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Save the Nialler9 100 songs of 2024 playlist on Spotify.
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The 100 best songs of 2024: 100 to 51
Joey Valence & Brae, Danny Brown
PACKAPUNCH
Old school ’90s rap vibes incoming with Beastie Boys and Wu Tang influence, is this retro hip-hop track from the American duo’s second album No Hands.
By the time Danny Brown shows up on the guest verse, this has gone full Cypress Hill.
King Krule
Time For Slurp
Marking a year on from the release of Space Heavy, King Krule dropped a four-track EP called SHHHHHH! via XL Recordings / Matador. All of the tracks were previously only available on flexi-discs at King Krule live shows.
Floating Points
Key 103
There are plenty of reminders of Sam Shepherd’s noted gift for tough dance floor sounds drawn from his analogue music-making setup, for which latest Floating Points album Cascade is a fine document of his work in the field, a return to the sound that made him after his much-lauded Promises album made with Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, made before he was working on a ballet score for the San Francisco Ballet (and an upcoming anime score for Adult Swim).
‘Key103’ is a fine example of his dancefloor electronics, a twisting arpeggio line that rolls around tension-filled percussion that meets some Moroder-esque synths throughout – a cosmic orbit around the Floating Points planet.
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Afterlife
Sharon Van Etten returns with her touring band officially named as The Attachment Theory who are Jorge Balbi (drums, machines), Devra Hoff (bass, vocals), and Teeny Lieberson (synth, piano, guitar, vocals).
The new project name denotes a more collaborative process for the album of the same name and musically, ‘Afterlife’ lifts Van Etten’s songwriting with subtle analogue and electronic arrangements that hold a quiet euphoria.
The album is out in February, and they play Wider Than Pictures In August.
Adrianne Lenker
Fool
The Big Thief singer’s solo material continues to thrill in parallel to the main event, with ‘Fool’ a song that could have easily been an off-cut from the band, featured on the recent album Bright Future.
Błoto
Muchomor
Błoto are a Polish experimental jazz group with hip-hop influences whose 2021 album Kwasy i zasady put them on my radar.
Their fourth album Grxybnia (which means “Mycelium”) featured ‘Muchomor’ which sounds like a Bernard Herrman horror score, a Psycho-esque stringed tension mounting instrumental as played by BadBadNotGood.
Ruthven
Cautious
Japan’s GǼG (Monkey Timers and Keita Sano) take some crunchy synths and a late-era posthumous Queen classic and create some psychedelic edit magic on Optimo’s label, via their Anarcho Disco volumes 1 & 2.
Skinner
Geek Love
As Skinner’s manager, I’m obviously biased in liking his music, and ‘Geek Love’ is another fine twist of the no-wave knife, which is off the upcoming 2025 album alongside the previously released songs ‘New Wave Vaudeville’ and ‘Tell My Ma’.
‘Geek Love’ is pure taut noisy punk-funk with bongo percussion, firey saxophone, razor-wire guitars and a lyric that celebrates the outsiders. A debut album is released in January.
“This song is inspired by one of my favourite books “Geek Love” by Katherine Dunn. It’s about a bunch of circus freaks that live in an isolated travelling circus community who never interact with the general public apart from their live shows for fear of harassment and persecution for who they are. I think being a functional member of society can be claustrophobic at the best of times and it’s draining to constantly be trying to meet people’s standards and fit in if you’re different. I liked the book because it celebrates being weird and original instead of always trying to sweep that part of your existence under the carpet. I also think it’s quite empowering to be able to make someone uncomfortable by doing nothing more than just being yourself.”
Skinner’s album New Wave Vaudeville is released on January 10th 2025 on Faction Records.
Sheer Mag
Eat It And Beat It
Philadelphia throwback power-garage-pop rockers Sheer Mag always deliver a sweet retro hit.
Kendrick Lamar
squabble up
Taking the Latin freestyle hit ‘When I Hear Music’ from Debbie Deb and turning it a G-funk weapon produced by Sounwave, Jack Antonoff, and Bridgeway, Kendrick is out here proving he can make bangers at will. Moreon that later.
Fontaines D.C.
Starburster
Four albums deep, it’s exciting to hear Fontaines D.C explore production and sonics with James Ford at the helm.
‘Starburster’ is an outlier in the context of the album Romance. It’s clearly a swerve in the rock’n’roll road with a slight nods to nu-metal guitars, and the panic-motioning breaths from Grian Chatten (who sounds more like Liam Gallagher than he ever has previously).
‘Starburster’ felt like the band’s first real attempt at writing a big rock single and they nailed it, and there’s enough of a widescreen feel to the song, particularly the gentle breakdown – to suggest that Fontaines have new shades to show us.
Little Simz
Mood Swings
Drop 7 is the latest in a series of extended players from rapper Little Simz, and was produced by Jakwob. ‘Mood Swings’ is a banger from that January release.
