Year in Review 2024: Music, Part 1

Best Miscellanies I Listened to in 2024

• Expert In a Dying Field (Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks) by The Beths (2023)

[For my review of the album itself, see Year in Review 2022: Music; this is just for the tracks added to the deluxe edition.]

I’m sure there’s some good reason why it has become the standard in the music industry for deluxe editions to be released a year after the original issue, so that everyone is now being asked to purchase a more expensive version of an album they almost certainly already own, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. The whole thing feels like a cash grab, and rarely are the extra tracks worth the extra dough.

That being said, for new listeners, this edition (at time of writing) is only $2 more than the original and pays for itself in just the first 2 tracks, beautiful acoustic renditions of two of the best songs on the albums, “I Told You That I Was Afraid” and “When You Know You Know.” “A Real Thing” and “Watching the Credits” were both already released as singles (don’t even get me started on singles that don’t seem like they’re going to be on albums ending up an albums) but again, if you don’t already have them they’re quite good. “Keep the Distance,” a demo of an unreleased song, didn’t grab me immediately but grew on me on 2nd listen. That and the acoustic demo of “I Want To Listen” succeed on their lo-fi charms, with “Keep the Distance”‘s drum machine percussion and “I Want to Listen”‘s mock trumpet solo, while the demo for “Expert in a Dying Field” just feels incomplete and doesn’t really offer a reason to listen to it instead of the excellent album version. The demo for “2am,” meanwhile, while not reaching the emotional heights of the album version still manages to get me, mainly because it’s one of the most beautiful songs ever written, demo or not.

So, if you’ve yet to pick up this album, and especially if you don’t already own the two singles, I promise you won’t regret springing for this deluxe edition. For those who already own the album and already spend too much money on music to which they don’t do a great job of making the time to listen, if you buy all the extra tracks individually (minus “Expert in a Dying Field (Demo)” which you really don’t need) you’ll still be saving a few bucks; if you’ve already got “A Real Thing” and “Watching the Credits,” that’s a fiver in the bank. I’m all for supporting artists, but that doesn’t mean we have to support cash grabs cooked up by publishers and retailers. Well, honestly, maybe it does…For what it’s worth, I bought the whole damn thing.

• “We Looked Like Giants” by The Beths, Pickle Darling & Car Seat Headrest (2023)

• “Short Time Skies” by Bob Boilen (2024)

• SABLE, by Bon Iver (2024)

Took a few listens to really be sold on it, but ultimately…it’s fine? Perfectly pleasant music, some good lyrics. But it’s not “I’ve been waiting for this for 5 years” good. If this had been released as a companion to i,i, especially in the first year of the pandemic, I think it would’ve hit harder. But now, I don’t know, it’s just not quite the vibe.

It also really stretches the idea of what actually defines Bon Iver versus any other Justin Vernon project. I’ve said elsewhere that For Emma arguably has more in common with Hazeltons than with Bon Iver, and yet Bon Iver still feels like a distinct musical identity separate from his earlier solo stuff. This EP, at least “Things” and “S P E Y S I D E”, really challenges that notion, and not in a productive way. Aside from being “Justin Vernon sings over acoustic guitars and it’s after 2007” (and the brief bit of horns on “Awards Season”) I don’t know what qualifies this as a Bon Iver record rather than just a Justin Vernon solo record, and I feel like releasing it under the Bon Iver moniker is doing a disservice to that identity.

(That was probably a bit harsh, now that I’ve gotten some distance from my initial disappointment I think this EP is actually pretty good. And there’s more going on in “Things” than I gave it credit for (“S P E Y S I D E” really could be off of Hazeltons though, albeit with slightly nicer production)).

• “The Parting Glass” by boygenius & Ye Vagabonds (2023)

• “5 A.M.” by claire nelson/The Bullroarer (2009)

• “Drown With Me” by EB (2021)

• “Never Be Alone (feat. J.O.B.)” by EB (2020)

EB had a moment back in 2019 with Rodeo Queen (led by the slightly dark but infectiously whimsical single, “La Criox”) and then, I thought, completely disappeared. I’d check her Bandcamp every once and a while hoping something new would show up, and nothing did. Finally this summer I decided to determine once and for all what had happened to her, and quickly discovered that she’s still around, she just stopped using Bandcamp.

Also apparently she does metal now, so…that’s something. Didn’t really vibe with her two singles from last year but I’m curious to see where she takes it.

• Samorost3 Pre-Remixes EP by Floex (2015)

I made an effort last year to try to get through some of my way-backlist, and apparently I’d been sitting on this for 9 years. I’ve been listening to Floex (aka Tomáš Dvořák) since the mid-2000s after playing Samorost2 (I think, that’s the one I have the soundtrack for anyway), but for whatever reason I haven’t gone out of my way to keep up with him. This was a nice reminder that there’s plenty more where that came from whenever I feel like getting around to it.

