As the old saying goes: If you want to sculpt a statue of an elephant, you just get the biggest granite block you can find — and chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant. I am trying to take the same approach to my year-end lists. I start with the giant slab of music contained in The Long List of everything I heard; then I chip away more than half the releases to form this massive, woolly mammoth of everything I wanted to hear again; and finally, I whittle that down to a still-elephantine Short List of ivory-pure excellence that you’ll never forget. Read on:
Walt Disco
The Warping
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Written on both sides of the Atlantic, from Los Angeles and Austin to Glasgow and London, The Warping is a significant step forward from Glasgow’s Walt Disco, a band who have already seen strong success with their debut album Unlearning.
On The Warping, deft lyricism takes in deeply personal issues and writes them large, transposing feelings of envy, fear, joy and hope out of individual experiences. Yearning for another self is a recurring dream on The Warping, as they explore gender dysphoria and envy with radical honesty, accepting them as two tangled threads in the same experience. The band explain: “With The Warping we explore themes of change, growth and dealing with the complex struggles that feature in anyone’s life. It feels like our most biographical body of work yet, listening to it now is like looking at a snapshot of a moment in time for us as people and as a band. This album is a roadmap of our vulnerabilities in a way, but it feels good to be so honest with our music and lay everything on the table with both our lyrics and arrangements. That acceptance of one’s emotions and honesty with oneself is what we’d hope people can take away from listening to The Warping.”
Warmduscher
Too Cold To Hold
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Clams Baker Jr., Benjamin Romans Hopcraft, Adam J. Harmer, Marley Mackey, Quinn Whalley and Bleu Ottis Wright are Wamduscher. And Too Cold To Hold is undoubtedly their best and most ambitious album to date. Taking on the repetitive and polyrhythmic grooves of gqom (an alluring South African take on house), adding in a dash of hip-hop flavour and even jazz, and then harnessing that to their punk-funk disco pogo, it’s a spellbinding mix. The album was produced by Hopcraft alongside Jamie Neville.
Talking about the first single Fashion Week — a joyous account of fashion’s diehard fans rather than the more visible arrivistes or dilettantes — Clams said: “Those that will do anything to become that thing. That creation. And live it. It’s real artistry when you don’t have the means and you’re doing it. You’re hustling to get on the guest list, you get in, you’re done up by means that you can’t really afford, whatever you do… It’s a celebration of people who will do whatever to look good and feel good and step above wherever they are in their own minds.” Guests on Too Cold To Hold include Irvine Welsh, Lianne La Havas, Janet Planet, Jeshi and CouCou Chloe.”
The Warning
Keep Me Fed
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On their new album Keep Me Fed, The Warning draw strength and power from a lifetime of sisterhood and music.
They have logged thousands of miles on the road, generated hundreds of millions of streams, and left countless fans in awe. All of this tireless work and dedication have shaped and sharpened their sound with knifepoint precision, arming alternative anthems with universally catchy hooks and an uncompromising hard-rock kick. Between performing alongside Muse, Foo Fighters, Guns N’ Roses, Royal Blood, The Pretty Reckless and Three Days Grace, the band ignited the 2023 MTV VMAs. Representative of their cultural impact, Pepsi even notably chose them as the face of Pepsi Black in Mexico. Moreover, they emerged as the rare force who could comfortably appear in Vanity Fair, People, Cosmopolitan and Glamour as well as on Metallica’s star-studded Blacklist compilation — placing their cover of Enter Sandman (with Alessia Cara) shoulder-to-shoulder with contributions from Ghost, St. Vincent, Chris Stapleton, Idles and Weezer.”
Kamasi Washington
Fearless Movement
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “While turning his attention to dance for Fearless Movement, Kamasi Washington resumes his ongoing study of music as a means of connection.
