music 2024 : TOP 7 live albums

2024 added a good amount of great live releases to my collection. I could have easily saved myself several hard decisions, if I just made this a list of my favorite dozen of them. Kikagaku Moyo, Temple Fang, Li Jianhong, Martina Verhoeven could have all been included. But then there would still be more, so let's just except that this is what it is - the holy, unshakable, final selection of my...

TOP 7 LIVE ALBUMS 2024:

1. SWANS - Live Rope
   
   
   

   No, Swans aren't getting significantly quieter or more compact yet! In a transformed guise of sound, which unites a newly found clarity with a still almost unfathomable heaviness, characterized by basses, lap steel guitars and Michael Gira playing on acoustic strings "Live Rope" presents the Noise titans as utterly glorious as I remember them from their last show in Hamburg. The first double track "Rope/The Beggar" alone clocks in at over seventy-eight minutes. And that's only one half of this unbelievable album. Admittedly it's not the first time that I smell the possible peak of all their qualities coming together, but come on: Can the rush of incomprehensible bliss get any greater?
   
   
   
2. SOLAR TEMPLE & DEAD NEANDERTHALS - Embers Beget the Divine
   
   
   

   Not enough musical hypersomnia yet? Here's another fifty minutes mighty piece (in three movements) by the two adventurous Dutch duos Solar Temple and Dead Neanderthals, recorded live at Roadburn 2022. Hypnotically repetitive, yet rich and colourful in detail this "light-flooded cathartic flight beyond the constraints of time" unveils a "skyscraping wall made of Psychedelic Sludge, clerical chants, Post Metal and Blackgaze".
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. TORI AMOS - Diving Deep Live
   
   
   

   However ginormous the two above may feel; if you want me to guess which album here I will probably listen to the most in the long run, my bet is definitely on Tori in the thirty-fifth year of her career. "Pandora's Aquarium", "Spring Haze", "Lady In Blue", "Mother Revolution"... Not only does she serve an irresistable selection of sixteen hits and hidden gems on this two and a half hour strong double album, but she also does it in fantastic, extravagantly long piano/bass/drums trio versions.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. ALICE COLTRANE - The Carnegie Hall Concert
   
   
   

   If we're talking historic relevance the winner of this list has to be the first complete official release of Alice Coltrane's legendary Carnegie Hall performance in 1971. In its first half she looks into the future, playing harp on pieces inspired by Indian spirituality. The second half with her on piano honours the legacy of her late husband John Coltrane. It's absolutely magical, and if there had been enough microphones to actually record all instruments on stage properly, I might have ranked this even higher.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. ZAÄAR - Musique Cryptique (Live in Liège)
   
   
   

   From the immortal Spiritual Jazz pioneer of the past to the exciting present of Avantgarde Free Jazz: Zaäar expressively improve a timeless stream of mystical tribalistic trance, including santur, zurna, zither, flutes, electronic sounds, throat singing and animal noises. All this is captured inside the unique atmosphere of a natural cave. "What a hammering meditation! What a monstrosity of freedom! What a wildfire of inspiration!" And everywhere Alice Turiyasangitananda's presence can still be felt like a tangible resonance. A magical trip into Neptunian Jazzimalism!
   
   
   
   
   
6. GUSH - Afro Blue
   
   
   
   No, we're not done yet! There's even more Coltrane worship ahead! Obviously, since "Afro Blue" is a Jazz standard made hugely popular by John's quartet. Here we can experience it in a stunning twenty minutes version by the trio of Mats Gustafsson (sax), Sten Sandell (piano) and Raymond Strid (drums), recorded live in Stockholm in 1998. And beyond that Gush give us fifty more minutes of sensational improvisations between abstract minimalism and hymnic Spiritual Jazz grandeur. The great production makes you feel like you're witnessing this mastery an arm's length away from the first row.  
   
   
   
   
   
7. CAN - Live in Keele 1977
   
   
   

   Six albums in (three of them released this year!) the live series of Krautrock legends Can just keeps giving. From a not too revered period of the band, this almost unadvertised show in the quintet line-up with Traffic bassist Rosko Dee and Holger Czukay operating wave sounds and samples instead, proves to be a true revelation. Incredibly funky, complex and rich these improvisations showcase a band of musicians knowing each other inside out - and then also adds that certain unexplainable magical it of the right constellation of space and time on top.
   
