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Sputnikmusic Staff’s Q1 Playlist 2024

Welcome to the first installment for our 2024 quarterly playlist! Feel free to jam while reading what some of our newest staff writers as well as other longtime Sputstaffers had to say about their picks. Tell us what your favorites are in the comments, any new artists you may have discovered here, or let us know what we missed!

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Tracklist:

Allie X – “Girl With No Face”
Girl With No Face

On an album loaded with mid-tempo mad-bops, “Girl with No Face” truly takes the cake. A new-wave beat and sassy bass lines revel in the humid dark before venomous guitars crash through the bridge and fully kick shit into gear. The resulting finale is a noiry powertrip with surprising muscle and a killerrr groove. –neekafat

Anatole Muster – “blip blop”
blip blop

The alliterative onomatopoeia “blip blop” seems to cleave a space between the digital and the natural — the ‘blip’ indicating an ontology rooted in electronic music, the ‘blop’ indexing the kind of reverberation brought forth by the movement of an object in real space. Anyways, this vaguely hyperpop-ish song by very promising German accordion prodigy Anatole Muster (“Layers”, “auntie mabel”) and pretty-damn-good South African cornball M Field (“Andrew”, “Block Universe”) is beautiful and expansive and catchy and has a chorus in falsetto to show that softness can be its own climax. Bing bong! –robertsona

Bad Omens & Poppy – “V.A.N”
V.A.N

I normally find a lot of modern metal that incorporates so much industrial, pop, and electronic elements to be sterile and polished to a sheen, but “V.A.N” succeeds by smartly weaving all these elements together to something that is so loud, dumb, and fun as to be undeniable. The first time the chorus kicks in with its start-stop chugs and whooooooshy synths is absolutely sublime. –Odal

Brittany Howard – “Prove It To You”
What Now

Truly uncharted territory for the former Alabama Shakes frontwoman, “Prove It To You” is a sunny, joyously romantic house track. The song’s restless four-on-the-floor beat provides a bouncy undercurrent to Howard’s soulful vocals, which have never sounded so comfortable. Brittany Howard dance album when??? –neekafat

Brown Horse – “Paul Gilley”
Reservoir

One of the noteworthy occurrences of Q1 2024 has been the impressive records provided by a pair of bands from the English country scene (Brown Horse and The Hanging Stars, specifically). The former, hailing from East Anglia, gave us what is perhaps the finest song from either album with “Paul Gilley”. The tune’s namesake is an obscure Kentuckian who died young after allegedly ghostwriting some of Hank Williams’ most iconic songs, and, sure enough, while this might not quite be “the saddest song that Elvis ever heard“, there’s a distinct high lonesome energy to it. A perfect soundtrack for sipping on the preferred spirit of the genre, whether you spell it ‘whiskey’ or ‘whisky’. –Sunnyvale

Caligula’s Horse – “Golem”
Charcoal Grace

In trying to navigate a potential lose-lose situation (can’t risk putting a 10+ minute track on a casual playlist, but also can’t choose a song from an LP that might be treated out of context), “Golem” is my solution because of its undeniable groove. As a standalone pick, it’s like a djenty Dead Letter Circus (or less frivlous Nospun?); throughout the record, though, the quartet (and friends) sound stunningly tight-knit without feeling tightly-wound. –Jom

Francis of Delirium – “Real Love”
Lighthouse

“Real Love” is sweet, earnest, and tuneful, and has become firmly lodged in my head and heart during the past few weeks. In short, it’s a nice distillation of the simple appeal of Lighthouse. This is a really nice feel-good jam, and we can all use some of those. –Sunnyvale

glass beach – “puppy”
plastic death

“puppy” illustrates a twisted relationship with such pomp and clarity that it feels like 2024’s answer to “Semi-Charmed Life”. It absolutely nails that effervescent pop-rock sound of the ’90s before imploding into a devastating turn of a final chorus drenched in noise and caterwauling vocals. For all their progressive leanings, glass beach’s best trick might be tearing a pop tune inside out. –neekafat

Julia Holter – “These Morning”
Something in the Room She Moves

The first chorus of “These Morning” is the first and greatest oh moment the year has brought to me so far, a momentarily perfect rush of panoramic ecstasy (in this case, that of a twilit clifftop in full destitution and immensity), to be shortly transmuted into vertiginous misgivings, courtesy of Holter’s breathless just lie to mes and ominous chord changes. For an artist who has set her sights so recurrently on the sublime, at times distorting it into unrecognisable contortions (Aviary), at times smothering it in airless pop tedium (Have You in My Wilderness), this is as intuitive and transportive a triumph as any she’s produced. For perhaps the first time since Loud City Song, Holter is anyone‘s art pop go-to. –JohnnyoftheWell

Kenny Mason, Paris Texas, & See You Next Year – “Big Bank” (feat. Billy Lemos)
Big Bank

“Big Bank” feels like a song that could only be made by accident with a couple of friends hanging out to shoot the shit. The beat is woozy, sounding closer to a computer displaying some sort of error, and the rhymes are low-stakes braggadocio to make you laugh with the same excitement as seeing a pal land a kickflip for the first time. You can’t help but bob your head. –Odal

