surasshu

welcome to the end of year mix! for the uninitiated, each year i collect recently released music that stands out to me (now on this blog under the tag #music in 2024). of course, i posted these on cohost at the start of this year, and we all know how that ended up, rip. but in terms of music, this year has some spectacular stuff–featuring some of the freshest chiptunes (radix, maak, petriform), as well as rap (NLE choppa, kill bill x rav), vocaloid (azari, TAK)… and of course a ton of digital fusion. i hope you’ll enjoy this journey through some of my personal highlights!

1. radix – crisis inverted

i’m cheating a little this year by including a song that technically didn’t release in 2024–but i didn’t hear about it until the start of the year, so i am including it because it’s simply too spectacular. one of the chiptune greats and huge influence on my chiptune sound, radix, returns to tracking and uploads this 4 channel masterpiece to youtube. what a start to the year!

2. den of dog – HOW COULD YOU (Sped Up)

i waffled on featuring this version or the “real” version (which you can hear here and is also excellent), but i had to be honest with myself that i listened to this particular version exponentially more. the sonic rush imagery helps too!

3. Tancla – [STAFFcirc vol. 9 – MIDI MODULE FANATIX #02] Ruins of the Forest Temple

the past few years saw a bit of a spike in interest in general midi and adjacent sounds, such as the PURE MIDI volumes 1 and 2 by tbkgao, power! GS and Canvas City. This track from Tancla, coming from STAFFcirc’s fantastic general midi release, was an instant hit for me, just such a fabulous piece!

4. nelward – [ambient 2 #08] Wine by the Fireplace

nelward is one of the most fascinating composers out there (fun fact he contributed to some STAFFcirc releases back in the day!), but he went back to his roots in a surprising way with the release of ambient 2, which is a really enjoyable album. however the final track really blew me away: it’s one of those sexy library jams that “have NO BUSINESS being this good”. the looseness of the sound is really special in an era where everything is quantized and edited to within an inch of its life, really a warm track (appropriately enough for the subject matter), and the melodies are simply too catchy. the understated guitar solo around 1:30! the way it modulates back and forth around 2:50, the ritardando into the end… the sound choices! perfect!

5. Nhato – [beatmania IIDX 30 RESIDENT ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK CD4 #23] 禊 (Extended Mix)

aura posted about this track on her cohost and i hadn’t heard it before, and i reblogged it back then thinking it was really cool. but i had kinda forgotten just how good it was! revisiting the hashtag to find gems like this is part of why i love keeping a thread of music of the year alive for myself. the sound design and flow of this is just incredible, as expected from top tier producer nhato!

6. WaxTerK – [EYEBALLPLANETINTHEVASTUNIVERSE Vol.3 #23] What You See

i feature waxterk repeatedly on my threads and mixes because i simply can’t get enough of his music. i invited him to participate in snowdrop this year (side note: check out this year’s snowdrop!). unfortunately his youtube account got deleted recently (not sure why!) so he is rebuilding on his second channel, here. please give him a follow, his music has this incredible intensity and is totally one of a kind.

7. NLE Choppa – [SLUT SZN CD1 #02] SLUT ME OUT 2

time for a MASSIVE change of pace! this song had my entire balls for several weeks, it’s so utterly unserious in the best possible way. but then “suffocate me til i die, bitch” is such a hard line outta nowhere, damn! also glad to see NLE choppa did not react poorly it when this track blew up with the queer community for obvious reasons, instead rocking with it, thank fucking god

8. Willow – [symptom of life CD1 #01] symptom of life

can you be a non-drain nepo baby? willow smith is the test case, using her free ride life to create some incredibly interesting and unique music. to be honest i did not really care for the early rock stuff she was doing and didn’t really look into it much, but this one was highly recommended on #maj7 and, yeah, this is #maj7-core: odd meter, extended planing chords, it rocks. big feelings is also incredible and i really need to still check out the album both tracks are on.

9. Azari – [Wink] Wink (feat. Rosu)

as far as i know this is the first song azari did with a singer and i couldn’t be happier it was rosu, who fits so well with azari’s horror-pop sound. what a vocal performance, and what a song! (and the music video rules too)

10. Kendrick Lamar – [GNX #03] luther

this was gonna be “not like us” until this mix was 99% done , i played that track more and obviously had a huge impact overall this year. but right at the end, i hotswapped it for “luther”, which has to be one of the most immaculate pieces of music, it’s almost magical. the way this flows together–the vocals, the samples, the string arrangement, everything else–is just so spectacular and i find myself thinking about it all the time in idle moments. idk if it’s asking too much but i wish kendrick would have more musically ambitious stuff like this and the heart part 5 in his recent works

11. Sea otter club – [足跡 #05] Lighthouse

sea otter club’s album 足跡(ashiato) was my #1 most listened to album of 2024, a wonderful journey of many vocal and instrumental pieces and i still have a very hard time picking my favorite of the bunch. this one does stand out but so does “making room” “rain”, the title track… it’s just a great album to absorb.

