as nothing more than my ‘Pirate Folkie Traditional Irish phase’, when considering the way in which the streaming services have reduced a year in music into these kinds of share-bait graphics, it feels like a hollow commemoration. The idea that the songs I’ve listened to most frequently should necessarily be those that have ‘defined’ me also leaves me cold. It’s the relentless shock of the new and the constant discovery of the unheard that makes music so central to my being, just as much as the records that act as comfort blankets.
Despite algorithms holding increasing sway over our cultural consumption, (and this is not to mention streaming companies’ significant financial evils that have been written about elsewhere), putting together lists such as the one you’re about to read, and last week’s Albums Of The Year, provides me with a vital counterforce, which in my opinion makes for a far worthier memorial to the year that was.
That’s not to say, of course, that these 100 reissues, remixes, live recordings and uncategorisable bits and pieces are in any way definitive. As Luke Turner said in his intro to the albums chart, we really see these records as an entry point to discovery, signposts towards the many new pathways that 2024 has opened up to us, and reassurance that even as times grow more uncertain, there will be countless more openings to come. – Patrick Clarke, December 7, 2024
This chart was compiled by John Doran and built by Patrick Clarke and Christian Eede. It was voted for by Quietus Editors, Staff and Columnists
Colin NewmanBastardSwim
Given that half the bands involved had essentially ripped him and his band Wire off, Colin Newman could have capitalised on the mid-90s Britpop boom. Instead, he veered off-piste into obsessions with dance and electronic music in all its mutating forms, the results inspiring this 1997 album. Produced in part in collaboration with his “partner in life and crime” Malka Spiegel (also part of Immersion, who this year released the excellent Nanocluster Vol 2), Bastard is a gloriously enthusiastic throwing together of influences, from the hyperspeed drum & bass patter of ‘Slowfast (Falling Down the Stairs With A Drum Kit’) to the nocturnal breaks and rattle of ‘g-deep’ and warm wub in ‘Sticky’. That’s not to say that it isn’t unfamiliar territory for the Wire hardcore – hints of Newman’s guitar decorate throughout.
RolletsRolletsBuh
In 2023, Buh Records opened their compilation of Peruvian disco from the seventies and eighties, Viva el sábado: Hits de disco pop peruano (1978-1989) with Rollets’ ‘Patinando’. A gorgeous blast of soaring synthesized strings, searing guitar leads and a truly inescapable ear worm of a melody, it’s a track which glows and propels in equal measure. The 2024 reissue of Rollets 1981 self-titled debut album shows ‘Patinando’ was no fluke. Rollets only existed for two years, performed live twice and only released the one record. It was the project of producers and brothers Manuel and Saúl Cornejo, with Malena Calisto singing lead vocals, alongside backing vocals from her sister Nancy, Giovana Reynaga Da Silva and Rosemay Paz Wells. It’s dance music as pure levitation, future facing, layered in kinetic energy, drenched in soul and transmitted through a beautifully fuzzy glow. The tone of the whole album, organs, synths, guitars and live drums is endlessly addictive. Like Arthur Russell’s later explorations with dance music, Rollets knew that just because a record was made to make people boogie didn’t mean it couldn’t also contain fathoms of texture and depth.
AcidfuckLovemuscle Babyindustrial coast
Acidfuck, aka Teesside-based duo Dave Johnston and Conny Plankton, originally self-released Lovemuscle Baby in 1998, with Industrial Coast reissuing it for this new cassette edition. Opener ‘Organic Chemistry For Beginners’ is built on a loop that could be being broadcast directly into my head from my parents’ car radio on a late night drive, circa 1997. At least until the beat mangles and the wolf howls come in. Throughout this tape, nocturnal string pads get distilled through splayed drum loops and discombobulating interference. On ‘Death Becomes Her’ a slowed down growl acts as the vocal hook. ‘Foetal Stomp’ is baggy house meets deranged town centre. It’s club music warped through an outsider’s lens. A blast of industrial oddness hi-jacking the dance-pop airwaves. An unlikely bridge between Cabaret Voltaire and Burial. More than a brilliant artefact, it’s a premonition, of a lot of contemporary music, and an etiolated space doused with seething kinesis.
FirefriendRcknrllCardinal Fuzz
It’s a live album, recorded a couple of years ago at the 74Club in Santo André, when a certain populist nutbag was still the Brazilian president. At times, all the feedback and fuzz that emanates from Yury Hermuche’s amplifier appears to be in control of the guitarist, rather than the other way around, suggesting that Firefriend could be South America’s answer to Les Rallizes Dénudés. When it’s her turn to sing, bassist Julia Grassetti comes across like a total badass who you wouldn’t want to mess with, in the tradition of Kim Gordon or perhaps more recently Ganser’s Alicia Gaines. ‘Yellow Spider’ even recalls the post-rock genius of the much-missed Electrelane. The future of Brazil’s underground scene is in good hands. KCK T TH JMS MTHRFCKRS!
