Yes, Virginia, there has been some good—some GREAT—music released this year! It’s not like “music” is collapsing, too! Uh huh, I know about AI, but music is looking for its slingshot. I will not overtax your time here and get to the very notables:
Anthony Joseph’s on a run of four consecutive terrific poetry-with-rhythm recordings, and the sound behind his new release seems to signify outreach, a fine thing. I’ve long been a fan of Sasha Geffen’s groundbreaking alternate history of pop, Glitter Up The Dark, and it’s inspired a joyous, ebullient record from Jesse Desilva. I continue to be so bewitched by the seemingly endless flow of recordings from the Nyege Nyege Tapes label that I have dreams about a future box set and keep promising myself to create an only-the-wildest mixtape; both new offerings below spring fascinatin’ rhythms. One afternoon last month, I was trying to nap, running my “Records to Check Out ’26” Apple Music playlist on shuffle to try to catch up subconsciously, when my nap was spoiled/made moot by a cool is-this-r&b-and-if-not-whatzis flow of songs; thus, XG has made me a K-Pop X-Pop fan! It’s tempting to claim that everything Zev Feldman’s found in his deep bag of archival jazz concerts is amazing—it’s close—and his 2026 finds from Joe Henderson and Ahmad Jamal cast no doubt on that. Garrett T. Capps is MAFA (“Making Americana Fun Again”). Los Thuthanaka’s street-sweeper dance (?) music continues to stupefy, and I do not use that verb pejoratively. I tried to turn Nicole on to Robyn when she was recently on SNL—I failed, and even I thought her performance there was flat—so don’t tell her how much I love her sexplosive new one. Finally, This is Lorelei’s deluxe release almost gave me the fantods with its pop ’n’ roll rush and loving covers…almost. Have fun and take a chance!
The national dumpster fire is raging so hot that The Delines’ sobering but skillful portraits and tales (hit the link below) sound like Sly and The Family Stone’s Greatest Hits in comparison. I hope you all are getting out in the street or otherwise making your presence felt—if you’re hostile to the notion that there’s something to defeat out there, you’re come to wrong blog. You probably don’t like music anyway, and you’re certainly not likely to cotton to any of these new platters.
Developments? I’ve zeroed in on a new and very solid candidate for record of the year, at least so far: Tanya Tagaq’s angry and intense new record—she’s good at those, but to my ear this is her best. I once again exalt a splendid recording by one of Argentina’s finest pianists, Rocio Gimenez Lopez, who deserves many more huzzahs and is joined on the 88s by her husband (note album title). It’s an inspired and inspiring recording. If you’d asked me in 2025 if we needed yet another tribute to Duke Ellington, I might have said no, but Jason Moran’s shining and imaginative solo voyage would have made me eat my words. Quandaries: why aren’t more rock-oriented six-string worshippers on the Bill Orcutt train (maybe they are, and I’m just isolated)—a runaway train it is, trailing several creatively skronky recordings over the past few years—and why did Fugazi and Steve Albini agree to abandon the In On the Killtaker the latter “recorded”? If you need some peace, sound-healer Harlan Silverman has some stillness for you. Along with Mr. Moran, the Congolese act Kin’Gongolo Kiniata score a vibrant five asterisks with their debut album, which appears to be associated with a documentary I need to say. KINACT offers up the latest Nyege Nyege dance-racket. Buck 65 keeps passing the test. Finally, Cecil Taylor’s last performance, which includes a spoken scientific trip, has emerged.
Social music notes: a) Nicole and I not only got to witness the 86-year-old jazz groundbreaker Roscoe Mitchell play live, but we experienced him duet with his lab Shuggie, who kept the room in line (the show was arranged by the St. Louis non-profit Dissonant Works, which experimental art fans should keep an eye on); b) We also enjoyed bass player extraordinaire and frequent Bill Evans partner Eddie Gomez, 81 going on 30, lead his expert band through a set of standards and originals as part of Columbia’s annual We Always Swing series; and c) the truly exciting and informative Apple podcast Fela: Fear No Man made two road trips of ours go extremely quickly—check it out, even if you think you know all you need to know about Afrobeat’s Black President. We still have two episodes to go, during which I hope Tony Allen is at least mentioned.
Thank the stars we have the music. We also are better-looking than they are.
