Favourite things released this year

• Tindersticks – Soft Tissue – I’m calling it a comeback, as this grabs me somehow more than other recent and not-unpleasant work. It hits a definite groove, and it's a masterpiece.
• Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee – A box full of experiments, some of which work, and a couple of which are transcendent – Not unlike a Guided By Voices album of old in that respect, except that it’s a two-hour behemoth with a bit more 60s-inspired fuzz/reverb. Glorious.
• DIIV – Frog in Boiling Water – Warm, familiar, and making the sounds they’re so good at, but the feeling that Something’s Not Right is unavoidable. A strangely unsettling album.
• Jessica Pratt – Here in the Pitch – when I inevitably wake up from whatever dream this life is, I expect to hear Jessica Pratt's music softly playing, before the grand revelation that my existence was all part of some late-60s experiment.
• Adam Wiltzie – Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal – what I'd probably be listening to just before I wake up from that dream.
• Klein – marked – Definitely the kind of album I’d only hear about from one of two places – The Wire magazine, or one of Boomkat’s e-mails. I heard about it purely by chance, but it's the kind of discovery I relish – someone's out there pouring themselves into slabs of noise like this, and it's beautiful.
• Snarski vs Snarski – Waiting for the Bell – Two musical brothers take their turns with each others’ songs through the ages, giving a bit of new life to familiar tunes via each of their lovely voices. Come for Crossing off the miles, stay for Be careful what you put your name to.

Pleasant Discoveries from other times

• The Sorcerers' Ethiojazz-inspired tunes. I saw this video playing silently in the window of a shop in Northcote one evening. Not long afterwards, I saw some other reference to the band, which led me to In Pursuit of Shai-Hulud. Sometimes the universe sends you signals, I guess.
• Tony Molina (thank you acb!) who reminds me of Elliott Smith, Guided by Voices and something else.
• Hollie Cook – Happy Hour in Dub which I found hard not to enjoy.
• Voice Actor – Sent from my telephone – what if your stoner friend popped in every now and then with some random dream memories or other observations? I've listened through the whole album, but this feels like the perfect kind of source material to drop into a mixtape or two.

Continuing Earworms

• Drab Majesty gives us the 80s of our dreams.
• Spunsugar gives me one take on the 90s in my dreams.
• Night Tapes – drifting felt like a fine slice of dream-poppy excellence.

Recent releases I'll take into next year

• Saint Etienne – The Night
• The Necks – Bleed

I need to spend some time with these to form proper opinions.

Late 2023 releases I brought into this year

• bdrmm – I don't know – nice fuzzy noise that hits the spot. I see the next album's on the way in February, too.
• Blonde Redhead – Sit Down for Dinner – if you're looking for a soundtrack to feeling overcome by wistfulness, this might be it. Had I seen them play back in June, I may well have drowned in my own tears.
• Hermanos Gutiérrez – El Bueno Y El Malo – currently replacing Khruangbin as the band you'll hear in many inner-suburban situations, and rightfully so – a second example of brotherly excellence in this list, too.

Three albums I keep coming back to

• HTRK – Death is a Dream
• Susumu Yokota – Sakura
• Christian Fennesz & Jim O'Rourke – It's Hard For Me To Say I'm Sorry

No notes on these three – I encourage you all to find out for yourselves.

#music #EndOfYear #NowPlaying

This was a post from Cos.

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