• “Toxic Brain” by Fox (2013)

• “Little Al” by Frail Talk (2024)

• “’93 or ’94” by Frances Cone (2020)

• Lunch at Dune EP by Gordi & SOAK (2024)

It’s a real mixed bag here. I love Gordi and SOAK, but “Lunch at Dune,” while fine, doesn’t give me anything I didn’t get from Inhuman or Grim Town (and not even much of that.) “Apple,” meanwhile, makes some great choices with the production, but the lyrics are kind of insufferable, a singsongy, childish ditty that stretches its core (oops) image to its absolute breaking point.

[Edit: completely missed that “Apple” is a cover, so I guess I can’t blame Gordi for the lyrics. They’re still bad though, at least in this context.]

But it does get better. “Reverie” has just enough going on to stay interesting (and is, I think, just a better song at base level than “Apple” or “Lunch”), and “Lunch at Dune (Lowboy version)” once again proves what I’ve known since I was 12 years old and got a free trial of some audio editing software, which is that lowering the pitch & tempo of a song will always make it sound good (try “Lights” by Journey at like 80%, it sounds like a lost Dobie Gray track).

The real star of the show is “Lunch at Dune (Castle at Bohermeen Version),” which finally gives the song some much-needed momentum via a glitchy percussion loop. I went back to listen to the studio version after and it feels completely lifeless in comparison. It’s beyond me why they didn’t just go that route in the first place.

All in all, a little disappointing, but at least it’s not all bad.

• “Philip Seymour Hoffman Died Today” by Holland Public Library (2020)

• dissection lesson by Home is Where meets Record Setter (2022)

The Record Setter tracks on this split EP are unsurprisingly great, but for sheer impact it’s hard to beat Home is Where’s explosive call to action, “names.”

• “I’ve Never Known Alice (B-Side)” by Damien Jurado (2024)

• Light Sides EP by Angie McMahon (2024)

• Fun and Games by Mega Mango (2023)

I’ll admit I prefer the more straightforward rock production on Hit the Dirt (see below), and indeed their Audiotree performance (see further below), to the shinier, spacier sound here (especially on “Boggle” and “Blurt,” whose Audiotree versions just have more oomph to them), but the songs are still excellent, and these versions are growing on me. I do hope their debut album (out hopefully sometime this year?) finds a good balance between the two styles. Too often rock bands polish their sound so much that they buff out everything that makes it interesting, and I’d hate to see that happen here.

• Hit The Dirt by Mega Mango (2018)

Pop craftsmanship with a rock sensibility that reminds me of Lady Lamb, and not just because Crow Costello’s voice sometimes (and only sometimes) sounds so similar to Aly Spaltro’s that if you had told me “Feel This Way” was an unreleased track from After I might’ve believed you.

Mega Mango have that same raw forcefulness without sacrificing melody or musical complexity, from the syncopated rhythms on “I Do Too” to that ungodly bass drop on the chorus of “OMG!” (seriously, you have to listen that song on good headphones or speakers, it’s an astounding effect). It’s these compositional quirks, along with Costello’s idiosyncratic delivery and deceptively broad stylistic range, that have made Mega Mango easily my most listened-to band in the last year.

(My one nitpick: the ending of “OMG!” completely destroys the vibe of that song; there’s power in going slow but heavy, and the switch to a more frenetic sound at the end just takes all that power away. If you stop it at about 2:13.4 and then add like .5 seconds of white noise it’s basically a perfect song.)

• Mega Mango on Audiotree Live by Mega Mango (2023)

I don’t normally buy Audiotree sessions, but I had to have these versions of these songs, as they’re almost without exception better than the album versions. And this was the set that got me into the band in the first place.

• “Sheets” by Mega Mango (2023)

• “Something in the Air” by Mega Mango (2019)

• You Spent All Your Love (Anniversary Edition) by Mega Mango (2023)

And if they’re not one of your new favorite bands by this point then I guess you’re just hopeless.

• “11-06-21 / 21-03-00” by mhz (2022)

• Rearview by Not Jupiter (2022)

• A Day On The Road by Lena Raine (2018)

• “Punkrocker (feat. Iggy Pop)” by Teddybears (2006)

• A Decoration by TORRES & Fruit Bats (2024)

Definitely more of a “put on in the background and feel the vibes”-type album, which is a big shift from TORRES’s usual output, but not bad, and on 2nd listen “Still Want More” and “The Fox” are the only two that don’t really do it for me.

• I Am Only a Tiny Noise by Levi Weaver (2012)

• “Sick, or Determined?” by Levi Weaver (2008)