The Predatory Wasp
Trying to get back into regular new music posts, but it’s very challenging with all these best of lists taking up my time. It’s exhausting! Sometimes I need to reminder myself that’s not actually a job and it’s supposed to be fun. Which it mostly is, but not always. Anyway – here’s a jaunty, heartwarming collab between Baba Stiltz and Okay Kaya – released on Christmas Day no less!
I’m back! Big love to everyone who engaged with TPW in 2024 – we had more of you than ever before, so it’s nice to know that I’m not just shouting into the void everyday.
Strutting into the new year with the first post of 2025, here’s the first single from Celeste’s second album which is due out in April. I still listen to her 2019 EP Lately a lot, so will definitely be checking the new release out when it lands.
https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/celeste/everyday-rsd-2024
Sufjan Stevens has made a lot of Christmas music; the problem is (whisper it), some of it isn’t actually all that great. So here’s my carefully selected, um, selection of the best there is from both his Christmas albums alongside some other festive period-appropriate selections: wall to wall ‘bangers’ that you can cook, dance, sing and make merry to. Happy Sufmas!
Avi C. Engel’s new album Nocturne (Soundtrack for an Invisible Film) was created during a period of sleeplessness and depression and completed as the artist emerged from it. Initially conceived as a personal attempt to find solace, the album – which lands 03 January – is released in the hope of providing others with a sense of calm or, at the very least, an engaging diversion. Ahead of the full LP, Where Does A Moth Go beautifully captures both the strength and fragility of the artist, with Engel’s vocal coming across as harrowing and hopeful in the same breath.
https://aviengel.bandcamp.com/album/nocturne-soundtrack-for-an-invisible-film
It’s that time of year again when we pretend that ranking music matters much more than is really does, and that our own taste is the best. And mine really is! Read on for proof of this.
Included in this list are ambient abstraction that sounds like 90s trance, indie rock albums in the midst of an existential crisis, and electronic records that feel like they might just collapse under their own weight, or are so spectral they’re barely even there. And despite everyone telling me how wrong I am, no Charli XCX at all. For other gaping holes or obvious omissions, I make no apologies whatsoever.
Here are the 50 best albums of 2024. They might change your life.
TPW xx
I alluded to this release last week, but it’s so good it deserves a bit more love. This is taken from the new album from Pefkin, aka Gayle Brogan, witten in autumn 2023, during a big life shift—including her move from Glasgow to Sheffield—this three-track album reflects the emotional journey of change. Using a stripped-back setup of viola (an instrument she’d never played before), synth, and voice, Gayle recorded each track in a single take. It’s deeply affecting and a late contender for ambient/drone album of the year.
I was going to post a 17 minute drone piece from Pefkin (which is really excellent and you should definitely listen to it) but decided this, from Qendresa’s new album Londra, was more “Friday vibes”.
I wish that people would stop releasing really great albums this late in the year, as it’s making compiling my top 50 list an increasingly tough. The latest guilty party is Djrum, whose new LP Meaning’s Edge – his first full length since 2018 is amazing, with the eight minute Crawl coming in like a cross between Aphex Twin and Shed, but with a deftness of touch that makes the frenetic rhythms glide silkily by.
Jacob Long aka Earthen Sea is an American electronic musician and producer. Formerly the bassist for post-hardcore bands Black Eyes and Mi Ami, Long transitioned to solo work, exploring ambient and dub techno landscapes. His previous album, 2022’s excellent Ghost Poems moved away from the dub techno that characterised his first two solo LPs and new release Recollections delves further into jazz and downtempo, albeit through a heavily muted, soft-focus lens.
Possibly my favourite ambient pairing, Not Waving and Romance, return with their latest LP Wings of Desire, inspired by Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. And if that sounds catastrophically pretentious – correct! But ambient pretentiousness really does result in some of the best track names in music (honourable mention to Dylan Henner on this front). Love Pervade The Sinless Breast (!) is gorgeous, sweeping, mournful: everything you need to start your week with a bang.
The Predatory Wasp 