Laufey – “Goddess”
Goddess

“Goddess” might be a bit of one-trick pony, but it’s a helluva trick. Most of the track is typical for Laufey: soft and tender piano accompanies her trademark timbre that sounds plucked out of time, but goddamn does it provide a complete haymaker of a climax that swings harder and aims higher than any song she’s made before. –Odal

Nemedian Chronicles – “Born on a Battlefield”
The Savage Sword

This album has been my escape pod from reality lately, and honestly: I can’t get enough of this! Is this the essence of power metal? Most definitely. –garas

Prayer – “If I Can Feel”
Now I Know Paradise

Now I Know Paradise‘s somber opener (“Loss of Meaning”) took me back to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and how The Dream Academy’s instrumental “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” elevated the film’s museum scenes. That said, I have an affinity for “If I Can Feel”‘s mesmerizing ‘ambient breakbeat’ ethos and the ease with which the song’s manifold layers unfurl. –Jom

SENTRIES – “Force”
Snow as a Metaphor for Death

I could have picked any number of songs from SENTRIES’ note-perfect reproduction of the noise rock playbook, but “Force” is the nastiest, shrillest, unintelligibilestest banger of the lot and perfectly captures what I’d respectfully term the core fuckin’ appeal: insensible bullshit for ratty manics. Why do I get high? Shoot me with that piercing guitar blitz riff-mockery and waste every one of these idiot blood cells. –JohnnyoftheWell

Shygirl – “mr useless” (feat. SG Lewis)
Club Shy

Shygirl enters her “club era” with a no-bullshit EP and proves she can also deliver the goods with much more accessible tunes than she’s used to. “mr useless” is a simple house track with a catchy hook, and that’s really all we need to shake our asses. –dedex

sleepmakeswaves – “Super Realm Park”
It’s Here, But I Have No Names For It

I’ve enjoyed my time with F-Zero 99 (despite being unable to claim a first place finish due to lacking a ‘git gud’ gene), so when the band cited F-Zero as inspiration for “Super Realm Park”‘s synths, it was an enticing teaser. “SRP”‘s opening 100 seconds — along with a bombastic roll at 2:12 that segues into one massive Falcon Punch of a riff  — are two resplendent examples. It’s Here… is here on Friday! I will still suck at F-Zero 99. –Jom

SPRINTS – Heavy
Letter to Self

Early January is usually dead for music releases, but Irish band Sprints decided to sprint (lol) into 2024. Their garage punk sound, coupled with an always-effective “loud-quiet-loud” formula, is at its most anthemic and beltable on the well-named banger “Heavy”. –dedex

Tomato Flower – “Jem”
No

“Jem” is delicious for 45 seconds and dirty for 90, but I don’t mind: entropy writhing in the mess of a former prettiness half its size is a perfect atmosphere in which to finish an album titled NO. Boosted to great heights in its opening salvo by Jamison Murphy’s newfound lung power, “Jem” seems to ask with its very structure an unanswerable question, but somehow remains eminently satisfying as a wholesale experience. Dismantling the boundaries between Stereolab and American Football may not have been John Keats’ idea of negative capability, but he didn’t have Internet. –robertsona

TWICE – “NEW NEW” and “ONE SPARK”
With YOU-th

While daunting at times, new days are best approached as a fresh start. Waking up may be hard sometimes, but ultimately, anything new is a fresh opportunity for something good, something positive. The sparkling “NEW NEW” feels like TWICE extending their hands to guide you up, and into the bright, warm lights of a fresh day. It’s a heartwarming reminder that amidst all the chaos of life, TWICE are a stable force. When all feels lost, TWICE are there to bring some of those posi vibes I, and surely all of us, crave. We got that new new, new. –JohnnyoftheWell

Why do birds fly? This is not a question people often ask. If things have an obvious sparkle, we usually accept them as they are, and “ONE SPARK” is so bright that no words are really needed. Haha got you — here are more words: although this song opens with a very cute jangly guitar sound, the sugary hooks of TWICE’s nine superstars are so irresistible that I didn’t even notice it until maybe my thirtieth playthrough? “ONE SPARK”‘s pre-chorus is so good that the chorus feels like a comedown, and I am still sky high on it (baybee). –JesperL

Vitriol – “Survival’s Careening Internia”
Suffer & Become

While this isn’t exactly what I’m normally into, this particular full instrumental song symbolically paints what I’ve been through lately. The sense of momentary idyll, constantly increasing tension, the grind… yeah, this why I need music. –garas

Waxahatchee – “The Wolves”
Tigers Blood

“The Wolves” has a special quality to it that often accompanies the finest Americana songs — for all the sadness and bitterness which surface in its lyrics, while you’re listening, a certain kind of bliss ensues as time stands still for a while. It’s a tune which makes me ponder the past, the present, the future, and one that leaves me the space to do so in peace, if only for just under four minutes. –Sunnyvale 

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Participating staff writers:

dedex, garas, JesperL, JohnnyoftheWell, Jom, Odal, neekafat, robertsona, Sunnyvale

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