Les Rallizes Denudes屋根裏 YaneUra Oct. ’80Temporal Drift
The time that Fujio Yamaguchi’s spent in Les Rallizes Dénudés was short-lived – just seven shows over a period of less than a year – but the impact of his expansive, bluesy playing was immeasurable, as this pitch-black 1980 live recording captures. A longtime favourite among the band’s ever-growing crowd of collectors, original member Makoto Kubota has overseen the mixing and mastering of a release that does this mesmeric performance justice.
MarujaThe VaultSelf-Released
The wait for a proper full-length from hyped Mancunian art rockers Maruja continues, but this dense 85 minute compilation of practice room improvisations will certainly tide us over in the meantime. Recorded straight to a mobile phone, these lengthy, jazzy jams are nonetheless something of a revelation, having more in common with the whimsical vistas of the Canterbury scene than any of the militant post-punk comparisons usually thrown at the group. The Vault is not only a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of the band’s writing process but, provided you’ve got the ear for rough, lo-fi recordings, also an authentically psychedelic experience in its own right.
PixiesPixies At The BBC, 1988-914AD
1998’s Pixies At The BBC was a rewarding listen at the time. It now looks like a mere “best of the sessions”, presented in a jumbled order. Arranged chronologically, across 2CDs or 3LPs, we finally have the complete John Peel/Mark Goodier appearances from The Beatles of alt-rock.
Jam CityJam City Presents EFM (Deluxe Edition)Earthly
Jam City Presents EFM is something like an upbeat musical Blade Runner – an album of shimmering surfaces, sticky-sweet lyric refrains and unstoppable robotic momentum. ‘Times Square’, one of many collaborations here with the vocalist Aidan, makes this implied backdrop explicit through its title, lyrics and classic Detroit techno sample. But for the most part, these are tracks in which intellectual subtleties take a backseat to an impassioned, civic-minded quest for dancefloor unity. An entrancing new track, ‘Forever’, plus glorious remixes from Paul Woolford, Glimji, B Roll and more make this expanded edition of the 2023 LP even more of a treat.
J. Spaceman & John CoxonMusic for William Eggleston’s Stranded in CantonFat Possum
Part improvisation, part composition, Music For William Eggleston’s Stranded In Canton is very much a journey, though a spiralling one with recurring motifs: cyclical arguments and righteous declamations, snatches of barroom piano or blasted harmonica from the film amidst layers of noise, held together by the duo’s trance-paced guitar arpeggios, feedback drones and rattlesnake sonics. The music is the sleep to this flip side of the American dream. Is it entirely pleasant? Not entirely, but show me a nightmare that isn’t absolutely compelling.
Paul McCartney & WingsOne Hand ClappingMPL Communications
It seems mad that there might be anything left in the Macca archives by now. Then again, he was never one to take his foot off the gas so the stockpile’s a towering one. Here we have the mighty Wings, in fine form, rocking out live in the studio. Sexist sneerers should take note of Linda’s performance, in particular. She’s credited with Moog, electric piano, Mellotron, tambourine and backing vocals. “Paul played all her parts on the records.” Like hell he did.
ZAÄARMusique Cryptique (Live In Liège)WV Sorcerer Productions
Captured in Liege back in 2022, this sinister, brooding performance from Belgian avant-jazz collective ZAÄAR foregoes both the kinetic energy of their 2021 debut Magická Džungl’a and the sprawling bombast of their sister group Neptunian Maximalism in favour of a tighter, subtler, almost ambient set. The tribal undertones of their full-length are really brought to the fore here, as eerie saxophone wails and ominous throat singing drift over sparse, primitive but infectiously rhythmic percussion. This is chamber music as dark and primal as the cave adorning its cover.
AcrelidIllegal Rave Tapes Selektion: 1999-2012Dance Data
As Acrelid, John Lee Richardson has been releasing music for a decade, but if the title of Illegal Rave Tapes Selektion – 1999-2012 is to be believed began recording these haphazard concoctions of jungle, hardcore and acid 15 years prior. True mashheads can go for the full 133-track collection, released on Bandcamp in 2019, but the 15 selected by NYC label Dance Data for their double LP might be plenty ‘nuff of a rush. Young Acrelid could programme a tasty snare-crack breakbeat or imbue a wriggling synth line with added sinister atmosphere; in a 2020s context you could view Illegal Rave Tapes as a higher-BPM equivalent of the ‘lo-fi house’ mini-boom of a few years back.
Various ArtistsClub MossWisdom Teeth
The acclaimed London label Wisdom Teeth, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, shifts gears on its latest V/A release. A follow up to the 2022 To Illustrate compilation, dedicated to the 100 bpm mark, Club Moss takes us into the 150-170 bpm zone. Don’t expect many fist-pumping tunes, though. Club Moss, whose title already suggests an interpretative angle, mostly retains the trademark mellowness, lushness and softness of the Wisdom Teeth sound. The label describes it as a “collaborative LP”, which considering its aesthetic cohesion isn’t far from the truth. For me, Wisdom Teeth is a hub for modern-day electronica with a softly psychedelic touch, taking the latter as an umbrella term for an amalgamation of various dance music tropes repurposed for home listening and special club occasions. It transcends geographical scenes to form a transglobal ‘movement’ of artists with shared sensibilities. You’ll find familiar names from the Wisdom Teeth family, but also new protegees like Luxe (I really rate the aquatic vibe of ‘Diamond Dub’), fresh talents like Purelink and Cousin, and established producers like Leif (don’t miss the polyrhythmic extravaganza of ‘Kallt’) and Ehua (check ‘Gesso’, the only big room contender).
