Tone Madison’s favorite songs of 2024, pt. II

The Madison songs that beat the odds and helped us get through the year.

All throughout 2024, Madison musicians’ resilience and artistry were on display. In a city where the deck seems to be constantly stacked against meaningful support for its local musicians, that’s no small feat. Even when a new setback appears, our music community retains its clear and irrepressible appetite for creation. Defiance is, by extension, inherent to so much of the excellent music that Madison musicians release every year, giving listeners art to rally around, uplift, and celebrate. 

From haunted tomes to venomous lash-outs to soulful introspection and far beyond, the thousands of songs Madison-area artists released in 2024 were a welcome challenge to digest. A handful of them connected with the writers and editors at Tone Madison in ways that felt profound. We’ve pin-pointed a collection of our favorites and split them across a two-part series, with 15 selections each. As has been the case for a few years, none of these tracks appear on the 20 records we’ve chosen as our 2024 favorites (though many of these songs belong to records that were truly excellent as well).

Look for those selections throughout the week, as we roll out our reflections on the past year of local music. It was hard not to feel galvanized by the output of local musicians in 2024, and seeing these releases connect with different audiences was a joy. Music has the capacity to be extraordinarily powerful and a large number of Madison musicians wielded that power with grace and good intention.

We, of course, can not possibly hope to cover every Madison release in a given year, and there will undoubtedly be releases that we missed. A lot of great, local 2024 music landed on Tone Madison‘s proverbial desk. These are 15 of the tracks that truly stuck. —Steven Spoerl

---

---

Bell Monks, “I Want It To Snow“

On Bell Monks‘ first record in four years, Watching The Snow Fall, the glacial ambient-pop act embrace an explicitly wintry aesthetic. Its near-title track, “I Want It To Snow,” appropriately exemplifies Bell Monks’ chosen artistic palette, bringing to mind the beautiful, barren landscapes of Wisconsin in the midst of the freeze. Jeff Herriott (vocals, keys) and Eric Sheffield (guitar, bass, and drums) dance around each other’s melodic and textural contributions with a delicate grace, heightening the feeling of winter that permeates both the song and the album. —Steven Spoerl

Chants & Dave Schoepke, “Ritmo Crudo“

Madison-based producer-drummer Jordan Cohen, aka Chants, joins Milwaukee drummer Dave Schoepke to take listeners on a dancehall-inflected adventure in “Ritmo Crudo.” All drums, all day. Melody does emerge from the absolute control of timbre and touch that both drummers employ… and also from things I don’t understand at all. I saw the duo play this track live in December at Gamma Ray Bar, and while Cohen was using (mostly?) electronic percussion, Schoepke played a mic’d-up acoustic kit, and I still have no idea how they make some of these noises. It’s truly wild to watch them build the telepathy transfer machine live, but also fun to dance around at home to its fidgeting pulse. —Dan Fitch

Dear Mr. Watterson, “We Should Have Been We Should Have Been DJs“

No song title from a Madison band was purer or more delightful than Dear Mr. Watterson‘s celebratory tribute to a close contemporary: “We Should Have Been We Should Have Been DJs.” The two scrappy, emo-tinged punk bands released a split EP together in 2024. “We Should Have Been We Should Have Been DJs” (it’s fun to say, every time) emerged as the most emblematic track of this high-spirited affair. Dear Mr. Watterson are locked into their typical riff-heavy, jagged pop onslaught. Gang vocals, hooky melodies, and tenacious playing enliven a big-hearted track that deserves to be left on repeat. —SS

Drive-A-Tron, “Break Your Heart“

Taking cues from Perfume Genius’ introspective longing, Drive-A-Tron‘s “Break Your Heart” is a confidently composed piece of scintillating synth-pop with a nostalgia-hued alternative edge. From a simple drum machine rhythm and whirling synth bass, singer and multi-instrumentalist Paul Vash builds undeniable melodic momentum. He uplifts the densely bright mix of electric and electronic instrumentation with his steady, but lilting voice (and harmonies with guest vocalist Gracie Venechuk). The lyrically abstract narrative of a recently lost connection weaves into metaphors of a bygone honeymoon phase, as Vash paints a stimulating picture at the dawn of heartache. —Grant Phipps

Feestet, “Don’t Let Go”

Vocalist Helen Feest’s jazz project Feestet seems to have a cast of rotating collaborators, but the end result of those collaborations is always superlative. While the project’s typical focus is updating traditionals and well-known material with their own distinctive flair, they’ve also been crafting a few originals. The serene “Don’t Let Go” belongs to the latter category, though—as is often the case with Feestet’s originals—it sounds like a lost classic. “Even frozen lakes melt / Eventually / Clouds wash away / Seeds bloom one day,” sings Feest, over a bed of lush tones that sounds as mournful as it does romantic. —SS

Fred Really, “DYBBUK“

It genuinely doesn’t matter what moniker Alex Driver is operating under. Whether he’s on the mic or behind the digital boards as Al D, Dro Cup, Ruwa Alien School, or using his given name, Driver creates an outstanding and varied array of hip-hop. His latest moniker, Fred Really, is attached to a project that serves as a potent reminder of his rapping and production prowess. “DYBBUK” is the highlight of Fred Really’s first quartet of tracks, and features Driver cutting loose with startling fury. Rapid-fire rapping, warped beats, and a horror-leaning, circus-house vibe turn “DYBBUK” into a strangely addictive showcase of raw talent. —SS

Heather The Jerk, “Parasites”