Side note: my head is spinning re: the recurrence of the “poptimism v. rockism” debate / clarification / writer cage match / white-flag-wave.” I’ve never had any doubt massively popular music is interesting, I am very interested in semi-popular music that exists between those poles, and I guess I sometimes wonder where loving pure sound (in the Pauline Oliveras sense) lies in the debate, or if it matters. I hate feeling guilty because I simply don’t see where Sabrina Carpenter connects with my lived life—I respect her talent, but I don’t need her work like I need the stuff listed below—and I have sampled her as well as seen her perform live on my smart TV. On the other hand, and it’s not just that I’m from her corner of Missouri, Chappell Roan was automatic for me: exuberant, clever, catchy, shifty, transgressive (in a way), imaginative, and charismatic, I find plenty to like. But Deepstar Enigmatica, which seems outside of the scrum, is also automatic and reaches deep inside of me. Probably, what it comes down to is I don’t fully get it, despite my having read Carl Wilson’s Let’sTalk About Love, from which I took this maxim: don’t taste-spar with others, because you don’t know what they’ve been through that spurs them to connect to a piece of music. Ok, done.
Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba: NOW! (Project financed by a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage “Młoda Polska” & Katowice City of Music UNESCO)
Preservation & Gabe ‘Nandez: Sortilège (BackwoodzStudioz) ****
To my regular readers: As I type, I have already begun my 42nd (consecutive) year as a teacher. This fall, I am teaching two on-line freshman composition classes at Stephens College (one with the school’s Conservatory and built around Sasha Geffen’s alternative pop history Glitter Up The Dark–read it yourself, folks!—and the other with its regular women’s college students, who are reading Octavia Butler’s Kindred. In addition, I will be teaching an in-person 3.5-week, M-F, three-hours-per-block freshman comp class starting in mid-October; they, too, will be reading Butler’s book. Most of you will not need to guess why I’ve chosen those books to build a composition class around; my Missouri readers will have no doubt. Anyway, I’m devoting this post to my students, so I will now proceed to, ahem, address them….
To my students: Welcome to Living to Listen, the longest list of lovely licorice pizza in Blogtown! When I was your age (zzzzz….) in 1980, I could not have made a list of 35 albums I even owned, nor barely 50 I had heard from beginning to end (I was a singles kid then). If I’d been asked to construct my favorites from those, on the list would have been Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces, The B-52s, Bob Seger’s Night Moves, The Velvet Underground’s 1969 Live, X’s Los Angeles, Black Sabbath’s We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll, “Rapper’s Delight,” Teddy Pendergrass’ Teddy, Neil Young’s Live Rust, Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, The Clash’s London Calling, The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Cher’s most recent album (serious outlier)…well, I’ll stop there. Today, the year isn’t even over and the following list isn’t numbered, but odds are it will exceed 200 by New Year’s Eve 2026 and those will just be the ones I heard that I liked.
What’s the point? Good question. Often I wonder that myself. What I think I’m doing is helping my readers wade through a perpetual tsunami of new recordings—literally any sentient being can now make a record and make it available to the public—and find something that will transfix, delight, provoke, stimulate, energize, and maybe even transform them from the creatures that they are…because they did one or more of those things to me. What I am probably doing is nearer to yodeling into the Grand Canyon at 2 a.m. What I am sure I am doing at the very least is preparing myself to vote in a couple of year-end “Best of the Year” polls (though I have yet to even pull my Top 10 out of the jungle below) as well as committing to cybermemory a record (make that very plural) of what I was putting my ear to at the time. It may also appear that I am showing off and that may well be accurate, but I’d argue that I don’t spend money or time on much else than listening to music, books, movie theaters, Stephens Conservatory productions, teaching, and my very saintly bride. Oh yes, food. And occasionally drink. I have to be forced to buy new clothes, I would never drive anything if I didn’t have to, one house will do, thank you—in other words, really, music is not only an obsession for me but a lifeline. I am not religious, but sometimes I have argued with friends that every record in the house (yes, I and you should BUY music to keep food on our musicmakers’plates) is like a book of humanity’s bible to me. Seriously.
