As I am sure many readers are already keenly aware, Headphone Commute is a widely followed online resource for electronic, experimental and instrumental music that helped set the bar for many independent blogs to follow (including this one). In fact, it was my own early encounters with HC that sparked the very idea of launching Stationary Travels. In recent years, HC has generously added Music for Your Stationary Travels to their best of the year round-ups, featuring selections from my own year in review. Starting in 2021, I decided it reciprocate and so here are my ‘Highlights of a Headphone Commute’ with a dozen albums chosen from a deep dive into HC’s own Best of 2024 over the past two weeks. Some are new discoveries; others were roads not taken for one reason or another that I was happy to get a second chance to go back and explore, and some are albums I was familiar with but gained a fresh perspective on.
Dustin O’Halloran – 1 0 0 1
from Music for the Film Behind Closed Eyelids
Links: https://dg.lnk.to/1001
Dustin O’Halloran is an American pianist and composer known to long time readers not only for his work as a part of A Winged Victory for the Sullen with Adam Wiltzie, but for an ever-growing solo oeuvre that includes a range of soundtracks for movies and prestige television some of which have won or been nominated for major awards. 1 0 0 1 is a monumental work that aims to do nothing less than explore the nature of the human mind and contemplate the implications of artificial intelligence. The album was recorded Reykjavík, Iceland, along with longtime collaborator/composer Bryan Senti on violin, Paul Corley (Sigur Rós) on electronic production, the Budapest Art Orchestra, and an eight-voice choir. The origins of the project extend back more than a decade to a collaborative exploration of the interaction between humans and machines with dance artist Fukiko Takase. The 2024 album release is a reimagining of the music as a standalone auditory experience which is expanded into four movements which arc from natural beauty to an almost dystopian tension between sounds created by analog and electronic sources.
1 0 0 1 serves as an auditory exploration into the crossroads of artificial intelligence and our comprehension of existence. The record navigates the nuanced interplay between the intangible realm of consciousness and the rapidly advancing capabilities of technology. Each track is a deliberate exploration into uncharted territories, a reflection on the implications of a future where the distinctions between humanity and technology become increasingly blurred.
Dustin O’Halloran
1 0 0 1 was released March 22, 2024 on vinyl LP, CD, & digital by Deutsche Grammophon.
Yorkshire Modular Society – Fiery the Angels Fell
from Music for Bending Light and Stopping Time
Order: https://yorkshiremodularsociety.bandcamp.com/album/fiery-the-angels-fell
Though previously unfamiliar with the prolific Yorkshire Modular Society project, I was immediately mesmerized by the dramatic sci-fi cover art for Fiery the Angels Fell which appeared on Yann Novak’s Dragon’s Eye Recordings label. The sense of immersion and intrigue only grew as the melancholic oscillations of the music began to undulate outwards into the sonic cosmos. Comprising a single track, this is an hour of hauntingly beautiful ambient music steeped in stillness and introspection as if we are reflecting on the aftermath of a cataclysmic event.
… Within the depths of digital tape modules, time unravels and reconstitutes, casting a veil of uncertainty over the sonic landscape. Reverb and delay wash over the senses like urban decay, adding depth to the sonic architecture that surrounds.
Yorkshire Modular Society
Fiery the Angels Fell was released digitally on June 7, 2024, by Dragon’s Eye Recordings.
Kiasmos – II
from Music for Crawling Through Abandoned Cities
Order: https://idol-io.ffm.to/Kiasmos-II
Nearly a decade after the debut of their globally acclaimed collaborative project, Grammy-nominated Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds and Faroese musician Janus Rasmussen return as Kiasmos and take their fusion of minimal techno and atmospheric beats with piano & strings to exhilarating new heights along with an Icelandic string quartet and members of Sinfonia Nord. It is a unique blending of music that would be at home on a cinematic widescreen as it would be at a festival or a rave. An especially beautiful sequence occurs when playful exuberance gives way to beautifully crafted textures and melodies on the seamlessly blended closing tracks “Dazed” and “Squared”.
In the beginning, we hadn’t established any sound, so it was easy to write. But we’re not the same people that we were back then; we’re older and – hopefully – wiser. We wanted to one up ourselves and to not repeat what we did before.