   
   
   
   
   

favorite MUSIC 2024 - all my lists:

TOP 24 albums   |   TOP 7 live albums   |   TOP 5 reissues

TOP 4 non-album releases   |   TOP 24 live shows

MIDYEAR TOP 15: my favorite albums of 2024 (so far)

Same procedure as every July: Here's a spontanous selection of my fifteen favorite albums of the year so far. No distinction between studio and live releases - and only stuff which I have on vinyl, CD or cassette. Expect some of these to appear again in my more elaborated list at the end of the year - but don't be surprised if they're in a different order or some have disappeared!

The order ultimately doesn't matter anyway, because even if this list was twice as long, I would still highly recommend every single album on it! 

1. FULL EARTH
   Cloud Sculptors
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. KAMASI WASHINGTON
   Fearless Movement
   
   
   
   
   
3. SLIFT
   Ilion
   
   
   
   
4. SEAN ONO LENNON

   Asterisms
   
   
   
   
5. AGUSA

   Noir
   
   
   
   
6. LOUSIE LEMÓN
   Lifetime Of Tears
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. DOOL
   The Shape Of Fluidity
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. SOLAR TEMPLE & DEAD NEANDERTHALS
   Embers Beget the Divine
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. NICK HUDSON
   Kanda Teenage Honey
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. CARPET
    Collision
    
    
    
    
    
    
11. CHELSEA WOLFE

    She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She
    
    
    
    
12. IVAN THE TOLERABLE TRIO
    Infinite Peace
    
    
    
    
    
    
13. MONOVOTH
    Pleroma Mortem Est
    
    
    
    
    
    
14. ZAÄAR
    Musique Cryptique (Live In Liège)
    
    
    
    
    
    
15. TUSKS
    Gold
    
    
    
    
    

SOLAR TEMPLE - A Gift That Should Have Been Reserved For The Great Lights / GALG - Teloorgang

It's double review time with a couple of new albums on Consouling Sounds! Not even two weeks ago the Belgian label released the long-awaited collaboration "Embers Beget The Divine" by Solar Temple and Dead Neanderthals.
If you don't own that potential live album of the year yet, you should seriously consider adding two more items to your cart, because this Friday two more - partly related - releases are going to see the light of day / darkness of night:

SOLAR TEMPLE - A Gift That Should Have Been Reserved For The Great Lights (CD) (2024)

Here the connection is obvious. Almost simultanously with their collaborative Roadburn Festival recording Solar Temple are also bringing us the successor of their other Roadburn (Redux) recording "The Great Star Above Provides".

Since this material actually predates both of those works and was laid down in the pandemic era 2020/2021 it's save to assume that this is a studio recording for a change, even though the credits on the digipak are very minimal. I guess the long album title just didn't leave enough space for other information. They managed to provide the full lyrics of the only track with vocals though.

Said track is the opener "Ejaculation", which - sorry to disappoint all you porn freaks out there - seems to rather refer to a metaphysical, philosophical, cosmic event that your profane noodle flipflapping. Or the Dutch duo just enjoys trolling. The words are spoken in a deliberately overacted way (reminiscent of Bong) to a dramatic horror movie organ, whooshing cymbals and Dark Ambient sounds, before suddenly a hard, appearantly slightly confused stop and go Electronic beat and Synthwave bass join the anti-party.

And if you thought this was just the sinister (twelve minute) intro, before the album takes off and delivers some of that open grandeur which both previous releases offered so much of in different ways - think again, because the "Celestial Kingdom" may test your nerves! No wide Post Rock gesture, no cool cowboy twang like on "Great Star", no stupendously layered Psychedelic Black Metal lead guitar ecstasis like on "Embers". Fuck melodies, fuck Rock'n'Roll, most of this one is merely a droning electro-industrial soundscape with a weird brutal pulse. It's the soundtrack to being stuck in the barbed wire around an abandoned weapons factory that has been sectretly taken over by the machines.

By now it should be clear that the two guitar players are not even playing guitars here. Instead this album explores a decidedly different route of Drone, Noise and dark atmospheres.
It's funny that Solar Temple are still often labeled a Black Metal band. Gotta add a big all caps "POST" to that!
The last track "A Life Before Life" confirms that yet again. It is a piece, which gets wider, bigger and richer on variety - there's even a part which conveys a sense of Black Metal-ish angst -, but the musical language is almost completely removed from Rock aesthetics and rather feels like a John Carpenter-inspired dystopian movie score.

