Favourite EPs of 2024

Music
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What were your EPs of the year?

I make way more time for albums than EPs so am always missing lots of good ones. There’s a shocking lack of guitar music or hip hop on my list. That said, there is plenty of glorious pop, techno, drum & bass, ambient and electronic.

1. Djrum - Meaning’s Edge
Mind-blowingly detailed and inventive electronic music. What amazed me most were the flutes, played by Djrum, then chopped up and arranged fantastically.
2. Shygirl - Club Shy
I love how short, immediate and essential these pop/r’n’b tunes are. Shygirl hits the club and this is at least on a par with Nymph, which was my favourite album of 2022.
3. Verraco - Breathe… Godspeed
Experimental techno/bass/IDM of the highest quality from the Colombian producer. The tunes start intricately and build into monster bangers. Sí, idealízame is other-worldly.
4. Tove Lo - HEAT
I hadn’t really checked out Tove Lo before this. Great pop music with two massive bangers: the title track is like a lost 90s No. 1 chart hit and Desire channels late 90s/early 00s trance.
5. Earth Trax - Amnesia EP
Bartosz Kruczyński invokes early-mid 90s electro, trance and breaks across this EP. I love how simple, direct and spacey it sounds. He also released a brilliant ambient album on Balmat this year.

6-24
  1. Coral Morphologic & Nick León - Projections of a Coral City
  2. Tim Reaper & Dwarde - Early Nights EP
  3. Craven Faults - Bounds
  4. Koreless - Deceltica
  5. Gyrofield - These Heavens
  6. Kosmischer Läufer - Track Club EP
  7. Acid Klaus - P.T.S.D by Proxy
  8. Tim Reaper - Raw Energy Movements
  9. Llyr - Dichromanticism
  10. Objekt - Ganzfeld
  11. Shed - Applications
  12. The Woodleigh Research Facility - Vous Du Music
  13. Kangding Ray - Polar EP
  14. Little Simz - Drop 7
  15. Hevlaran - Model to Excite
  16. Scotch Rolex, Shackleton & Omutaba - The Three Hands of Doom
  17. Charlie Coxedge - Anaphora
  18. King Krule - SHHHHHHH!
  19. Olof Dreijer & Diva Cruz - Brujas EP
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Djrum - Frekm, Pt. 1

4

Fer Franco

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Verraco - Breathe…Godspeed

By a mile.

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Soshi Takeda - Secret Communication

It’s 41 minutes long so not sure why it’s classed as an EP, but who cares.

Deep house master who only uses 80’s and 90’s hardware.

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Shy girl
Tove Lo
Metronomy
Amaarae
Saya Gray
Marina Satti

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A few favourites:

Laura Jane Grace & The Mississippi Medicals - Give An Inch EP

Punk rock. Laura Jane Grace from Against Me! with bassist Matt Patton, drummer Mikey Erg and vocalist/percussionist Paris Campbell Grace for this six track EP.

Mouse Teeth - Ten Of Swords

“I would pick all the skin from my face if it made me calm.” Art-rock singer-songwriter debut EP full of rage and despair.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - Into The Wild

Excellent bluegrass/pop stuff.

The Burning Hell (Ariel, Mathias and Shotgun Jimmie) - Hardly Working

Alt-folk/indie. Prince Edward Island’s finest with an EP of songs about work, a companion piece to the Ariel Sharratt and Mathias Kom Never Work album

Citric Dummies - Trapped in a Parking Garage

Four tracks of thrashy punk from Minneapolis.

Kathryn Joseph - for you who are the wronged (lomond campbell remixes)

Remixed songs from Joseph’s last album given minimal electronica reworks by longtime collaborator Lomond Campbell.

Eilidh Bradley Project - Eilidh Bradley Project

Jangly guitar dream pop supergroup demos from the early 90s. Eilidh Bradley was part of the early 90s Manchester music scene, from the band Sky Walker/Solar Race. In 1991, she recorded some demos with Simon Wolstencroft (The Fall), Martin Duffy (Primal Scream), Chris Bridgett (Dubsex/G.O.D./Cold Water Swimmers) and Andy Rourke (The Smiths) which weren’t released at the time then were recently found again by Chris Bridgett, some 10 years after Eilidh’s death (and Duffy and Rourke no longer with us either).

