Listen (3:17)
December 23, 2024
There is Mr. Eliot again. Looming large and still kicking up a fuss after all these years. I started with Prufrock, then on to ‘The Wasteland,’ and then all the rest. Flawed? Yes. Difficult? Indeed. Too many allusions? Quite possibly. Ignorable as a poet and critic? Most certainly not. One would have all their work ahead of them to refute the argument that the poems of T.S. Eliot, then and now, are impossible to ignore. What a wonderful segue into a piece about favorite recordings of 2024!
While we are doing the initial and the quote thing, there are worse ways to pivot than bastardizing Mr. S.L. Clemens concerning music releases these days. “The report of [the album’s] death was an exaggeration.” Perhaps you’ve seen or heard this phrased differently? Please forgive a quick soapbox clamber about quotes: the preface “attributed to” is a must for most these days. I am on solid ground for this one, though, as the original May 1897 letter from S.L. to the New York Journal’s Frank Marshall White survives. We are ploddingly nearing the point here, I promise.
Musicians are often told that the best release strategy these days is one from the dawn of recorded music - release singles. If they trickle out and eventually compile into a single album, record, disc, or (tape?), that is ancillary at best. I still believe in the album concept (and concept album, for that matter). We can change the name to include all genres, of course. The monikers of program, compilation, or collection would all be acceptable. Whatever we call assembled sounds unfolding in real-time is satisfactory unto itself.
It's the listening bit that is paramount. And into the bargain, I would offer the ceremony of listening as the thing that sets it apart from the 24-7 assault in the elevator, at the gas pump, at the grocery store (are we taking bloody requests, here!), and, perhaps the cruellest (go away, spell-check I have to get one more Eliot reference in before this wraps up), from the next cubicle. The act of deciding what to click, to put on, to remove from its sleeve, to rewind side one is the thing that makes our proprieties the most important part of the activity. How does the process begin, and when does it end?
The 2024 releases listed below are in alphabetical order by title. Recommending the albums below for your perusal, saying they were the best releases of the year, or urging you to consider one or all for a worthy sonic experience would be impudent. I can sincerely express that each had something to say to me, was worth making, and reaffirmed my faith in the album/program/compilation/collection as a force for good.
All Born Screaming by St. Vincent
Ethan Iverson: Playfair Sonatas by Ethan Iverson
Luck and Strange by David Gilmour
The Horizons by Patrick O’Malley.
Brett Deubner, viola • BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra • Andrew Constantine
The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow by Charles Lloyd
Listen (3:17)
December 23, 2024