End of the Year Favorite Albums Label Mixes
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.
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See Part 1 here
Eternal Sunshine is the seventh studio album by American singer Ariana Grande. It was released on March 8, 2024, by Republic Records. It is her first new album in over three years, following the release of Positions. Written and produced by Grande, Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh, and Oscar Görres amongst others, Eternal Sunshine is a pop and R&B record with dance, synth-pop and house influences, characterized by mid-tempo synthesizers, subtle guitar and string elements. Grande derived the album’s title from the 2004 American film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She conceived the album as a record of both vulnerability and entertainment, inspired by her personal life experiences. Upon release, the album received acclaim from critics for its restrained vocals and music, and the emotional vulnerability of the subject matter, while some critiqued the songwriting as unrefined. Eternal Sunshine and its singles were nominated for three Grammy Awards, including for Best Pop Vocal Album.
On Hey, ily’s new record, the band wants you to walk away with at least this one takeaway: you must face the hurt head on, or it will continue to hurt forever. With that, the band’s sophomore effort Hey, I Loathe You! is a victory over pain, grief, and hate. The album was written in a two-and-a-half-year span, in which the group faced upsets, betrayals, and sudden changes. Throughout listening, you are navigated through, and exorcised of, the feelings that stem from these events. By the end, Hey, ily realizes that, while it’s okay (and even good) to have these emotions, you mustn’t try to run away from them, but rather face them
pink balloons is about disruption. But it’s also about Washington, DC, queerness, partying, money, violence, difference, irony, and religion. And also: fuck you.
The debut longplayer from Washington, DC-based Ekko Astral is a complex mesh of bubblegum noise punk and no-wave art rock that holds an elastic space for the knotty, tangled horrors of living in the imperial core. Their songs thrash with intense, necessary defiance against codified gender-based violence, their distortion and sibilance a direct response to the dangers outside our front doors.
Former member of Stanley Marsh 3′s Dynamite Museum, born and raised in The Children of God, Christopher Owens is an American song writer born in 1979.
Nobody Loves You More is Kim Deal’s debut album, although it’s technically not her first release under her own name – she self-released a 5-part, 10-song 7” vinyl series in 2013, and beyond that, she’s earned her stripes as early as the late 80s with bands Pixies and The Breeders. The long-awaited record’s creation began with its oldest songs, “Are You Mine?” and “Wish I Was,” which were written and originally recorded in 2011 and included in said vinyl series, shortly after Deal concluded Pixies’ ‘Lost Cities Tour’ and relocated to L.A.
At the bottom of the Southwest Virginia foothills, 21-year-old Colby T. Helms resides in an “underground house” built by his late father on land his family has owned for generations. A veteran performer in the Appalachian region by age 18, Colby wrote the songs that would become his upcoming semi-autobiographical concept album, ‘Tales of Misfortune’, as a senior in high school.
Blending seventies guitar, nineties rock, and lyrical winks, the Asheville native shines as a soft-spoken powerhouse – Garden & Gun
The album captures a myriad of moods – isolation, despair and that strong sense that something has been lost (a love, the soul of a nation, a relationship). That sounds like it could be a bummer but despite the heavy themes there’s a strength and dare I say, a resiliency, that comes through in this music. It captured me immediately – its one of those albums that when the needle hits the groove, it’s like it’s jabbing directly into the grooves in my brain – but the themes mean even more to me since last Tuesday – Bourbon & Vinyl
A singular artist, Whettman truly defies genre-boundaries, taking his experimental and visionary approach to music creation through many different guises. Largely guitar-focused and broadly covering drone/shoegaze/ambient, yet deconstructing each of those generic terms into something truly unique and purely his own. With releases on such diverse labels as Flaming Pines, Submarine Broadcasting, Girly Girl, Strategic Tape Reserve and more – each new release promises something very special and unexpected.
A New Place is exactly that – originating from an improvised, deeply poetic song from his young daughter and extrapolated into his own improvisations, thoughts circling of yearning for new things and the nostalgia for the past – ultimately creating powerful and moving pieces that are utterly compelling.
Cindy Lee is the performance and songwriting vehicle of Patrick Flegel (who previously fronted influential indie group Women). Over several albums, Flegel has combined delicate melodies and sheer beauty with moments of experimentation. With Diamond Jubilee, Flegel’s undeniable songcraft comes to the foreground, embracing a more instant connection and accessibility. Timeless tales of love and longing, surrounded by sticky hooks, take the listener on an unforgettable journey.
Legendary musician and multi-disciplinary artist Kim Gordon returns with her second solo album, The Collective, which will be released March 8th on Matador. Recorded in her native Los Angeles, The Collective follows Gordon’s 2019 full-length debut No Home Record and continues her collaboration with producer Justin Raisen (Lil Yachty, John Cale, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Charli XCX, Yves Tumor), with additional production from Anthony Paul Lopez. The album advances their joint world building, with Raisin’s damaged, blown out dub and trap constructions playing the foil to Gordon’s intuitive word collages and hooky mantras, which conjure communication, commercial sublimation and sensory overload.
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Emerald Comets are a Boston band led by Reuben Bettsak with dream pop, shoegaze elements.…
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