A quick scan of my 2025 favorites reveals a few things about me: 1) I listen to a lot of music; 2) I am not exactly a poptimist (I really like Olivia, Beyonce, Rihanna, Harry, and Billie, for example, but I merely seriously admire Taylor Swift and have no use for Sabrina—nor a lot of men who make poppy pop music, and I really only like one of Harry’s albums); 3) Looks like I lean hard toward improvisational jazz (especially the Scandinavian variety—they distill the best stuff!), but it frees my mind, goes great with reading, and fits an ideal I hold about living with other people; 4) I am apparently working for Nyege Nyege Tapes out of Uganda as well as the prolific Japanese jazz pianist Satoko Fujii; and—gotta stop somewhere—5) unlike many, many white men my age (63.666), I like rap music. The list does not show that I LOVE country music, but as far as today’s purveyors go, it’s mostly the women that bend my ear. I love Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan because they sing with intensity and they write outside the lines of the stereotypical “rural” coloring book.
So…sample some stuff! I would expect you haven’t heard of a lot of it, but I’ll warn you that that is not because it’s not good—it’s a wide, wide world out there! Each record listing includes a link to a way to get ahold of it or learn about it, a Spotify link (I hate that platform, but I feel I have no choice) for the whole list that follows it, and next you will see the meaning of my typology (?). I hope you find something that lifts you! Also, if something you love from 2025 isn’t on the list, that doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t like it—I might not have gotten to it yet. I also might not have simply gotten it yet. Or it could be it just don’t move me! Students, peace to you unless you have to protect others, then and always may you stay safe, please write so well you’re proud of the output, and talk to me about some of these platters!
Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba: NOW! (Project financed by a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage “Młoda Polska” & Katowice City of Music UNESCO)
My mother, Mary Jane Overeem, passed away from dementia in her assisted living facility early in the morning of Wednesday, June 18, 2025. I am sure it was a coincidence, but she left in the midst of 15-minute wind, lightning, thunder, and pouring rain storm that seemed to harness the furiousness of the battle between her physical determination to keep living and her spiritual will to be released–after months of begging to be. It was exceedingly difficult to witness. I had hoped to be there at her side when she finally passed, but I had to sleep. She might have been waiting for me to pass all the way out so she could slip away alone.
Once during her final four torturous days, the topic of music arose. One of her best friends in the community was an English octogenarian named Rita who happened to come by and check on her. My mom had mentioned to Rita that I kinda-sorta liked music, so she casually offered to tell me the story of her having seen the 1965 edition of The Rolling Stones in Coventry when she was 20. I have a very soft spot for the Jones-era Stones, so I was all ears—especially when she groused, “I was on the front row, and I tried to grab Mick’s balls but a cop grabbed me before I could get ‘em. I almost had his balls—I would have been on the cover of The Daily Mirror, you know?” I was doubled over, crying with laughter. She went on to mention that she’d only seen Gene Vincent three times (!!!) and Eddie Cochran once (!!!!). I will always treasure that pop-by, and when Rita rolled up to express her condolences after the funeral this past Sunday, I wanted to tell her, “I wish I could grab death by the balls,” but I settled for giving her a big hug, wetting her shoulder with tears, and whispering, “Sweet Gene Vincent.”
All of that is to say that I was not able to attend to a June new music inventory, though I will also say that passionate new records by the Irish folk legend Christy Moore, the fiery and spirited saxophone sprite Zoh Amba, and a heap of very inspired rock and rollers and zydeco masters paying tribute to Clifton Chenier will be crowned with four or five stars when I catch up, maybe this week or next.
What I can do is share the ballot I submitted to the Francis Davis Memorial Mid-Year Jazz Critics Poll, topped, naturally, by an album that came out in November of 2024 (that’s within the rules, since it barely had time to be distributed; also, see the video above). It’s a great year for jazz, and especially for piano records, four of which made my Top 10.
Enjoy yourself, and keep livin’….
NEW JAZZ ALBUMS (ranked)
Organic Pulse Ensemble: Ad Hoc (Ultraaani Records)
Is there balm in Gilead? Hell to the yeah, folks! It might last only 30-75 minutes, but that’s 30-75 minutes not staring into the abyss! Just for example, May gave us four of the best rap albums of 2025, from Canada (the so-on-a-roll-he-must-be-unconscious Buck 65), South Africa (Yugen Blakrok–remember her bar on the Black Panther soundtrack?), and the good ol’ States (billy woods & Aesop Rock); two African compilations that remind us that revolutions can be successful (if complicated); a live excavation that demonstrates what a group of likeminded individuals (The Pan African Peoples Orchestra) can do in their own ‘hood under the guidance of a dedicated leader (Horace Tapscott) to keep hope alive (seriously); the return of Christer Bothen with the band Cosmic Ear; and a transcendently eccentric throwback r&b record that proves that, while the bros squeezed the weird out of Austin, tryin’ that shit on Memphis would be a whole other story (MonoNeon). Also, please attend to 101-year-old Sun Ra Arkestra mainstay Marshall Allen’s live-from-home (aka Philly) album, which is a more proper celebration of his passage into centenarianism than his respectable but sometimes faint solo album. Please sample some of what I’m talking about via the cumulative Spitify playlist I have included at the very bottom. Tits up, people!
