I wish I could wish you well

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2024.

#32 : Iechyd Da - Bill Ryder-Jones

There’s a gorgeous and affecting juxtaposition throughout the ex-Coral man’s most ambitious solo album yet. The backings are sumptuous, with strings, pianos, twinkling percussion and even a children’s choir on more than one occasion – but Ryder-Jones’s voice is broken down, dejected, desiccated. He trudges through these songs like a man unable to lift his gaze from the cracked paving stones – and yet the idealism and ready beauty of his backings are like the sun on his face, encouraging him to look up.

I quite like aspects of The Coral's stuff and I've heard this is a good album, but it's not one I caught up with during the year. Expectations are quite high though...

Hmmm - I like all the ingredients here, but I'm not 100% convinced by the end result. He's got a lovely voice (I was reminded of Bright Eyes) with some decent lyrics and he uses some fine piano, strings and backing vocals but the overall result all felt a bit aimless. There's a lot of beauty here in the detail, but it doesn't quite work as a whole for me on first listen - although I can see it could easily be a grower. "This Can't Go On" did jump at me as a lovely track though - and I like the album cover.

Wikipedia tells us it's his fifth album (and his first in five years) and the title means "good health" in Welsh. The critics were very taken with it and it charted here (#30) and, quite obviously in Switzerland (#69).

"Customers also listened to" Gruff Rhys, Marika Hackman, Sprints and Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band - well, I've heard of Gruff but that's all I've got there. I feel I should probably listen to this again to see if I can tap into its essence, but it feels unlikely it's going to happen.

#31 : My Light, My Destroyer - Cassandra Jenkins

“Oh, one look is all it takes,” Cassandra Jenkins sings on Omakase, one of many songs on her third album about living and dying by someone else’s gaze (or even, as on Petco, seeking solace in the eyes of a lizard). Although My Light … has more melodic heft (and tentative rockers) than her last album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, it still trembles with that kind of heart-in-mouth immediacy, with Jenkins the ever-alert antenna for interventions both divine and domestic.

This is another one I've listened to (three for the year) - I mostly checked it out because I thought I'd like music produced by someone with that name. And it turned out I did, with my comment being "I quite liked this with it’s kinda mellow St Vincent sound".

And I think I liked it even more on a second listen, but I'm not sure I quite got it right with a St Vincent sound - maybe Phoebe Bridger or Soccer Mommy would be closer. For me this has the structure that I thought was missing from Clarissa Connelly whilst also having quite a few quirky details which provide intrigue. It's also got some absolutely gorgeous strings on it with "Hayley" being a beautiful track - it would be a lovely late night album (if I ever stayed up late listening to music any more).

Wikipedia tells us this is her third album and the songs were "written with a metaphorical overview effect that discusses personal emotions" - you obviously know what the overview effect is, right? The critics liked it a lot (there's 24 milliPeppers on their comments alone) and she was rewarded with her first chart placing here (#67).

"Customers also listened to" Jake Xerxes Fussell, Jessica Pratt, Half Waif and Rosai - some cool names there. I liked this though - it's nicely floaty without being insubstantial.

#30 : Endlessness - Nala Sinephro

The cosmically spiritual music of Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane and others has been a central touchstone for London’s resurgent jazz scene in the last decade, but none of its members has ventured quite so far out of the solar system as Nala Sinephro. Her 2021 debut album Space 1.8 was a classic and she matched it with another: Endlessness seemed to drift off into heaven itself, landing in a vale of loveliness, the air filled with strings, gentle saxophone and her signature burbling electronics. It’s so difficult to make purely beautiful music not seem hellishly sentimental or twee, but Sinephro’s arrangements, with space for improvisation, are alert and vital.

I feel I'm either going to love this or going to be annoyed by its nothingness - it will be intriguing to see which it is!

Hmmm - nothingness would be a bit harsh, but I certainly don't love it. There's actually quite a lot to it and it's obviously all been lovingly and skilfully crafted - but in such a way to be ethereal and feeling just out of reach. I agree with The Guardian that it's not "hellishly sentimental or twee", but I think I'd suggest it does feel somewhat twee over the course of its 45 minutes. I didn't hate it, but I'm absolutely fine never listening to it again.

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry on the album, but it does have one on Nala - she's 28 years old, Belgian and with a piano teacher mother and jazz saxophonist father, it feels like she had no choice where she was going to end up. It does mention the album in passing, but only to give us some great names of the people involved - Nubya Garcia, Natcyet Wakili and Wonky Logic (although I'm not sure Mr Logic is his real name).

"Customers also listened to" Ryan Keberle, Faux Tapes, Nubya Garcia and Adam Miller - not a set of people I'm aware of, to no-one's surprise. And if Nala is anything to go by, things will stay that way - it's fine, but just not something I need in my life.

So this time we had three albums which all felt like they were aiming to be low-key and they had varying degrees of success in hitting the sweet spot. Cassandra was the easy winner for me - I really liked her slightly quirky ethereality. 

#35-33 - Well, I liked one of them!
#29-27 - A varied mix