The 40 Best EPs of 2024

Earlier this month, the Paste music team unveiled its list of the 100 best albums of 2024. Thank you for reading it and for not hounding us too badly on some of our picks. As promised, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite EPs of the year. What is an “EP” and what is an “LP” is a gray area, but I think we’ve come up with a consistency that makes the most sense. We aren’t including any projects made up of songs that later ended up on full-lengths (hence why Half Waif’s Ephemeral Being is missing here). We also have elected to forgo including EPs made up of re-imagined songs (hence why Chelsea Wolfe’s Unbound is missing here).

This group of records is a fun one, including EPs from artists who made appearances on our best LPs of the year list (Wild Pink, Shabaka), bands that were on this list last year (Girl Scout), Best of What’s Next alums (Sex Week, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, Dazy), cover stars (Amaarae, Wilco) and many more. So, without further ado, here are the 40 best EPs of 2024. —Matt Mitchell, Music Editor

40. Wild Pink: Strawberry Eraser

After making the Waiting Around EP with multi-instrumentalist Laura Wolf as Lilts last year, John Ross returned to his main project, Wild Pink, and signed with Fire Talk Records in early 2024. To celebrate, they released the three-song EP Strawberry Eraser, and christened the accomplishment with “Air Drumming Fix You,” a pairing of diner jukebox-gentle drum machines and synthesizers with cresting saxophone scales and a spumante pedal steel—all while Ross sings about “shitting my pants in a VR world,” “baby breath” and someone, as the title aptly suggests, air-drumming Coldplay’s “Fix You.” Through vignettes of quick humor, however, come sharp lines that’ll gut you on the spot. “I guess the good life didn’t look like you thought it might” is going to be a lyric that sticks with me for a good while, especially, maybe forever. Too, “Unconscious Pilot” is another reverb-heavy slice of alt-folk that mangles itself into sublime, bulky distortion. It’s not as melodic as “Air Drumming Fix You,” but it doesn’t need to be—the fortune is all in the gloomy chords and cavernous singing from Ross. “What if the soul is real?” he ponders. “And it gets lost on the way to the next deal? What a nightmare, knowing you’re out there dead and scared and there ain’t a thing I can do.” Most of us didn’t know that an all-time great record like Dulling the Horns was on the horizon, but it was nice to live in Strawberry Eraser for a while—letting ourselves be enraptured by fluttering saxophones and weighty guitars, as if a jazz ensemble accidentally stumbled into a noise-band’s rehearsal. It all culminates in a storm of flanged strumming, as John Ross declares: “I hope it’s nothing.” —Matt Mitchell [Fire Talk]

39. @: Are You There God? It’s Me, @

The 2024 release from Philadelphia and Baltimore psych-folk duo Victoria Rose and Stone Filipczak was short but fully worth it, as @ followed up their debut album from last year, Mind Palace Music, with a five-song EP cheekily titled Are You There God? It’s Me, @. The project features familiar singles “Soul Hole” and “Webcrawler,” along with three more new compositons—including a vibrant title track I can’t get enough of. But I am so often returning to “Soul Hole,” a glitched-out song with a sampled beat and Sufjan Stevens-style looping backing harmonies that are distorted and squeezed into a pulp. It’s surreal and riveting, a firm continuance of @’s big, big year. With Rose’s falsetto swirling around and Filipczak’s instrumentation needling hypnotically nearby, “Soul Hole”—like all of Are You There God? It’s Me, @—is some of the most inventive music you can listen to right now, and it’s delightfully massive for its replay value alone. It may be an EP, but Are You There God? It’s Me, @ stands just as tall as anything @ have put out. —Matt Mitchell [Carpark]

38. Shabaka: Possession

Earlier this year, Shabaka Hutchings released Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, a towering and powerful offering from the jazz virtuoso that saw him put down his saxophone in favor of a sublime lead clarinet. It was a change of pace from his work in Sons of Kemet and The Comet is Coming, but a product showcasing Hutchings’s colorful chemistry with his ensemble and a desire to take risks. Just a handful of weeks ago, Shabaka returned with Possession, an EP featuring E L U C I D, Nduduzo Makhathini and Esperanza Spalding. The project’s center-of-gravity, “Timepieces,” includes billy woods, who reckons with—the privilege of love in the balance of semi-celebrity, about keeping in touch out of necessity and unanswered questions still lingering—in barely two minutes’ time while Shabaka’s zig-zagging clarinet keeps the score. Shabaka’s work scores the undertones of surrender, nurturing global musicality into an archive of living. It’s holistic to listen to Possession. —Matt Mitchell [Impulse!]

37. Soup Dreams: Twigs for Burning

Twigs for Burning, the latest EP from Philadelphia four-piece Soup Dreams—Emma Kazal, Nigel Law, Isaac Shalit, Winnie Malcarney—is something to behold. While this is one of the most stacked release days in recent memory, letting Twigs for Burning float under the radar would be a mistake. Led by opening track “Highway Song,” Shalit’s stories will register kindly with anyone who, over the last two, three years, has captured an affinity for the work of Wednesday or Fust. It’s country-worn magic backed by sublime guitar solos and mundane charm, as Shalit sings “I wanna be someone who’s hurt and is still gentle, I still wear the same socks I did back then.” “Goodbye For Now” is a particularly beautiful tune, too, that’s soft and vibrant, backed by Kazal and Malcarney’s lightly plucked guitars. “When you leave me, sneak out while I’m still asleep,” Shalit lets out. “Fly bites my arm, I always try to do no harm.” —Matt Mitchell [BabyCake]