And while all in all I still prefer the other mentioned albums for their larger scale alone, this shorter, condensed yet stylistically bolder version of Solar Temple actually provides quite an intriguing contrast. It's always great to see artists throwing themselves into experiments with so little fear.
No doubt, these dudes are on the mission of building an interesting unpredictbale body of work.  

GALG - Teloorgang (CD) (2024)

At least on first sight Galg's connection to "Embers Beget The Divine" is not as close, but it's there: This band comes from Nijmegen, which is also Dead Neanderthal City. And speaking of that duo Otto Kokke can actually be heard as a guest with a wild saxophone performance on "Hemeltergend", the opener of this album.

"Teloorgang", just like Galg, was inspired by trying to find beauty in the modern world,  and failing. ... says the official press promo. And they must have been searching for a long time, because the guitar/guitar/drums (plus lots of panicked screaming) trio recorded these fifty crushing minutes way back in 2015, but somehow it took until now for them to be unleashed upon the world. And it wasn't the simplistic cover artwork which took so long. Take a picture of a flying bird and invert the colours... I can give you a dozen variations of that from my archives before the album is over. Still good design I must admit.

My favorite band with the same kind of line-up is Big|Brave, another great one would be Slomatics. Or Boris - when they feel like it - of course. And when it comes to creating a super heavy sound with a deeply satisfying crunchy guitar texture, Galg can certainly apply for membership in this gang, even though the production of their Industrial/No Wave-influenced Sludge Rock often emphasizes the drums over the gnarly guitar drone.

But let me backpedal a bit! It actually feels wrong to assume specific influences, because you can't really tell from what kind (Hardcore, Metal, please-don't-call-us-Metal, etc.) of background these guys are coming.
Given that drummer M - the poor lads only have one-letter-names - also plays in Fluisteraars there's actually a good chance they've developed their sound on a Post Black Metal foundation. Oh, by the way, outside of Galg the man answers to the name of Mink Koops and is also one half of Solar Temple. So yeah, this is all incestuous as fuck. But thanks to George R.R. Martin everyone loves incest now, right? The album finale "Doorn In Het Oog" definitely shows musical parallels to the guitar-centric work of Solar Temple. But before that a lot of other comparisons could be made, ranging from the desolate bleakness of fellow Dutchmen Farer to the monolithic repetitiveness of overused go-to reference Swans.

For the same reason I don't have a rating system with numbers and abolished the favorite song category from my reviews long ago, I am also not giving you FFO ("for fans of") lists here. It's just a pain in the ass, which takes me ages to get my head around..
In case of "Teloorgang" however it might have actually saved me some time writing this, because I came up quite quickly with Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, Sumac, Sunn O))).

Without overthinking how adequate those names actually are, I think the message should be clear: This is some fine (almost) hopeless desolate dirt. Come wallow in it!

Both albums can be pre-ordered on CD or vinyl at Consouling Sounds and will be released very soon on Friday, June 28th.

SOLAR TEMPLE & DEAD NEANDERTHALS - Embers Beget The Divine

Sunday, April 24th 2022, Tilburg. An absolutely magnificent Roadburn Festival day for me, but also one of merciless clashes. Those even caused me to only take a little peek at what promised to be one of the mightiest sets of the weekend, when the two duos Solar Temple and Dead Neanderthals joined forces to perform one giant piece called "Embers Beget The Divine".

Luckily I took the so far only other opportunity to experience the whole thing in the flesh, visiting the Netherlands again in October, when the collaborators repeated it at Right On Mountain Festival in Nijmegen. And even though they played after the two massively amazing live bands Neptunian Maximalism and Temple Fang it surprisingly was their monolitithic show which left the deepest impression on me.

And now, over one and a half years further down the road, the live recording from Roadburn is finally being released as an album - and I promise you: This is one of the highest sonic mountains your ears can climb this year!

SOLAR TEMPLE & DEAD NEANDERTHALS - Embers Beget The Divine (2LP / Side D etched) (2024)

The worksharing in this quartet is clear: Renè Aquarius and Otto Kokke (=Dead Neanderthals) on drums and synthesizer play with zero ego, providing an almost ridiculously repetitive grooving and droning foundation, on which Omar Kleiss and Mink Koops (Solar Temple) can layer their guitars, which often seem to follow and enhance the hypnotic compositional minimalism, but in subtle ways slowly widen up and build on it with more harmonies, variations and lead solos.

