2024: The twenty twenty fourest year of all
As long as I’ve been doing the one-off year-end lists, I’ve felt compelled to comment on the downward slide of society and the world in general — as if that’s news to anyone — but no more! Not because things were any better this past year, fuck no, but I’ve decided that devoting mental energy to despairing over things that I have utterly no power over is probably bad for me. So I’ll focus on the good, small-scale, positive personal stuff. And if you have the misfortune to run into me in person, maybe then I’ll rant your ear off. But for now…
High level, everything is okay around here. Some unexpected life stuff happened over the past twelve, but doesn’t it always? But nothing we’re not managing, and so no complaints to speak of. We are healthy and happy and doing alright.
Check out our new cat! Sally Cinnamon is a sweetheart. Took me a while to be able to get to the emotional space to welcome a new cat into our home, but I’m so glad we did. My son adores her, and she tolerates his occasionally aggressive affections and our home is a better place with her in it. She’s friendly and fearless and somehow doesn’t shed one bit. Now if she’d only accept that feet under bedcovers are peacable and not prey, we’d be all set.
Travel for the year was front-loaded. There was a quick hop to NYC in March to use up a hotel deal which included my first visit to the Statue of Liberty and some drama after leaving my phone in a taxi cab (it all worked out, the cabbie who brought it back down to the Battery from Midtown brought it back to me). Then, in April, it was back to Japan for the first time in six years to fulfill my son’s wish of seeing the fifth-tallest statue in the world and my wish of seeing some of the Japanese bands live that I’d gotten obsessed with of late. I had originally thought it would be a special early 50th birthday trip, but the very day we got home, we began plotting our return — he wants to hit up more gashapon machines, and I just want to be where the sushi is fresh, shoegaze bands prolific, and record stores plentiful — so we will be back as soon as is reasonable. That adventure pretty well cleaned out the vacation days and money budgets, so the rest of the year was a bit of cottaging and just generally sticking around town.
The upside was this allowed more concert-going than a reasonable person my age should get up to, but there were too many can’t-miss opportunities that I, well, couldn’t miss. Pulp! Air! Ride! Chameleons! PJ Harvey! But the best run of shows was three nights of Japanese rock in October with Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs and two Next Music From Tokyo nights back to back to back. I’d like to say I’ll be more rational in 2025, but let’s be honest. I won’t.
Music discovery has settled into a nice trans-Pacific groove, having finally figured out how to keep up with all the great new music coming out of Japan and the rest of Asia as well as finding a good balance of new and old in the west. Consequently, this is probably my most out-there, under-the-radar year-end list ever, save for a handful of super-obvious choices. Look, I’m someone who is half-convinced that every festival lineup these days is just AI-generated gobbledygook. This is where I live now.
And so here’s my top ten releases of 2024, as always, in alphabetical order.
I had resisted adding the debut from this Nagoya trio because “In A Town Without Angels” (as translated) came out way back in February and fell out of rotation somewhat, and also because it’s impossible to get a physical copy since they did a tiny run of CD-Rs or something, but revisiting it at year’s end, I was reminded of just how remarkable this record is. While the norm amongst their peers is to just release singles or EPs, they crafted an almost epic, hour-long collection of gorgeous piano-led dreampop that is full of ambience and melody with just enough bursts of noise, and shockingly little filler. And man,I love tone of the the tape echo effect they use on 「回葬」. It’s just the details, man.
The difference between an extended play and an album is, apparently, three songs and nine minutes because that’s what separates the two releases from Tokyo newcomers Cephalo this past year. Wind Surfing School arrived in May and instantly connected with its dark, angst-tinged shoegaze, and while the proper full-length, which arrived in mid-December, didn’t have quite the same grip or intensity, it did introduce new colours and tones to their sound and has a handful of bangers. Between the two of them — or the combination of — they represent a superb debut year.
Occupying a strange place between long-awaited, having been almost 14 years since the last Cure album, and not really anticipated what with every Cure full-length this century being disappointingly forgettable, Songs Of A Lost World turned out to be everything almost every fan dared not hope for — expansive, urgent, and just downright good. I’m old enough to remember the press around every recent Cure record calling it “their best since Disintegration” but in this case, it’s actually true.
Quite a year for artistic endeavours named English Teacher, if maybe not the profession (we thank you for your service). For the British band of that name, they followed a career arc that was cliche once upon a time but now seems like myth — they built buzz around early singles and EPs, released a full-length that exceeded all expectations by being smart, unique, tuneful, and just superb all around — to say nothing of un-pigeonhole-able — and then they won the Mercury Prize. How do you follow up that arc? Maybe with a headline tour over here this year, one can hope.
Oh yeah, English Teacher the TV show is also great.
Fontaines DC are a band that has drifted in and out of my field of view over the last few years, but I didn’t start listening to properly until just recently. So yes, I’ve been missing out and even missed out seeing them live this past Fall because I just wasn’t paying attention but I am now. It’s bracing rock music that’s beautiful and harsh and angry and gentle and just does it. And it makes my kid get up and dance.
While Los Angeles’ Mo Dotti have been around, they only released their debut last year but all the preceding years of honing their vision of shoegaze has yielded a stunner of a record. While the DNA is absolutely familiar — Miki Berenyi fronting cleaned up My Bloody Valentine is reductive but not wrong — the way the strands are combined are startlingly fresh and most importantly, the songs are terrific.
I didn’t even realize that this quartet were Toronto locals until I read an interview with them in a Japanese music blog (they toured Japan earlier this year, supported by some of the country’s best shoegaze acts — quite an achievement). Now I hear them rehearsing in the room next door when I go to jam with friends. While still raw in some of the execution and as a live proposition, they possess a remarkably clear aesthetic and artistic ambition. Technically, only the Nevermind, The Winter EP is a 2024 release, but its very much a companion and flipside to the 2023 Summer extended play and the two just go so well together, I couldn’t shout out one without the other. All this plus the fact that tbe band are actively trying to create and cultivate a local scene amongst their fans and peers is really inspiring. The kids are alright.
Plant Cell’s Bandcamp manifesto is “Japan harmony with nature shoegaze orchestra” and while it might initially seem like word soup, it’s actually frighteningly accurate, though I would add a second line — “and we think nature is really really awesome”. Every minute of this record is infused with joy and beauty and if there’s a complaint, it’s that it can get to be too much effervescence for a single sitting. It’s also an instance where not understanding Japanese is a positive, as the way Eriko’s trilling vocals sit in the mix give the proceedings a real Cocteaus atmosphere that just wash over you.
That Ride were pivoting not necessarily away from shoegaze, but towards New Wave may have caused consternation amongst their fans when their third reunion record was announced, but there was no need to worry. At least I didn’t think so. The band continued their 21st century winning streak with an album that was tight and fresh and showcased their melodic chops and found the band sounding energized and just having fun.
Clearly I have a thing for new bands that take an old thing and make it sound new while still keeping it feeling old. Maybe it’s an inevitability as you get older, but it’s clearly not just me. Like others on this list, London’s Whitelands released a debut album that’s drenched in chorus and reverb and just sounds blissed out on sound. Not life-changing but life-affirming.