36. Starcleaner Reunion: Cafe Life

Starcleaner Reunion make quirky, shambling post-punk wrapped in thick layers of distortion, barbed wire looped around its syncopated rhythm section and mellowed-out vocals. Lead singer Jo Roman sings about savoring fleeting moments of freedom and embracing opportunities to lose control on “The Hand That I Put Down,” matching the loose, frenetic energy of the chaotic instrumentals swarming around her. On their Cafe Life EP, the band dabbles in grungegaze, psych rock and some mathy melodies, proving their sonic versatility. Cafe Life is a promising showing for an up-and-coming band, one that’ll have listeners anticipating but never quite guessing their next move—like the stripped-back “Plein Air” a pensive daydream deviating from Starcleaner’s more upbeat, ruffled jams. —Grace Robins-Somerville [Self-Released]

35. Skinner: Calling in Sick

Screeching guitars, clapping hands, satisfyingly smacked bongoes and searing saxophone are all hallmarks of Irish no-wave artist Aaron Corcoran’s (a.k.a. Skinner’s) ferociously fun 2024 EP Geek Love. Skinner had a clear mission when releasing the three tracks via Faction Records: “I wanted to create a new wave of disco music where I could let out that frustration and anger while also being able to dance along to it.” And hell, he did it; Geek Love is about nine minutes of joyful, off-the-wall, noisy catharsis. The title track is a paean to unabashed weirdos, propelled forward by zinging, frenetic guitar and disco rhythms. “Tell My Ma” is an angular reimagining of an Irish trad song, while “New Wave Vaudeville” is a funk-fuelled portable party. Needless to say, Geek Love has whetted our appetites for Skinner’s debut album New Wave Vaudeville, out January 10. —Clare Martin [Faction Records]

34. Man/Woman/Chainsaw: Eazy Peazy

There is a moment on “The Boss” where Man/Woman/Chainsaw punch themselves into this beautiful synth and violin tapestry, only to let their sprawling rupture into crushing guitars and a kind of drumming that sounds like it’s about to puncture a hole in the ozone. The band—Billy Ward, Emmie-Mae Avery, Vera Leppänen, Clio Starwood, Billy Doyle and Lola Cherry—make music that lingers inside of you like a migraine. They’re the next great whiplash band, cut from the same calico as other Brit troupes channeling scorching punk static through maddening, symphonic, tempo-shifting volatility. Eazy Peazy is a delirious and transformative gesture; a paragon of DIY, stage-born grit recoiling through a smorgasbord of sounds that are as pretty as they are wicked and eruptive. The school spirit-admonishing, athletics-and-trauma-sourced “Sports Day” might just be the very best post-punk song of the year thus far, as Clio’s violin aches like a fiddle while Billy, Emmie-Mae and Vera harmonize “the jocks are leering, muscles glisten in the August sun” together like they’re conjuring the Waitresses more than, say, Parquet Courts. So, what’s the X-factor for a band like Man/Woman/Chainsaw? It’s friendship, according to them. —Matt Mitchell [Fat Possum]

Read: “Man/Woman/Chainsaw: The Best of What’s Next”

33. Dazy: It’s Only a Secret (if you repeat it)

Dazy, the singer-songwriter project of James Goodson, had a quietly great 2024 thanks to their It’s Only a Secret (if you repeat it) EP. Two years ago, the Paste brass named Goodson the Best of What’s Next, and he’s lived up to it ever since. It’s Only a Secret leans on that Dazy mixture of late-‘90s alt-pop and re-imagined slacker rock. It’s a collection of songs hued by nostalgia but executed with modern brilliance. The title track, done in collaboration with the great synth-punk band MSPAINT, is punchy and catchy, performed by vocalist Deedee and ripped to shreds by a Y2K-style affection. “Weigh Down on Me” swirls in your head while it circles the drain, and “Big End” is as massive as its name suggests, done up in a fuzzy, opulent wardrobe that makes Goodson’s work so timeless. I’ve loved every Dazy song I’ve ever heard, and It’s Only a Secret is a victory lap mid-race. —Matt Mitchell [Lame-O Records]

Read: “Dazy: The Best of What’s Next”

32. Raavi: The Upside

The title track of Brooklyn singer-songwriter Raavi’s new EP The Upside is lush in a way that becomes more sublime upon every re-listen. Flowing layered acoustic guitars dance alongside the unique timbre of Raavi’s voice as she sings about being hesitant in the company of love: “My love, I’m shy / But I just might / Be yours forever.” Sitting at only two minutes, Raavi makes her point and leaves you to ponder on your own terms—she doesn’t need to take up more space than necessary, her words and melodies linger regardless. She then navigates the turmoils of intimacy on the enthralling “Take Me,” a song that gradually crosses between two distinct halves—as anxiety turns into panicked apathy. Lo-fi drum machine is added on top of lush acoustic guitar, which turns into muted electric chords that accompany a switch to hyper-compressed vocals. “Who wants this body? / This body / Oh god, please just fucking take me,” Raavi cries, ushering in the song’s enthralling fever pitch. And then, clocking in at only a minute and 38 seconds, “Henry” is based around one guitar lick with a string quartet and vocal harmony building on top of it as the song progresses. Raavi finds herself bracing for impact from her titular love interest, as her hope transforms into worry and contempt. “Don’t worry, Henry” becomes “Don’t hurt me, Henry” by the song’s conclusion, and “Henry” is truly just the tip of the iceberg of the poignant and charming EP that is sure to cement Raavi as a gem of the NYC underground. —Leah Weinstein [Mtn Laurel Recording Co.]

