Winding down 2024’s Recommended Albums (usually I don’t have the effort / material to dive into December’s albums, but we’ll see!), we shove the year off into the mist with some mighty solid records. I’d be remiss not to shout out The Cure first, returning after almost two decades and making one of their best albums in a while. We’ve also got two Various Artists projects, some wistful pop and folk, a little experimental ambient and modern classical… a good slate of records in November. A solid November month too – nothing TOO too big, but a cushion of goodness to sit upon as we ponder the best of the year.

The Cure – Songs Of A Lost World [Polydor]
An ancient call bellows from beneath the Earth’s crust, a power hidden from human sight for millennia still calls forth a gloomy disposition.

Dorothea Paas – Think of Mist [Telephone Explosion]
Early winter sunset light still radiates inside an old lighthouse outpost on a craggy cliff, even in the dead of night. Panes of stained glass hanging in its spiral staircase cast collage-like patterns of gauzy color.

Fazerdaze – Soft Power [section1]
As you drift off to sleep on a star-filled night, you sink through your bed into a kind of subterranean club, with swirling lights illuminating uncanny human approximations in the thick dancefloor fog.

Haley Heynderickx – Seed of a Seed [Mama Bird]
Twigs, leaves and small branches fall from a massive tree into a small campfire, helping it stay lit, even a small flame, for generations.

Jack J – Blue Desert [Mood Hut]
A bite-sized afternoon excursion where your perspective on life and mood expands and contracts, shifting from breezy euphoria to creeping paranoia.

Lifted – Trellis [Peak Oil]
The uninterrupted ambiance that leaks out of the liminal pores of empty office spaces, the world abuzz right outside its open floor design, its sunlight-friendly windows. Only to echo fragments of select pasts.

Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice – Phantasy & Reality [Moon Glyph]
A misplaced cat’s eye marble sits peacefully in a shallow riverbed at the foot of a large mountain; the cool, clean water gurgles above and around it, patiently waiting for its companions to join them.

Merely & Malibu – Essential Mixtape [Year001]
Cool sea mist splashes up from a rough pier late at night, the moon illuminating harsh waves on the edge of a quiet cityscape.

Mount Eerie – Night Palace [P.W. Elverum & Sun]
The cold wind racing down from the mountain’s peak yells first, you must yell back.

Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra – Tension [Batov]
A casino boss and a deceiving temptress spar in a duel of wits during the casino resort’s lavish annual soirée, complete with disguise changes, romance, humor, heartbreak and an impossible amount of riches on the line.

Sarah Neufeld, Richard Reed Pary & Rebecca Foon – First Sounds [Envision]
Hidden manuscripts reveal that early human forms were wispy, thin strands of sinew that would drift through the air at the slightest breeze.

Various Artists – Hosono House Revisited [Stones Throw]
A bright summer’s day of singing karaoke with the windows open, chairs out on the lawn, children playing, and the older folks reveling in the whole affair.

Various Artists – TRANSA [Red Hot]
The blossoming of a flower after a dark, uncertain night.

GR8 TRACKS OF NOVEMBER 2024::

• Anajah & Gary Gunn – “Know Who You Are At Every Age”
• André 3000 – “Chapter IV. Something Is Happening And I May Not Fully Understand But I’m Happy To Stand For The Understanding (Awakening)”
• Benét & Faye Webster – “Make ‘Em Laugh”
• Carlita – “The Moment (feat. SG Lewis)”
• Cassandra Jenkins, Bloomsday & Babehoven – “Aaron”
• The Cure – “All I Ever Am”
• The Cure – “Drone:Nodrone”
• The Cure – “A Fragile Thing”
• Dorothea Paas – “Autumn Roses”
• Dorothea Paas – “Maybe I’ll Fade”
• Fazerdaze – “Cherry Pie”
• Fazerdaze – “Soft Power”
• Fleet Foxes, Cole Pulice & Lynn Avery – “TM”
• Haley Heynderickx – “Foxglove”
• Haley Heynderickx – “Seed of a Seed”
• Haruomi Hosono – “Fuku Wa Uchi Oni Wa Soto (feat. The Mizuhara Sisters & John Carroll Kirby)”
• Haruomi Hosono – “Koi Wa Momoiro (feat. Pearl & the Oysters)”
• Haruomi Hosono – “My Love Is Peach-Colored (feat. Sam Gendel)”
• Julien Baker & Calvin Lauber – “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying (feat. SOAK & Quinn Christopherson)”
• Lomelda & More Eaze – “In Another Life”
• Lucy Liyou & Grouper – “Blush”
• Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice – “The Mirror-Glade”
• Mary Lattimore, Mizu, Jamal Shakeri & Laraaji – “I. Midnight Moon Pool (Womb Of The Soul)”
• Rachika Nayar, Julianna Barwick & Cassandra Croft – “Song to the Siren”
• Sade Adu – “Young Lion”
• Yaya Bey – “A Survivor’s Guilt”