His previous albums The Epic and Heaven And Earth were received by critics and audiences as a reimagination of modern jazz, showcasing Washington’s larger-than-lift compositions full of celestial grandeur and his distinct blend of jazz, Latin, funk, classical, hip-hop and soul. Fearless Movement, however, offers something different: Terrestrial rhythms and collaborations from rappers, musical icons and even Washington’s own daughter. Guests include Thundercat, Taj Austin, Ras Austin, Patrice Quinn, DJ Battlecat, Brandon Coleman, D-Smoke, George Clinton, Bj the Chicago Kid and Andre 3000. Washington calls Fearless Movement his dance album — but “it’s not literal,” he says. “Dance is movement and expression, and in a way it’s the same thing as music — expressing your spirit through your body. That’s what this album is pushing.” Dance as an embodied form of expression signals a shift in focus for Washington. Where previous albums dealt with cosmic ideas and existential concepts, Fearless Movement focuses in on the everyday, an exploration of life on earth. This change in scope is due in large part to the birth of Washington’s first child a few years ago.
Waxahatchee
Tigers Blood
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “One of the hardest-working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead here, but after six acclaimed albums, she’s never felt more confident as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers’ Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.
And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City — following years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road — Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album Tigers Blood, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse. An ethnologist of the self, forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she’s arriving at revelations and she ain’t holding them back. Crutchfield says that she wrote most of the songs on Tigers Blood during a “hot hand spell,” while on tour in 2022. And when it came time to record, Crutchfield returned to trusted producer Brad Cook, who brought her sound to a groundbreaking turning point on 2020’s Saint Cloud.”
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Woodland
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Woodland is the 10th studio album from dritically acclaimed Americana songbirds Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings — and their first full-length since 2020’s Grammy-winning all-covers collection, All the Good Times (Are Past & Gone).
Named for and recorded at Welch and Rawlings’ own Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, the 10-song set features both full-band sessions and intimate duet performances, all tied together by the duo’s signature old-time sound and evocative lyricism. Opening cut and lead single Empty Trainload of Sky provides a languid taster of the starkly vivid emotionality to come. “Woodland is at the heart of everything we do, and has been for the last 20-some years,” the duo say in a press release. “The past four years were spent almost entirely within its walls, bringing it back to life after the 2020 tornado and making this record. The music is (songs are) a swirl of contradictions, emptiness, fullness, grief, destruction, permanence. Now.”
Paul Weller
66
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary music, few artists possess the enduring influence and innovative spirit of Paul Weller. A career that began in 1977 now takes in the release of his 17th solo album and his 28th in total. Weller has always demonstrated an unwavering commitment to pushing artistic boundaries while staying true to his roots. 66 promises to be no exception, offering a captivating journey through his continuing musical evolution.
As the title and artwork by Sir Peter Blake (his first for Weller since 1995’s Stanley Road) indicates, Weller’s new album marks the completion of his 66th journey around the sun and was released on the day before his 66th birthday. 66 is quite a reflective and inward-thinking album that pulls back the camera lens and shines a light on the way Weller’s creativity interacts with his wider world. Continually finding new ways to alchemise the miracle of living and the meaning of it all, he draws on fragments of real life, ruminations on spirituality and even childhood memories. There are songs touching on faith, changing circumstances and the fractured realities of life in this turbulent age. But 66 is positive at heart, bursting with the wisdom and perspective accrued by the business of someone who has really lived and loved.”
Jack White
No Name
No name. No artwork. No credits. No lyric sheet. No press release. No photos. No song titles. No singles. No videos. No publicity. No problem. Not for Jack White, anyway.
For those who still haven’t heard, the innovative, iconoclastic indie-rock singer-songwriter, guitarist and entrepreneur surprise-released his latest album. As you might expect, he did it in his own unique way — by having staff at his Third Man Records stores in Nashville, Detroit and London give it away free with any purchase. Basically, it looks like a test pressing: A white vinyl record in a plain white sleeve, with No Name stamped on one side of the plain white label. The LP’s only distinguishing feature: The vinyl has Heaven And Hell etched into the run-out groove on one side, and Black And Blue on the other (more on that in a minute). It is arguably one of the coolest things White has ever done. Which is saying something. It is also arguably one of the best albums he’s ever made. Which is saying a whole lot more. Of course, for my money, White has never made a truly bad album. Certainly not with The White Stripes. Nor with his on-again / off-again / supergroups / side-projects The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs. And not even as a solo artist. Do I like some of them more than others? Sure. But I don’t like many of them more than No Name. If you like White and his loudest, heaviest and rawest, you’ll likely feel the same.”
