Hello !
I hope that you’re doing fine at the end of this crazy year ?
It’s pretty good on my side, except for my central heater failing a week ago, which means I’m probably consuming a year’s worth of electricity using a portable electric heater as a backup. What I mean is: The vibes are pretty chill here!
Today, I’m sharing with you 11 artists + a selection of their records, who got me through 2024. As you know, this past year has been a time of reconstruction & findings new meanings: this music played a big part in that and I wanted to give them credit by sharing those with you.
Contrary to the numerous end-of-year lists, they are not ranked in any way. I wrote up a little something about each, to tell you a bit of my relationship with them & give you an idea of what to expect if you press play.
It’s all Bandcamp players but you can probably find them on streaming platforms. that being said, I strongly suggest you to support them on Bandcamp if you fancy their music because streaming pays nothing & artists might be more deserving of your money than billionaires using your money to invest into automated ways of killing people..
My most Post-rock-like improv to date:
The live-looping improvisation I’m sharing with you today is a bit of an exception: it’s still a one-take 100% improvised performance but I allowed myself to add a synth part after the fact.
I did that to replace a loop improvised on guitar that was interesting but had 2 issues: The tone was too similar to the other parts so it was lost in the mix + It was too static and I saw an opportunity to make everything come together by changing some of the notes later in the track.
So I recreated that guitar part with a synth and made the note changes I was thinking so it matches one of the other guitar part. I’m pretty sure you will notice what I did when listening.
Although there are a lot of textures & it’s still very much ambient, it’s the kind of track that could be turned into a full-fledged post-rock composition by adding drums & a heavy guitar climax.
It’s something I might be doing later. I guess it will depend if I end up having other tracks that could use the same treatment. If I do, I could release an album of reworks. Or, if I only do it to this one, I could use the track as a climax in the middle of a record filled with other more ambient tracks. We’ll see.
In the meantime, enjoy this one as it is because it might never be released again in this exact form!
The free download link is HERE.
The music that got me through this past year:
Raphael Rogiński:
Raphael Rogiński’s music is my huge discovery of 2024. I listened to it very casually at first, as a background, and realized after a few days, I was hooked to it. His music is “inviting”, it never forces you in. You can listen to it like ambient music, then explore its many dimensions with deep listening later.
I’ve also read & watched some interviews and I really like his approach that is both spiritual & very much attached to the very place he is playing or recording in. He has a very personal style that seems to be able to adapt to any setting or collaboration setting. He’s like a troubadour for our age.
Golden Brown:
I discovered this artist when I was rejecting the use of electronic music devices and focusing on just playing slide on my resonator guitar & singing. Needless to say these slightly experimental ambient folk soundscapes centered around acoustic guitars, resonators & lapsteels spoke to me right away. I immediately grabbed the whole discography.
I’m only sharing 2 records but every record is worth a listen as each has its own flavor.
Jean-Paul Bataille “LES CAILLOUX: Weissenborn Studies vol. 1 & 2:
The Weissenborn is a lap style accoustic guitar with a hollow neck that can only be played with a slide bar. (You’ve probably already seen one in the hands of Ben Harper). It has a beautiful haunted tone which is put in full display in this 2 parts original soundtrack composed for a puppet show. Highly recommended!
SUSS:
SUSS was THE band that made me want to compose & play again. They reconciled my need to focus more on more acoustic & unprocessed instruments with my love for deep soundscapes. Again: only 2 records here but don’t hesitate to wander within their whole discography.
Seabuckthorn:
Andy Cartwright made himself known with this project that has resonator guitars at the core of it. Not only he doesn’t play the type of music we’re used to hear from a resonator, but, half the time, he plays the instrument with a violin bow, turning it into a small portable steel chamber orchestra. His 1st records mainly consisted of that and they are amazing. He then added more colors to his palette and now makes this music that lives & breathes at a crossroad between dark folk, neo-classical, post-blues & grounded ambient.
Arooj Aftab:
Arooj Aftab is a singer who uses her Pakistani singing style into Jazz & Folk contexts to create music that is quite borderless. It’s probably cliché to say this but wait to see how some tracks start as Folk tunes that would totally fit on a Joni Mitchell record suddenly morph into a Drum&Bass banger.
When I discovered her, I was struggling with going back to singing because of the Asthma treatment I was given (it messed up with the tension of my vocal cords, and I had to “get to know” my voice again because everything I knew about it had changed). Hearing her makes those incredible melodies with this very grounded singing style, where there’s no room for tricks or flashy acrobatics, reminded me to approach my “new voice” with humility & get the basics first & foremost.
Oh, and I had the chance to saw her live a couple of months ago: she has a killer sense of humor, which was an unexpected but welcomed contrast to her music!
ORI:
I found out about ORI thanks to a video of him playing live with his voice & a keyboard live-looped on a Boss RC-505 Mk2 looper & was impressed by his performance that was both minimalist & very creative. I had a lot of “why haven’t I thought about doing this myself ?” moments watching him.
On records, his music still carries those minimal & creative qualities but it also sounds very refined & bare-boned at the very same time. He’s one of very few artists that can use auto-tune to make his music more soulful & humane.
Moskitoo:
I discovered this Japanese singer & producer very recently & love how she blurs the line between abstract ambient & songs. Her music is very much impressionistic & this record in particular kind of sounds like a collection of lullabies remembered from a dream.
Forest Swords:
Slow beats heavily influenced by Dub music, Reminiscences of post-punk guitars, very interesting uses of vocals and a production style that reminds me of my favorite Industrial music records: Forest Swords ticks a lot of my boxes.
It might be some kind of innocence-free Trip-hop, a music that fits very well into our era where warmth always coexists with coldness & your experience depends on what you chose to see & remember.
Ghost Dubs:
I discovered Ghost Dubs thanks to Kevin Martin/The Bug and loved this minimal approach of Dub music. “Damaged” makes me think of Plastikman “Closer”, but for Dub.
GAUPA:
I found a post on Reddit highlighting the similarities between Björk & Chino Moreno (Deftones, Crosses & more) vocal styles (yes, you read that right, and there are a lot of them!). It reminded me of that time Björk played her song “Army of me”, backed by Skunk Anansie (Ok: Do you hear them now ? Seriously: compared to this for example), and I posted the video in a comment.
A guy then suggested me to listen to GAUPA, a “post-grunge band that sounds like Soundgarden fronted by a female singer sounding like Björk”. I was very suspectful when I clicked on the link he posted… and blown away a few minutes later.
Yes, Emma sounds a lot like Björk: she doesn’t shy away from it, but I think she really has her own stuff going on.
I think the rest of the band doesn’t sound like Soundgarden at all. They play a mix of Stoner Rock, Math Rock & Blues, led by 2 guitar players who obviously gave a lot of thoughts to their very refined tone choices & how both guitars intertwined, an attention to details often found in Post-Rock.
Whether you want to bang you head & sweat in a mosh-pit or scratch your chin and geek out on the song structures & harmonies, the music of GAUPA will be a good fit… And, hey! Why not do both ? (btw: their 3 releases are awesome)
That’s it for 2024 !
Don’t hesitate to reply to tell me which of these artists or record touched you or to recommend some stuff YOU discovered this past year.
Have great end-of-year festivities, I’ll see you next year!
koyl
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