Songlines Music Awards: Best of 2024
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 17th Songlines Music Awards, our annual celebration of the best music being made across the world.
Find out which albums our writers deemed the finest being made across Africa & the Middle East, the Americas, Europe, Asia & Pacific and beyond this year, as well as our World Pioneer, Best Newcomer and the record that surpassed all as our Best Album of the year. From Niger to Nashville, kora to qawwal, folk balladeers to artful jokers, here are the winners and shortlisted albums.
The following albums were released in 2024 and reviewed in Songlines (from issues #195 to #203 inclusive). An award for Best Album, as chosen by our readers, will be announced in our following issue, February/March 2025.
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Plus, we are currently asking our readers to vote for what they think is the best album of 2024 (deadline 6 January 2025). To enter your vote click on the link below:
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AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST
Mdou Moctar
Funeral for Justice (Matador)
Across nine albums and years of touring, Mdou Moctar has established himself as one of the most important Touareg voices and guitar players worldwide. Funeral for Justice is his most personal and vital album to date, written in the wake of a military coup in Niger that has seen an increase in unemployment and poverty, the halt of all international humanitarian aid and a barrage of international sanctions – leaving at least 4.3 million Nigeriens in need of food, medicine and basic goods. Under the new power of the junta, a wave of censorship has overtaken Niger’s broadcast media and any outspoken opposition to the regime is severely punished. It is against this authoritarian backdrop that Moctar dropped this poignant set of songs, fearlessly calling out the junta and voicing the nation’s collective feeling of Western abandon. On the record’s title-track, Moctar sings: ‘Dear African leaders, hear my burning question / Why does your ear only heed France and America? / They misled you into giving up your lands / They delightfully watch you in your fraternal feud / They possess the power to help out but chose not to / Why is that?’
Aside from the songwriting, what makes Funeral for Justice great is what has always made Mdou Moctar great: face-melting guitar solos to the beat of a tight, heavy rhythm section, delivering earth-shaking riffs that provide an intricate yet powerful foundation for Moctar’s leads and lyrics. Add to that a grade-A production – that can be described by one word: big – which leans into their ‘live’ sound. Funeral for Justice is a historic piece of cultural resistance during the Nigerien crisis, that documents the evolving sound and story of Touareg rock. NIKOLAS-KAAN YILMAZ
SHORTLISTED
Les Amazones d’Afrique – Musow Danse (Real World)
Aziza Brahim – Mawja (Glitterbeat)
Ibrahim Maalouf – Trumpets of Michel Ange (Mister IBE)
The Zawose Queens – Maisha (Real World)
AMERICAS
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Woodland (Acony Records)
In 2020, a hurricane destroyed Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ recording studio. They spent the following years rebuilding it and recording this album there, which they duly titled after the studio. “[Woodland] is at the heart of everything we do, and has been for the last 20 some years,” say the pair. It’s the first album of originals that the duo have released since Rawlings’ delightful Poor David’s Almanack in 2017. The introspection and, at times, reservation of Woodland are perhaps not surprising given the circumstances of destruction in which it was written, yet loss of many kinds is under consideration. Reflections on ageing and the passing of time (‘Here Stands a Woman’, ‘What We Had’), US divides (‘The Day the Mississippi Died’) and the loss and under-appreciation of musicians close to them (‘Hashtag’, written for Guy Clark) all feature. One gets the impression that Welch & Rawlings have been taking the last seven years to assess the state of themselves, their country and the world at large.