Two Shell, Sugababes
Round
Two Shell’s remix of Sugababes’ 2002 chart hit ‘Round Round’ has been one of the most anticipated remixes to be released in recent memory in some circles, and July finally delivered the official vocal version, wiping out the previously-released robotic attempted stopgap.
Beth Gibbons
Floating On A Moment
Sure, the Portishead’s debut solo record Lives Outgrown came out in May but the nice weather we had after its release meant I put this on the backburner.
Floating On A Moment’ was the first single from the record – a psychedelic pastoral folk song that I don’t think is surpassed on a beguiling record we are lucky to have from Beth Gibbons.
Bolis Pupul
Ma Tau Wai Road
Last seen with Charlotte Adigery, Bolis Pupul’s debut solo album on Soulwax’s DEEWEE label Letter To Yu, an album set as a love letter who his mother who passed in 2008.
A trip to Hong Kong for Bolis, where his Chinese mother was born, set in motion the album, exploring grief with a backdrop of tightly-constructed techno pop, like on the Salah Pupul-featuring ‘Ma Tau Wai Road’.
The trip to Hong Kong informs the album’s with field recordings from the subway and songs inspired by the Kowloon Walled city, a spicy crab menu item, a signature Hong Kong dish he experienced there.
Marika Hackman
No Caffeine
Originally released in September, ‘No Caffeine’ got a renewed focus in 2024 as part of the album experience of English singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist’s fourth record Big Sigh.
While the sound of the song and production are gently comforting, the song has a darker meaning beneath the surface, in that it’s a list of things to do in an attempt to avoid a panic attack and the relentlessness of anxiety, while imagining the perspective of a toxic relationship.
Smerz; Allina
New Shoes
A filithy electro track about sex and shoes?
NewDad
Sickly Sweet
From the smart, confident and superbly-produced (by Chris Ryan and and mixed by Alan Moulder) debut album Madra from London-based Galway band NewDad, ‘Sickly Sweet’ draws from the darker edge of Irish shoegaze bands of recent years (Just Mustard come to mind), the classic indie vocal style of Julie Dawson, and a bit of grunge to boot.
Morgana
I’ll Cry When I’m Dead
‘I’ll Cry When I’m Dead’, the debut single from Morgana MacIntyre amplifies the epic reaches that was often present in the music of Saint Sister, her previous band with Gemma Doherty, across two albums Shape of Silence (2018) and Where I Should End (2021). Morgana has already stated the project’s modus operandi of sorts: “prepared to party, ready to cry”.
The melodic nous in the vocals and declarative chorus is also familiar to fans of Saint Sister, but the Morgana project operates in a different palette of synthesized pop (and treated backing vocals), a bright and gilded song of euphoric intent about keeping the fire burning, through partying, codependency and seeking advice.
More.
Joy Orbison
flight fm
Joy Orbison released a few minimal maximal club bangers of late, and ‘Flight FM’ is another of those tracks that takes over the brain’s flux capacitor. Big simple fun that sustained itself all year.
MJ Lenderman
Wristwatch
Jake Lenderman’s Americana indie rock speaks to the modern human condition, and the fact that even if some sap has an Apple watch and a house boat, none of these material goods, stop him pining for real human connection.
Bon Iver
S P E Y S I D E
‘S P E Y S I D E’ , from the Wisconsin singer-songwriter’s EP Sable is a return to his acoustic sound that made For Emma, Forever Ago such a smash hit breakthrough way back in 2007.
‘S P E Y S I D E’ begins with an apology to someone he hurt, written during a moment of clarity in 2021 – – “I know now that I can’t make good, how I wish I could’, ‘I got the best of me…. really damn been on such a violent spree.”
The Streets, Overmono
Turn The Page
Overmono have been playing their own version of The Streets’ ‘Turn The Page’ in their live shows over the past couple of years. It’s a subtle enough rework, anchoring the track with more club subass and marching drum drops.
Lil Yachty
A Cold Sunday
These are the kind of tunes we need when it’s rainy and cold outside. Yachty has returned to making fine rap tunes after last year’s Let’s Start Here album of psychedelic-rock.
He’s also collaborated with Faye Webster who he went to school with in Atlanta.
English Teacher
R&B
I’ve loved everything from Leeds indie band English Teacher including much of their Mercury Prize-winning album This Could Be Texas.
‘R&B’ is one of two songs which reference Lily Fontaine’s mixed race and the expectation that a dark-skinned woman would be more likely to make R&B than indie-rock.
Despite appearances, I haven’t got the voice for R&B
Even though I’ve seen more COLORS Shows than KEXPs
Mabe Fratti
Kravitz
Guatemalan Mexico City-based avant-pop cellist and singer Mabe Fratti released her fourth album Sentir que no sabes this year.