Wilco
Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hot Sun Cool Shroud features six new tracks from Wilco that have a summertime-after-dark kind of feeling.
“It starts off pretty hot, like heat during the day, has some instrumentals on it that are a little agitated and uncomfortable and ends with a cooling breeze,” Jeff Tweedy. “There are tracks on Hot Sun Cool Shroud that are more aggressive and angular than anything we’ve put out in a while, and a song about love melting you like ice cream into a puddle of sugary soup. All the pieces of summer, including the broody cicadas.”
Lucinda Williams
Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road finds the veteran southern singer-songwriter putting her own stamp on a dozen classics by The Fab Four: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
The set list includes classic hits such as Can’t Buy Me Love, With A Little Help From My Friends and Something, though Williams and her band also take on beloved deeper tracks such as I’m So Tired, I’ve Got A Feeling and Yer Blues. Being raised on the blues in the South, the latter is a song Williams was clearly meant to sing. Recorded at The Beatles’ legendary studio in London, the new collection serves as Vol. 7 of her celebrated Lu’s Jukebox series, and is the first new volume in almost four years. While many great artists have recorded in the hallowed facility, as it turns out, Williams was the first major artist to record Beatles songs there — aside from The Fab Four themselves, of course.”
Wine Lips
Super Mega Ultra
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Wine Lips’ Super Mega Ultra is an absolute beast. Recorded by Simon Larochette at The Sugar Shack in Ontario, the album is jam-packed with 12 ramped-up supersonic ear-scorching auditory delicacies.
SMU is probably Wine Lips’ most ambitious undertaking to date, exploring new thematic territory while firmly maintaining their signature psych-garage-punk-rock panache. The wild ride continues! “It’s tough writing a new record when you’re always on tour,” says Cam Hilborn. “The previous album seemed to be doing really well and at times I felt like I was hitting a wall creatively. Long story short, I think this album turned out great. Simon always brings a good vibe at The Sugar Shack and we were able to try some new ideas and capture the energy without straying too far from our roots. Excited to see where these songs take us in the future.”
X
Smoke & Fiction
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Being great is one thing. Staying great for a long time is another. X have been great for 47 years, building their legend as one of America’s most original punk bands with seven albums between 1980 and 1993. Smoke & Fiction will be their ninth and final album. Yes, you read that right. It’s their last hurrah.
Produced by Rob Schnapf (Beck, Foo Fighters), Smoke & Fiction promises to deliver everything we’ve come to love and expect from X. But it’s more than just another punk record—it’s a poignant reflection on the band’s journey, a valedictory lap that celebrates the people and experiences that shaped their remarkable career. Each song on Smoke & Fiction is a testament to X‘s enduring legacy. With haunting melodies, pounding rhythms, and the unmistakable vocal interplay of bassist John Doe and singer Exene Cervenka, this album is a fitting finale to a storied career.”
Nilüfer Yanya
My Method Actor
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “As a whole, Nilüfer Yanya’s third album My Method Actor asks questions with no easy answers. It is a supple, expansive body of work that peers into the crevices of life, exploring them with comforting strings, skittering beats, soul-tinged melodies and swooning harmonies. It asks, who are we? Why do we follow the paths we follow? What is at the heart of it all?
While writing My Method Actor, Yanya retreated into the studio with her creative partner Wilma Archer (Sudan Archives, MF Doom). She had toured her second album Painless for a year and entered a period of transition — between albums, between record companies, between homes. My Method Actor deals a lot with the idea of movement from one part of life and into another. The seeds of My Method Actor were planted in early 2023, but it wasn’t until the spring of that year that shoots began to appear. As songs started to form, Yanya and Archer squirreled themselves away from the world. “This is the most intense album, in that respect,” Yanya says. “Because it’s only been us two. We didn’t let anyone else into the bubble.” They wrote and recorded in small sessions, spread across London, Wales and Eastbourne. You can feel this cocooning of creative energy in the atmosphere of the record: it envelopes you entirely in cinematic sweeps while feeling intimate, finally inviting you into the little world they created and offering up its secrets.”