There’s a sense that these songs have been crafted over years, in the way of canonical folk songs, sung over and over until the words and melodies fit perfectly. As usual, the harmonies are always perfectly balanced, the backing adding a light, unobtrusive foil to whoever is taking the lead. Rawlings’ drawling, rambling guitar-playing is inimitable, too. He’ll wander away and back to the core of a tune with a charming languidness that belies the devastating skill on show (try ‘Empty Trainload of Sky’ or ‘Lawman’). Discussing her and Rawlings’ arrangements, Welch recently emphasised to NPR that their priority is not who’s singing or playing the strongest or in lead, but whether or not it benefits the sound. On Woodland, we get the soul-filling results of that philosophy. EMMA RYCROFT
SHORTLISTED
Leyla McCalla – Sun Without the Heat (ANTI-)
Meridian Brothers – Mi Latinoamérica Sufre (Ansonia Records / Les Disques Bongo Joe)
Aoife O’Donovan – All My Friends (Yep Roc Records)
Orquesta Akokán – Caracoles (Daptone Records)
ASIA & PACIFIC
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party
Chain of Light (Real World)
Following Khan’s death in 1997, there was a rush to release any tape that featured his voice; studio and live recordings were aplenty well into the early 2000s. Aside from the odd live recording, it seemed as if the archives had run dry since, but then Real World Records announced that they had found a tape containing four previously unreleased recordings – a labelling error was to blame for them being forgotten – which had been captured during the same sessions that produced 1990’s crossover smash Mustt Mustt. While that album was a collaboration with Michael Brook that pushed qawwali into new territories, Chain of Light sees the Pakistani great and his group performing qawwali in its untainted glory, and it’s a wonder to behold. This is Khan at the peak of his powers with a production that brings out every nuance of the performance. ‘Ya Allah Ya Rehman’ is the opener, harmonium and floor-shaking tabla ushering in Khan’s voice – from the off, the power and devotion of his vocals are impossible to ignore, with the backing singers just as enthused, their interplay often like rolling waves, one hit after the other. The group never let up with Khan’s characteristic rapid scat-like vocals erupting on ‘Aaj Sik Mitran Di’. Qawwali devotees, in particular, will have been most excited about ‘Ya Gaus Ya Meeran’, an Urdu qawwal that few singers attempt due to the complexity of its structure and melodies. Khan’s interpretation here is the only known recording by him of this qawwal. As across all four tracks, Khan & Party attack it with conviction. It’s great to hear new Khan recordings again, especially when they sound as good as these. RUSS SLATER JOHNSON
SHORTLISTED
Bhutan Balladeers – Your Face is Like the Moon, Your Eyes Are Stars (Glitterbeat)
Dal:um – Coexistence (Glitterbeat)
Jaubi – A Sound Heart (Riaz Records)
Yirinda – Yirinda (Chapter Music)
EUROPE
Sam Lee
songdreaming (Cooking Vinyl)
Since making his debut with the Mercury-nominated Ground of Its Own in 2012, Sam Lee has become one of the country’s most renowned champions of the folk song of these Isles. But his work and his sound have evolved through the years. With his fourth album, he continues his mission of connecting the issues of the land with the music of its people, exploring the themes of ecology, wilderness and wildlife that are close to his heart.
There’s no musical purism here. Lee uses folk songs as a medium with which to decorate his own canvas, leaving them recognisable but changed, moulded to his own meanings and shaped for a new era. The music itself moves further away from the traditional. It’s a vast sound, dramatic and atmospheric, informed by contemporary neoclassical movements. Sweeping strings, heavily reverbed piano and curlew calls mingle with resonant subtleties of nyckelharpa and qanun, as well as appearances throughout by London-based trans choir Trans Voices on their recording debut. There is something mystical or darkly ethereal at play, with Lee’s elegant yet forthright voice floating through as if a spirit.
This is not a cheerful album. Through his ballads, Lee constructs a complex, sometimes contradictory, weave of emotions. songdreaming is a love letter suffused with controlled fury, but also a dignified, determined and necessary hopefulness – a passionate yearning for the survival of our home in nature. We’ve seen Sam Lee progress from wunderkind singer and song collector to a respected spokesperson of the planet, its custodians (of all species) and its sounds, while his music becomes ever more beguiling and important. JIM HICKSON
SHORTLISTED
Mari Boine – ALVA (By Norse Music)
Landless –Lúireach (Glitterbeat)
The Rheingans Sisters – Start Close In (Rheingans Sisters Records)
Söndörgö feat Chris Potter – Gyezz (GroundUp Music)
FUSION
Arooj Aftab
Night Reign (Universal)
Two years ago, Arooj Aftab had only just given up her day job when her album Vulture Prince saw her win Best Global Music Performance at the Grammys and made her, in the words of Uncut, ‘the coolest rock star in the world right now.’ But what appeared to be overnight success was the culmination of years of work. Born to Pakistani parents, she grew up in Lahore before moving to America in 2005 to study at Berklee College of Music. Her first album was released independently a decade ago, and she was in her mid-30s by the time of Vulture Prince’s breakout.