12. COR!S – [TAKE FAKE LAKE #04] Water Recreation

and adjacently, COR!S, who supplied vocals for a few tracks on sea otter club’s album, is featured with her own album here. this N64-coded dnb banger comes from FAKE TAKE LAKE which had a fantastic physical release where you’d get a custom printed deck of cards in a beautiful iridescent pouch. just a really neat way to release music in our digital age, when most people don’t have CD players anymore.

13. NewJeans – [Supernatural CD1 #02] Right Now

well, what a year for newjeans huh… with the drama surrounding their manager and label (two of the least sympathetic parties to duke it out ever), the future seems uncertain for this group, but at least we got some fantastic singles out of it. my highlight of the year is this one, extremely engaging production and use of half-tempo breaks, and maybe the best snare sample of the year.

14. Masaru Yokoyama – [Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night Original Soundtrack CD1 #17] Tentacle Alert

for obvious reasons i didn’t watch a ton of anime this year, but this one, basically about a bunch of teens starting a DTM/alt-idol production team, was so close to my interests that i had to at least try it, and the soundtrack was quite awesome. this track was especially striking to the point i had to grab the OST. has some strong splatoon vibes, even down to the title!

15. maak – [Breakthrough #03] Reaction

as mentioned, this year has some of the best chiptune releases i’ve heard in a good while, and first up to bat is japanese famicompo veteran maak, best known for his track REAL BLUE! his tracker work has inspired me for a long time, so it was awesome to see him release an album of C64 tracks, and it didn’t disappoint! contender for AOTY for me!

16. Hitoshi Sakimoto – [Unicorn Overlord 16-bit Arranged Music Album CD2 #10] Tavern – Quarry Game (Special Arrangement)

continuing on the chiptune track, this moody piece comes from the unicorn overlord 16-bit arrange album, which for the most part is fairly straightforward (and seemingly more or less tech-accurate) arrangements of the UO soundtrack. to be honest, i played UO with the sound off because i was usually holding the baby when i played. this track though? as soon as i heard it, it hit me like a hammer. hitoshi sakimoto doesn’t do a ton of composing these days but he seemingly saves it all for these spectacular blow out pieces.

17. naruto2413 – [NDP DemoSongs 6 #02] NDP Demo 6-2

another japanese famicompo legend, this time of “AI bomb” fame (arguably THE most famous early famicompo tune), naruto2413 has been steadily releasing these packs of demosongs of his PSG driver called NDP (playable on an MSX, 3 wavetable channels). they are all these little looping tracks that feel like his version of compotunes, but man they are so solid and creative, and there are so MANY of them. lovely stuff to put on in the background while cleaning, you will be charmed so many times by his melodies!

18. Petriform – [Familial Verses #05] twice sick

the final entry in this chiptune block, familial verses by petriform was a fascinating release that i discovered thanks in part to cohost’s untimely demise ()–petriform was one of the people who entered the final “compost” event hosted on the site. this release, based around the sound capabilities of the “siblings” gameboy and the virtua boy, shows the incredible new ground that furnace tracker has enabled by basically opening up almost every chip from the past. i’m thrilled about it, check it out!

19. かたぎり + Frums – siren’s eye

this is probably my favorite track of the year, a dream collaboration that plays into the strengths of each composer and becomes utterly unstoppable. this was entered in the yearly tatsujin no taiko competition and i’m glad to say it won the popular vote to make it into the game, well deserved!

20. TAK – [mochimochi CD1 #01] mochimochi

TAK came out with this quirky cutesy vocaloid song, which is mostly just silly stuff but it takes a few surprising turns (i’m especially fond of the triplet break around 2:20!), just a super fun track with TAK’s trademark immaculate production.

