Thomas Blake

Permissions Icon Permissions Abstract Complex eukaryotes vary greatly in the mode and extent that their evolutionary histories have been shaped by the microbial communities that they host.

Such a perfectly realised amalgamation of concept, melody and landscape is vanishingly rare, but on Cloud Walking, Alice Boyd achieves it with an easy grace.

The closing instrumental on Adam Finchler’s ‘The Room’ somehow manages to sound like Arthur Russell in a cocktail shaker. It puts a truly weird seal on what is already one of the most unusual, distinctive and delightful albums of the year.

With ‘Music for Space Age Shopping’, David A. Jaycock has achieved something quietly spectacular: an album rooted in highly specific locales and timeframes which nonetheless allows you to drift into nostalgia or to imagine better possible futures.

Windborne have an almost supernatural grasp of harmony singing, and To Warm the Winter Hearth is an impressive, evocative work of art.

Thomas Blake shares his Top 10 albums of 2024, including releases from Daisy Rickman, Milkweed, Elijah Minnelli, Jacken Elswyth, Isik Kural, Laura J Martin, Shovel Dance Collective, Myriam Gendron, Tucker Zimmerman, Landless and Folklore Tapes Ceremonial Counties Series.

Yosef Gutman & Peter Broderick didn’t take long to build up an enviable musical rapport, and River of Eden is an album that exudes a quiet confidence, a calm focal point at the centre of a stormy world.

Brigid Mae Power’s ‘Songs for You’ is a timeless record filled with brilliant moments that will melt the heart of even the most cynically covers-album-averse listener.

The true genius of Ross Ainslie’s ‘Pool’ lies in how it reconciles its stylistically varied individual tracks with an overall mood that remains consistent—and consistently engaging, something he pulls off with panache, originality, and an often breathtaking range of musical invention.

Everything The Memory Band do, however varied, is done to a high level. Their music is always interesting, often strange, and usually beautiful, and A Common Treasury is the perfect place to hear it.