Defining the musical realm of the second full-length album, Night Reign, is a challenge. Audacious but accessible, there are elements of jazz, electronica, folk, Asian, indie and classical, but Aftab seems to reign in a kingdom that is entirely her own creation. The nine tracks tell nocturnal tales of life after dark: nights for falling in love, for solitude, introspection and intoxication. Harp, acoustic bass, guitar, piano, brass and strings provide an iridescent sound bed while the smoky tones of her voice recall Sade or a more mystical Billie Holiday with inflexions of Björk or perhaps Joni Mitchell in her jazz phase. Yet even that fails to capture her singular allure, and on a brace of settings of 18th-century ghazals, her voice takes on a transcendental quality. Conjuring a uniquely perfect sonic world, it’s one of those magical, sui generis albums in which it would seem sacrilege to add or subtract a single note. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
SHORTLISTED
Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum (Glitterbeat)
Justin Adams & Mauro Durante – Sweet Release (Ponderosa Records)
Manu Chao – Viva Tu (Because Music)
Nubiyan Twist – Find Your Flame (Strut Records)
BEST ALBUM (Critic’s Choice)
Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper
Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper (Matsuli Music)
Sometimes, less is more. In the space of two concerts and three studio hours, Ballaké Sissoko and Derek Gripper conjured an album that critics heralded as a new era for both the kora and the classical guitar. On this eponymous 40-minute album, Sissoko’s kora dialogues with Gripper’s guitar for seven instrumental tracks in such a seamless way it’s sometimes hard to know when it’s the 21 strings of the former or the six of the latter that are playing. Both musicians dig deep into the heritage of string instruments with vast histories. Yet their improvised exchanges are peppered with modern takes drawn from genres ranging from jazz to flamenco. ‘There is such depth and imagination in every track that you hear quite different things on each listen,’ noted music critic Dave McNally, ‘and doubtless, each listener will appreciate distinct nuances in music.’
The nuances are the fruits of decades of experience from each of the musicians in the repertoires of the two instruments, as well as the fruits of countless musical exchanges. Malian kora player Sissoko has reinvented repertoires with the likes of Vincent Ségal, Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté to bring his griot heritage to global audiences. South African guitarist Gripper, meanwhile, has taken the circuitous route towards the West African kora via South India’s Carnatic percussion language and new evocations of Cape Town folk music. The resulting Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper is a compelling string conversation which reflects improvisation and dialogue at their best, taking the listener into unchartered territories. DANIEL BROWN
SHORTLISTED
Afro Celt Sound System – OVA (Six Degrees Records)
Bab L’ Bluz – Swaken (Real World)
LINA_ – Fado Camões (Galileo Music)
Stick in the Wheel – A Thousand Pokes (From Here Records)
BEST NEWCOMER
The Joy
The Joy (Transgressive Records)
A comparison to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a group that helped introduce ‘world music’ to Western audiences, might be an intimidating cross to bear. However, The Joy, an a cappella group, also from South Africa, seem to be holding up quite nicely. This year, they released their self-titled album. Recorded live in real-time with no instrumentation, the 11-track record shows off the immense talent of the five young men: Pastor (Ntokozo Bright Magcaba), Duzie (Melokuhle Mkhungo), Guduza (Sphelele Hlophe), Sthombe (Phelelani Sithole) and Marcus (Sanele Ngcobo).
Their coming together was somewhat serendipitous. Arriving early for choir practice in Hammarsdale, a township outside of Durban, one of them started singing casually. The others soon joined in, and after hearing the way their voices complemented each other, they started planning their own rehearsals. This moment of almost divine intervention seeps into their album. The layered harmonies and sincere vocals, which range in topics, from a bride saying farewell to her family, to a grandmother choosing her grandson’s girlfriend, provide the listener with an experience bordering on the religious.
Since forming, celebrities like Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson have described them as their favourite group, they have collaborated with Two Inch Punch, The Blessed Madonna and Doja Cat, and they have already performed at Glastonbury and as part of Jools Holland’s 30th Birthday Bash. If you haven’t yet discovered The Joy, then you will soon. ERIN COBBY
