Tag: The Bronzed Chorus

Staturday Night Fever: The Best Music of 2024 In Numbers

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Have I done that pun yet? Mate, I am struggling, honestly…

So here we are again, a round up of the hot stats of the best albums and songs of 2024, which I have bizarrely fallen into the habit of doing doing eleven fucking months after the Necessary Evil list of the best albums and songs of the year is actually published. Why do I always leave it this long? Because, quite simply, after writing 40+ blog posts and a gargantuan song list in little over a month, my brain seriously doesn’t want to even acknowledge the previous year’s music again for at least a thousand years.

I almost didn’t do it this year. But – but! – then I realised that 2025’s list might have some extremely notable points! So maybe I’ll retire this dumb fucking tradition once I get round to that in winter 2026. Until then? Yeah, we gotta do this.

I do like making these purdy pictures though…

Stats in the cradle and a silver spoon

Legit Bosses: The 143 Best Songs of 2024

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

Hey, look, I’m getting better at this. Recently, I went on a massive cull of the 2024’s greatest songs to make this list as tight and as concise as possible, so that it would be sure to represent the absolute best of the best and would be as brief and easy to write as possible. And look! There are only one hundred and forty three tracks this year!! That’s a whole seventeen less tracks than last year! This post is going to be a breeze!

spoiler: this song is going top five. It INVENTED GAY POP, show some respect

OK, three weeks laternow, and I’m almost done! This post will be longer than most books you read, but to be fair most of the ‘books’ you read are Dr Who fanfic.

So, yeah, these songs are really good. And they get better as the list goes on. That’s how these lists work.

Here’s the YouTube playlist, which I know is the only thing most of you care about.

How much of an intro do you need, seriously?

A/79/232

#23 Bella Technika: Solid State

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

Ok, are you sitting down? Are you paying attention? Are your ears perked and your soul open? Is your Mana marvelous and your Qi chunky? Then eyes front, attention please:

I’m going to tell you absolutely everything I know about Bella Technika:

  • They’re called ‘Bella Technika Yeah, you might have been wondering if I was going to count that as a thing I knew about them, but as you’ll soon see this is going to be quite slim pickings so I’ve got to take what I can get.
  • I’m, like, 90% sure they’re from Belgrade, Serbia Pretty sure. I’m about 99% sure they’re Eastern European, and I found one review that mentioned Belgrade so I was like “yeah”.
  • This is their second album Now, I wasn’t sure of this, because when I named their previous album ‘Section’ as the 33rd best album of 2019 I was even more beguiled by these mysterious Serbians than I am now. This year though? No, not getting fooled again, I’ve done my own motherfucking research, sometimes as far as the third or fourth page of Google results, and ‘Section’ was actually an outstanding debut record.
Bassam Mohamed Jamil Al-Maqousi

#30 The Bronzed Chorus: Aki

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

OK, reality nerds, I admit: this album was actually released first released in June 2023. I was first introduced to this art rock masterwork when rounding up Seth Manchester’s 2023 records, and was so blown away that I cheekily decided to consider it for the 2024 list. Or, to quote: “holy shit, the Big Beat impact of ‘Aki’ by The Bronzed Chorus on June 9th?? I love that shit, it’s also on NE2024″. I also decided to consider records by Asher White, Jaye Jayle, and Oxbow, which were all pretty great records but didn’t quite make this increasingly elite list. One other album… maybe did… No spoilers.

The Bronzed Chorus, Adam Joyce (L), Brennen O’Brien

But The Bronzed Chorus, man, they made a 2023 album so good that it’s the scientifically proven, objective thirtieth best album of 2024. That’s quite a flex.

The problem is… I have next to no idea who this band are…

Jamil Najm a-Din Jamil Nijem

Seth Manchester’s 2023

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

Aw man, it has not been easy to keep up with Seth Manchester this year. It’s been more than five years since Seth’s otherworldly production on ‘Goodness‘ convinced me to buy every single album that Mr Manchester produced from that point onward. This has lead to around 15 further entries on this list. And a lot of death metal. Well, it stops here.

Well, kinda stops. I use Discogs to keep up with Seth, and going off that they’ve been involved in a total of forty records in 2023 (!), though that is including some rereleases and a handful of albums I can just find no other information on anywhere else. This is obviously unsustainable, especially when you consider that Manchester works on quite a few records that I do not enjoy listening to at all. But there is also some very interesting stuff that I missed out on this year that might have made the list. were I not wasting money on more instrumental noise rock.

So the Seth Manchester run will continue. I still think they’re the greatest rock producer working and they introduce me to music that I’d overwise have no chance of coming into contact with. Already on NE2023 we’ve seen the Manchester produced Lingua Ignota project, who I only know in the first place because of the Seth ties. Only, in the future I’m going to listen to an album first and then decide if it’s likely to be worth me spending money on and adding it to the Necessary Evil rotation. Yeah, I know, you probably thought I did as much already, right? Nope. I’m a fucking idiot. Anyway, I’m going to run down some of the more notable 2023 Seth credits.

BEEN SOME DARK DAYS LATELY AND I’M FINDING IT CRIPPLING