21. PSYQUI – [Shaker] Shaker

speaking of immaculate production, PSYQUI came out with 3 tracks in quick succession with the same cover art, sparking hopes of a new album on the horizon. not to be (yet…), but each track is great on its own right, with this one standing out for an incredibly gutsy middle segment that seems to made based on a dare to do as little as possible. hell yeah. also the way PSYQUI uses vocal samples is so creative, the original song this sample came from is… _{^{not very good… lol}}

22. マキシマム ザ ホルモン – [キ・セ・イ・ラッシュ CD2 #01] シミ feat.新しい学校のリーダーズ

maximum the hormone is a band i really loved in the early 2000s, but i thought they had broken up, so imagine my surprise when they did a chainsaw man ending! and then sometime later, i saw this in my youtube recommended feed. this is a self-cover of one of their best songs “shimi” (from their best album “bu-ikikaesu”), but the addition of atarashii gakkou and generally added production touches brings this song to the next level. extremely my shit! this is also the year i got into atarashii gakkou, but all my favorite songs by them are from a few years ago, so this will have to represent them, for now.

23. 夜丹れにや – lie somnia

this track was posted in #maj7 and is unbelievably underrated, it’s gorgeous! it’s got that complexity that reminds me a little of elektlyze/treow, but it also includes modern touches that sets it apart. i’m just very happy to have been able to hear this track since it’s flying under the radar.

24. Cobalt – Will

and speaking of underrated, i found cobalt last year when youtube’s algorithm sent me this fantastic composer–like last year, this song was posted on cobolt’s birthday and it is so beautiful, especially the intro! it also features their signature solo style of rapid successions of notes in 16ths and triplets, which is really unique and cool. i really think cobolt is onto something special!

25. DEZOLVE – [Asterism #10] Voyage of Altair

DEZOLVE is a band in the tradition of t-square, casiopea, TRIX, etc., but notably decades younger than those bands tend to be. my “in” for this band is the incredible drummer, maoki yamamoto, but this track, written by the guitarist shoya kitagawa is such a soaring epic track, it’s just lovely–as is the whole album!

26. quarkimo – [Surmount (Original Game Soundtrack) #08] Olimark’s Theme

this year i barely listened to any game music, and what little i did listen to was work-related. so we arrive here, at quarkimo’s awesome surmount OST which i mastered. but it’s such a good soundtrack that i still had to feature it despite the “conflict of interest” _{^{(i mean, it would not be beyond me to include myself in my own playlist lol)}}. anyway, aivi and i even mentioned this soundtrack for VGC, it’s just that good. this is one of the more “cute” tracks but the OST has so many facets and flies between them effortlessly, the whole thing is well worth absorbing.

27. voljum – [global tourist assembly #03] @crumb

it’s fascinating to hear this release by voljum, someone who most likely hasn’t been influenced by digital fusion at all, but still makes so many choices that are digital fusion to a tee! the way this album merges jazz with electronic production, solos with drops, live instruments with sequencing… it’s just exactly the digital fusion mindset. it’s very cool to see that bubble up from an entirely different (but equally awesome) direction!

28. UgokuBall – New Self

ugokuball was one of the people who submitted to snowdrop (side note: check out this year’s snowdrop!), and i was immediately blown away with this incredible song. probably my favorite moment comes at 1:15, at the end of the chorus, when it decrescendoes almost to nothing–only to blast back in such a spectacular and gutsy way. so so cool! his other songs available on his bandcamp are really stellar too, really excited about finding this guy this year (thanks to snowdrop!)

29. tailspun – [Portal] Portal

this was the other big surprise from snowdrop (side note… oh, the bit is getting old?), a huge piece by tailspun, also “new to me” artist. i love the vocal performance and the lyrics and the structure of this song, especially with this seemingly being the first vocal track tailspun’s done. more please!

30. AQUASINE – MISSING TEXTURE

aquasine is always super fresh and creative, this cute rollercoaster song is no exception, i love how cat-coded it all is! aquasine also has a really cool visual element to all their work, and they’ve been posting daily animations on bsky which are all a joy too.

31. Kill Bill x Rav – [KEEP THE CHANGE! #10] THINGS WILL GET MUCH WORSE FROM HERE [FEAT. HATSUNE MIKU]

another song that i should’ve heard much earlier than i did–kill bill x rav, kikuo sample, leslie cover art, anti-AI lyrics wrapped in beautiful metaphors and similes… this might as well be aimed directly at me. as a side note, my view of genAI in 2025 is dim to say the least, i might write something about that on here later (especially the music side of things because JESUS CHRIST).

32. Fujii Kaze – Michi te Yuku (Tiny Desk Concerts JAPAN)

i didn’t want to close this mix out on such a bummer note (despite that maybe being more realistic going into this own goal of a year), so as penance/palette cleanser, have this intimate performance of one of the most searingly sincere songs by fujii kaze, an artist who seems hellbent on healing and uplifting the world with his music.

and, since you (and i) made it all the way to the end of this massive writeup, let me say i hope you have a great 2025. thank you for reading!