Categories: Misc

2024 in Review // Favorite Albums of Matt DeMello (Pt 2)

Matt DeMello

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.

See Part 1 here


Ariana Grande – Eternal Sunshine

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.

hey, ily! – Hey, I Loathe You

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

Ekko Astral – Pink Balloons

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.

Christopher Owens – I Want to Run Barefoot Through Your Hair (True Panther)

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.

Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More (4AD)

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.

Colby T. Helms – Tales of Misfortune

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.

MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

Blending seventies guitar, nineties rock, and lyrical winks, the Asheville native shines as a soft-spoken powerhouse – Garden & Gun

The Cure – Songs of a Lost World

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

Whettman Chelmets – A New Place (quiet details)

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 – Diamond Jubilee (Superior Viaduct / W.25TH)

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.

Kim Gordon – The Collective (Matador)

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.

Ilya S.

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