Complex Distractions Presents : Favorite Albums Of 2024(5-1)

Hello.

We’re a mere two days away from 2025; new year, new me, new you, and all that jazz. I’m hoping for a year a little less rough and tumble myself. Maybe a quieter -dare I say- more boring year. Going into it knowing my job is protected now for at least a few more years, and all my kids are settling into adulthood nicely with plans in place, careers being built, and vision boards filled to the brim, I feel 2025 has the potential for greatness.

We shall see.

Musically 2024 was a pretty fantastic year. Of course I started the year out thinking I was going to cut back on the amount of records I’d buy, but that never quite turns out the way I think it will. Let’s just say I was pickier about what I was buying. I even saved some money and bought a few on CD instead of vinyl. Overall it was just a great year for music, and I’m excited to see what 2025 brings.

Okay, so here we go. My 5 favorite albums of the year. These were very easy decisions for me, as these were albums that hit me immediately. Looking at the list of everything I’d listened to this year, these five stood out. So without further adieu, my top 5 albums of the year.

5. DIIV : Frog In Boiling Water

Maybe one of the more fraught indie rock bands in well over a decade, the Brooklyn-born DIIV is the brain child of musician Zachary Cole Smith. Musically, while the band veers into noisier guitar dirges ala bands like Polvo, Archers of Loaf, and contemporaries like Nothing and Cymbals Eat Guitars, DIIV always has a shoegaze dream-pop lean. After 2012s acclaimed Oshin Smith took nearly 4 years writing and recording the band’s follow-up, the long and densely-layered Is The Is Are. Had that been maybe four songs less it could have been a masterpiece. Drugs and inner band turmoil derailed the band for 3 years.

2019 saw the heavier Deceiver drop, bringing the band and Smith’s dark shoegaze back to the forefront. Frog In Boiling Water is the culmination of a decades-plus career battling demons and finding a comfortable spot where the band could lean into both heavier and poppier avenues. “Brown Paper Bag”, “Everyone Out”, and “Soul-net” are some of the band’s best songs yet.

4. Pye Corner Audio : The Endless Echo

Martin Jenkins returned to both the world of Pye Corner Audio and to his longtime record label Ghost Box for one of this year’s best hauntology/eerie electro/electronic records in The Endless Echo. Filled with all of Jenkins’ trademark slinky rhythms, wavering melodies, and hypnotic electro hymns, The Endless Echo is a nearly hour-long journey into meditations on time and whether it’s all just an illusion put on by the universe itself. “Decision Point”, “On The Clock”, and “Unremembered” are some of PCA’s best yet.

Hauntology has never sounded so sinister, slinky, and epic in scope. Pye Corner Audio has built a long, heady discography over the course of nearly 15 years, and while each release is an evolution and honing in to the essence of what makes Jenkins and PCA so special, the thru-line will always be the haunted, melancholy melody and the low-key dance groove just under the surface. No need to fix what’s not broken.

3. Out of/Into : Motion I

One of my favorite jazz ensemble albums of the year was the Out of/Into’s Motion I, a stunning collaboration between some of jazz’ most profound musician’s working today. The quintet -which features vibraphonist Joel Ross and pianist Gerald Clayton among others- began as the Blue Note Quintet for Blue Note’s 85th anniversary. The band took their penchant for improvisation and turned it into an amazing record. The results are nothing short of brilliant. Check out “Gabaldon’s Glide”, “Second Day” or the epic “Aspiring To Normalcy” for further proof of this album and band’s greatness.

2. The Smile : Cutouts

On The Smile’s 2nd album of 2024, the dreamy and engaging Cutouts, Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner go for of a restrained and slinkier sound. Heavy on the electronics and Tom Skinner’s percussive prowess, Cutouts sees a band not concerned about expectations or what fans want. Songs like “Instant Psalm”, “Eyes and Mouth”, “The Slip” and the frenetic “Zero Sum” sees a band firing on all cylinders. Locking into post-punk, jazz inflections, and cinematic soundscapes The Smile have become a beast entirely its own, leaving the “side-project” talk in the dust.

and number one, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet : The Way Out Of Easy

No album hit me quite as hard in 2024 as Jeff Parker and the ETA IVtet’s The Way Out Of Easy. A simple set up; guitar, upright bass, saxophone, and drums with a mix of noise boxes and loopers recording live in front of starving eyes and hungry brains. A band of Jedi-like improvisational musicians setting forth on a journey on a tiny stage and seeing where things will head. There’s nothing as vulnerable and tight rope-esque as letting instinct and skill take you on a musical journey, and The Way Out Of Easy is one hell of a journey.

Guitarist Jeff Parker, along with bassist Anna Butterss, drummer Jay Bellerose, and saxophonist Josh Johnson have played together for some time now, and it shows in the four longform pieces that make up 4 sides of vinyl here. From the slinky groove of “Freakadelic” to the beautifully ornate and dreamy “Late Autumn” to expressionistic and noisy “Easy Way Out” to the psychedelic dub of “Chrome Dome”, The Way Out Of Easy is an absolute stunner in sound, art, free expression, and letting the muse take you on a wild journey.

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Okay kids, that’s it from me. I’ve bored you enough with my ramblings, opinions, asides, and overall blabbing about my favorite records of 2024. I hope you all had a nice Christmas, and that you’re safe on New Year’s Eve. Got those resolutions lined up? Good, glad to hear it. Same here. Let’s see if we can pull ’em off in 2025, shall we?