It is quite amazing how quickly yet another year has got behind us. I think that 2024 has quite probably been the best year for new releases in absolutely flippin’ ages. Possibly even since the vinyl revival began in earnest in 2006. I would just like to use up this blog time to take you through a few of my tip top favourites and hope that I may spur you on to try something new and to perhaps recommend something to me in return!

In No Particular Order

These five albums have been chosen for their power, passion and beauty. All have spent a great deal of time sat next to my Rega P7 turntable at home in my man cave ready to jump on the ceramic platter at a moments notice and all of them have come to mean a lot to me during the year. They are also of course (in that grand tradition of reality TV neutrality) in no particular order. So here we go….

All The Way From Barcelona

tarot parts one and two by magick brother and mystic sister

Ok so this first choice may be cheating a little. Barcelona based band Magick Brother And Mystic Sister released two albums during 2024. Tarot Part One arrived early on in the new year and then in December we were treated to (surprise surprise) Tarot Part Two to complete what is in effect a double concept album…. How prog rock is that? Stylistically their music is all ethereal floaty vocals with cosmic guitars, sitars, tablas, flutes, retro analogue synthesisers, and mellotrons. Here and there are littered hints of folkie experimenters Pentangle, Mike Oldfield, prime time Popol Vuh and Radio Gnome period Gong. All of this is moulded into a visionary sound that is totally their own. Spiritually uplifting, this is definitely 2024's prog rock masterpiece! Production and pressing quality is rather amazing too and all wrapped up in beautiful gatefold sleeves that when put together form a Tarot board. My copies both came with Tarot card reprints with handwritten messages from lead singer and synth wiz Eva Muntada (thanks Eva!).

the Tarot reading board created when two gatefolds come together

Flying Saucer Attack?

Second on the list is the Three Quarter Skies album, which is the side project of Slowdive drummer Simon Scott. You may wince at the thought of a solo album by a drummer, but here Scott ably assisted by illusive Flying Saucer Attack main man Dave Pearce, refracts his shoegazy psychyness expertly through a lattice of glitchy drums and buzzing synths. The expected elements - voice and guitar primarily - are melted into cosmic slop that I can't help but assume Pearce, who assisted Scott with the mixing, had a rather large hand in. There are songs in here somewhere but they are reduced to a bubbling ambience of dreamy fuzziness. Particular highlights are the last two tracks on side two. “Pictures Of Roslin” where walls of distortion and feedback are wrapped around a distant drum beat and a ghostly disembodied vocal and then the majestic “In The Night” which is the most overtly Flying Saucer Attack-like and quite possibly the most mind expanding slice of dreamy psychedelia you will hear this year.

Bleak And Beautiful

Next comes Lives Outgrown by Beth Gibbons. Here both the music and the sound quality are stunning. You may know Beth as the singer with genre defining trip hoppers, Portishead.

Here she collaborates with Lee Harris of TalkTalk and the resulting album is all at once eerie, spooky and well suited to the time of year. There is a little bit of Pink Floyd in here too and lyrically the album seems centered on fighting personal battles and then whatever may come after! The overall package is great too, coming in a retro effect tip-on gatefold sleeve with a studio booklet, art print and gatefold lyric sheet with pictures of Beth in blurry reflective mode.

One to file in between your Kate Bush and TalkTalk albums. As I touched upon before the sound quality of this album is amazing and the pressing is faultless. That bass thump at the end of the first track on side two “Reaching Out” is just awesome as is the bass and drum rumble on the track “Rewind” which has become one of my demonstration test pieces. The real star of the show though is just how well the vocals are recorded. There is space aplenty with a goosebump inducing palpable sense of reality As such this is the kind of album that will make your hi-fi system really sing and is one of 2024’s essential purchases.

The Return Of The Goths

Then we have a bit of an unexpected one. Songs Of A Lost World. The first album in sixteen years by The Cure. In my youth I was more than a bit of a goth and a huge fan of The Cure (among others) but after sixteen years I was rather dubious about whether the world needed another Cure album and turns out that yes it does! Anyway on its release day I gave it a listen on Qobuz and thought it was OK. Played it in the car too and after a couple or three plays it was growing on me so I bought a vinyl copy and what I previously thought was fair to average at best turned into a proper trippy powerhouse full of mangled gnarly guitar riffs, long instrumental passages and songs about loss, regret and growing old and wondering what your place in the real world might be? What also struck me was just how much better this is compared to the streamed version which sounds awfully flat. First track on side two Drone:No Drone is quite possibly the best thing they have ever committed to tape…. classic Cure! There was a hint of controversy regarding which pressing to go for as there was a Miles Showell Abbey Road cut, a double 45rpm version of the same, various coloured vinyl versions and a Bernie Grundman cut on black and grey swirly vinyl. I plumped for the last one and have not been in the least bit disappointed, it sounds amazing and really brings out the powerful psychedelia. I think it’s their best since 1989’s Disintegration!

Enjoy The Mildlife

My last choice here is a stunner both musically and sound quality wise. This one is titled Chorus and is the third studio album from Australian psychedelic jazz fusion prog dance group Mildlife. All their albums are wonderful and this one from March this year is no exception. Sinewy bass guitar and drum rhythms collide with virtuoso guitar and keyboards. Chorus is the dance of an expanding and contracting universe – its groove is forever and always, cyclical and evolving. In its most human moments, the album luxuriates in the velvety embrace of Tomas Shanahan’s bass lines, Adam Halliwell’s luminous guitar riffs, Kevin McDowell’s hushed and alluring vocals and synthesisers, Jim Rindfleish’s intricate percussive tapestries and the spiritual rhythms of regular collaborator Craig Shanahan. Swept up in the chorus, the lines between individual and ensemble disappear into a giant cosmic blur. Chorus has become one of my all time favourite hi-fi system demo albums. Just listen and marvel at that bass guitar and percussion attack on opening track Forever and the delightfully dreamy vocoder led spaced out funk groove of Return To Centaurus. If you don’t adore it you can’t be my friend!

Honourable Mentions Go To…

There have been lots of great things this year and honourable mentions must also go to Futuropaco, Goat, Flock, Mdou Moctar, Laura Marling, Blood Incantation, Opeth, Tapir, Pye Corner Audio, Jane Weaver and Hollow Drifter (phew!).