As long-standing experts in underground electronic music culture, we here at Inverted Audio have indulged in an infinite number of releases throughout 2024, and we would like to thank every producer, record label and publicist for sharing their music with us.
Alongside the global torment, 2024 has proved to be a milestone year for Inverted Audio, further extending our offering as an online music magazine to become one of London’s best record stores, pushing the artists and labels we love, incubating a community of like-minded folk, hosting in-store events and record fairs. Thank you to everyone that has been involved in our journey and we look forward to 2025.
As the annual tradition goes, we’ve shortlisted the albums that have helped influence and soundtrack our year, as well as concluding with a top 20 list of what we perceive to be the Best Albums of 2024.
SHORTLIST
0N4B – Somewhere, Left Behind
Aboutface – Pensée Sculpture
Absurd Cosmos Late Nite – Where The Sidewalks Are Safe For The Little Guy
Acrelid – Illegal Rave Tapes Selektion – 1999-2012
Alex Albrecht – Allambie
Alex Albrecht pres. Melquíades – Aurora
Ben Kaczor & Niculin Barandun – Pointed Frequencies
Bianca Scout – Pattern Damage
Black Decelerant – Reflections Vol. 2: Black Decelerant
Body San – Hilly Blue
Charles.A.D. – West Pontoon Bridge
Christopher Rau – Better Times
CS + KREME – Butterfly Drinks Tears of a Tortoise
Dead Sound – Into The Void
Dialect – Atlas of Green
Discovery Zone – Quantum Web
Doc Sleep – Cloud Sight Fade
Donato Dozzy – Magda
Double Geography – Open Water
DX2OV – Interzona
Earthen Sea – Recollection
Elll – Undulations
Florian TM Zeisig – Planet Inc
Frank & Tony – Ethos
Gearmaster – 30003
H.A.N.K. – The Big Melt
Hesaitix – Noctian Airgap
Holy Tongue meets Shackleton – The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now
Honour – Àlááfíà
Hotspring – Apodelia
James Hoff – Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands
Jan Jelinek – Social Engineering
John Roberts – Swan
Jupiter Jax – Summer Grey
Klein – Marked
Laenz – After Sunset
Legowelt – Like A Song From Your Dream
Lina Filipovich – Music For An Imaginary Dancefloor
Lisene – Science Friction
Manuel Gonzales – Days Gone By
Moin – You Never End
Monolake – Studio
Monty Luke – Nightdubbing
Mount Kimbie – The Sunset Violent
MR. G – The Fifth Chakra
mu tate – wanting less
Nexcyia – Endless Path Of Memory
Nicola Cruz – Kinesia
Nicola Ratti – Automatic Popular Music
Oliver Coates – Throb, shiver, arrow of time
Perila – Intrinsic Rhythm
Priori – This but More
Rafael Anton Irisarri – FAÇADISMS
Roma Zuckerman – Phenomenon of Provincial Mentality
Rrose x Polygonia – Dermatology
Sasha – Da Vinci Genius
Scan 7 – Dark Territory
Seefeel – Everything Squared
Severed+Said – End Time Loop
SnPLO – Lastday Cookie
Soela – Dark Portrait
SOPHIE – SOPHIE
Squarepusher – Dostrotime
Stefan Vincent – Post Melancholy
Steve Moore – Eye Of Horus
Stimulator Jones – Valley Centre
STL – U Know The Score
Suso Sáiz – Distorted Clamor
The Mole – High Hopes
Tom Carruthers – Downtown Rhithms
Total Blue – Total Blue
Ulla & Ultrafog – It Means A Lot
Vril – Saturn Is A Supercomputer
Wrecked Lightship – Antiposition
Zaumne – Only Good Dreams For Me
20. 990x
Ruins
sferic
Delicate strings and twinkling textures create an ethereal liminal space on Ruins by 990x. Fluid and mystical, the fractured beats, subtle harmonies, and dark, brooding layers conjure the sensation of walking through the future, where time is not relative. Calmness remains soaking in its atmosphere, and crystalline beats splutter around. This is a true masterpiece for the ambient-loving nerd.
Released: 08 November 2024
Record Label: sferic
Best Track: Crates
19. Jichael Mackson
Wait For It
Ilian Tape
After making music for three decades, Munich-based producer Boris Steffen released his debut album as Jichael Mackson on Ilian Tape, marking one of the most anticipated album releases of the year. Spanning 13-tracks, ‘Wait For It‘ was certainly worth the wait, constantly shifting moods and tempos, shimmering with raw beats and enamoured atmospheres. Trust us, this album is exceptional.
