In recent months on Dazed, we’ve interviewed Cortisa Star, Björk, and Elmiene. We’ve also dug into Denmark’s underground dream pop scene, looked at ten essential tracks from SZA, revisited how techno became the sound of protest in Georgia, and hosted a Dazed Mix from Eera.

2024 is now over, but a lot is still happening out there. Despite the sometimes unspoken uncertainties that colour the day-to-day realities of many, music continues to function as a shared communal space and a source of collective solace. In the wake of the pandemic’s lockdown years, the global music community still faces ongoing economic challenges around touring, releasing and promoting music. Regardless of the difficult setting of the moment, however, new and under-discussed talents from the worlds of underground music continue to use community and craft to find a way.

For the fourth edition of our quarterly roundup for 2024, we’re continuing to reflect and acknowledge musicians, artists, producers and DJs from across the globe, all with strong communities, real visions, and important statements to make. Here are ten essential Q4 releases, all available on Bandcamp. Revisit our Q1, Q2 and Q3 roundups here, here, and here.

CARMEN VILLAIN, NUTRITION

WHO: The Norwegian-Mexican singer-songwriter continuing to reinvent herself as a mutant dub abstractionist.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: After opening with an electronically manipulated brass drone that circles the listener like a swarm of nanotech insectoids, Carmen Villian’s “Disig” unfolds into a sea of rubbery kicks, white noise, and percussion. It’s the perfect opening for her three-song EP, Nutrition, released through Oslo’s storied Smalltown Supersound imprint. From there, Villain uses the remaining two tracks, “Nutrition” and “Marka” to musically essay on hyper-rhythmic dub abstractionism (in the German dub techno mode) and the intersection between field recordings and subtle, slow-building machine beat syncopation, respectively. It’s killer work from a sonic journeywoman who continues to expand, explore and grow artistically. 

FOR FANS OF: Carrier, Laurel Halo, Andy Stott.

CHIZAWA Q, XENOVERSE

WHO: A Japanese producer and DJ putting a Tokyo twist on techno, hi-tek soul and nu-jazz.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Chizawa Q, the Yokohama-born, Tokyo Bayside-based beat architect, wears his musical influences on his sleeve, but despite that overt display, he’s far more than the sum of his listening. Across his debut album, Xenoverse, Q sits in the slipstreams between 90s Detroit, Europe and Japan, retooling their sense of pre-millennium futurism into ten jazz-tinged cyberpunk club tracks for the era in which we were promised hoverboards. On “Beluga”, he cliques up with Masaki Sakamoto to craft an uptempo orbital techno jam. Later on, in “Black Nebula”, Q heads further into space with a breakbeat-powered trunk-thumper for the ages: journey music. 

FOR FANS OF: Underground Resistance, Dave Angel, Ken Ishii.

D’MONK, SHINE

WHO: The London-based machine funk maestro finding the throughline between electro, broken beat, and Midwestern techno.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: As the neo-electro of “Listen” and the chrome-plated space-house sounds deployed across “U Light Me Up” effortlessly illustrate, D’Monk is a class act. A Londoner with close ties to Berlin, his genre-bleeding, rhythmic soundworld finds tension and expression in the rub between played and programmed music, as expressed on EP cuts like “U Just Don't Know What U Do 2 Me (Live)”. Thankfully, all of this and more sits together on D’Monk’s remarkable debut EP Shine. Over six tracks, D’Monk either rocks it solo or calls on assistance from Yoofee, Ziggy Zeitgeist and JAB on keyboards, drums and percussion, respectively.

FOR FANS OF: Herbie Hancock, Bugz In The Attic, Theo Parrish.

E-PRIME, DRY THROATS & SUNBURNS

WHO: Two tapped-in Toronto siblings putting a 90s R&B twist on 80 machine-pop and classic house.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Ostensibly, Dry Throats & Sunburns by E-Prime is the neon-hued soundtrack to warm summer nights and sunny summer days in more carefree times. However, when you dig below the surface, it’s also the soundtrack to the subtly shaking faultlines of anxiety, existential fear and nihilism that are ever ready to pierce the surface of our daily lives in the 2020s. Rendered through a palette of throwback synthesisers, sturdy drum machine grooves and longingly introspective vocals, the seven songs included here harken back to the fading past while looking out on the horizon for signs of a future that feels increasingly deferred. 

FOR FANS OF: Big Country, Prince, Fabiana Palladino.

