Image as seen on Tyler, the Creator’s Instagram @FeliciaTheGoat.
2024 has been the year of music innovation. Many artists have taken bold new leaps into the creative unknown, emerging with inventive ideas that leave listeners yearning for more.
While we all enjoyed our Brat summer, other artists were cooking up some of their finest work yet. In this article, we’ll look at some of the best new releases, whether you need it for that late-night study grind, next house party, some deep internal reflection, or simply for good ol’ fashioned vibes.
The Top Pick: The New Sound – Geordie Greep
Geordie Greep posing with his album The New Sound. Image credit: @emperorgreep on Instagram.
On the 11th of August, British rock band Black Midi announced the band’s indefinite split. Days later, lead vocalist Geordie Greep announced his new solo project The New Sound.
Made in collaboration with dozens of session musicians in London and São Paolo, Greep draws on Japanese jazz-rock fusion, his Brazilian collaborators and even Lin-Manuel Miranda to produce a stonkingly good album. Utilising his band’s insane chemistry alongside his own witty lyricism and cartoonish vocals, Greep treads the narrative lines of fact and fiction.
The opening song ‘Blues’ sets a grand precedent for the album with its frenetic energy as Greep describes the literal explosion of the masculine man’s deeply sown self-loathing. In contrast, the 12-minute epic ‘The Magician’ desperately calls to the listener “What is left?” as the narrator’s self-esteem entirely collapses over an imagined relationship. And who can forget the sickly story of a gloating man wooing a “sophisticated tart” on ‘Holy, Holy’, only to reveal he had paid her to sedate his own ego?
Greeptober is well and truly here.
Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat – Charli XCX
Charli XCX posing in front of a huge cover of Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. Image Credit: @charli_xcx on Instagram.
Charli XCX’s Brat has been a truly revolutionary album for the pop industry, with incredible production standards and smart songwriting that defined the summer of 2024. It’s third re-release makes for one of the greatest and well-deserved victory laps in recent music memory. Each song seems to add a narrative B-side to its original counterpart, often with completely re-spliced beats. If Brat 2 could be described in three words, it would be Lime Green Phoenix.
Brat 2: Electric Boogaloo features a star-studded cast of features including Lorde, Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan and Addison Rae. It even brought Ke$ha back from the grave of the early 2010s on ‘Spring Breakers’! The highlight has to be Spanish rapper bb trickz and her impeccable flow on a deconstructed ‘Club Classics’.
Other notable features include returning collaborator Caroline Polachek’s vocal contribution adds a brand-new emotional dimension to ‘Everything is romantic’. Also making an appearance is pop icon Ariana Grande who adds further meaning to ‘Sympathy is a knife’, highlighting how the media love to see talented people’s meteoric rise and cataclysmic fall.
“NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” – Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Godspeed You! Black Emperor (GYBE) is known for their thought-provoking and socially conscious music, and NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD continues this tradition. The title serves as a stark reminder of the tragic loss of life in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The impact on civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon has resonated worldwide, leaving many moved by the suffering of countless innocent men, women and children. GYBE encourages listeners to reflect on these lives and the human cost of conflict.
GYBE make full use of their classic motifs of crescendo and textured layers throughout this record, a poignant call-back to their classic albums. On ‘RAINDROPS CAST IN LEAD’, the serene opening is lost through whirling orchestral beats, and siren-like guitar riffs, closing with a cacophony of strings and distorted guitars that represents the upheaval of nature in violence.
The closing track ‘GREY RUBBLE – GREEN SHOOTS’ remains rooted in the album’s sombre atmosphere. Yet, a glimmer of hope seeps through the bandmates’ performances, reminding us that from those roots of despair, new life can return.
You can directly support humanitarian aid efforts in Palestine and Lebanon here.
Honourable mentions:
The Genuine Articulate – The Alchemist
Recommended for hip-hop fans. Best track: ‘Ferrari’s in the Rain’
13″ Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips – Xiu Xiu
Recommended for shoegaze/post-punk fans. Best track: ‘Common Loon’
Dance, No One’s Watching – Ezra Collective
Recommended for Jazz and Afrobeat fans. Best track: ‘The Herald’
Edited by Freya Harrod.