Released: 26 September 2024
Record Label: Ilian Tape
Best Track: Good Morning Sunshine
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
18. Loidis
One Day
Incienso
Six years after the release of the beloved ‘A Parade, In The Place I Sit, The Floating World (& All Its Pleasures)‘ EP on Hank Jackson’s always on-point label anno, Brian Leeds revived his Loidis project with a 8-track double LP on US-based record label Incienso. ‘One Day‘ explores the minimal spectrum, sounding more akin to what you’d expect on labels such as Perlon, distinctly driven and significantly deep. Highlights include ‘Love’s Lineaments‘ and ‘Sugar Snot‘.
Released: 02 August 2024
Record Label: Incienso
Best Track: Love’s Lineaments
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
17. Max Graef
Natural Element
Tartelet Records
Berlin-based producer Max Graef returned to Tartelet Records with his first release since 2018’s ‘Lo Siento Mucho Pero No Hablo Tu Idioma’. Faced with all odds against conformity, Graef unleashes a fully fledged version of himself with this enthralling mixtape exploring psychedelic realms at a wide-ranging speed, influenced by his early jazz-sampled house methods and deep probes into uncanny experiments.
Released: 14 June 2024
Record Label: Tartelet Records
Best Track: Natural Element
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
16. CHANTSSSS
Shyness
Theory Therapy & co:clear
Sydney-based record label Theory Therapy and Glasgow-based imprint co:clear issue the debut album by Italian artist CHANTSSSS. ‘Shyness’ suggests something subtle, intricate and ethereal – but it also demands your attention. Over 10 tracks of spacious, sub-aquatic ambience, CHANTSSSS pulls you deep into his vaporous world. The songs themselves, a blend of ambient pop, chamber music and pulsing low end rhythms, feel cloaked in mystery. Layers of reverb and zonked vocals float in the atmosphere, moving between and through one another, mist on mist. It’s not necessarily a quiet record, the low end can shake a room if you turn the volume up, but it does feel extremely intimate – proof that some art speaks loudest in its quietest moments.
Released: 06 September 2024
Record Label: Theory Therapy & co:clear
Best Track: (swan)
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
15. Low End Activist
Airdrop
Peak Oil
Pure manic freak show inducing release on LA’s Peak Oil, ‘Airdrop‘ is all mutating cyber-bleeps wrung out over agonised writhing blares and cheeky strands of breakbeat flirt with silence. The Bristol-born now Berlin-based artist goes certifiably low, as desired, razor-cutting through layers of jungle, grime and whatnot, stripping it to its core for a strongly pleasuring, haunting and hardcore ambience. Airdrop loads to the brim on some ferocious dancefloor pressure. Big-energy, bass-face, gun-finger stroking masterwork productions from the bottomless barrels of the Low End Activist – one that’s seriously hot.
Released: 12 April 2024
Record Label: Peak Oil
Best Track: Airdrop 08 (Hinksey Hardcore)
Read Review: Low End Activist – Airdrop
14. Box5ive
Grey Space
co:clear
Teaming up with Glaswegian imprint co:clear, Box5ive’s debut, ‘Grey Space‘, presents strands of bass music interspersed with lush, atmospheric ambient. The album is an exceptional exploration and mixture of divergent electronic sounds that leaves a lasting impression. The aesthetic of ‘Grey Space’ is a gorgeous hybrid of ambient and bass music that charts its own course and experiments with different forms.
Released: 14 June 2024
Record Label: co:clear
Best Track: Blind
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
Read Review: Box5ive – Grey Space
13. Jack J
Blue Desert
Mood Hut
Two years since the release of his playful, simplistic and downright funky ‘Opening the Door’ LP – Australian-born Vancouver-based multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and producer Jack J returned to his own imprint Mood Hut with his latest album ‘Blue Desert’. Spanning 11-tracks, the album was entirely self-produced at Mood Hut Studios in Chinatown, Vancouver between 2022 and 2024. According to the press release – “Blue Desert picks up where ‘Opening the Door’ left off; the songwriting concise and refined, the voice front and centre on almost every song, the pensive mood irresistible and dense.”
