#The 50 best albums of 2024

#The 50 best albums of 2024

The 50 best albums of 2024 From Brat to Bird’s Eye and Cold Visions to Queridão, these are the albums we couldn’t ignore this year. By Alex Robert Ross, Cady Siregar, Jordan Darville, Raphael Helfand, Steffanee Wang, Wale Oloworekende, Shaad D’Souza, Lucas Villa, Colin Joyce, Emma Madden, Vivian Medithi, David Renshaw, Walden Green Every album…

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#What was NOISE?: UNSOUND, wrapped

#What was NOISE?: UNSOUND, wrapped

At UNSOUND 2024, a stacked lineup of far-flung artists gathered in Krakow to present their diverse interpretations of this year’s theme, NOISE. UNSOUND’s logo projected onto the wall of Kamienna 12. Photo by Michal Murawski.   Before Krakow’s annual UNSOUND festival kicked off on September 29, I sent its featured artists a deceptively simple question:…

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#A morning in Rafael Toral’s garden of drone

#A morning in Rafael Toral’s garden of drone

The Portuguese guitarist and soft-noise auteur brought the unassuming yet gorgeously complex sounds of his latest album, Spectral Revolution, to UNSOUND this week. Rafael Toral. Photo by Vera Marmelo.   Rafael Toral’s 30-year career as a solo recording artist is a story of perpetual growth — a more fluid line than most experimentalists take toward…

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