Pick O' The Year 2024

New Releases 2024

FERGUS McCREADIE TRIO - "Stream"
Nothing brings me greater musical pleasure these days than the sound of a jazz piano trio. It's the perfect format (unless of course the pianist decides to sabotage the recording by 'vocalising' all the way through it. But that's another story...)
Those young whippersnappers McCreadie, Bowden and Henderson win it again for me this year with the new one "Stream", not to mention their frequent appearances on the radio (bla bla bla dum-de-dum BBC Radio Three "New Generation Artists" bla bla bla and so forth). Fergus's playing is, as always, absolutely astonishing and there are plenty of banging self-penned tunes, all steeped in traditional 'folk music' flavours, coupled with some great improvisational interplay.
First-class acoustic piano, double bass and drums, guaranteed no extraneous grunting and groaning - what more can anyone ask for?

THE SMILE - "Wall of Eyes"/"Cutouts"
I am clinically incapable of understanding what it is that OTHER ("normal"?) folks consider to be 'ENTERTAINMENT' (eg: nearly all sports; pop singers; watching other people dancing; soap opera; "reality" TV; Christmas adverts; Irish pubs; "best of" lists...). So for decades I ignored RADIOHEAD, thinking that they can't possibly be for the likes of me, simply because they packed out arenas and stadia along with bands like U2 and Coldplay.
Then I heard one of their radio sessions and found myself exclaiming "Hey! these guys are a bit strange and experimental! NOW I get it!". Trouble was, that left me even MORE baffled as to WHY they were so massively popular in the first place...
...but anyway, I digress. Enough about Radiohead, because The Smile are definitely a DIFFERENT band, or so we are led to believe. "Wall of Eyes" is probably the stronger of their two (count 'em, TWO) albums this year, though maybe not as 'immediate' as their first release "A Light For Attracting Attention", which topped this list previously. Perhaps it's best to think of their output as a single continuum of some sorts. Spooky and quirky, it's not exactly easy-listening, but certainly worth the effort.
Also true of Radiohead themselves, come to think of it...

ANCHOR & BURDEN - "Extinction Level"
Hardly a week seems to go by when I don't see yet another MARKUS REUTER download finding its way down the pipeline from they there Bandcamps. Whether it be something from Stick Men or Centrozoon, or one of his many deep-listening soundscapes, or some other collaborative projeKCt, they're never less than fascinating.
Yes, okay! I admit it, I'm a long-time diehard 'FAN'!
Anchor & Burden are described as an "uncompromising avantgarde doom-jazz-prog-metal band", which finds Markus in the company of fellow TouchGuitar® player Alexander Paul Dowerk, his old 'Zoony switchdoctor chum Bernhard Wöstheinrich and my favourite drummer of recent years, Asaf Sirkis. And what a delicious racket they do make:- lively, brutal, cathartic, improvisational NOISE! Not for the faint-hearted, but thoroughly stimulating...

also ran: TONY LEVIN: "Bringing It All Back To The Bass", TU-NER: "T2 Tuner For Lovers"

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Reissues & Archive Recordings

"Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports"
Picture if you will, the poor EMI executive who had to try to pitch this album to Marketing, based on a three-way Venn Diagram of "People Who Like Pink Floyd" vs "People Who Like Robert Wyatt" vs "People Who Like The 'Rock' Bits Of 'Escalator Over The Hill' But Who Usually Skip Over The Freeform-Jazz Bits". When the various members of the Floyd (those who weren't called Roger Waters) were given the opportunity to branch out with 'solo' projects, NICK MASON seemed to spend most of the time producing OTHER people's records instead!
Mason might be the one with his name on the cover of "Fictitious Sports", but this is very much a long-lost CARLA BLEY album. Carla wrote and produced the whole thing, other people performed it to order and Nick is merely credited as a co-producer. This is definitely NOT the expected "DRUMMER'S SOLO ALBUM" and all the better for it in my view! Any Floydyfan who might have been wanting another "Grand Vizier's Garden Party" would have been somewhat baffled (disappointed?) by what they heard.
I can't imagine how well this was received on its original release (1981), but it quickly sank without a trace. I only knew of its existence because of a couple of tracks appearing on a ROBERT WYATT anthology, and the cover being discussed in one of those HIPGNOSIS art books.
But it's a very welcome reissue and I think it's aged quite nicely - Very much NOT 'of its time'! A strange mix of quirky psychedelic pop-rock and odd bursts of what we like to call 'jazz', it'll mostly appeal to those folks who like a bit of 'CANTERBURY' in their 'PROG'. ROBERT WYATT fronts most of the songs and it features the instrumental talents of CHRIS SPEDDING, GARY WINDO, STEVE SWALLOW, the BLEYs and the MANTLERs... and some bloke called NICK MASON occasionally plays the drums.

THE ORB - "Orboretum"
An unashamed "Bit Of Nostalgia For The Old Folks" here, a yearning to go on a long road trip to the west country with my late lamented chum in his old Morris van, or a wish that I was still able to dance! Forget all your manufactured boy/girl 'bands' and your Beatles-wannabe guitar groups from up north, THE ORB were the soundtrack to MY nineties, along with a few other pan-global masheruppers like System7, FSoL, TGU, Loop Guru, Afro-Celts and that other bunch from Bristol. They were also a massive influence on my own "AUDIO COLLAGE" approach to musicmaking at the time. All those attempts to spice up our jam session tapes, by submitting them to eight-bit loops'n'beats and shoving them through a multi-FX guitar pedal? That was me trying to sound like The Orb (but in retrospect, I probably ended up sounding more like Faust a couple of decades earlier!).
Any kind of "CAREER SPANNING 2CD SET" of The Orb's Greatest Hits would always be welcome here... but you just know that, whenever Dr Alex himself is involved, it'll be packed with ALTERNATIVE versions and radically DIFFERENT retakes of old favourites. In particular, the skanktastic 2024 remix of "PERPETUAL DAWN" has been on repeat-play all week and would definitely belong on a 'road trip' tape! It's also been an opportunity to catch up with some of their more 'recent' output, as I haven't been paying as much attention lately as I probably should.

CAN - "Live in Aston 1977"/"Live in Keele 1977"
Another couple of "official bootlegs" from everyone's favourite jamband CAN, downloaded via the Bandcamp concern... These shows are both from their 1977 tour of the UK's higher education establishments, when they were first joined by Rosko Gee on funky basso profundo. It's sometimes hard to determine exactly what Holger Czukay was bringing to the table at this point in time, as his shortwave radios and dictaphone tapes are often swamped beneath the joyous rocknoise that's being generated by Messrs Liebezeit, Karoli and Schmidt, but I know he's in there somewhere!
The Aston University (4th March) disc has some wonderful moments, but I personally prefer the set from Keele University (2nd March) as there's a lot more of it. But hey! it's all good, it's CAN innit?!?
(nb: The bestest soundboard b***leg from this whole "SAW DELIGHT" period is the one from Nottingham University on the 19th March. I have every confidence they'll also sneak that one out 'officially' before very long!)

also ran: NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN: "Chain Of Light", FRANK ZAPPA: "Apostrophe(') 50th Anniversary Edition", FRANK ZAPPA & THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: "Whisky A-Go-Go 1968", COBALT CHAPEL: "Orange Synthetic", STICK MEN: "Swimming In Tea EP" and numerous official bootlegs...

As usual, all releases and re-releases, whether physical editions or Bandcamp downloads,
carry a '2024' publishing date to qualify for consideration.
Oh yeah! and also... this year's TELLY ADDICTIONS have been:
"Ludwig", "Den Som Dræber", "Nightsleeper", "The Repair Shop", "Midsomer Murders", "Family Guy"/"American Dad"