31. Emma Ayzenberg: iron mountain

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Emma Ayzenberg’s iron mountain will hurt you in all of the best ways. Her penmanship across four tracks explores personal agency, queerness and loss as if it’s ours to hold close, too; there’s an intimacy there that still, when it’s all said and done, feels unequivocally personal to her. “hero,” especially, is a divine song that begins as a dreamy ballad but explodes into a full-bodied indie folk track, written in solidarity with anyone exploring modes of healing. “Who’s going to follow me if I’m not following you?” Ayzenberg sings. “Fossils are never found in the wrong place. No rain this year, she’s this new kind of hero.” With climate change and universal suffering in mind, she paints a damning portrait inexplicably woven with grief. With production from Luke Temple (Hand Habits, Allegra Kreiger) and Carly Bond (Meernaa) and instrumentation from Greg Uhlmann, Sam Kauffman-Skloff, Jorge Balbi and Pat Kelly, iron mountain is the kind of project that—all at once—promises a warm, glowing future for Ayzenberg without abandoning the present, which she has certainly made vibrant and stirring. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]

30. Mei Semones: Kabutomushi

Mei Semones’s Kabutomushi is defined by an ambitious, expansive sound and a distinct blend of genres—both components derived from her extensive background in jazz while she was a student at the Berklee College of Music, as well as her time spent training to become a professional musician. She delicately balances an array of influences in her work, creating tracks that endlessly evolve in unexpected and inventive ways. On the song “Wakare No Kotoba,” she infuses technical elements of jazz into a bonafide pop song. The EP was patiently crafted over years of fragmented work. Semones sings in both English and Japanese throughout the tracklist, expressing her strong connection to her cultural upbringing. The title itself pays homage to Semones’ late grandmother, who she grew up visiting in Yokosuka—a Japanese city by the ocean that’s about an hour and a half away from Tokyo. “Kabutomushi” is known as the rhinoceros beetle in English and, as a child, Semones would go to the park with her grandma to catch them. Sonically, much of Mei Semones’ songwriting on Kabutomushi is centered around an eagerness to experiment and blend genres. The intro to the track “Takaramono” was inspired by seeing folk musician Lily Talmers perform at a house show in New York. The result is a lush, sweeping arrangement of guitar, strings and percussion that seamlessly imbues elements of jazz, bossa nova, j-pop and math rock into a cohesive and unexpected mosaic of sound. —Grace Ann Nantanawan [Bayonet]

Read: “Mei Semones: The Best of What’s Next”

29. Anoushka Shankar: Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before Dawn

Perhaps the greatest living sitar player we have, Anoushka Shankar has been working to redefine the instrument’s existence within classical Indian contexts and the post-Revolver, counterculture clichés it’s been relegated to. But these institutions are not missing from Shankar’s work, especially on her EP Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before Dawn. There is much possibility in a project like this, its intimacies warmed by spirituality and striking incantations of natural, emotional concepts. Written and recorded at Peter Raeburn’s California studio, Chapter II brings new meaning to sitar music through the addition of drones and lingering synth atmospheres. A darkness casts over “Pacifica” and “Offering,” yet a glint of sun washes across “New Dawn.” Chapter II is melancholic and modulated, full of ostinatos, re-interpretations and colorful notes. In just six parts, the sitar is reborn. It’s not a hippie’s baton; it’s a vehicle for love and release. —Matt Mitchell [Leiter]

28. Jane Penny: Surfacing

Breaking away from her usual haunt as the bandleader of TOPS, Jane Penny’s solo debut, Surfacing, is an EP that should really be an album—and it almost was. Kicking off with lead single “Messages,” Penny quickly flaunts her pop grandeur with a track that is as subdued by its own sublime construction as it is moving and nuanced. Penny’s singing steals the show, as she laments the complexities of getting messages from anyone but the person you want to get a message from. “Here we are, history is repeating,” she muses. “Came so far, found happiness without meaning. Now, I just wish I could take it for granted again.” The string arrangements mesh passionately with the synthesizers, and Penny’s sugar-sweet affectation glows with a danceable fury. On “Beautiful Ordinary,” she revels in timelessness, as the song beams through eras—conjuring everything from the one-hit wonder synth-pop of yesteryear to the U.S. Girls and Flight Facilities electronica of the modern age. Penny has a knack for this kind of digital work, which contrasts greatly with the man-made rock and pop sounds she and her TOPS bandmates normally excavate. Surfacing is set aglow from the jump and never dims. —Matt Mitchell [Luminelle]

Read: “Jane Penny Makes a New Dream For Herself”

27. Phoebe Green: Ask Me Now

Manchester indie-pop darling Phoebe Green went her own way this year, self-releasing her ebullient synth-pop EP Ask Me Now in May. The project is mostly concerned with love, but opener “Relevant” is a hilarious, damning condemnation of the music industry’s obsession with the superficial. Green’s songwriting has always had a biting edge to it, and “Relevant” is no exception, with buzzing synth backing her as she asks sardonically, “Am I still in the picture if it’s not something you wanna look at / When I don’t have the sleaze of your Instagram feed / Or the obedience of your doormat?” “Embarrass Me” follows a dramatic romance marked by public humiliations. The muted club beat on the verses is the perfect scene setting, like you’re with the couple outside the bar amping up for another confrontation, while the ebullient, starry chorus feels like just the tonic needed to dance away yet another drunken fight. “I Think That I’m Getting Boring” and “I Could Love You,” on the other hand, see Green embracing the contentness that comes with a happy, healthy relationship. As she told Dork back in May, “I’m continuing to grow into myself and to accept that healing doesn’t make me any less interesting of an artist. I’m in love, and I’m content, and nothing is linear, but I’m doing my best.” “I Think That I’m Getting Boring” captures this sentiment the best, with an utterly exhilarating chorus that revels in the euphoria of a comfortable, tranquil life. —Clare Martin [The Green Dream Machine]

