I always used to say that if a year seems to be lacking in terms of good new music, I’m just not looking hard enough. But then 2024 happened. I know I’m not the only one who feels like those first five months were slow as hell (with some scattered gems in the rough, of course). Thankfully, things started to pick up in a big way recently—you’ll probably notice that the lion’s share of the releases on this list dropped in June. Let’s hope that trend continues, because I could use the win.
As always, if I’m missing anything, please let me know.
Kazumoto Endo – At the Controls (Dada Drumming, Jun 10)
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I was a bit skeptical about a new CD from Kazumoto Endo after I didn’t really connect with 2018’s Keiyo. The three fifteen-minute rippers that comprise At the Controls took that skepticism and shredded it to ribbons, reassembled it anew, then pulverized it again. According to his own liner notes, Endo went “back to the basics” to record each masterful slab of piercing harsh, experimenting with variations on a stripped-down methodology: no samples throughout the whole thing, the title track has no loops, “Out of the Controls” has “the most loops ever.” This is the kind of album that reminds you why it’s all worth it.
Fatboi Sharif & Roper Williams – Something About Shirley (POW, Feb 14)
Fatboi Sharif is one of the most captivating underground MCs at the moment. With Decay it felt like he finally distilled his MO into something truly unique, and this year Something About Shirley proved it beyond doubt. This is the third (and best) of Sharif’s collaborations with Roper Williams, a short suite with an atmosphere more terrifying than any I’ve heard in hip-hop. I hesitate to label this “horrorcore” because it feels so far abstracted from the genre’s roots; here the concrete threats of torture and murder are overshadowed by crushing existential dread, with instrumentals so dark and psychedelic they feel like they’re coming from the depths of your own mind.
OsamaSon – Still Slime (self-released, Mar 12)
Charleston’s OsamaSon has been making waves recently with a blown-out rage sound that’s both menacing and melodic. But over the course of his short career he’s tried his hand at countless other styles, and the softer side that he finetuned with Osama Season is my favorite at the moment. Here he teams up with producer boolymon once again for a sequel to last year’s excellent 2 Slime EP, and the outcome is some of the best work either artist has put out. The whole album is infinitely replayable, but “No Smoke” is already a shoe-in for my most-played track this year—and probably the best plugg song I’ve heard.
Bloated Data – The Aesthetic of Death (Minimal Impact, Mar 25)
Though it’s far from the only harsh release with an aesthetic focus on motorsports (for another 2024 example, see Peking Crash Team’s Horns Below Helmet on Pube Provisional Society), The Aesthetic of Death stands out due to its balance of exhilarating noise and thematic sampling. “Engine sounds, commentary and interviews” comprise Bloated Data’s source palette for this tape, and the resulting collages avoid the common trappings of such an approach, gassing up the textural idiosyncrasies with analog nitro. Torque and tragedy, seventh-gear surge, pedals to the metal. Copies are also available in the US from Malevolent Relics.
Stalwart – Blessed (FIM, Jan 25)
Caleb Duval and Luke Rovinsky’s FIM initiative is an exciting development in a burgeoning new improvised music tradition. Though the concert series began over two years ago, the production imprint arm kicked off this past January, and the incendiary irreverence of Blessed acts as a sort of mission statement. Ben Eidson (sax) and James Paul Nadien (drums) join Duval and Rovinsky as Stalwart, and the raucous quartet’s first recorded hour is a feast of clashing timbre, desecrated tonality, and interplay that’s as considered as it is inconsiderate. Original review
Elyanna – WOLEDTO (SALXCO UAM, Apr 12)
Now this is a debut. There’s not a single track on WOLEDTO that fails to get the head bobbing and the feet stepping—especially “Al Sham,” which features a slinky trip hop ayoub beat with a bass line that will make your body move whether you like it or not. Elyanna’s melodies are gleeful and invigorating even as they haunt with taut chromatic tension, and her songwriting matches that energy with stories of heartbreak laced with joy. “Sad in Pali,” unsurprisingly, is a harrowing closer, a poignant meditation on distance, memory, and olive trees.
Global Thermonuclear War – Total Demonstration (Symphony of Destruction, Jun 6)
A vinyl expansion of the band’s first demo with three bonus tracks on the B side, Total Demonstration is Global Thermonuclear War’s official declaration of existence. This is fast and brutal thrashviolence, but one only needs to know that the LP closes with a cover of Aus-Rotten’s “Factory” to tell where the influences lie; a grimy layer of crust and even twinges of classic stenchcore coat the propulsive blasts and churning breakdowns like soot in the furnace. The demo cuts are still killer, but it’s “(Bloodlet) The Aristocrat,” specifically its gloriously filthy midtempo chug bridge, that ends up stealing the show.
Stefan Maier & Michelle Lou – Live at UCSD (Dinzu Artefacts, Jun 7)
These two dedicated practitioners of contemporary computer music (who are also both members of the Party Perfect!!! roster, and apparently good friends) joined forces for a residency at UCSD last year, a fruitful meeting of the minds that yielded this extended improvised session. Though both Maier and Lou are known for their compositional leanings, the instantaneity here is fresh and exciting. The collaborative soundscape grows slowly, the rapport developed during the preparation period allowing for an agile exchange of ideas. Precise crescendos and satisfying catharsis.
Joshua Virtue – Black Box: Joshua Is Dead (Why?, Jun 10)
Alex Singleton’s final album as Joshua Virtue might also be his best. Centered around the ubiquitous but often ignored concepts of death and loss, Black Box directs Singleton’s cutting yet compassionate political lens both inward and outward. From the mercurial overture piece “Box” through incisive sample interludes, intricate lyrics, and some truly great features (including a chilling verse by another MC on this list), it couldn’t be a more fitting sendoff for the project. Thanks for all the music, Joshua.
Nursing Death (Post-Inventor, Apr 5)
With his second(?) self-titled release on Post-Inventor, Nursing Death presents five cuts of his most intense material so far. Not quite pure harsh, not quite pure wall, these tracks combine static hypnosis and dynamic variation in a way that hearkens back to the days when the boundary between the two traditions wasn’t as clearly defined. The caustic masses of “Prednisolone” and “Renal Failure” blasts in shivering waves, its dense weave of distortion cracking and faltering before rushing forth again, as if hands are scrambling at buttons and knobs to keep it afloat. Manual, direct-action wall.
Noise Not Music 