Yerba Mansa
Gravity’s Joke
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “As the heppest of you undoubtedly know, Yerba Mansa are guitarist Edwin Stevens (Irma Vep, Klaus Kinski, Web of Lies) and drummer Andrew Cheetham (Richard Dawson, Jane Weaver, Waterless Hills). Both have been members of Desmadrados Soldados de Ventura, and are purveyors of raging, mind-bending primitive garage infused Middle-Eastern free-rock psychedelia.
Edwin’s mesmerizing guitar playing is capable of conjuring sonic specters from thin air. Andrew’s limitless drumming is rooted in jazz and totally mesmerizing in fluidity and movement — the grooves within Gravity’s Joke are some of the most fierce, apocalyptic and heady jams you will hear this year. Yerba Mansa whirl up demonic raga meltdowns that showcase their individual chops and dual telepathy. The guitar vernacular is pure Sharrock / Flower / Quine — the tuning sounds like it could be ostrich; the drumming is more octopus.”
Neil Young
Archives Vol. III (1976-1986)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This is the third volume of the Neil Young Archives series of box sets produced by Neil Young. Togeher, they form a definitive, comprehensive and chronological record of his entire body of released work.
Volume III covers the period from 1976 through 1987, an extremely productive and musically diverse period in Young’s career that included the release of several classic albums, including Comes A Time, Rust Never Sleeps, Live Rust and Trans. Spanning 11 years, this Archives box set covers more years, and includes more music and video than the previous two volumes in the series. The limited-edition deluxe box set contains 17 CDs, and five Blu-rays, with 198 tracks on the CDs and 11 films on Blu-ray. It also includes a hardcover 160-page book (chronologically illustrated with archive materials, detailed descriptions of the music, and a fold-out timeline of the period) plus a foldout poster. It is housed in a large box identical to previous instalments.”
Frank Zappa
Apostrophe (’) 50th Anniversary Edition
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “As the calendar turned to 1974, Frank Zappa was riding high. His revised rethink of The Mothers collective had begat the stone-cold classic known as September 1973’s Over-Nite Sensation, the album generally acknowledged as the gateway listening experience that invited the world writ large into the ever-expanding Zappaverse. Over-Nite Sensation also served as a direct bridge to Zappa’s followup solo release, March 1974’s Apostrophe (’).
In proper celebration of 50 years of Apostrophe (’), a newly expanded 50th anniversary edition has arrived a variety of formats, including a six-disc Super Deluxe Edition that features 75 tracks in total. Produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the Apostrophe (’) 50th Anniversary Edition sports the 2024 remaster of the original album by Bernie Grundman, along with scores of additional session outtakes, alternate takes, and new versions remixed and restored by Craig Parker Adams, and remastered by John Polito. Also included are two historical live recordings from 1974 — one show from an unidentified venue in Colorado Springs, and the other from Dayton on Nov. 20, 1974.”
Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention
Whiskey a Go Go, 1968
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The hand-scrawled ad in the L.A. Free Press — an open invitation to Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention’s all-night affair at L.A.’s historic Whisky a Go Go — laid things out in black and white as to what Zappa and the band’s intentions were for that soon-to-be historic evening. It read: “The Mothers of Invention cordially invite you to join them on Tuesday, July 23, 1968 when they will be taking over the Whisky a Go Go for 5 full hours of unprecedented merriment, which will be secretly recorded for an upcoming record album. Dress optional. Starting sometime in the evening. R.S.V.D.T.”
The show was billed on the Whisky marquee as “Mothers Of Invention – Recording Session,” and thus, Zappa had indeed recorded the entire evening’s aural festivities with the intention of releasing an album. That project never quite fully materialized — until now. Whisky a Go Go, 1968, the latest provocative live collection to be released from The Vault, will be released June 21. Produced by Ahmet Zappa and Joe Travers, this extensive collection, some 55-plus years in the making, compiles everything The Mothers of Invention played across their three sets that night, complete and newly remixed.”
