My recommended best records of the month.
As ever, I’m always listening through a big list of releases (Irish list) that is neverending.
The albums below are the ones that have resonated the most from the most recent month so far.
Album of the month:
Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out
The return of brothers Pusha T and Malice on an album 15 years on from their disbandment, with Pharrell back on the boards, and guests Kendrick, Tyler, The Creator; The Dream, John Legend and Nas bringing their A-game, Let God Sort Em Out is thankfully, Clipse at their absolute white hot best.
Surprisingly for known coke-rappers, the album opens with ‘The Birds Don’t Sing’ a moving song about their parents who passed four months apart, but for the most party these are yuugh-heavy rap bangers with both brothers matching each others bars with precision with regular gangsta fixations of snow white powder and luxury living among the devilish cruel missives aimed at lesser peers.
‘So Be It’ is built on a track from 70s Saudi Arabian artist Talah Madah that is one of the best uses of a sample this year, ‘POV’ is classic Push, and ‘Chains and Whips’ survives its backroom label fussing that saw the Drake and Kendrick beef have the knock on affect of Clipse buying themselves out of their Universal label contract in order to release the album with the K-dot verse intact (the album came out on Jay-Z’s Roc Nation) to become one of the rap songs of the year, on one of the classic rap albums of the year.
Wet Leg – Moisturizer
Wet Leg founding members Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers are joined by Ellis Durand (bass), Henry Holmes (drums), and Joshua Mobaraki (guitar, synth) on their second studio album which dispenses with the more meme-able hooks of their debut in favour of channelling a more refined alt-rock vibe that bears repeating. Not bad for a band who started as a joke.
Moisturizer is stickier and grittier than its predecessor, love-lorn and lusty for close contact.
Ólafur Arnalds, Talos – A Dawning
A beautiful collaborative full album between Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds and Eoin French of Talos who sadly passed away last summer.
The album is “a profound meditation on friendship, loss and experimentation.”
A Dawning is both a fitting document to a fruitful creative partnership of two-like-minded souls, and honours Eoin French’s songcraft and a celebration of his alchemic songwriting. Both found kinship in their ability to write profoundly deep-well songwriting that draws on cinematic soundscapes and ambient touches.
It was finished by Arnalds after French passed with the help of friends Sandrayati and Alexi Murdoch with the closing song ‘We Didn’t Know We Were Ready’ a deeply moving celebration of Eoin’s life.
Arnalds talked to me for the podcast earlier this year about his friendship with Eoin.
“We made this album together,” Arnalds says. “Even after, while I was there working on some arrangements, I never felt like I was truly alone. Near the end, where we were saying how grateful we were to have met each other, he told me, ‘You know, I’m still gonna be there.’”
Two Shell – iicons
A surprise album from the London electronic duo who have signalled this release as a closing chapter, which sounds like they want to be less anonymous and masked in future. It’s giddy hyperpop rave music with fizzy sound design.
In a message to fans on Instagram, the band said after their Glasto Icon slot:.
“anonymity sometimes feels like a mistake. when people message us saying “we know it wasn’t you up there! classic!!” it feels sad. the intention was never to troll. it was to question what we are, and whether it matters.
the world is a hard place. there are so many horrible things going on, and from our perspectives, our recent music is an expression towards that. a lot of it has been difficult to play. though through making the darker music we are lucky to have realised that it is not what we are only here to make.
there are few places that are as important to us as glastonbury. it is an epicentre of connection, and really an honour that it is in the UK. Over the years many people have asked us when will we play IICON, and what feels like from unexpected circumstances and with the passion of some incredible people, we were invited to play this year… in a perfect slot and thankfully, just before the fallow.
it was us, and we put our hearts and minds into it. over the next couple of weeks we hope to show it.