On top of that this music surely plays with the effect that the listener's mind tends to add phantom elements, because this cannot possibly go on like this forever and ever, right?

But no matter how many details you spot or invent, the overall feeling however still resembles being caught in a phantasmagoric loop, when one dream repeats itself over and over again and you either just go along with it or despair in the futile attempt of fighting it, when actually the only way to escape is to wake up, to lift the needle off the record. But why would you do that?

Once you allow it to take hold of you - and that should honestly happen within the first couple of minutes, just trust those friendly Dutchmen! - the album soon becomes a light-flooded cathartic flight beyond the constraints of time.

The more I listen to it, even now as I am typing, it dawns on me how much more indeed happens in this music than is revealed on the first exposures to this skyscraping wall made of Psychedelic Sludge, clerical chants, Post Metal and Blackgaze.

"Embers Beget The Divine" live at Right On Mountan Festival

Hmm, I guess this must read as if I'm doing a complete one-eighty while I'm writing. But maybe multiple contradicting truths can simultanously exist here. The greatest power of "Embers Beget The Divine" is luring and hammering you into a hypnotic state, while offering a far more rich and colourful tapestry of sounds and arrangements than you're prepared to process.

Conveniently - and certainly not by coincidence - the piece is divided into three easily distinctable chapters, which each fit on one record side. The first is driven by an energetic Krautrock beat quite similar to what Dead Neanderthals had used before on their Roadburn Redux performance "IXXO", the second is based on a somehow weirdly held-back groove which eventually gives way to a simple four on the floor basedrum stomp, while the cinematic finale explodes into a glorious, uplifting Black Metal blast like a cloudburst in the enduring radiant sun, while weatherbeaten Sergie Leone characters face each other in slow-motion for a duel, unfazed by the elemental chaos surrounding them. It's good. It's really really good.

Three LP sides being needed means that there's an empty D-side left begging for an edging. And it got one in form of Omar Kleiss' lyrics. It's actually not a novel, but if you want ro read along for the whole ride including the other side of that disc, I guess you'll just have to buy a second copy.

"Embers Beget The Divine" will be released coming Friday (June 14th) on CD and double LP via Consouling Sounds. I will surely wear the fitting shirt I bought for that occasion back in 2022 then. You can pre-order this fantastic album directly from the label HERE.

RIGHT ON MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL • Oct. 8th 2022 at Doornroosje, Nijmegen • with NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM, SOLAR TEMPLE x DEAD NEANDERTHALS, SPILL GOLD, TANKZILLA and TEMPLE FANG

Even though the shows of Asagraum and Wesenwille in the Groene Engel (Oss) and even more so Sumac and Patrick Shiroishi in the Little Devil (Tilburg) had been worth visiting, the reason for my trip to the Netherlands had been an event in Nijmegen, in yet another venue named after a fairytale character. For a German it's obvious, because we call her "Dornröschen" too, while the english speaking world somehow disneyfied Doornroosje ("thorn rose") to Sleeping Beauty.

Hosted by Temple Fang the Right On Mountain Festival presented a line-up which read like a one-night compressed version of Roadburn - no wonder because all of the Dutch and Belgian bands have had one or more points of contact with Tilburg's finest gathering. Be it several shows (I've seen Temple Fang play there twice in 2019 and as a last-minute replacement this year) or amazing Roadburn Redux streaming performances like Neptunian Maximalism and Spill Gold. The collaboration of Solar Temple and Dead Neanderthals had taken place only once so far at this year's edition, where clashes caused me to only catch a small glimpse of it. So here was an opportunity for me to make good on it!

SPILL GOLD

The mix of Rosa Ronsdorf's cosmic art pop electronics and Nina de Jong's controlled, yet very creative in the pocket drumming was not the only, but for sure the furthest step out of the expected confines of rock this night. Their music exists in an elusive floating state which doesn't always allow you to understand if it's warm or cool, but that uncertainty was undoubtly part of the charme of Spill Gold's performance. Enchanting and distanced, ethereal and rhythmic, the duo proved to be a wonderful choice to open this festival. I've had their album "Highway Hypnosis" on my wishlist for quite a while before and was glad to finally grab it after the show.