Released: 01 November 2024
Record Label: Mood Hut
Best Track: Foolish Man
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
12. Actress
Statik
Smalltown Supersound
Just within a year of ‘LXXXVIII’ for Ninja Tune comes ‘Statik’, the 10th album from Wolverhampton’s retired football protégé and ex-VHS technician Darren Cunningham, known to the world as Actress. In the afterglow of ‘LXXXVIII’s aloof R’n’B pulses and coded vocal swagger, framed by an inexplicable aesthetic of 80s computer chess imagery, ‘Statik’ appears tacitly through the illuminated fog and beckons us into the refractive cornices of Cunningham’s inextricably visual architectures.
Released: 07 June 2024
Record Label: Smalltown Supersound
Best Track: Cafe del Mars
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
Read Review: Actress – Statik
11. Angel R
Mossed Capable Of Being Observant
enmossed
German producer Florian TM Zeisig unveiled a new production alias and album project as Angel R through American experimental record label Enmossed. Spanning 5-tracks, ‘Mossed Capable Of Being Observant’ delivers deep swathes of ambient textures and granular dub acoustics emboldened with “grainy pads, chewed-up percussion, and monstrous sub bass.”
Released: 03 December 2024
Record Label: enmossed
Best Track: Together
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
10. Mad Rider
fmrann8
Vierundvierzig
Salzburg-based record label vierundvierzig welcomed mysterious Austrian producer Mad Rider to the fold with a mini-LP named ‘fmrann8’ – coincidentally marking the producers first ever vinyl release. Conceived during the pandemic, ‘fmrann8’ was finalised after the reopening of clubs, providing a vehicle for hesitant mids of wanting/not wanting to revisit the club environments. Consisting of seven tracks, ‘fmrann8’ delves between downtempo outer-dimensional sonics via deep house and dub techno.
Released: 02 February 2024
Record Label: vierundvierzig
Best Track: mdor
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
9. Fergus Jones
Ephemera
Numbers
Following up Perko’s irresistible ‘Prang / Sisu’ last year, Edinburgh-born, Copenhagen-based producer and FELT boss Fergus Jones dropped his alias to release his debut album on Numbers, featuring contributions from; Huerco S, James K, Koreless, Birthmark, ELDON and Withdrawn, Laila Sakini and Lia T. Consisting of 9-tracks, ‘Ephemera‘ is said to embody “Jones’ inner journey as he ranges further than ever sonically and emotionally, emphasising instinct, intensity, tactility and rapture.”
Released: 18 October 2024
Record Label: Numbers
Best Track: Heima with Huerco S. and James K
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
8. Gi Gi
Dreamliner
Quiet Time Tapes
Gi Gi returns to Quiet Time Tapes with ‘Dreamliner‘. Here, Gi Gi explores spacey, kosmische-laced downtempo trip-hop. At first, these eight tracks come across placid and twinkly — calling to mind glitter stars twinkling atop a navy canvas, or tropical sun beams cutting through crystal water. But a jaggedness becomes apparent when lended a focused ear. Beneath slow motion arpeggiations and lullaby melodies, dubby percussion and sound effects gnash and quiver.
Released: 27 September 2024
Record Label: Quiet Time Tapes
Best Track: Far-Flung
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
7. Bibio
Phantom Brickworks (LP II)
Warp Records
Debuting in 2017, ‘Phantom Brickworks‘ first caught our attention thanks to Bibio’s hauntingly beautiful delayed piano chords and reverb drenched pads, soundtracking a sepia tinged view of once busy places, now devoid of human activity. For those that have not experienced ‘Phantom Brickworks‘, it sounds like a dilapidated medley of Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient Works II’ and the ballroom ethos of The Caretaker. Bibio now presents his sequel, a 10-track LP, mastered by Guy Davie and vinyl cut by Hendrik Pauler.
Released: 22 November 2024
Record Label: Warp Records
Best Track: TEGID’S COURT
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
Read Feature: Bibio unearths the mindset of Phantom Brickworks (LP II)
6. DaRand Land
Wander Being
Scissor and Thread
Following a string of standout releases from Alex Albrecht, Frank & Tony, Soela and Will Long, New York-based record label Scissor and Thread wrap up 2024 with a double LP from American producer DaRand Land. Based out of Buffalo in the state of New York, DaRand Land is a revered for his deep house tendencies. Spanning 12-tracks, ‘Wander Being‘ is effortfully sleek and deep, surefire to please the most discerning of heads thanks to its bumping blend of house. Standout track ‘Turn To The Music‘ piques our attention due to its thumping kick-drum and sultry chords, rounded off with smoked out vocals.