Janus Rasmussen
Kiasmos II was released July 5, 2024, by Erased Tapes on CD & digital along with 3 vinyl LP editions – black, clear, and translucent orange.
Anthéne – Present Tense
from Music for Withered Leaves and Lonely Fishtanks
Order: https://stereoscenic.bandcamp.com/album/present-tense
The music of Anthéne comes in many shades and one need look no further than the soft diffusion of spring colors on the cover art of Present Tense for a clue as to the sort of journey Brad Deschamps is going to take us on with this one of his many fine offerings in 2024. The music is pensive and touched by melancholy to be sure, but there is fragility and tender warmth to it that glows with muted optimism. Rounding out the album nicely are a pair of quite complementary reworks of two of its songs, one by the duo of Awakened Souls (James & Cynthia Bernard) and the other by IKSRE (Phoebe Dubar).
Present Tense was released April 5, 2024, on hardcover digibook CD edition as well as digital by Stereoscenic.
Rod Modell – Music for Bus Stations
from Music for Withered Leaves and Lonely Fishtanks
Order: https://silentes.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-bus-stations
No matter how much music comes my way, there are always great artists and releases that I miss completely, which is why I look forward so much to catching up on recommendations by Headphone Commute at the end of each year. For me that meant the pleasure of discovering Music for Bus Stations by American electronic music producer, DJ & musician Rod Modell (aka Deepchord). A collection of four long-form ambient pieces, the music is inspired by avant-garde bus station designs such as Domitianus Arquitectura’s station in Rio Maior, Portugal; Bluck & Morgen’s Busbahnhof Poppenbuttel in Hamburg, Germany; and Metaraum Architect’s bus station in Pzorzheim, Germany.
A slowly shifting static backdrop designed to enhance modern architecture, rather than compete with it; sounding as if the structure itself was resonating. Hovering sound-fields that utilizes sonic phenomena proven to induce states of calm… In essence, the soundscape becoming a living organism with unpredictable behavior.
Rod Modell
Music for Bus Stations was released October 16, 2024, on CD and 2x vinyl LP as well as digital by the Silentes label based in Italy.
Dag Rosenqvist – Geographers of Solitude
from Music for Walking Not Crying in the Autumn Rain
Order: https://dagrosenqvist.bandcamp.com/album/geographers-of-solitude
Swedish composer and sound artist Dag Rosenqvist here presents us with his musical score for Geographers of Solitude, a dance performance choreographed and directed by Paolo Mangiola for ŻfinMalta National Dance Company in collaboration with Ballet D’Jerri. The work explores themes of diversity and collective harmony taking its inspiration from the Arctic Tern, a bird known for having the longest migratory patterns on the planet with annual trips extending more than 44,000 miles in some cases. More meditative and textural than dynamically rhythmic, the music here is largely as it was presented in the performance with some slight changes. An absolute highlight is the achingly beautiful closing track “The Last Flight” which features Aaron Martin, Rosenqvist’s bandmate in From the Mouth of the Sun, on cello.
Geographers of Solitude was released digitally by the artist on August 31, 2024.
zakè – Dolere
from Music for the Nights When I Miss Your Frosty Light
Order: https://zakedrone.bandcamp.com/album/dolere-2
This expansive album comprises two long form pieces each bearing a title that represents a form of the Latin word dolor which means anguish or pain. True to form, these patient drones deliberately seek to stretch time in an effort to convey the feeling of being “suspended in the weight of emotions we cannot change”. The liner notes suggest it is a kind of “sonic Rorschach Test” which can be experienced by the listener either as sympathetic commiseration or as a backdrop for personal introspection, but spend enough time immersed in zakè‘s graceful undulations, and like an image that transforms before your eyes into something else, you are likely to experience it both ways and feel better for it.
These tracks serve as a refuge for those burdened by distraction or sorrow, offering a brief respite from the inexorable passage of time.
Zach Frizzell, aka zakè
Dolere was released June 7, 2024, on limited edition CD and signed 160g audiophile black vinyl LP by the Affin label based in Germany.
