Eight albums that came out this year which I purchased and especially resonated with me. In no particular order:

• Another Perfect Day by Bill Orcutt: One man, one electric guitar, four strings, a room. I love it.
• Sacontrafa by Segundos Auxilios: Post-punk angularity, saxophone squeaks, and fresh weirdness out of Mexico and straight into my heart.
• Living in a Fiction by Liiek: I fell into a bandcamp hole exploring German post-punk after hearing an Onyon track over the summer. This Liiek record is the most fun of what I've come across in that exploration this year.
• Warsaw 480km by pôt-pot: This Irish/Portuguese psych-kraut album feels to me like a spiritual successor to one of my favorite albums from 2023, GHOSTWOMAN's Hindsight is 50/50. Less technical, less clean, but works on me psychically in a similar way. I love it!
• Wish Defense by FACS: I like "dark" post-punk, and FACS delivered a great album of it early in the year. Beautifully recorded. It was the last album engineered by Steve Albini and you can feel his hand in it. Great shit.
• Sounds Like... by Florry: Recommended if you like the sound of 6 to 8 good friends who all love Neil Young playing songs together.
• Phonetics On and On by Horsegirl: Horsegirl is in the same strata as Bill Orcutt and FACS for me. They all produce—in their own ways—music that I cannot help but love. Each standing on the shoulders of different albums of the past and reaching new heights. The track "Julie" has a phrase I keep turning over and over as a guiding principle: "We have so many mistakes to make / What do you want from them?"
• Thank You, Guitar by Cyrus Pireh: Another lone person with an electric guitar album? Also on Bill Orcutt's label? Whereas Bill Orcutt sounds like he's expressing himself to you, Cyrus Pireh sounds more like you're overhearing him thinking with the guitar. It's less communicative and more contemplative. And great.

These albums came out this year and I bought them. Other great stuff came out this year that I bought, but these stand out. Of course there's even more great stuff that came out this year I didn't buy.