‘Kraviz’ kicks off the record, a drama-charged horn and piano track of suspense that hooked me into the record.
Romare
Discotheque
‘Discotheque’ is a club track in love with the club, a mechanical dance, bringing insistent rhythm, soul vocal samples, motor sounds and evocative understated melody to a track that celebrates the experience of getting your brain chemistry changed by a great DJ in a club.
Caribou
Honey
With his latest Caribou record, Dan Snaith began to fold his Daphni club project more into his main moniker, with more 4/4 sounds and club music across Honey. The title track leans on UK garage wobbling basslines and was arranged by Snaith and Kieran Hebden.
Tyler, The Creator
NOID
The lead single from surprise dropped album Chromakopia samples Zambian rock band Ngozi Family, and is superlative paranoia-laden rap from the ever magnetic Tyler.
Nialler9 Podcast: Tyler, The Creator’s Chromakopia (with Max Zanga)
Clairo
Sexy To Someone
Clairo’s ‘Sexy To Someone’ recalls the suave sunny pop of Natalie Prass’ ‘Short Court Style’, from her third album Charm, co-produced and made in analogue fashion by Clairo and Leon Michels (of The Dap-Kings and El Michels Affair) with jazz, psych-folk and soul embedded in.
Tommy Richman
Million Dollar Baby
The Brent Faiyaz-cosigned Virginian artist released one of the most rewarding song of the summer contenders with track that has been on repeat since I heard it in April (shout out Graham Dolan who told me about it when we DJed at our Indie Sleaze night). An R&B g-funk Pharrell pop flasetto thumper.
The same vibe can also be heard on the Arabic music-tinged G-funk followup ‘Devil Is A Lie’ that sounds a bit like Jai Paul at his most brazen.
Jamie xx, Robyn
Life
From Jamie xx’s album In Waves, a track totally in Robyn’s wheelhouse with big disco orchestration samples of Cerrone, a French Touch bassline and big skittering beats to match the Swedish pop powerhouse’s vocals. A regular of my DJ sets this year.
Nilüfer Yanya
Like I Say (I Runaway)
‘Like I Say (I runaway)’, is dominant with wonky alternative guitar fuzz (I hear Nirvana ‘All Apologies’) and a tamped vocal delivery.
“It’s about how you choose to spend your time. Time is like a currency, every moment. You’re never going to get it back. It’s quite an overwhelming thing to realise.”
Burial
Boy Sent From Above
13 minutes of classic modern Burial sounds. All of the hallmarks and palettes he’s been hitting lately, nostalgic R&B vocals, crackling noise, 90s rave sounds, just more sonically loaded, maximalist and euphoric, a multi-part suite of rooms in a club that you’re wandering in and out of. The interlocking synths and glistening chords really hit with me.
If ‘Dreamfear’ is the frantic high-BPM break guzzler, the latter’s ravey synth line and stabs bring a pop euphoria to Burial’s work that is rare and notable. By the time the synths in question kick in at 4 minutes 20 seconds, there’s been spray can rattles, meandering starts, burning ember and crackle sound effects, and a vocal that a Redditor suggests come from a cover of Monica’s ‘Angel Of Mine’ posted on Youtube 13 years ago, along with a vocal adlib from Destiny’s Child’s ‘Say My Name’ (more obviously heard as central to the Cyril Hahn remix). The track even has its own nostalgic rave outro switchup.
Mk.gee
Rockman
Mk.gee’s guitar funk R&B music is just the right side of “sounds like The Police”, and just enough of “Frank Ocean soundalike” that it still feels like its own thing.
‘Rockman’ is the second single he’s released since his much acclaimed vibey album Two Star & The Dream Police.
Kendrick Lamar
Not Like Us
The most devastating way Kendrick could have ended his beef with Drake after a slew of great missives was to drop this DJ Mustard-produced bonafide hit and devastating hit job of the Canadian crooner. As well as the headline lyrics, ‘Not Like Us’ effectively shuts out Drake from the culture throughout, painting his an opportunist and sycophantic “coloniser”.
Charli XCX
Guess (feat. Billie Eilish)
Months on and I’m still not sick of ‘Guess’ and its various mashups and remixes by now. Or BRAT for that matter.
I’m still loving this Bodyrox-aping electro house ASMR smash hit crossover. The Billie Eilish version is now the canonical version.
Jessica Pratt
Life Is
The LA songwriter Jessica Pratt beams herself in from the past to the present with this panoramic song that opens her latest record Here In The Pitch.
The song channels a bit of Nico in its tone, and feels like a recording of that Velvet Underground era.
Fontaines D.C
Favourite
‘Favourite’ is a song from the band’s fourth record Romance that finds the band at their most Whipping Boy-esque with a sound that feels like a /throwback late 80s Irish indie rock and ’90s UK indie touchstones like early Stone Roses.