Lawrence EnglishA Colour For Autumnroom 40
In the notes that accompanied the reissue of his 2009 album A Colour For Autumn, Lawrence English half-jokingly said that “The intention had originally been to take Vivaldi head-on, as the holder of the Four Seasons terrain”. It’s a comment that’s in actual fact worth taking half-seriously, for in the warmth and generosity of these seven tracks does do what The Four Seasons did for my ears as a naïve and musically innocent seven-year-old when the Nigel Kennedy version got played (along with Enya and Leonard Cohen) on tapes in the family car. They’re intensely transportive, and with my now 46-year-old ears I hear a richness and depth in English and his collaborators’ dialogue between drone, wash and miniscule melody that is subtle, graceful, just perfect.
Various Artistsno pare, sigue sigue 2TraTraTrax
While TraTraTrax’s first V/A compilation was a standout from 2022, an all killer no filler release showcasing some of the most exciting contemporary club and techno sounds (from Verraco’s ‘Ronaldinho Hace La Elástica’ to DJ Babatr’s ‘Cabo E’), the follow up feels even more important. The Colombian label has become a driving force in modern dance music, providing a platform for Latin American artists as well as global names who share their vision. Rather than resting on their laurels, the label’s new comp presents the crème de la crème of sound design-based club music via 18 global artists from the extended TraTraTrax family. It’s an intergenerational affair, with established names like Maoupa Mazzocchetti, Atrice, De Grandi and OCTUBRXLIBRV as well as rising talents like Surusinghe, WOST, Chicloso, LWS and Uxile. The selection is really on point, with no underwhelming contributions. Apart from providing beautifully crafted DJ material, with De Grandi’s ‘Of Course’, Jabes’ ‘Tech Heresy’ and Siete Catorce’s ‘Freno’ as my favourites, the compilation is also a great entry point for newcomers discovering this hyperspecific section of contemporary dance music.
Galaxie 500Uncollected Noise New York ’88-’9020-20-20
There has of course always been a beautiful languorousness to the work of Galaxie 500, but on this collection of unreleased and rare that quality shines even brighter than usual. Drawing from the entirety of their brief – yet essential – career, this record sees the band’s entire scope laid out as a sprawling, magnificent thing.
Various ArtistsA Tribute To Les Cousins: Soho’s Legendary Folk And Blues Club (Live)Broadside Hacks
Of the tapes that London label/band/promoters/live agitators Broadside Hacks have put out this year, documenting their work as one of the most prominent organising forces of the new English folk scene, A Tribute To Les Cousins is the pick of the bunch. Featuring both veterans like Wizz Jones, Bridget St. John and Martin Carthy, and those at the centre of the current scene like Angeline Morrison and Jon Wilks, it draws direct lines from the MOTH to the legendary Soho club that was central to the 1960s folk revival.
The American Analog SetNew DriftersNumero Group
AmAnSet’squietude on stage, sometimes meant that punters didn’t even register they were playing to the extent they could quip, ‘Has it started yet?’And, in my experience at least, they seemed to be radically engaged with only playing at conversation level, and if people missed it, well, that was their lookout. They played as though they were practising in a suburban garage on a Sunday morning being very mindful of both the neighbours and family members having a lie-in. They also played as if they’d never sought any kind of advice from tour hardened rock musicians, industry veterans or sound engineers of any description, electing to simply make up a chill set of rules for themselves. And these impressions, it turns out, on reading the information that comes with this lush new Numero box set of AmAnSet’s first three albums, b-sides, outtakes and demos, are possibly not so far from the truth.
Various ArtistsDown To The Sea & Back: Volume TresMusic For Dreams
Balearic culture attracts some of the least likeable things in music fandom, such as middle aged men talking about buying some LPs in Magaluf in the terms of Marlow heading up the Congo River to encounter Kurtz. That said, all of those anxieties and plenty of other much more pressing, current anxieties simply melt away in the face of this glorious compilation by Balearic Mike and Kelvin Andrews. The full ten minute plus version of Sunshine Jones’ ‘Fall In Love Not In Line’ is a thing of wonder and worth the entry price alone.
WinterLive In Brooklyn NYSvart
Largely unrecognised whilst originally active, New York’s Winter reformed for a handful of shows in 2010 after becoming a cult legend, widely revered and correctly acknowledged as pioneers and innovators in the death/doom genre. This triumphant hometown set from 2012 finds the trio churning through their seminal Into Darkness album in front of a roaring crowd, captured with a much thicker, fuller guitar tone than the beguilingly brittle distortion that admittedly didn’t stop the original album from becoming such a iconic piece of doom metal history. This makes Live In Brooklyn NY a great companion piece, displaying the full crushing force of the band’s opiated Celtic Frost-isms in the flesh for anyone who missed catching them firsthand.
