Best of 2024 | Albums | Songs | Irish albums | Irish songs | Best Of Podcasts | Guest lists |
Leagues O’Toole is a music promoter and label owner with Foggy Notions based in Dublin.
Leagues’ lists from 2023, 2022 and 2021.
10 songs from 10 albums/EPs I loved in 2024 all somehow connected to dreams and memories…
Jessica Pratt – Empires Never Know
The whole album feels like some spectral psych-folk transmission from another dimension. You could pick any song but the way faint strings and quiet piano echo around her voice and prose on this song is something special. A genius in the studio but she’s surely not of this world?
From the album Here In the Pitch (City Slang)
Cindy Lee – Kingdom Come
From the arcane 32-song lo-fi time-travel pop opus. This song, for me, encapsulates the idea of music x memory x love, a feeling throughout the whole album. One of the great underground performers of our time.
From the album Golden Jubilee. Available at REALISTIK STUDIOS / Bandcamp.
Nourished By Time – Hell of a Ride
Like all great pop songs a joy and euphoria is suffused with apocalyptic defeatism. This guy is unreal, he’s soundtracking it all.
From the EP Catching Chickens EP (XL Recordings)
Cassandra Jenkins – Delphinium Blue
A beautiful song about working in a flower shop, equally deadpan and poetic in classic Cassandra fashion.
I sweep the floors but I’m talking to you /
I see your eyes in the delphinium too / I’ve become a servant to their blue. I love her.
From the album My Light, My Destroyer (Dead Oceans)
Amen Dunes – Purple Land
Another songwriter who connects music and memory in a deeply emotional way. Listen to this on loop and cry your way through Christmas.
From the album Death Jokes II (Sub Pop)
Milan W. – Days In my Arms
A dream pop new wave album full of actual dreams haunted by goth ghosts. On this song Milan sings “Walking around in your dreams /Talking about tomorrow /When we doze off, look around, fall asleep /Those are the days in my arms
From the album Leave Another Day (Stroom)
Moin (feat Sophia Al-Maria) – Lift You
Sometimes it feels like modern music production has forgotten about the elementary relationship between words and music. This is it in its free-flowing majesty, the mighty Moin coursing with grammatical brilliance around this meta-poignant spoken-word piece by the great Quatari-American artist Sophia Al-Maria.
From the album You Never End (AD 93)
Róis – Caoine
An ancient keening (wailing lament) song regenerated into cinematic pop in fearless style by Rose Connolly.
From the EP Mo Léan (self-released)
High Vis – Guided Tour
Funny how time influences music, all the decades absorb into each other, and on this song a British hardcore band in 2024 sounds quite like Blur, an odd but nonetheless addictive sensation.
From the album Guided Tour (Dais)
Beth Gibbons – Floating On A Moment
Beth Gibbons reflecting on death. Beautiful.
From the album Lives Outgrown (Domino)
Best of 2024 | Albums | Songs | Irish albums | Irish songs | Best Of Podcasts | Guest lists |
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.