And if I may kindly mansplain the ladies' stage outfits: They are two variations of spilling gold. The drummer's suit is a pool of gold itself, while the singer's blue accentuates her fountain of golden hair. There you have it. And if that isn't the deliberate meaning at all, then it must at least have been a subconscious decision. I'm ready to die on that hill.

NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM

The highly anticipated Neptunian Maximalism already on the second slot of the night? I must admit I was a bit surprised when I read that, but it didn't only make sense from a logistic standpoint (start with the two bands which combined put the most stuff on stage and then have easier changeover breaks later on), but it also worked much better for the dramaturgy of the whole than I would have expected.

I had been so lucky to already witness several of the musicians entering the stage now in the completely unchained dark free jazz project Zaäar before, but now I got the final confirmation that these two sonic entities are indeed very different beasts.

With the strength of eight members (drums, drums, guitar, guitar, guitar, bass, sax and electronics) this Arkestra had the freedom to move in any direction of ritualistic bombast and made plenty of use of this ability. Rumbling drone and primeval shamanism. Oriental twangs and spiritual jazz rock escapisms. Mighty multi-layered grooves, overwhelming, yet irresistable. It's hard to relive the experience and confidently put it into a certain spot between their three albums.
The show wasn't presented as one continuous flow, so it was my most "regular" encounter with their music in that regard, but that didn't diminish the wide and boundless mindset of the Belgian maximalists and the ginormous sound emerging from it. After this grand and timeless show, rooted in so many traditions, but still fully its own thing, I'm convinced more than ever that Neptunian Maximalism belong to the creative forefront of modern heavy music.

TEMPLE FANG

Speaking of timelessness - and being very aware that I'm parroting myself here: There's nothing radically new for me to report from Temple Fang. And that's fine, because I'm still very far from getting tired from their first class twenty minute superjams, which combine psychedelic, prog and blues elements under the umbrella of epic songwriting. Be it the powerful Rickenbacker bass, the top-notch drumming which always knows when it's the time to get adventurous, or those sweet expressive lead guitars which could go on forever (which they sometimes do) - these guys just seemingly effortless operate on Motorpsycho level. On top of that Temple Fang also crush it when it comes to the proper vocals for this classic rock mastery.

Oh, and there was one special thing this night: They brought their own Danny Ray, a hype man, who introduced the Right On Mountain crowd to the band through some beat poetry over the opening crescendos of the show. That was cool, too. All in all a flawless performance once again.

SOLAR TEMPLE x DEAD NEANDERTHALS

If I was ever going back and forth about whether I should make this little trip or not, this thing was the final weight tipping the scale to yes for sure. "Embers Beget The Divine" was the name of the monolithic piece in three movements, which the combined quartet of Dead Neanderthals (drums and synth) and Solar Temple (both guitar) unleashed over a live audience only for the second time now. The little preview I've had at Roadburn had already prepared me for a mighty cathartic wall of sound with that typical Neanderthals edge of relentless brutal repetition.

And boy, this was indeed a class in that discipline. At the same time guitar layers and vocals always brought in subtle new textures. Everything always seemed to slowly build up and develop - even when the tempo was already blasting like in the finale, when they were entering the spiritual proximity of that other Rene Aquarius project Plague Organ (or the brand-new DN album "Metal"). Trying to think of bands whose grandiosity had felt similar to me, I mostly tend to a handful of post rock/metal performances, even though this was clearly more raw and feral than most of those. For its conceptual simplicity this was actually quite hard to put into a certain box. However ultimately this majestic show was the icing on the festival mountain! 

(I'm struggling a bit right now with differentiating these three shows in a row, which were all so huge and massive, each in its own way. Hope my ethusiasm is still believable? This was just really a darn killer line-up.)
    

TANKZILLA

The night ended as it had started - with a duo. But with Tankzilla the signs were all on rock. A mix of sludgy stoner rock and dirty Schweinerock to be little more precise. For sure the most straight-forward party sound here. And heavy as Godzilla fucking a tank indeed.

I must admit though that I can only cover them here for the sake of completeness. After a long day of changing hotels from Tilburg to Nijmegen, touristing around and those four amazing shows, my attention span and energy were now dwindling rapidly and even though there was nothing bad to say about the band, I was pretty much done and rather left early for the twenty minutes walk through the mild October night to bed now.

This was a great festival. Right on Nijmegen!