My in-person musical highlights of April were witnessing the L.A. born-and-bred/St. Louis Black Artists Group-associated poet K. Curtis Lyle perform his long and stunning The Collected Poem for Blind Lemon Jefferson, driven by Damon Smith beating the fuck out of his doghouse bass and creating surprising sounds that perfectly punctuated the work, as well as marveling at Jeffrey Lewis magically taking control of St. Louis’ marvelous dive The Sinkhole like the greatest music teacher alive. I’ve included Lyle’s latest work below, even though it was a late-2024 release–so it goes with the slow. Big thanks to the humble, smiling genius Matt Crook and Dismal Niche for their continued imagination and effort to bring underheard sounds to Columbia, Missouri.
Regarding the rest of the new items on my cumulative list of 2025 records I’ve so far been captivated by?
No, I am not on the Nyege Nyege Tapes or Satoko Fujii payrolls, nor do I get review copies from Nyege Nyege Tapes (I demand them from Libra Records jk). Both forces have truly been on a creative roll and bring life and rhythm to my house with each new release.
The Delines, Patterson Hood, and Craig Finn chipped away at the thickening personal ice block separating me from enjoying most of the “Americana” genre.
If you get a chance to seeJeffrey Lewis, take it. You get excellent songs, impish charm, songs for the hear-and-now…and Lewis-illustrated history lessons.
If you are so fed-up you need some in-your-face music, may I direct you to the new Sumac-Moor Mother team-up? Or would you prefer some Backxwash? Or maybe clipping? All three acts are at their finest on these releases.
I believe Argentinian jazz pianist Rocio Gimenez Lopez is one of the least well-known terrific musicians in the world. Her new album of interpretations of jazz classics is sublime. Please give her a shot.
I have pushed the freak-folk/psychedelic-doom/quiet-REAAAAALLLLY fucking loud-quiet Japanese band Les Rallizes Denudes several times here before. Check out the below RSD reissue for maybe the best way into their work.
There are now several Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet albums out there, many featuring interpretations of the exact same songs in different live settings and also featuring ace Ava Mendoza. You need at least one: you can get the studio version, but I would also take your pick of the live versions, as they all go into different sonic territory. Fans of Quine, 75 Dollar Bill, even Mdou Moctar have no reason to ignore me.
When you hear the NOLA team-up of Galactic and Irma Thomas, you will not believe Irma’s 84. This isn’t their first collab; when they lock in they sound made for each other. And while I’m talking soul, you may have given up on SAULT (not sure why you would have, but they are not exactly stingy with their output, and might have created in you some aural calluses), but please give 10 a chance: it carries a timely, easeful late great-period Sly vibe.
That’s right: Ed Hamelland Jinx Lennon have new records out. Get your rabble roused and your heart emboldened.
The Bitchin’ Bajas’ Cooper Crain: Columbia, Missouri’s Smithton Middle School’s most creative graduate. He wasn’t on my team during his tenure there, but I was made aware of him of my students who were in his orbit.
TO THE LIST: Items in bold are new; I’ve added a track from each album (when available) to an ongoing accompanying Spitify playlist; anything with an asterisk I especially enjoyed; anything fully italicized is an excavation from bygone days; yes, I’m eventually going to put them in order from most enjoyable to simply enjoyable–but not yet.
Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta: Mapambazuko (Nyege Nyege Tapes)*****
Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons: Live in Philadelphia, Volume 1(Otherly Love Records—out on May 23 but be on the serious look-out!) ***
Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba (see below): NOW! (Project financed by a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage “Młoda Polska” & Katowice City of Music UNESCO) Note: release date = November 29, 2024
Hi! I’m early with my 2025 blog update, but I ain’t buying anything Friday anyway (I hope it isn’t Bandcamp Friday). If you happen to be a new reader, what I try to do at the end of each month is highlight the new albums–or recently excavated older works–that I’ve truly enjoyed, that have kept me sane, that have moved me, that have challenged me, etc. etc. etc. A thing about me: I’m the kind of person who always tries to order something different on the menu every time he goes to a restaurant, and I’m even more that way with music. I love a lot of it, I don’t think in genres, I am fascinated as much by pure sound and mood as I am by conventionally structured songs and lyrics, and I see myself as a scout, a finder, a tout (albeit a somewhat inexpressive one, as I’d rather you sample some of this stuff than me try to tell you why it is so attractive to me zzzzzzzzzz). Maybe you should start with the album covers, the album titles, the label names–and recently I’ve been including a boo-hiss Spotify playlist that includes tracks from each work (if possible–I get review copies ahead of time, which I will try to note and which aren’t yet represented in “the stream”–and not everything is on Spotify, in case you didn’t know). Finally, IRL (I’ve always wanted to use that!), I am an English teacher of 41 years’ vintage (a lightly sweet grape Boone’s Farm ’84), and because of my love for reading and teaching novels, I prefer albums to singles–I want to experience an act’s whole world, not just a moment where maybe they got hit by lightning inspiration or just got lucky.
Each month I’ll add to the previous month’s existing list, and bold-face those entries so you know they’re new. Some items may disappear if they fade for me or I just glitch. I’m starting by listing them alphabetically until order of lovebegins to establish itself, which it hasn’t quite, yet. This month, FOUR asterisks (****) will indicate a few discs I’m really enchanted by, and FIVE asterisks a few discs I’m really really enchanted by. Eventually, too, I’ll separate the list into really new stuff and those excavations I mentioned.
I hope you find something below that makes your day and creates the illusion that we aren’t necessarily facing a barbarian takeover. Take a chance, why doncha?
THE LIST (January 1 – February 26, 2025)
Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta: Mapambazuko (Nyege Nyege Tapes)*****
Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba (see below): NOW! (Project financed by a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage “Młoda Polska” & Katowice City of Music UNESCO) Note: release date = November 29, 2024
This year, I abandoned my usual practice of scratching out a casual intro and, month by month, building a cumulative list of my favorite new releases. I had begun to feel the itch of guilt (and envy) that fellow music fanatics were really writing about the records, so, in 2024, I tried to do that instead, while (most of the time) confining myself to a single sentence per record (again, like Jim Hart or the band [ahmed], I like to go long). I felt more satisfied–but in the end it made compiling my year-end list a real pain in the patootie pie. I think I’ll go back to gradually compiling a list in 2025, especially since those sentences seldom were anything to brag about.
Anyway, the biggest surprise to me, reflecting on my list, is that an Americana artist topped it–I’ve tired of that genre and maybe it’s related to the state of the nation–another was in my Top 20, and one, an album that regular calmed me, was just outside of that group. I played Corb Lund’s El Viejo more than any new album of the year: witty, specific, lyrically and musically unified, with deluxe-version cuts that fit right in. “Gambles” might be the theme, and not just with cash. Second, Bill Orcutt, an imaginative and frequently coruscating plectrist to whom I’d never given much of an ear, placed two albums in my top 20. Third, I really wanted these selections to be ’24 only, but I could not deny my fellow former southwest Missouri kid Chappell Roan–she dazzled, she was gloriously a lot, and I am sure someone else will open their gate to her, too. She’s earned it.
This was also, in many ways, The Year of Sun Ra–two intriguing tributes, one strong album from his eternal posthumous Arkestra, and a scad of intriguing reissues, one of them a pipe organ fantasia that successfully and inexplicably melded the Phantom of the Opera, Garth Hudson, James Booker, and Ellingtonia. It’s called Excelsior Mill and it’s a true trip. Maybe it was The Year of Sun Ra because many of us are longing for space right now.
Rough translation of numerical order to grades, if you like that: 1=A+ (that’s right, MFs); 2-20 =A; 21-50 =A-; 51-150 =B+ (grade inflation alert, but fuck–listen to them!). Excavations: 1-10 =A; 11-30=A- (I do not fuck with B+ or lower excavations.)