26. Sex Week: Sex Week

Sex Week is an EP full of juxtapositions. On a song like “Angel Blessings,” it’s very pretty until it becomes very strange and cataclysmic—full of MIDI strings and gargling, terrifying vocals, as if it’s some kind of fucked up, symphonic concerto. At one point, it sounds like you’re listening to an Alex G song from when he was still Sandy, and then you’re transported into a pasture of textures not unlike what Deafheaven was doing on Infinite Granite. For Pearl Amanda Dickson and Richard Orofino, the choice to fill their turns with subversions is an intentional and subconscious effort, to revel in the mold is to live to see its pageantry. Though Sex Week is the first taste of what Dickson and Orofino have made together in such a short amount of time, they have a lot more material saved up. What this EP does, however, is exemplify a core love and a core trust shared between two musicians who, two or three years ago, were strangers sharing a mutual love for each other in unconventional, remote ways. What gives a song its Sex Week sound is its duality and the combination of—and conversation between—two vocals, the contrast of a tenor and soprano wrapped around each other so delicately you might break it if you hold it too tight. Dickson and Orofino deliver mangled duets atop an unpredictable, sluggish, infinity symbol-gentle soundscape that’s leveled by a threaded baritone guitar and glittery, high-end backdrop collages. Strip back the layers of any track from the EP and there’s a pop song lingering in the architecture; it’s a rapture that gets spread over top of it. The duo never had any conversation about genre; Sex Week is succinct in its weirdness, flowing in and out of phrasings and arrangements like a wardrobe constantly in flux. —Matt Mitchell [Grand Jury]

Read: “Sex Week: The Best of What’s Next”

25. Adrianne Lenker: i won’t let go of your hand

Released exclusively to Bandcamp in March just a week before her full-length masterpiece Bright Future—to raise funds for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund—i won’t let go of your hand is a six-song collection “recorded in the moments they were written.” The result is an EP that is immediate and intimate, full of peace and light. The songs are minimal—just Lenker and her acoustic guitar (and, sometimes, a piano)—but they are as affecting as anything else she’s made under her own name in the last decade. “relief,” “fangs lungs ankles” and “feel it all” each sound like they’ve existed forever, as they linger, sonically, in the gap between songs and Bright Future. Like all of Lenker’s best material, grief and love are woven into one organism on i won’t let go of your hand; the title track overflows with warmth and rises in the context of our joy; imperfections whisper like an old staircase in conversation. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]

Read: “Adrianne Lenker Gets Closer”

24. TOLEDO: Popped Heart

TOLEDO—Daniel Alvarez and Jordan Dunn-Pilz—couldn’t miss on a track if they tried. A song like “Lindo Lindo” shimmers with pastel pop instrumentals and bouncing beats. Alvarez and Dunn-Pilz attentively sculpt and bend the instrumentation throughout the song, creating a definitive sense of space. Twinkling strings of piano and guitar decorate and expand the atmosphere. Vibrant and fizzling, the multifaceted single even features a children’s choir towards the end. Lyrically, the track takes a light-hearted glance at romance and beauty from the perspective of a couple on vacation. “Lindo Lindo” showcases TOLEDO’s ability to be endlessly fun and innovative all at once. Likewise, “In Yr Head (1818)” is a stripped-back, synthesizer ballad that takes dream-pop to a whole new place. The song restrains its own up-tempo build, instead settling closer to the ground against the murmur of a damp drum machine. “But I hope someday you get there and come find me in a place where you can let them see the real you,” TOLEDO push, and it’s a real saccharine melody that gets you in its clutches and refuses to let go. But the centerpiece of Popped Heart is “Jesus Bathroom,” is a perfect three-minute achievement that’s synth-driven and bubbly, arriving like a grand amalgam of dream pop and the type of indie rock we’ve known, adored and revisited over and over for the last decade. —Matt Mitchell & Grace Ann Natanawan [Self-Released]

23. Greg Mendez: First Time/Alone

There’s a heartening bravery to how gentle the First Time/Alone EP dares to be—such as when Greg Mendez concentrates his gaze on the camera while performing its most uncomfortably intimate song, or in the way he chokes up singing, “I know it’s not the fi-irst time you’ve seen me cry” on “First Time.” The bare-bone musical arrangements are innately frail and averse to any sugar-coating, but that means they have plenty of room to welcome you in, offering a sweetness and warmth apropos of nothing. One of my favorite scenes in the video is when a moth—the very thing Mendez professes to feel as crushed as—crawls around his guitar, as though it alone was Mendez’s target audience. I suppose that moment represents why I, at least, connect to Mendez’s music—it seems to distill the essences of my own worries and struggles, and instead of telling me to just move on, it extends tender, unconditional understanding. And, like that moth, I listen closely—especially at my most delicate, most crushable—and find beauty in that art of staying gentle. Notably, it’s also Mendez’s first release on Dead Oceans, one of several labels interested in signing him following the rave around his self-titled release, he says. From the first listen to lead single, “First Time,” it was clear that we wouldn’t be getting a Greg Mendez, part two—gone are its lush, full-band arrangements and painstaking layering. The most striking divergence, though, is the absence of guitar on “First Time” and “Mountain Dew Hell,” which instead center around simple, melancholy piano riffs; Mendez wrote and recorded them when a wrist surgery rendered him unable to play guitar for several months. —Anna Pichler [Dead Oceans]

Read: “Greg Mendez: Finding Extraordinary in the Ordinary”

22. SG Lewis & Tove Lo: Heat

I maintain that Tove Lo’s 2022 album Dirt Femme was that year’s most underrated pop release, and seeing her continue this mark of excellence with an EP as good as Heat, her collaboration with SG Lewis, makes my head spin (non-derrogatory). A potent European dance-pop release, the English producer and Swedish singer-songwriter make for an excellent pair—the EP’s title track is easily one of the very best club bangers of 2024 altogether. Tove Lo’s songwriting is at an all-time high on songs like “Busy Girl” and “Desire” and, combined with Lewis’s production, the material is a high mark of dominant craft. The EP’s only flaw is that I wish it was a full-length record. —Matt Mitchell [Pretty Swede]