It closes the record, and is a perfect example of the band’s ability to write a perfect understated classic pop song.
Chappell Roan
Good Luck, Babe
Just one of the most perfect pop songs of the last many years. I love the detail the chorus is one BPM slower than the verse,from producer Dan Nigro. A powerful vocal.
Take a large bow Chappell Roan.
RÓIS
CAOINE
Taken from the Fermanagh composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and electronic artist’s MO LÉAN EP, which was inspired by recordings of keening songs.
‘Caoine’. brings together ambient sounds, a beautiful vocal, blipping electronics, synths, sean nós with additional dark-edged production from John Spud Murphy (OXN/Lankum).
It’s a song that just soars.
Mica Levi
Slob Air
A surprisingly warm-hearted 12 minute song from composer Mica Levi (Zone Of Interest / Zola / Tirzah) on Hyperdub. A once-off single that just glides on a drumbeat and strings without resolve.
Fcukers
Homie Don’t Shake
Fcukers are a New York electronic trio who are bringing a big indie sleaze vibe to their music to date. I wrote an intro piece but what you need to know about ‘Homie Don’t Shake’ is it has a literal sample of Beck’s Devil’s Haircut’ included and cowbell that plucked from a record from The Rapture, vocals channelled from Brazil indie sleaze era band CSS, and a breakdown that is straight out of the Chemical Brothers playbook.
It’s hard to make music sound this nonchalantly cool, but Fcukers do it easily, ‘Homie Don’t Shake’ is nonsensical (“say you’ll DJ at my wake”) grimey, DIY, evocative of an early era (I feel like the Cobra Snake reference is intentional) and endlessly repeatable.
Doechii
Denial Is A River
Sometimes it takes a viral performance for an artist to stand out among the deluge. Doechii had two in one day earlier this month.
The Tampa rapper’s mixtape Alligator Bites Don’t Heal benefits from not second guessing what people want, and nowhere is that more obvious than the Slick Rick ‘Children’s Story’ musical theatricality of ‘Denial Is A River’ with its therapist narrative and sharp rhymes. It’s topped off with a Nicki Minaj-channelling line and a breathing exercise as it’s final chef’s kiss hook.
MJ Lenderman
She’s Leaving You
The North Carolina songwriter excels at slacker alt-county-rock on his breakthrough record Manning Fireworks, and ‘She’s Leaving You’ encapsulating the sad sack dynamic he often embodies about a man heading towards a mid-life crisis – “Go rent a Ferrari/ And sing the blues / Believe that Clapton was the second coming.”
The closing vocal from Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman is the icing on the sad man cake.
Chanel Beads
Police Scanner
New York-based musician Shane Lavers and close collaborators Maya McGrory and Zachary Paul make up Chanel Beads, and their album of indie, electronic, pop, and alternative music called Dedicated To The World came out on Jagjaguwar in April.
‘Police Scanner’ is a returning visitor to my ears from the record, and it makes sense that the band have been supporting Mount Kimbie, as their music reminds me of that UK band current iteration.
‘Police Scanner’ is an evocative alternative pop anthem that gets me in the feels.
Baby Rose, BadBadNotGood
Weekness
The Canadian jazz band BadBadNotGood have proven themselves boundless collaborators in their work with rappers (Ghostface Killah, Danny Brown) and singers (Charlotte Day Wilson) but there’s a special alchemy at play between the notes of their latest work – a full six-track EP collaboration with Atlanta-based Washington singer Baby Rose.
Rose’s voice oozes classic soul and jazz diva operatics – her singing voice sounds older than her 29 years – closer to the howling vibrato of Shirley Bassey. On ‘Weekness’ the combination of the throwback singing voice and BadBadNotGood’s tightly-wound loose playing leads to an elegant musical repartee.
Charli XCX
360
Charli finally went and made that beautiful brash electronic pop album I and many others have been pining for for years with BRAT and it took off more than anyone could every have thought. Even the colour of the album became a meme, look?
‘360’ and its companion closing title ‘365’ is expert electronic pop, each line is a slogan, each ad-lib is fizzy magic, and AG Cook beat so Charli XCX ready, that it is already an all-timer.
bumpin’ that.
Waxahatchee
Right Back To It
When all is said and done, as much as I love sonic details and production, it all comes back to a great song. The simple pleasure of a beautiful harmony of two people singing about the nuanced shades of relationship dynamics.
Katie Crutchfield’s latest album Tigers Blood is another great collection of country indie music after 2021’s Saint Cloud, that wears a aura of strong songwriting.
‘Right Back To It’ is the earworm gem on the record featuring MJ Lenderman on backing vocals, an Americana song with a classic feel about the push and pull of a dependable long term relationship and the solid foundation that snaps it back to a good loving relationship.
A hug in a song.
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