And so:
Living to Listen’s Favorite Albums of 2024:
BRAND-SPANKIN’ NEW in ‘24
1. Corb Lund: El Viejo (Deluxe Edition) (New West)
2. Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Past is Still Alive (Nonesuch)
3. Chappell Roan: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (Atlantic) (’23 vintage but ’24 IMPACT)
4. Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal (Top Dawg Entertainment / Capitol)
5. Darius Jones: Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity)
6. Ka: The Thief Next to Jesus (self-released)
7. Mdou Moctar: Funeral for Justice. (Matador)
8. [ahmed]: Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
9. Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet: Four Guitars Live (Palilalia)
10. Jeff Parker: The Way Out of Easy (International Anthem)
11. Kendrick Lamar: GNX (pgLang/Interscope)
12. QOW Trio: The Hold Up (Ubuntu)
13. Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few: The World is on Fire (Division 81)
14. Snotty Nose Rez Kids: Red Future (Savage Mob)
15. Swamp Dogg: Blackgrass—From West Virginia to 125th Street (Oh Boy! Records)
16. X: Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum)
17. Tucker Zimmerman: Dance of Love (4AD)
18. Charli xcx: Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat (Atlantic)
19. Jlin: Akoma (Planet Mu)
20. Bill Orcutt: How to Rescue Things (Palilalia)
21. Kasey Musgraves: Deeper Well (Interscope / MCA Nashville)
22. Moses Sumney: Sophcore (self-released EP)
23. Red Kross: Red Kross (In the Red)
24. AALY Trio: Sustain (Silkheart)
25. Various Artists: Transa (Red Hot Org)
26. Frank London/The Elders: Spirit Stronger Than Blood (ESP-Disk
27. Beyonce: Cowboy Carter (Parkwood Entertainment)
10. Franco Luambo Mkaidi: Presents Les Editions Populaires (Planet Ilunga)
11. Rail Band: Rail Band(Mississippi Records)
12. Sun Ra: At the Showcase Live in Chicago 1976-1977 (Elemental Music)
13. Sun Ra and his Arkestra: Lights on a Satellite—Live on the Left Bank (Resonance)
14. Art Tatum: Jewels In the Treasure Box (Resonance)
15. Creation Rebel: High Above Harlesden 1978-2023 (On-U Sound)
16. Various Artists: Congo Funk! Sound Madness From The Shores Of The Mighty Congo River (Analog Africa)
17. Bill Evans: Bill Evans in Norway (Elemental)
18. Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy: The Mighty Warriors Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music)
19. Charles Gayle / Milford Graves / William Parker: WEBO (Black Editions)
20. Raphael Roginski: Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes (Unsound)
21. Juma Sultan’s Aboriginal Music Society: Father of Origin (Eremite)
22. Emily Remler: Cookin’ at Queens (Resonance)
23. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Live in France—The 1966 Limoges Concert (Elemental)
24. Various Artists: Super Disco Pirata—De Tepito Para El Mundo 1965-1980 (Analog Africa)
25. Arthur Blythe Quartet: Live! From Rivbea Studios, Volume 2 (No Business)
26. High Rise: Disturbance Trip (La Musica)
27. Various Artists: Even the Forest Hums—Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996 (Light in the Attic)
28. Phil Ranelin & Wendell Harrison: Tribe 2000 (Org Music)
29. Bessie Jones, John Davis, the Georgia South Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ed Young: The Complete “Friends of Old-Time Music” Concert (Smithsonian)
30. Love Child: Never Meant to Be (12XU)
Annnnd…I made this playlist for my freshman comp students and maybe you won’t mind it! They were allowed to collaborate (as are you!), which accounts for things not on the list:
After several years of just keeping cumulative, priority-ordered lists of my favorite new and excavated recordings here, and feeling guilty that I usually wasn’t writing (or saying) much, I decided in January to take a new approach, which I’ve enjoyed–but it’s been hell on my long-term memory. I feel I’m sure to have left something I loved out of the lists below, even after arduously scrolling through past posts. Maybe I’ll go back to listing in 2025 if I haven’t flexed my passport. On the positive side, I’ve abjured the priority ordering in favor of alphabetical, since I’d begun to suspect my Top 10s and 20s of the past had become somewhat calcified by June or July; saving the priority ordering for the end of the year forces me to have to re-evaluate records a little more carefully. On the other hand, who but I really cares?
Thusly, firstly:
MY 30 VERY FAVORITE NEW RECORDS FROM 2024 SO FAR
(Alphabetical…BUT * = Potential Top 10er; $ = Vying for #1)
Living To Listen 