Best of 2024 - Jeff MacCallum
For 2024, the Cups N Cakes Network is approaching our year-end lists a little differently: we’ve asked some of our volunteers to tell us a bit about their favourite releases this year. For our penultimate article, Cups N Cakes founder and the current maestro of our Quick Picks column Jeff MacCallum runs through his year in music.
A Letter From CnC Founder, Jeff MacCallum
Hello Loyal Readers!
The best of 2024 lists are coming out. I love this time of year because it allows me to reflect on the past twelve months and revisit some records that piqued my interest while also discovering some I’d missed. I listen to more albums and EPs than most so looking back is important for me because it always seems like I’m looking ahead to the next big thing… my next obsession, if you will.
So what do I, Jeff MacCallum, believe were the best Canadian music releases this year? Let’s start simply with the best album of the year, Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee. It’s no secret that this record took the world by storm but it was for good reason. The inspiring nod to what I like to call the “AM era” is truly special when paired with the dreamy psychedelic sonics and experimentation better heard on past Cindy Lee records. For the first time, Patrick Flegel found the perfect recipe by bringing the nods to 60s girl bands (like The Shangri-Las or The Ronettes) more front and centre but still keeping some of the wilder experimental sounds. Listening to this album is the closest thing I can relate to a “waking dream”. It’s not just the best album of the year in Canada, it’s the best album of the year, period. I’d go as far to say that this is the best album I’ve heard in over a decade.
Now that that’s done, what about some of the other releases? What about some you may have never heard about? Well I’m looking at a list too big to discuss each release at length so I’m gonna hurl a ton of stuff at you and then leave you with a Spotify playlist.
A new Vancouver band called smush put out their debut record and it is a treasure. if you were here i'd be home now features a hazy dreamscape ambience with powerful noise moments and shoegaze vocals. I called them the best new band of 2024 in my “Quick Pick” review and I stand by that statement still today (bad news… I just read they moved to NYC so we won’t get to cover them in the future). I will also put the posthumous release from Richard Laviolette firmly in my top five this year. I wrote one of my first long form reviews in years about this album because I had so many thoughts and emotions surrounding it from the first moment I hit play.
Then there’s the retro “AM” shift in style that Toronto psych mainstay ROY delivered. Spoons for the World is another album that beautifully harnesses the past. It boasts expert songcraft and crooner nostalgia seeped in mild psychedelia. Finally, rounding out my top five is the amazing Jon McKiel record Hex. Another mature and innovative record, where McKiel teamed up with Jay Crocker (JOYFULTALK) to give us modern psych-folk that is as beautiful as anything I heard this year.
This year also saw the long awaited debut albums from two Edmonton acts, Aladean Kheroufi and Sean Davis Newton. Kheroufi’s album, Studies In A Dying Love, is a soulful look on the end of a relationship. Kheroufi puts a modern twist on R&B and Soul and he does it with style. Newton on the other hand, and his incredible album, Bird Brain, is cinematic and intricate. The album sounds massive and Newton’s idiosyncratic voice shines over expertly composed musical forays that could fit right in on Broadway. It’s calculated, confident and cohesive from start to finish.
Yikes. I’m gonna go over my 500 word limit. Oh well. Prepare for the rest at break neck speed!
You Doo Right dropped two gems on our laps this year. Their third album, From the Heights of Our Pastureland, and The Sacred Fuck EP. The album is another amazing continuation of their library, but what I heard on the EP blew my mind as it opens with twangy-country vibes that bring to mind Spaghetti Western scores. This sound pairs impeccably well with the Krautrock and Post-Rock sounds that have fuelled all past You Doo Right releases and I hope they continue to tinker with twang.
EPs eh? A great way to discover new bands. I fell in love with the EP from Shad, Canada’s Hip-Hop ambassador. But also discovered some great bands with EPs from Edmonton’s Saint Idiot, Calgary’s Witch Victim, Regina’s Tim Bruce Johnson, and Winnipeg’s Fold Paper. I wrote about all these EPs in the “Quick Picks” column and believe these are all releases that deserve a listen.
Best folk? Well… it’s a tie. I absolutely adored Mayday, Myriam Gendron’s atmospheric look at motherhood (and it’s only gotten better after my one month in France helped me dust off my French). The other folk album is Jennifer Castle’s Camelot. I’ve never been more enamoured with a voice than I am with Castle’s. She epitomizes folk music with incredible poetry and a voice so gorgeous that it makes those lyrics a joy to ponder.
For danceable music, a genre I normally steer away from, two albums stood out. First, Annie-Claude Deschênes gave us just enough punk subtly peppered into LES MANI È RES DE TABLE to get me engaged with what is clearly a dance album, and Patche used krautrock to trick me into loving their amazing dance album, Document.
Ok… I know I’m picking too many records but I love Post-Punk when it’s done right and two records this year fit that bill. First, Stucco’s LP1 is Post-Punk perfection, I can’t get over the energy of this record and how desperately your body needs to move when it’s being played. I love when post-punk rhythms are catchy and danceable. Second was Sham Family’s debut album, A Deaf Portrait of Peace, which shifted between Noise-Rock, Power-Pop, and Post-Punk and cemented this act as one of the most exciting newer bands in Canada.
Best Pop record was a no-brainer as the Montreal “indie supergroup” Laughing delivered Because It's True, this year’s best alt-pop record by far. And how about they said it would rain…, the hip-hop masterpiece from Clairmont The Second? This record is truly breathtaking and flows from start to finish in a way rarely heard in hip-hop. It’s a record meant to be heard (not just played) as experimental R&B mashes up with hip-hop and lyrically, Clairmont The Second is at his introspective best.
Finally, Experimental music… the catch-all genre for artistic music that is too different to quantify. Kee Avil’s sophomore album, Spine, is pure magic with sound design that moves between eerily beautiful and deeply unsettling. Also, Pixel Geometry, the experimental electronic record from Edmonton’s Kaunsel had me enthralled as I repeatedly listened to the mix of free jazz drums with strange bleeps and bloops that shouldn’t make sense but was so captivating that I’d stop everything I was doing to give each note my full attention.
What about experimental/noise/art-punk, you say? I had to squeeze this in because I just started listening to the first album in ten years from SHEARING PINX and it absolutely rips! The due date for this write up is yesterday and I started listening to this record today but I already know it’s going to catapult up my list of favourites from 2024 and I know I’ll still be playing it well into 2025 so I added this at the last second.
Ok, so I’m sorry this was way longer than it was supposed to be but I just needed to share every release in this article with you fine readers. Please feel free to check out the Spotify Playlist I made but just know that neither the Cindy Lee or SHEARING PINX albums are on that platform… and while I’m discussing Spotify, please just use the playlist as a way to discover something you love then consider buying the album at your local record store or on Bandcamp.
See you in the new year!
Jeff