21. Maruja: Connla’s Well

While I’m still waiting for Maruja to drop their debut album, I’ll settle for the EP they put out in April. Connla’s Well is post-rock done right, calling to mind the space-age, krauty blends of a band like Popol Vuh, the slashing, post-punk renderings of Gang of Four and the jazzy textures of Godspeed You! Black Emperor before descending into a firestorm of post-hardcore and blown-out punk frequencies. Rather than pack a wallop, Connla’s Well feasts on your energy slowly, as the songs careen through fits of saxophone atmospheres, thudding drums and dynamic, unsettling, incongruent guitars. Vocalist Harry Wilkinson yelling “the truth, it hurts” over and over while “The Invisible Man” comes to a resolution has lingered with me for months. Connla’s Well is intense and compelling, by all metrics a symphonic, crushing listen that’ll challenge your own entropy. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]

20. Amaarae: roses are red, tears are blue – A Fountain Baby Extended Play

roses are red, tears are blue is what Amaarae calls “the final chapter” of her 2023 masterpiece Fountain Baby—a gentle, more-subdued conclusion to the celebratory, “ignant,” balls-to-the-wall, haphazard and tumultuous swagger of its source material rather than some standalone EP. roses are red, tears are blue is a calmer entry-point than Fountain Baby—a lesson learned personified into seven electric R&B tracks. “THUG” is a prayer and a rumination; “sweeeet” is growth and Amaarae’s extension and expression of self. She wrote the latter on a long car ride and recorded it while she was in the studio waiting for somebody to send her stems for another song. roses are red was focused on more from-the-chest freestyles, as opposed to the concentrated, songwriting boot camp-type of effort—passing melodies and words between her and her producers, trimming the fat and adding entire sections—of Fountain Baby. It’s a redux that flaunts Amaarae’s multi-faceted prowess behind the boards. —Matt Mitchell [Interscope]

Read: “Amaarae’s Zodiac of Love, Money, Confidence and Sex”

19. Wicca Phase Springs Eternal: Midnight at the Castle Moorlands

My favorite thing about Midnight at the Castle Moorlands is that it paces like a full-length LP—and I mean that lovingly. Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, the stage name of former Tigers Jaw and GothBoiClique member Adam Mcllwee, is doing the damn thing on Midnight at the Castle Moorlands, an EP so audacious that it slips in and out of genre—casting shadows over mementos of alt-rock, synth-pop, acoustic punk and trap. It’s an EP not of reckless abandon, but of top-rung craftsmanship. Unflinchingly esoteric and heartfelt, songs like “Venti Iced Americano,” “My Name is the Endless Night” and “Bells of Life” reckon with the natural and supernatural. The EP is a lovely continuation of his 2023 eponymous record, one that fits into both the real world and another dimension entirely. —Matt Mitchell [Run For Cover]

18. Bon Iver: SABLE,

“I know now that I can’t make good” was a startling first line back from Justin Vernon. Five years separated him from 2019’s i, i and the fatigue that settled within him during its touring cycle, and that meant opening Bon Iver’s book back up by shutting some self-deceptions down. This fall, Vernon unveiled SABLE,, a three-song EP written, produced and released under the Bon Iver name and a brilliant callback to the For Emma, Forever Ago era. On “S P E Y S I D E,” he admits “nothing’s really happened like [he] thought it would.” Not in the interim between releases, but in general. He “can’t rest on no dynasty,” the future’s been incinerated from his “violent spree,” even his lyrics (or grievances, depending on how you interpret the word “book”) are a “waste of wood.” The track tells the tale of regret, guilt, and the shame of faded dreams. Yet, accompanied by minimalistic instrumentation and a gentle tenor, Vernon pleads for a shot at redemption: “Maybe you can still make a man from me / Here on Speyside quay / With what’s left of me.” On “THINGS BEHIND THINGS BEHIND THINGS” and “AWARDS SEASON,” we get a more matured Justin Vernon, a writer content with the slow reward of regrowth after a period of endless endings. The EP is a celebration of a name growing from one voice to many, as Vernon worked with Jim-E Stack and Rob Moose to bring them to fruition. It’s some of the strongest work he’s ever made. —Emma Schoors & Matt Mitchell [Jagjagwar]

17. Pearson Sound: Which Way is Up

In his return to Hessle Audio, the label he co-runs with Ben UFO and Pangaea, Pearson Sound put out Which Way is Up, a sharp, four-track EP of dance music that calls to mind the sonics and visions of ‘80s Miami and ‘10s London, amassing a global soundsystem with futuristic, improbably dense jungle and drum ‘n bass notes that rock and rumble through a century of club epochs. The title track floats through the blank space of a videogame circuit board, while “Hornet” summons a countdown vibe just waiting to explode into a new frontier. “Twister” rushes through chase-scene theatrics and pangs of tempo melded into this hypnotic source of doom. But “Slingshot,” the glitchy, woozy centerpiece, bakes itself into a bit-crushed loop that rarely takes its foot off the gas. Which Way is Up is proof that Pearson Sound is still one of the best electronic cooks we’ve got. —Matt Mitchell [Hessle Audio]

16. Agriculture: Living is Easy

Few songs gnawed me in half quite like “Living is Easy,” the title track from Agriculture’s crushing four-song EP they put out in May. The song is a prime example of what well-done, white-knuckled metal can do to anyone who opens themselves to it. “Living is Easy” opens with a shimmering guitar being strummed into a build-up, which turns into an avalanche of screams and head-pounding ecstasy. At seven minutes long, Agriculture never let up once, swirling around the drain of a blackened abyss until vocalists Dan Meyer and Leah B. Levinson puncture through with coagulated, gurgling pain that crumbles into a guitar solo I can only describe as catharsis rebuilding itself brick by brick. “In a forest with insects eating my body, I would not be afraid of that,” a voice rings out, and the fist clenches tight enough to pop the ozone. As the punishment strobes on, songs like “Being Eaten By a Tiger” and “In the House of Angel Flesh” sharply inhale and exhale, the latter of which has a bit of glammy splendor to it colored by Meyer and Levinson’s seam-splitting vocal rapture. As the dust settles, Agriculture perform a spoken-word piece called “When You Were Born,” ending in affirmation: “These words weren’t meant for you, but, one day, they find you through another.” —Matt Mitchell [The Flenser]

