Albums
of
the
Year
2024
20
24
a list by
a  zine about essential
noise.

S/T

Universal Order of Armageddon

Up On Gravity Hill

METZ

The Healer

SUMAC

S/T by Dr. Dog

S/T

Dr. Dog

Longlegs OST

Zigli

Untitled

Hassan I Sabbah

Hex by Jon Mckiel

Hex

Jon Mckiel

Read the Air by Marbled Eye

Read the Air

Marbled Eye

Distant Call - Collected Demos 2000​-​2006 by Broadcast

Distant Call: Collected Demos 2000-2006

Broadcast

Spell Blanket - Collected Demos 2006​-​2009 by Broadcast

Spell Blanket: Collected Demos 2006-2009

Broadcast

The Foreign Department by Astrel K

The Foreign Department

Astrel K

Wall of Eyes by The Smile

Wall of Eyes

The Smile

Best of 2024
Diamond Jubilee
Cindy Lee

Dreams. Personhood. Quiet summer nights. Sun Records. The Velvet Underground & Nico. Nico solo. Lonely bus stations and train yards. Trying to find my way back to you. Brian Wilson. Public Strain. Death to devices. Death to memes. Death to the vacant wave. Nancy Sinatra. The Castiles. T Rex. Lost songs by The Shangri-Las beamed from a distant planet. The past is gone. The past is now. True expression. Fuck what they think. The underground. The road, the rail, the sun, the (silver) moon. The guitar. The early 1960s. Longing. The magical properties of recorded noise.

These are just some of the thoughts that have entered my mind while listening to Diamond Jubilee, the hypnotizing, boundaryless 32-track collection of music released by Cindy Lee (Patrick Flegel) earlier this year, first in digital-only format and more recently as a 3xLP vinyl edition by Superior Viaduct.

Across the album's 32 tracks, Flegel cross-pollinates haunting melodies, intricate arrangements, and distinctive pop sensibilities to create a wonderfully sprawling work—errant but never uneven—blending nostalgia and here-and-now existence. The eerie splendor of Glitz. The odd exuberance of Olive Drab. The dissonant, screeching guitar trance of I Have My Doubts. The shimmering instrumental elegance of Realistik Heaven. The Khruangbin-esque funk of Dracula. There are so many turns. So many hooks. The ideas are as limitless as Flegel’s capacity to express them.

Diamond Jubilee is such a deep well, and it captures the strange miscellany of human existence with such sweet idiosyncrasy that when it ends, the only thing to do is play it again.

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