Best Of 2024 (So Far)
On this edition of Discologist, Eduardo and Kevin are looking back to discuss some of their favorite releases of the year so far.
Favorite Albums of 2024 (so far)
10. Hit Me Hard And Soft - Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish made a splash with her 2019 debut When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go in no small part due to the sonic innovations that she and her brother Finneas cooked up. It was a loud, youthful statement that pointed to the brightest of futures for the duo. Two albums and one Oscar win later, Hit Me Hard and Soft more than delivers on that promise. Meant to be listened to in one-sitting, the record, a collection of songs that makes stops at every point along the journey of modern love, couldn’t care less about being the “latest thing.” Instead, both in word and in the interplay of the production with Eilish’s generational voice, the intent is clear: Make a great album. And Hit Me Hard and Soft didn’t just clear that bar, it set a new standard for what a modern pop album can, and SHOULD, be. - Kevin
9. My 21st Century Symphony - RAYE
For a lot of listeners (us included) RAYE’s (aka Rachel Keen) performance on SNL this year was their first introduction to the award winning singer/songwriter. Before re-launching her solo career with 2023’s My 21st Century Blues though, she had already penned hits with the likes of Beyonce, John Legend, Rihanna, and more. That album, a stew of vintage (ala Amy Winehouse) R&B, hip-hop, and straight up art-rock, made her the winningest artist in the history of the BRIT awards, but why stop there? My 21st Century Symphony blasts those songs into the stratosphere with the help of The Heritage Orchestra and the Flames Collective gospel choir. Recorded live at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Symphony isn’t just the sound of an artist realizing the fullest of her potential, it’s her Live at Carnegie Hall (Bill Withers, 1972) moment. One of the best live albums ever made by an artist that, lucky for us, is just getting started . - Kevin
8. The Sky WIll Still Be There Tomorrow - Charles Lloyd
When Charles Lloyd, Jason Moran, Larry Grenadier, and Brian Blade get together to make a jazz record, you'd expect the result to be challenging, dynamic, layered, and impossibly rich. So it should be no surprise that Lloyd's latest is just that. What is surprising is that this music is coming from an artist in the sixth decade of his recording career. On his latest album, LLoyd is giving us a bold reminder that while jazz continues to evolve and grow beyond the genre's conventional structures, it rarely sounds this relevant or assured. - Eduardo
7. Y’Y - Amaro Freitas
Few things on Wikipedia are more humbling than the entry about the Amazon river. Do you know that no one really knows where the Amazon starts? And I bet you don't really know about river dolphins, do you? Freitas, who until this release had only quietly carved out a name for himself as an exceptional jazz pianist with an uniquely percussive approach to his instrument, decided in 2020 to spend some time in Manaus, in the state of Amazonia, and to go looking for indigenous music forms that exist before, under, and inside of jazz. The resulting album, Y'Y, is an exploration of a river vaster than any other on earth, and in 44 minutes it also serves to remind non-Brazilian audiences that artists like Hermeto Pascual and Nana Vasconcelos have found ways to fuse pre-colonial sounds and images with modern ones to create music that is more unique and challenging than what you'll hear on a bossa nova playlist. - Eduardo
6. Critterland - Willi Carlisle
Every listen of Critterland is somehow better than the last. Willi Carlisle's incredible songwriting, honed to a fine and unpretentious point on this record, throws us back to a time when the nation turned its lonely eyes to folksingers, and when folksingers in turn took seriously the responsibility to write songs about the forgotten, the unseen, the voiceless. Critterland is alive with wit, weighed down by sadness, clear-eyed about the state of America, and still somehow optimistic about - what, exactly? It's hard to say, but when you hear Willi take a deep breath at the start of Two-Headed Lamb, you're somehow comforted by our sheer humanity. A few minutes later, he asks the higher lonesome to "kill the bitter parts of me." Somehow, I think we'll all find ourselves on the right side when it comes to the battle of Critterland. - Eduardo
5. Ease The Work - Hour
In theory, the fusion of classical music with indie-rock shouldn’t work (at least not for this listener). But there is something about composer Michael Cormier-O’Leary’s arrangements on Ease The Work that demand you abandon pre-conceived notions like that and give in to the moment. And what a beautiful moment! A meandering, low key journey through melancholy and the plainness of everyday life, the sounds that O’Leary and his assembled “orchestra” captured at an old theater in Peaks Island, Maine provide a glimpse into some kinder, gentler world that is just out of sight. A pure, and beautiful escape of a record that offers seemingly infinite discoveries to be made. - Kevin
4. Dancing On The Edge - Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band
Some people like to plan to be productive at airports - they'll bring their laptop and a nice pair of headphones and find a quiet spot where they can really drill into that powerpoint or whatever. Other people like to get hammered at the airport bar and trade overshares of the sordid details of their lives with strangers. If you're the latter, Ryan Davis' first post-State Champion release is definitely for you - an album for external processors, an album with more questions than answers and somehow with more insight than questions. What does it mean that the past is a joke played on the future by the present? I don't know, but I'll take that shot-and-a-beer special since my flight is delayed anyway. - Eduardo
3. Orchestras - Bill Frisell
Guitar legend Bill Frisell is known for, amongst other things, always pushing the boundaries of what his instrument and fellow players can do with a song. His recent run on Blue Note Records — 2019’s Harmony, 2020’s Valentine, and 2022’s Four — have all subtly demonstrated this forward motion. But on this year’s Orchestras, Frisell leaps light-years past any sonic universe he has inhabited before. The concept of Orchestras is “simple”: Can a jazz trio improvise with a whole ass orchestra? The answer – a collaboration between long-time friend/arranger Michael Gibbs, his fellow trio members Thomas Morgan (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums), and both the 60-piece Brussels Philharmonic AND the 11-piece Umbria Jazz Orchestra – is a stunning reworking of Frisell standards that responds with a resounding “Yes!” while also making it crystal clear that the only limit to Frisell’s talent at this point is his own imagination. - Kevin
2. Amy Come On Home - Ladybird
The first time you hear Ladybird you might say you hear Uncle Tupelo. The second time, maybe you hear Drive-By Truckers. A third listen may get you to John Prine, and so on. While that’s intentional according to songwriter Pete McDermott, it’s not the sonics that make Amy Come On Home one of the year’s best albums, it’s the songs. Ten tracks absolutely overflowing with wit and emotional wallop take the listener on a journey through a Midwestern South that can only exist in song. And as redneck as it is sophisticated as the whole affair is, the biggest triumph of Amy Come On Home is its kindness to its characters. At the end of the day, the characters who inhabit Ladybird’s songs may be down on their luck, but they are still looking for some kind of good life with full knowledge of all the dumb and hilarious mistakes they’re gonna make along the way. That cuts deep in the same way classics like Being There or Decoration Day do, which is, by any measure a remarkable achievement for any band, never mind one that is just getting started. - Kevin
1. Water Still Flows - Rich Ruth
Mikey “Rich” Ruth’s Water Still Flows hits harder than most records. Because water flows but it is also heavy. On Rich Ruth's 5th record, the calming soundscapes of I Survived, It's Over are replaced by a thunderous and driving sound. In forty-three minutes, you'll ride through peaceful valleys only to find a storm suddenly opening up overhead. Sam Que's sax is often the conductor of the storm, but don't be surprised if you hear a harp - or a violin or a pedal steel guitar - playing maestro too. If most of us think of embarking on a spiritual journey as a choice, Water Still Flows is here to remind you that sometimes it's just as rewarding to be forcefully taken on one. - Eduardo
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