15. Girl Scout: Headache

Swedish alt-rock group Girl Scout’s Headache is a multi-layered explosion of hate, hurt, guilt and frustration through the lens of their charismatic indie rock. Grappling with the gut-wrenching physical manifestations of anxiety and the “weird feeling in the pit of your stomach that you wake up with for no reason at all,” Headache is a cathartic release as singer Emma Jansson howls through bated-breath apologies and pleas to make it all go away. This loose and liberating project simulates ravaging internal emotions through captivating anger, guttural yelps and “funny feelings” about people and life as a whole. Veering away from the explosive, in-your-face ‘90s rock energy of “I Just Needed You to Know,” the sugary sweet hooks and shimmering synths of “Honey” are the perfect backing to the song’s melancholic narrative of growing apart from your close friends. “I know it hurts to see her only for a little while,” Jansson sings about longing to keep friendships the same. “Headache is AAAAAAAAH!!!!!!,” she told Paste. The glistening pristine of Girl Scout’s traditional, up-tempo guitar rock is still present, but the intensity of fluctuating emotion elevates their once-laidback sound to a new, complex level. —Alli Dempsey [235 Music]

Read: “Girl Scout: The Best of What’s Next”

14. Little Simz: Drop 7

Little Simz’s long-running Drop EP series reached its seventh iteration this year, arriving two years after her under-the-radar fifth studio album, No Thank You. It’s her first entry in the series in four years, but Drop 6 was firmly tethered to the pandemic-era climate it was released in. Drop 7 is Simz at her freest in a minute. “Nothing left to prove, ‘cause I done enough,” she declares on “Torch,” setting the tone for what these 15 minutes of song are meant to represent. She sings about snakes talking behind her back (“Fever”), real estate in outer space (“Torch”) and channeling perspective through music (“Power”) through scapes of Brazilian funk (“SOS”), synth-pop (“Mood Swings”) and ensemble rap (“I Ain’t Feelin It”). If the back-to-back excellence of Sometimes I Might Be Introvert and No Thank You capture Little Simz sitting on the throne of hip-hop, then Drop 7 is the Mercury Prize winner’s reluctance to relinquish one shred of herself. —Matt Mitchell [Forever Living Originals/AWAL]

13. hemlock: amen!

At six songs, hemlock’s latest offering—amen!—finds Carolina Chauffe, Kyle Dugger and Lindsey Verrill so in-sync that you’d be remiss to not give them your full attention. The EP is stunning from “widest wing” to “prayer,” with centerpiece “bones” unraveling in the eye of the storm. “bones” is an emotional rollercoaster of forward momentum; a track big-hearted and clear-eyed and packed to the brim with sublime, tenderly devastating registers of hope and love. Performed in Silsbee, Texas with Lomelda, amen! is caught somewhere between y’all-ternative and lo-fi language arts rock. And hemlock understood the assignment. “I’m gonna move across the country or down the hall,” Carolina sings with a flex of twang that flirts with a yodel but never quite explodes into anything but an amen ensconced in warmth. “be/long” is primed to be an under-the-radar song of the year candidate, as Carolina singing “And I chose you as family, now a glow from deep inside of me is ripe for the reclaiming” will light a fire within you. “To give despite the taking, to let go of it all,” they continue. “May we land somewhere soft.” amen! does exactly that. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]

12. GEL: Persona

New Jersey hardcore band GEL dropped their debut LP last year and lived up to their “THE FREAKS WILL INHERIT THE EARTH” proclamation that welcomed listeners to their Bandcamp page. Only Constant was a splash of a much-needed rebirth for a genre still lingering in its hyper-masculine past, and Persona helps carry that momentous reinvention forward. “Foundation built to crumble, fighting back the collapse,” Sami Kaiser wails on “Mirage.” “Refuse to die by your roof, much rather swing my own axe.” Persona is thick and devilish from beginning to end, turning tracks like “Shame,” “Vanity” and “Martyr” into these visceral, raw-hemmed chaos and blood-curdling empowerment. GEL are the blueprint for hardcore’s bright future; Persona ought to become a pillar of the genre. —Matt Mitchell [Blue Grape]

11. Joan Shelley: Mood Ring

Kentucky singer-songwriter Joan Shelley’s songs will break your heart with their beauty. Mood Ring, her first release of new music in two years, is such a striking project that I’ve been unable to let go of it since October. These are understated folk arrangements spun into potent glimpses of collaborative lullabies. She works with her husband Nathan Salsburg and James Elkington (with whom he made a very good record called All Gist this year), churning out intuitive, droning ambitions put together subtly and sublimely. “I Look After You” is a gentle balm (“Your scent telling you once lived in my sun”) plucked into focus by a kalimba, while “Mood Ring” waxes about block universe theory and relationships ending and beginning—“That’s how we move through time,” Shelley sings. “Fire in the Morning” is grief dancing on a nylon string; “Here I’m offering a melody,” she gestures, “and it’s sad in tone in hopes you’ll hear it.” I grieve and I weep at the feet of Shelley’s songwriting, whose spectrum of loss is the bedrock of humanity’s most challenging wakes. —Matt Mitchell [No Quarter]

