Albums
Of
the
Year
20
24
Anxious
Sound
 

S/T

Universal Order of Armageddon

The Healer

SUMAC

Hex by Jon Mckiel

Hex

Jon Mckiel

Longlegs OST

Zigli

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

Up On Gravity Hill

METZ

S/T by Dr. Dog

S/T

Dr. Dog

Read the Air by Marbled Eye

Read the Air

Marbled Eye

The Foreign Department by Astrel K

The Foreign Department

Astrel K

Wall of Eyes by The Smile

Wall of Eyes

The Smile

Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee

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.

Other Albums I Liked
Coagulated Bliss
Full of Hell
Rack
The Jesus Lizard
Live at BBC's Maida Vale Studios
Coalesce
Always Happy to Explode
Sunset Rubdown
Cemetery Classics
Moon Diagrams
Artificial Bouquet
Frail Body
S/T
Ozean
Untitled
Hassan I Sabbah

An open suitcase
In an empty room

Cindy Lee