Released: 29 November 2024
Record Label: Scissor and Thread
Best Track: Turn To The Music
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
5. Skee Mask
Resort
Ilian Tape
With a serious passion for craft and obsessive attention to detail, Skee Mask nerds it out in his brand-new LP for Ilian Tape. Resort is everything you’d expect from the electronic producer/wizard: fluttering breakbeats, ethereal synth pads, and warm, lush undertones—a brain-mending listening adventure from start to finish. The crackling sound patterns on the record bring to mind Compro, his poignant 2018 release, which remains arguably one of the most timeless pieces of music ever created.
Released: 13 June 2024
Record Label: Ilian Tape
Best Track: Schneiders Paradox
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
4. Jabu
A Soft And Gatherable Star
Do You Have Peace?
Burnt embers of hazy dream-pop in Jabu’s third album, the rhythm moves around amorphously as the Bristol Trio of Amos Childs, Alex Rendall, and Jasmine Butt work their way into the allure of the darkness around them, ghosts of memories past tucked into a taped cassette concealed by a case, a picture of a cigarette that has tasted a lip under the moonlight frames the cover. ‘A Soft and Gatherable Star‘ touches on themes close to the heart—loneliness and longing, love and quiet drama. An enchanting night spent sleeping in a forest clearing, where the vast, blanketed sky reveals the cosmos for a fleeting eternity; its beauty is immense, especially in the shared intimacy of listening. Jabu stir something deep in the gut with their raw, tender renditions of a fragile, sensitive, and sincere reality.
Released: 01 Month 2024
Record Label: Do You Have Peace?
Best Track: Temporary
Read Review: Jabu – A Soft and Gatherable Star
3. Xenia Reaper
Luvaphy
INDEX:Records
In a modernist convolution of cybernetic realness and breaks essence, Berlin-based producer Xenia Reaper crystallises their debut full length album on Glasgow’s INDEX:Records, following a handful of EPs and singles on their own Xenoplex label and INDEX sub-label Appendix.Files. From the outset, ‘Luvaphy’ builds a sinewy framework of drum and bass errata, utilising non-traditional percussion toolkits collaged against perfected synth lushness. Reaper’s work is seamlessly mixed, whilst effortlessly radiating in a subtle haze of internet 2.0 sonics, detached and encased in a kind of stoned austerity.
Released: 29 March 2024
Record Label: INDEX:Records
Best Track: Luvaphy
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
Read Review: Xenia Reaper – Luvaphy
2. Lb Honne
Present Future / Here There
Project Indigo
Zurich-based producer Karl Primo aka Lb Honne steps up to deliver his debut long player on Project Indigo. ‘Present Future / Here There‘ LP delivers nine solo tracks spanning warm tonal ambiance and deep house tendencies, embellished with effervescent vocals and club focussed frequencies. The album instills that same magical quality that Leafar Legov emanated so resolutely through his early output on Giegling, however in this case it’s far more heart-strung and emotional. With the majority of the album piqued for downtempo and introspective moments, the album is also bejewelled with a sprinkling of club sonics. Propelled with shuffling shakers and deep house drum work, highlight ‘Sky Funk‘ gradually develops an enchanting aura of melancholia that can be compared to that finite moment, when the swollen sun sets beneath the horizon. Earmark this one for summertime open-air raves, this is the ideal accompaniment.
Released: 15 April 2024
Record Label: Project Indigo
Best Track: Sky Funk
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
1. Rue des Garderies
Rue des Garderies
Femacosmé
‘Rue des Garderies’ is the debut album from Parisian production duo Désiré Bonaventure & Zach on Raphael Fragil’s imprint Femacosmé. Performed and recorded in one take at a liminal space in Paris, Rue Des Garderies captures a fragile state of collaborative improvisation permeated into a psychedelic journey through seven dream-state ballads. Presented as a triple vinyl gatefold edition, Rue des Garderies contains majestic and hauntingly textural music, reminiscent of William Basinski, Huerco S. and Wolfgang Voigt as GAS. Played on repeat throughout the year, ‘Rue Des Garderies‘ has wormed itself into ears like a fever-dream, provoking deep states of inner reflection and yearning fascination. Accompanied with a sublime music video blending tropical vistas with lysergic Ai trickery, Rue des Garderies is the most mystical and beautiful albums that we have encountered in 2024.
Released: 14 June 2024
Record Label: Femacosmé
Best Track: Gürum Nation
Buy Album on Inverted Audio Store
Read Feature: Lifting The Veil Off Rue des Garderies