10. Shygirl: Club Shy

Shygirl’s 2024 sampler of club-pop will leave you delighted. Released into the world around the same time as Charli XCX’s “Von dutch,” Club Shy is both provocative and evocative, calling to mind the mid-2000s dance scene that made an artist like Bodyrox into a name worth remembering. Shygirl does a great job of honoring a near-20-year-old legacy by doing club music justice. There’s dashes of hyper-pop here, a splash of EDM there—“4eva,” “mr useless” and “tell me” are charismatic, delectable turns toward these dubby, blissed-out party idyllics. Collaborating with the likes of Empress Of, Kingdom, Lolo Zouaï, Boys Noize, SG Lewis and Cosha, Club Shy lives up to its name by being a destination worth ending up at by night’s end. —Matt Mitchell [Because Music]

9. Grumpy: Wolfed

If Juno was remade in the year of our Lord 2024 (please don’t actually let this happen), “Flower” by Brooklyn band Grumpy would certainly be on the soundtrack. There’s the Kimya Dawson twee-ness of it all, and a wry sense of humor that undercuts potentially saccharine moments, like frontperson Heaven Schmitt’s precise enunciation of every syllable in the word “vegetables.” It’s a charming waltz of a love song, exploring “the end of a relationship with a peacefulness and gratitude that it happened at all.” “Flower” gives us a look at how soft Grumpy can go, compared to the sharp electronic sounds on “Saltlick,” the dawn of a new era for Schmitt and their legion of exes (their ex-girlfriends are on bass and keyboard, ex-husband on drums). “Saltlick” is all about killing moods in the name of self-preservation and doing embarrassing shit. Schmitt sings about putting on a wardrobe built from pieces in a clearance bin; they’re at Radioshack, high as a kite, asking employees for a phone charger; they’re looking for a bargain on a “better life” so they can provide for a second wife. “I try until I get bored” becomes the song’s thesis statement, as Grumpy plugs a bunch of drum machines and synths into a collage of glitchy, non-chalant ecstasy called Wolfed. —Clare Martin & Matt Mitchell [Bayonet]

8. Ugly: Twice Around the Sun

Indie rock has been having something of a new British Invasion, what with the avalanche of Squid, Black Country, New Road, Yard Act, Wet Leg, Dry Cleaning and Tapir that has really become a definitive measuring stick for most contemporary post-punk acts. For my money, Ugly may just be the next big thing, and their Twice Around the Sun EP is one of the best things I’ve heard all year—thanks to songs lile “Shepherd’s Carol,” “Icy Windy Sky” and “Hands of Man.” Twice Around the Sun is 36 minutes long, but I’ll take Ugly at their word and consider the project an EP. Each of the six songs present call to mind the likes of shame, Fleetwood Mac, XTC and Contraption; it’s quite easy to obsess over a band like this, especially when no turn they make ever sounds the same. The harmonies on “Icy Windy Sky”! The guitar playing on “Shepherd’s Carol”! The two-part singalong of “Sha”! The nonsensical, hypnotizing vocal layering on “The Wheel” that transforms into this big, stressful, robotic, orchestral climax! It’s all just so maddening and brilliant. Ugly are ironically gorgeous, fully on their way up the proverbial ladder. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]

7. The Ophelias: Ribbon

On Ribbon, the Ophelias are queer, trans and full of joy. A song like “Black Ribbon” pairs Andrea Gutmann Fuentes’ chilling violin with a grieving, sluggish chord progression from Spencer Peppet—both of which build upwards into this chunky, synthy, full-band explosion of noise, while Peppet vocalizes through the chaos in the eye of the storm, examining the genesis of a new queer relationship. “Some kind of desire that I cannot categorize,” she sings. “You’re a Springsteen song, dark sky in overdrive into the warm night.” On “Soft and Tame,” write a heartbreaking homecoming lament. “Giving up love in the South of Ohio, I hate it here, in the in-between,” Peppet sings out. “I wanna feel safe, I wanna feel seen. The curve of the hills when the sun is gone, a knot in my throat, another fucking song.” Fuentes’ violin rips through the noise of the track with a paradoxical, piercing delicacy that renders “Soft and Tame” into a brand new register of beauty. Ribbon flourishes like a full-length, setting its own in-betweens ablaze with emotionality arriving mercilessly from every angle. Few bands cater to my tastes so distinctly—Ohio representation, Springsteen mentioned, queer as a three-dollar bill—but the Ophelias are not like other bands. Hearing “Dust” live in a near-empty Columbus venue in April was one of my most cathartic nights of the year. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]

6. Cindy: Swan Lake

Upon its release in October, the new Cindy EP, Swan Lake, quickly became one of my favorite projects of the year. It’s a sweet, mesmerizing sum of sugary pop-rock melodies in a 17-minute shape. You might listen to songs like “All Weekend” and “The Bell” and think of a post-John Cale Velvet Underground, or you might turn on the title track and hear Karina Gill mentioning “raw power” and wonder if she’s talking about the Stooges. Swan Lake is, simply put, a catchy triumph with almost no percussion (save for some snare drum scrapes in “All Weekend,” or an orphaned tambourine and shaker someplace) and a whole lot of euphoric guitar strums. Swan Lake is jangly and slick, a collection of lullabies imbued with the kind of six-string notes you might hear on a Chantels track, or some girl-group demo lost with the passing of time and trends. Cindy is the closest thing we’ve got to Broadcast, as Gill’s hums twinkle in the stars next to Trish Keenan’s. Listening to Swan Lake is a reward I keep returning to the fruits of. —Matt Mitchell [Tough Love]