FERGUS JONES, EPHEMERA

WHO: The Copenhagen-based Scottish producer, DJ and record label boss taking old sounds to new places.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Previously best known for his inward-looking lower tempo club releases as Perko, Ephemera sees Fergus Jones teaming up with a glistening cast of collaborators (Huerco S., James K, Koreless, etc) to reboot trip-hop, Balearic dub, synth-shoegaze and glitch for our present moment. On the menacingly chuggy road rap number “Tight Knit”,  Bristol’s Cold Light crew rhyme vividly over Jones’ misty soundscapes. Later, he tackles buoyant dream-pop with a breathy vocal courtesy of Laila Sakini before sending us into a blissed-out skyline of the mind with Huerco S across “It Should Be (Free)”. Revealing more with every listen, Ephemera is a crucial record.

FOR FANS OF: Boards of Canada, Rhythm & Sound, Dean Blunt.

GANAVYA, DAUGHTER OF A TEMPLE

WHO: An Indian-American multi-hyphenate using American jazz and South Asian devotional music to set souls alight.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Opening with the warm hug of “A Love Chant” featuring Esperanza Spalding, Ganavya’s Daughter Of A Temple, is a healing balm for all the world-weary souls ready and willing to open their hearts. Sitting somewhere between song and prayer, the album was born when the Flushing, Queens-born, Tamil Nadu-raised vocalist, composer, and bandleader gathered 30 key figures from the US/UK jazz and experimental music scenes in Houston for a ritual gathering that exceeded all expectations. Having performed with SAULT during their debut live show in London in 2023, Ganavya is a spellbinding artist on the verge of a golden moment.  

FOR FANS OF: Alice Coltrane, Floating Points, Monsoon.

LEO JAMES, BETTER DAYS

WHO: The Australian beatmaker, producer and DJ using MPC jams, new beat and dubby body music to collapse the distance between his teenage self and the present moment.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: To paraphrase things loosely, earlier in the year, I saw Michael Kucyk, founder of Melbourne’s prestigious Efficient Space label, describe Better Days on his IG story as “a heroic effort.” Across five bubbly slices of body music, which feel well and truly aimed at the dancefloor, Leo James goes above and beyond, delivering on Kucyk’s accolade. From the dubby bounce of the title track to the slow-motion breakbeat sensibilities of “Olive Grove” and the synthesised sunset bliss of “A Thousand White Kites Flying High Above the Sea”, Better Days reasserts James’ status as one to watch out for in 2025. 

FOR FANS OF: Eris Drew, Suzanne Kraft, Tornado Wallace.

MIDLAND, FRAGMENTS OF US

WHO: The in-demand British DJ, producer and sometimes pop remixer celebrating the complexities of queer history and identity.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: The concept record of the year, Midland’s Fragments Of Us, is a staggering exploration of the triumphs and tragedies of late 20th-century and early 21st-century queer history. Explored through a palette of downtempo, low-slung house/techno and ambient music, all juxtaposed with the voices of politicians, broadcasters and some of Midland’s heroes, Arthur Russell, Marlon Riggs, David Wojnarowicz, Stereogamus’ Jonny Seymour, and Horse Meat Disco’s Luke Howard, the 13-track album pays out on an epic scale where the cruelties of life and the liberation of the dancefloor go hand in hand. Ear-opening for some and reaffirming for others, Fragments Of Us is crucial. 

FOR FANS OF: Soft Cell, Arthur Russell, Patrick Cowley.

NÍDIA & VALENTINA, ESTRADAS

WHO: An Afro-Portuguese producer/DJ and an Italian drummer/composer using kuduro, post-punk and improvised music to craft their own musical language.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: To listen to Estradas - the first collaborative album from Nídia & Valentina - is to listen to two minds interlocked in the pursuit of creating something new and old from their constituent parts. After opening with the spare, melodic minimalism and fade-in rhythms of “Andiamo”, Estradas reveals itself as one of the most restless releases of 2024. “Rapido” reframes their sensibilities around a squelchy vintage grime-style synthesiser melody. “Mata” is kuduro with a VGM bounce, and “No Promises” is Nídia & Valentina gone afrobeat. It’s all like opening a time tunnel between present-day Lisbon and the 99 Records scene in New York circa 1983.

FOR FANS OF: 23 Skidoo, Timbaland, Shackleton.

YATTA, PALM WINE

WHO: The Sierra Leonean American vocalist, producer and composer who walks between cities, countries, genres and scenes.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Equally informed by years spent in the New York D.I.Y underground, a deep love of contemporary R&B and rap, and the spectral influences of West African palm wine music and 2000s US indie-folk, YATTA’s PALM WINE is one of the most unique albums of the year. Over 14 tracks that blend avant-garde impulses with a polished pop mix and an explosive moment of butt rock (“MTV”), YATTA serves up a staggeringly diverse-but-cohesive journey through sound, feeling and place. If you listened to PALM WINE and said you thought they’d had their cake and eaten it, too, I’d be inclined to agree.  

FOR FANS OF: Grouper, Björk, Moor Mother.