The Woodleigh Research Facility - Vous Du Music

Previously unheard “chugging, acid-tinged electronica recorded between 2016 and 2017” from Nina Walsh and the much-missed Andrew Weatherall, aka The Woodleigh Research Facility.

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A few in the order I heard them

Sinews - Reanimated
Angry, raw, noisy early 90s post-hardcore by @bozo

Softcult - Heaven
Great dreampop / light shoegaze

CLAMM - Disembodiment
Angry, raw garage

Citric Dummies - Trapped in a Parking Garage
Pissed off, self-deprecating punk. The kind of thing that would be in the background of Jackass if it were made today. (Make sure you check out their album Zen and the Arcade of Beating Your Ass)

Night Swimming - No Place to Land
Beautiful, transportive dream pop that feels special / fully-formed / a cut above your standard release in this genre. Very excited for what they do next.

Pest Control - Year of the Pest
Crossover thrash. Just a blast.

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Thanks!

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Yer Bon Iver lad emerged from his log cabin in the woods with a nice EP. Seems like someone has finally stolen his vocoder which is a big bonus!

I think that might literally be the only EP I’ve listened to this year. Losing my indie cred :frowning:

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I like this one. Think I lumped it in with the albums by mistake!

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Love that Woodleigh Research Facility EP. Bittersweet that it includes (presumably previously unreleased) Weatherall music.

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Night Swimming are so good.

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Sensational. Considered putting it in my albums list.

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No one mentioned the two John Glacier ones. Absolute magic.

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Another point for the blog!

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:heart_eyes:

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Early R.E.M. lyrics needed work.

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Paint — Gift Shop

Fuzzy power pop / indie rock / dreampop

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Not sure there’s anyyhing I didn’t or wouldn’t enjoy in the OP, which is no surprise really seeing the crossover in our lists in the monthly votes. Somehow missed Verraco, so looking forward to diving in there.

Otherwise, my order would vary a little (Little Simz would be top 5 for me, loved the new direction which was exactly what I wanted from her after finding No Thank You a bit of a chore) but I can’t disagree with the top two being outstanding.

A few others I’ve enjoyed

Pop

Fer Franco - Ritos de Paso

Already mentioned a few times in this thread but without description, so just wanted to underline this is a great and fun EP of Guatemalan experimental, genre-hopping electronic pop featuring the ever-brilliant Mabe Fratti.

Saya Grey - QWERTY II

Again, mentioned earlier but this is another EP which fits a disproportionate number of musical ideas on its short runtime, a dizzying and sometimes brilliant collage of R&B, pop and tons of other elements.

Yetsuby - b_b

As @BigAl described it on the new releases thread, this is weird, unique Korean club music, from one half of Salamanda. Resident Advisor’s review (as a recommended release) likens one track to Julia Holter remixing Kenny G, but lands ultimately on AG Cook as the most plausible comparison for electronic music this creative.

Jazz

Amy Gadiaga - All Black Everything

Vibrant neo-soul-jazz from a Parisian (now London-based) bassist-singer-composer, definitely one to watch on this strength.

Flammer Dance Band - Gynger

7-piece afrobeat from Norway. Funky as hell.

Techno or thereabouts

Peverelist - Pulse Phase / Pulse Echo EP

A quiet year for Livity Sound was still capable of producing a couple of cracking EPs from Peverelist, with 4 Pulse EPs in two years now whichcould probably have been one of the electronic albums of the year if they’d all been rolled together.

Sharda - REVAMP

I had a lot of fun with these UK Bass / garage bangers.

Polygonia - Da Nao Tian Gong

Inventive and playful technicolour techno - actually is technocolour a thing?

SHXCXCHCXSH - DO

Swedish avant-techno; I loved their recent album and together with this cracking EP they are one of the artists of the year for me.

Pearson Sound - Which Way Is Up

Really banging EP this with a bit of everything, from Miami Bass to footwork to jungle,.

Acid

Come on you guys let’s have some apex acid.

Dr. Rubinstein - Rubi’s Acid Spa

Pye Corner Audio - Acid 1/ Acid 2

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