5. Moses Sumney: Sophcore

Moses Sumney hasn’t made a full-length album since græ four years ago, but that didn’t stop him from releasing the very beautiful Sophcore EP this year—a project led by songs like “Vintage” and “Hey Girl,” both spun from walls of salacious, mystifying falsetto singing and desire. “Vintage” is code for real yearning hours, and Moses Sumney is in full Boyz II Men mode on it, feeling the rapture of a “specter hanging over” him through vocal runs and a sentimentality that practically bursts through my phone speakers every time it comes on shuffle, while “Gold Coast” and “Lover’s Refrain” are playful, Björk and Prince-summoning, symphonic soul tracks toeing the line of a conversational edge. The EP makes a mess of delightful, binding and lively melodies that blur the margin separating orgasm and organism, delivering an utterly human sense of pleasure and lust in just six tracks. —Matt Mitchell [TUNTUM]

4. Kassie Krut: Kassie Krut

Born out of the disbandment of Palm, Kassie Krut is Eve Alpert, Matt Anderegg and Kasra Kurt doing big, gauzy, experimental dance tracks. “Reckless” is one of the best singles of the year, while its spell-binding hook is gentle yet never surrenders beneath the weight of this industrial, randomized collage of spectral, scrap-metal beats and glitching synths. Elsewhere, “Hooh Beat” sounds like a knife personified into a song, scraping and slicing its way through a clanging backing track and swirling, kinetic keys. “Racing Man” and “United” arrive with high marks from the schools of SOPHIE and Arca. delighting through pop-inflected, metallic textures that dance along the rim of a waste bin. “If you ask me who I wanna be,” Kurt sings at the dawn of her band’s EP. “I’ma spell it out so it’s plain to see: K-A-S-S-I-E-K-R-U-T-T-T-T.” Talk about an introduction for the ages. —Matt Mitchell [Fire Talk]

3. Wilco: Hot Sun Cool Shroud

You’re getting a career’s worth of checkpoints in such a small vacuum, and Hot Sun Cool Shroud is a deft reminder that Wilco is one of the greatest rock bands of this century that we’re dealing with after all. Given that the band played all of A Ghost is Born front-to-back at Solid Sound just before releasing this EP, it’s clear that they haven’t lost sight of what parts of their style work and what don’t. In many ways, Hot Sun Cool Shroud sharpens Cousin’s otherwise polarizing experimental moments; seeing how well their comfort zone works makes those left-field shots (makes, misses and someplace in-between) sound all the more nuanced and bold. The fact that these six tracks are Cousin leftovers doesn’t subtract their impact—they aren’t cutting-room-floor limbs severed from the host; the songs hold a unique, communal sentimentality that contrasts the from-the-ground-up, piece-by-piece construction of the mothership album they were axed from in the first place. “Hot Sun” cracks open the EP like a beating sun busting up tarmac. Wilco haven’t had an opening track this affecting since “Either Way” 18 years ago. The instrumental “Livid,” albeit a minute long, begins with a riff that sounds like a garage rock band trying to rip off AC/DC’s “Beating Around the Bush”—and it works because Tweedy and the gang sound absolutely mad despite the track’s brevity. “Ice Cream” is the album’s slow-burn song, but it is beautifully compelling. Hot Sun Cool Shroud is full steam ahead by the time it dissolves into “Annihilation”—Wilco’s strongest song in years. The band unvault jangly guitars dressed up with an industrialized poppiness; Jeff Tweedy plays rhythm, holding down the song’s foundation while Nels Cline turns his six-string up and conjures the elements that haunted every turn of A Ghost is Born. Hot Sun Cool Shroud succeeds at amplifying numerous eras of Wilco’s career, and “Annihilation” is a modern-day epilogue to a five-year run that ended nearly two decades ago. —Matt Mitchell [dBpm]

Read: “Wilco: Cousins of the World”

2. Nourished by Time: Catching Chickens

Following the sleeper acclaim of 2023’s Erotic Probiotic 2 and providing a taste of what we might be able to expect from a forthcoming sophomore full-length teased for 2025, Catching Chickens proved that Nourished by Time’s Marcus Brown really, truly, sincerely has the juice. Plenty of artists have dipped their toes into the number of worlds he skims against in his work—left-of-center R&B, spacy art-pop, the more dramatic turns of new wave—but few have blended them in a way that feels as original and plainly moving as these five tracks do. From the synthpop singalong of “Hell of a Ride” to the concussive “Poison-Soaked” to the heart-wrenching slow dance of “Romance in Me,” Catching Chickens cements Brown as one of the most thrilling voices in music right now, weaving equal parts romance and ennui into the sounds of the future (or what semblance of a future we might have left). —Elise Soutar [XL]

1. Georgia Gets By: Split Lip

Split Lip, the second EP from Georgia Gets By (the solo project of BROODS’ Georgia Nott), is my favorite extended play of the year, and “Not This Time” is a rewarding confirmation of that. Georgia bargains with intimacy on the track, returning to an ex and finding reward in familiar comfort. “When heaven forsakes you, I’m coming to save you,” she sings. “Something always gets the best of me, loving you is just a recipe for disaster.” The arrangement, like much of the EP, is minimal, but it’s that soft orchestration that allows Georgia’s voice to remain at half-mast, as she reckons with being in a place she doesn’t belong in with a person she doesn’t belong to anymore. There’s hurt and there’s hope in “Not This Time,” and few voices can juxtapose both truths as personally as Nott’s. Split Lip is a combination of many textures, weaving itself into a tapestry of shoegaze, dream-pop and singer-songwriter. On “Some Kind of Angel,” there’s a layer of solemness, as a bassline tectonically thuds and a blanket of moody synthesizers linger in the doldrums of the song’s gleaming, strummed soul. “Madeline” erupts into a colossal, angular fit of noise and piercing vocals and, as far as musical climaxes go, it’s a perfect, evocative barometer for maximalism. The turning point of “Madeline” is unforgettable, and Notts’s voice marvelously skyscrapes far above it all. Her singing is so powerful you can feel it in your kneecaps. —Matt Mitchell [Fat Possum]

Read: “Georgia Nott is Ready to Stand Alone”