Tyler, The Creator – Don’t Tap The Glass
Tyler followed up last year’s Chromakopia, with the surprise release of his ninth studio album, a loose and free record, inspired and motivated to make you dance with Pharrell/Neptunes production style across 29 minutes and 10 songs
Particular highlights include the breezy talkbox LA funk of ‘Sucka Free’, the bass-riding single-video track ‘Stop Playing With Me’, the singalong LA funk of ‘Sugar On My Tongue’ the MJ disco-pop of ‘Ring Ring Ring’ and opening track Classic hip-hop electro throwback ‘Big Poe’ features Pharrell under the name Sk8brd and samples the Busta Rhymes’ 2001 track ‘Pass the Courvoisier Part II’ which also featured the Virginia producer.
Tyler said:
I asked some friends why they don’t dance in public and some said because of the fear of being filmed. I thought damn, a natural form of expression and a certain connection they have with music is now a ghost. It made me wonder how much of our human spirit got killed because of the fear of being a meme, all for having a good time. This album was not made for sitting still. Dancing driving running any type of movement is recommended to maybe understand the spirit of it. Only at full volume.
DJ Haram – Beside Myself
Brooklyn producer and “multidisciplinary propagandist” DJ Haram’s Hyperdub debut album’s title references the rage and grief felt living in a time of war and weaponised entertainment, using that strong emotion as a starting point for an album of Eastern-inspired jungle, Jersey club, punk, noise breaks and drum and bass with featured guests including MCs Armand Hammer (billy woods + ELUCID), Bbymutha, SHA RAY, her 700 Bliss partner Moor Mother, Dakn, through to co-producers like Underground rapper August Fanon, Egyptian producer El Kontessa, Jersey Club producer Kay Drizz, musicians like trumpeter Aquiles Navarro, and guitarist Abdul Hakim Bilal.
DJ Haram says “we have to start organising outside the frame. Music is a liberation technology, a vessel of truth and resistance.”
“This album is the antithesis to ‘joy is resistance’. I make the music that I need. No music has healed me yet. No music has healed the earth. No music inherently subverts fetishisation.”
Poor Creature – All Smiles Tonight
If Lankum successfully merge the worlds of drone, black-metal and Irish folk then Poor Creature do the same with folk music with psych and sludge-rock sounds.
Featuring Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada along with John Dermody and vocals from Landless’ Ruth Clinton, the recent singles have had a nebulous otherworldly atmosphere, with rising organs, skittering drums and unnerving howl-like sounds. It’s not an album that screams summer but its beguiling and unique sonic offering is one that will resonant deeper in dark nights to come.
Jehnova, Luthorist, Visionali – Dangerous Currents
A joint album between luthorist, Jehnova, and VISIONALI, speaks on themes of transformation, resilience, and creative maturity.
The album was made over 5 months, with production, mixing and mastering by luthorist, and guest verses from Osaka-born Dublin transplant Zimback and Dublin rapper Beano too. If you know the back catalogue of these guys, you know you’re getting quality.
Bicep – TAKKUUK (Original Soundtrack)
A fairly banging soundtrack album for TAKKUUK, a visual installation from Bicep, visual artist Zak Norman and filmmaker Charlie Miller that explores the lives, communities and challenges facing artists Indigenous to the Arctic Region.
The project was sparked when Bicep travelled to Greenland in 2023, where they learned about issues facing local artists and their communities and sonically, was perhaps inspired by similar vocal use of ‘Apricot’, the soundtrack is made in collaboration with indigenous vocalists from the Northern hemisphere including Katarina Barruk, Andachan, Sebastian Enequist (from Sound of the Damned), Tarrak, Nuija, Niilas and Silla.
The music was recorded in 2024 by Detroit-based producer and musician Matthew Dear in Reykjavík, during Iceland Airwaves festival The resulting demos were combined with additional field recordings taken by Bicep’s Ferguson from the Russell Glacier in Greenland.
Other Albums I’m enjoying this month.
- Daithí – Christy
- Kae Tempest – Self Titled
- Mansur Brown – Rihla
- Physique – Bright Lights, Big City
- Place: Ireland
- Quadeca – Vanisher, Horizon Scraper
What albums are you enjoying? Join our Discord community with a Patreon membership and discuss albums with us.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