Heather Sawyer’s winkingly self-deprecating solo project, Heather The Jerk, returned with a vengeance in 2024. Across the dozen tracks that the project released, “Parasites” stands out as a sub-minute-and-a-half indie-punk triumph. Sawyer’s coolly brash vocals and economical drumming perfectly complement the track’s biting guitar tones and hyper-melodic lead figures, resulting in a hooky blast of a song. “I wish I was cool as you,” Sawyer repeats in the track’s closing moments, seemingly ignoring the obvious: Sawyer’s pretty goddamn cool on her own. —SS

House Of Lud, “The Judge”

Doom trio House Of Lud oil up the leather for a sludgey, slowed-down Judas Priest-at-33-RPMs ripper. The band’s own production on this record sounds somehow both claustrophobic and yawning-open, like the top of a volcano. The gang vocals on “The Judge” beg for a singalong: “Make power on the edge of hell / We pray for war, and we know it well,” goes the end of the chorus, as it leads into a delay-soaked solo that’s swampy but orbiting in space at the same time. It all summons up a picture of a Mad Max future with even more killer guitars than usual. Throw up the horns. —DF

Jonathon Millionaire, “Wait 2”

One of the best rock songs of the year, “Wait 2” is the ceremonious sequel to the seven-and-a-half-minute post-hardcore epic Jonathon Millionaire released in September 2023. Both songs, bridged by the same wistfully piercing guitar melody and some lyrical repetition, dwell in biting lament and the inexorable ravages of time. Bandleader Lawrence Gann, whose voice shares a raspy and distressed urgency with Shiner’s Allen Epley, initially offers twisting and twisted reflections that delineate faded glories and what has come to pass at the end of a decade. With this eight-months-later follow-up, pithier in structure and pitch-perfectly reverbed, Gann finds a gauzy limbo, pondering stagnation with such blistering and bewitching emotion. —GP

Killcrop, “Unworthy King”

A harsh, pulsating beat introduces “Unworthy King,” before the dark industrial project Killcrop uncorks a jittery, hypnotic wonder. Josh Klessig—formerly of the excellent Gentleman Loser—steers Killcrop’s proverbial ship with dead-eyed determination. “I’ll give you hate / I’ll give you war / I’ll give you strife / I’ll give you more,” sneers Klessig on a wildly catchy chorus. It’s one of the high points of Killcrop’s excellent Ejected Naked Into The Void, and reveals Klessig’s continuously growing command of craft. “Unworthy King” lures listeners in before pummeling them with an existential crisis that feels like a devilish party. —SS

LINE, “Nowhere”

LINE‘s The Making Room EP constitutes the best work of the band’s career so far. “Nowhere” puts a fine point on just how much the softer-sounding indie-pop quartet has sharpened their craft. “Head inside the clouds / Hands on sacred ground,” sings guitarist/vocalist Maddie Batzli at the top of the track. It’s a line that sets up a series of parallels, nudged gently and deliberately along by restrained playing cloaked in warm tones. Over the ensuing five minutes, LINE navigates dynamic crests with razor-sharp precision, poignantly coloring a tale of relatable heartache. —SS

moth_OS, “nite shift“

Elusive electronic duo moth_OS (Liam McCarty and Will Patton) may have laid low in 2024, but in February, they teased a still-forthcoming EP with a new tune that honed a high-production sheen. Building upon the “frenetic” chiptune- and breakbeat-inspired  sound of their 2021 release, “nite shift” is a tonally softer homage to the vitality of night. Bright, gliding synths and skittering, pitch-shifted samples that evoke the cuíca (a Brazilian friction drum) drop into the manipulated layers of its oscillating pulse, before “nite shift” is restlessly swallowed in a distorted, neo-psychedelic wall of electric guitar in its closing section. Peak RYMcore. —GP

Observe Since ’98, “A Time To Die”

The latest volume in veteran producer Observe Since ’98‘s Odd Ones series, Death’s Door, is consumed by the thought of finality through and through. Leading with an English-dubbed Seventh Seal (1957) dialogue sample, Observe kick-starts a masterfully sampled, instrumental hip-hop odyssey through the annals of ubiquitous and esoteric media history. While addressing the anxieties of modern life, the record also surreptitiously and conspicuously comments on the imposed crackdown on his artistry of plunderphonics and underground beat-making. On the fourth track, “A Time To Die,” Observe withholds any titular movie allusion, and instead takes excerpts from an early-2010s news interview with a targeted FBI agent and a morbid classic of a stand-up bit—well, who better to articulate the crushing weight of censorship and impending doom than trailblazing comedian George Carlin? —GP

Sex, Fear, “Vitamin Song“

“Vitamin Song” is a bruised and bruising track from Sex, Fear that features the band’s proverbial tongue planted firmly in their collective cheek. From an opening conceit that feels like it was ripped straight from the Belfast-based Robocobra Quartet’s excellent “Wellness,” the track could have easily fallen into the uncomfortable territory of being too familiar. But Sex, Fear steady their ship across a sprawling sea of tumult. Hairpin turns and nearly free-form expression punctuate the track, as the band embraces a bleak cacophony. Spoken word, shouted lyrics, and a jam-flecked run of emo-tinged post-punk make “Vitamin Song” an enjoyable pill to consume. —SS

The Spine Stealers, “Midwest Winter“

Speaking plainly from a personal level: The Spine Stealers‘ “Midwest Winter” was my favorite song released by a Madison-based band in 2024. Emma O’Shea and Kate Ruland have been making strides towards becoming a nationally-recognized indie-folk act, and tracks like “Midwest Winter” keep them progressing down that path. From the hyper-poetic (and lovingly damaged) ambient post-rock-meets-Americana opening to the song’s more traditionally folk latter half, “Midwest Winter” holds listeners in a vice grip of rapt attention. O’Shea and Ruland—alongside a striking guest fiddle performance from Marin Danz—elicit an emotional undercurrent strong enough to swallow listeners whole. Few songs in recent memory have left me so stunned. —SS