
About the Author:
Matt DeMello is a songwriter, producer, professional AI researcher and “grand theorist” of the Salieri Records label. His latest original album is 2022’s Confetti in a Coalmine, which was hailed by former Death Cab for Cutie guitarist and Ratboys producer Chris Walla as ”nuts and I’m not sure what time of day I’m supposed to put it on, but it’s far from awful!” You can check out his latest reissue of his debut albumand more at the Salieri Records bandcamp page. You can find bandcamp codes for some of the more prominent records in his discography via his GetMusic page while codes are still available.
Key:
- This list defines a “DIY” artist as “likely spends <$5,000 to release their record, has no large-outlet reviews, i.e. pitchfork, stereogum, etc.” Also please consider that this designation is totally “from vibe and online evidence” and not at all empirically verifiable.
Caveats:
- I listen to about five albums a day alongside a fairly demanding ~10h/day regular job. If something is good enough to get repeated, it ends up in the top ~70. The top 10 are played multiple times and the top 5 are played 20 – 50 times before year end, mostly because they seem to be worth the time investment but can tend to bias results toward May – October releases. Everything else left me very impressed and I can imagine myself coming back to in later years, cut off at 100 so there’s a sense of decency. I’m probably listing overall 1/5th of what I listen to all year.
- The songs lists are almost always underdeveloped and should be taken with a grain of salt approximately twice as large as whatever salt dosage you’re taking from the albums list.
- In terms of criteria, I try to go by gut instinct of what I think made the biggest impression on me personally – not just as someone who tries to make this stuff, but for more as someone who listens to it.
Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter
immortal ebt – S/T (LOVECRYPT)
It’s hard to find a truly collective online music community experience, but GetMusic.fm comes closest to a pre-oligarch… or as-far-away-from-oligarchs-as-possible, internet. I want to say this guy has to be the Jay-Z of this space — a simple HTML interface that lets you download Bandcamp code expediently, and now the genres that thrived on this as a Twitter hashtag truly come out to play. For my money, having only discovered this website a little over a year ago, only a shadow and idk were like discs one and two of the white album for the 1968 chaos that was 2024. Drenching their sound in a disorienting stock of plug-ins, guitar pedals, tampered recordings, and various samples ranging from string quartets to what can only be described as instruments played by souls in hell burning alive, immortal ebt proves the wildest imagination channeling GetMusic’s devoted and unique audience for a cohesive purpose.
Brat – CharliXCX
Gushy – Hard Banger Lovers Vol. 1 – 4
I’ve known Thompson Davis, one of the producers of this compilation, for over a decade. We were both on the podcast and editorial staff of the ill-fated BreakThru Radio in a story I will definitely save for the memoirs I’ll never publish while I’m alive. All to say, it was the kind of place that put a special spin on “co-worker music” and passion projects. I have a soft spot for many stars in the constellation of his discography, but true to its name, Hard Banger Lovers Vol. 1 -4 takes the proverbial cake. Eclectic is a small word for what’s accomplished across all four volumes whose best songs can trigger a few generous “What the fuck is this?”es at a party with mixed company. Godspeed to everyone with that aux cable for handling the aftermath.
glass beach – plastic death (Run for Cover)
plastic death – the second album by glass beach – is a follow-up record almost five years in the making. The band’s 2019 debut, aptly titled the first glass beach album, has over the years grown a cult fanbase for its unflinching depiction of queer life as mediated through social media, its oversized ambition, and its scrappy yet adventurous production. And while it took some time to arrive, plastic death sounds like the logical expansion of all the things that made their first album so special.
Years and years of relentless writing, tinkering demos, cancelled tours and a few lockdowns only strengthen the chaotic core of what makes glass beach’s maximalist approach work so well. Frontperson and primary songwriter J McClendon is joined by lead guitarist Layne Smith, bassist Jonas Newhouse and drummer William White to create something adventurous on each song. Trumpet, trombone, violin, and even marimba dance and bloom alongside the band’s own creative and dextrous instrumentation – a stunning, transformative creation that pulls from indie rock, jazz, prog, hardcore, metal, experimental, and beyond.
Can I Sit Here? – Armbruster (Dear Life Records)
After exploring the vast sanctuary of an empty church in 2022’s Masses, Armbruster inhabits a new setting with polar opposite qualities for his sophomore release with Dear Life Records, Can I Sit Here. The music, colored by distortion and cutting rawness befitting its subject matter, was created and recorded live in mono in the small back room of an apartment. Acoustic violin takes a backseat to Armbruster’s heavily distorted electric violin on this record as he improvises over textures simultaneously warm and dissonant. It is a reflection on loss and the feelings that follow a death, the delicate balance between despair, celebration, nostalgia, isolation, and kinship.
Mavi – Shadowbox
shadowbox is MAVI’s third studio album, released on August 9, 2024. The album truly reflects how MAVI was feeling during the making of the album. Slow, sad songs that truly represent the feelings he was feeling. shadowbox is yet another era of MAVI. And I feel more are yet to come.
Friko – Where we’ve been, Where we go from here (ATO Records)
Adding to Chicago’s long lineage of forward-thinking indie rock, Friko transform each song into a moment of collective catharsis. On their full-length debut, vocalist/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger sustain the combustible energy of their break-out single Crimson To Chrome, merging elements of post-punk, chamber-pop and experimental rock, magnifying their music’s exhilarating power with a barrage of spirited ensemble vocals. Poetic, explosive, and sublimely raw in feeling.
Riggings – EGG (Horse Complex Records)
This album is a prayer.
Egg is the first full-length from Durham, NC artist Riggings, the newest name sad-folk stalwart Alex Riggs has adopted for means of personal expression. It was recorded over three days in the summer of 2022 at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC under the watchful, owl-like eyes of Alli Rogers (Dirty Flowers, Alli Blois, engineer, recorder, and all around secret weapon for albums by Sluice, The Tallest Man on Earth, Bon Iver, many many others), with overdubs by some of Riggs’ favorite people (Mya Byrne and Swan Real offering ghostly beauty on “The High and Lonesome Racket”, Libby Rodenbough with string arrangements all over the record and vocals on “Old Bones”, and Landlady’s Adam Schatz on woodwinds moaning and soaring on “Sophie’s Moon”).
Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk (Mom + Pop)
Magdalena Bay, the Los Angeles-based duo of Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin, create magical pop music that floats in the ether of our collective social cosmos. While they call California home, their essence lies in the clouds, emitting unique yet familiar frequencies of synthesized nostalgia, kitschy catchiness, and warped neo-hooks. Suited for the times, Magdalena Bay blends the known and felt with innovative sonic landscapes – Plaid Room
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