Fabrizio Paterlini – Summer Stories
from Music for Watching the Snow Slowly Fall in the Moonlight
Order: https://fabriziopaterlini.bandcamp.com/album/summer-stories
For the second year running, catching up with Headphone Commute rescued me from missing a lovely new release by Fabrizio Paterlini, an artist I fondly recall connecting with from the earliest days of the blog. Summer Stories consists of 14 vignettes that are as short as they are sweet. Of course, Fabrizio’s piano as at the heart of each piece but what makes the album especially interesting is the way he uses it as a vehicle for creative exploration along with synthesizers, modular systems, effects, echoes, and tape. The magic of the album is that it is less a collection of polished compositions and more something that captures of the essence of a series of moments driven by the creative spark of an artist.
The idea of this album, consisting of 14 brushstrokes of color recorded on warm summer mornings, is to bring listeners even closer to my feelings, to my being a composer at this moment. I really hope that through this kind of ‘experiment,’ listeners will discover creative moments in my production that may in turn inspire them in their daily activities.
Fabrizio Paterlini
Summer Stories was released digitally on September 27, 2024, by Memory Recordings.
Fennesz – Mosaic
from Music for Sonic Installations in the Cavern of Your Skull
keinseier – Particles
from Music for Synergizing the Synapse of Ideas
Order: https://keinseier.bandcamp.com/album/particles
Another missed gem found in a group of albums HC characterizes as “dark, beautiful, cinematic, glitchy, quirky” was this album that is all of those things from an artist based in Hamburg, Germany who records under the alias of keinseier. Going by the sparse details available on their Bandcamp and social media pages, the artist, who describes themselves as a “media composer by day” seems to want to let the music define the project and they offer much to dig into on that score. Particles seems especially subdued and introspective for the genre, but for listeners like me that just makes it all the more appealing. Lots of textures and electronic wizardry is at play here, but also a nice sense of melody and more than a touch of melancholy makes it a fascinating listen.
Particles was released digitally by the artist on October 25, 2024.
Ocoeur – Breath
from Music for Capricious Souls Adrift in Noir-fi
Order: https://n5md.bandcamp.com/album/breath
With a self-proclaimed “penchant for dreamlike and cinematic sounds”, French producer Franck Zaragoza, aka Ocoeur, contextualizes the various aspects of his sound within conceptual frameworks that have a positive outlook on life. For evidence of this, look no further than Breath which is described as “a tranquil, peaceful, and meditative tribute to the wonders of our planet” and reflects Zaragoza’s deep appreciation for the natural world while serving “as a poignant call for peace on our planet”. It is everything we have come to expect from Ocoeur – heartfelt, transcendent music with great attention detail from composition to studio wizardry.
Breath was released September 6, 2024, on n limited edition transparent vinyl as well as digital download & streaming by the California based n5MD label.
Purple Decades – Fraction of Centuries
from Music for Capricious Souls Adrift in Noir-fi
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Order: https://beaconsound.bandcamp.com/album/fraction-of-centuries
First introduced with the 2020 EP Thought Forms, Purple Decades is an alter ego of Cincinnati-based composer, pianist, & producer Tristan Eckerson that he uses to explore a broad spectrum of electronic textures and ambient soundscapes. I’ve had the occasion to premiere several tracks from the project but found I had missed out on listening to Fraction of Centuries, which is its second full-length offering. While Eckerson’s work under his own name has shown him capable of blending neoclassical, blues, jazz, and contemporary motifs in a compositional setting, here he shows himself equally comfortable in the abstract realms of textured ambient sounds which he spins into a very pleasant sonic journey.
The album title, “Fraction of Centuries”, comes from a line in a short story by Gabriel García Márquez called The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World. It stuck out to me because it’s kind of a surreal phrase, and highlights the kind of minutiae of a single moment when placed in front of the expansiveness of time and the universe, which is essentially the feeling I was trying to convey with the album.
Fraction of Centuries was released September 6, 2024, on limited edition cassette and digital by Beacon Sound.
![out now: Sissys Reiterstaffel – Black Room EP [self-released]](https://som2nynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Sissys-Reiterstaffel-Black-Room-EP-336x220.jpg)
