Ahh, January. The dreaded 'end of year' lists are behind us, a new canvas of cultural delights to anticipate across the coming twelve months. I enjoy this time of year because the sloppy excesses of December are wiped clean and it’s all about fresh beginnings.
We’re barely a couple of weeks into 2024 and already we’ve heard an album that’ll undoubtedly make end of year lists. Letter to Self, the debut album by Dublin band Sprints, is a brilliant, razor-sharp alt-rock record that draws in elements of post-punk and indie. 2024 is theirs for the taking.
That said, there's plenty of other albums that I’m looking forward to over the next few months, including the return of Grandaddy with Blu Wav, their first since 2017, on February 16th. Galway band NewDad release their self-assured debut Madra, blending alt-rock with indie and shoegaze, on January 26th.
The Last Dinner Party, who just won the BBC Sound of 2024 poll and made quite an impression with their debut single Nothing Matters last year, release their debut album Prelude to Ecstasy on February 2nd and I’m curious to hear whether the London indie band’s studied insouciance is just a shtick, or whether they can sustain momentum across an album. Will The Cure release their highly anticipated 14th album Songs of a Lost World this year? Rumours suggest they will, although I’m personally holding out hope that R.E.M. will announce a surprise album (and even better, a reunion tour to accompany it) that they’ve been secretly beavering away on in 2024. We can but dream.
There’s lots to look forward to on the literary scene, too - not least amongst Irish writers. Sinead Gleeson has already proven her worth as a writer of essays and non-fiction, but her debut novel Hagstone (published April 11th) exhibits her talent for storytelling, too. Gleeson’s tale of a remote island, the secretive commune of women that it houses and a local artist, Nell, who becomes entangled in their community, is a joy to read.
Thrilled with the cover for my debut novel Hagstone, out April 11th 2024 with @4thEstateBooks.
— Sinéad Gleeson (@sineadgleeson) November 14, 2023
Thanks to Elaine Feeney and Louise Kennedy for blurbs, to Ola Galewicz for her stunning cover and to @mattclacher & @KishWidyaratna.
Pre-order: https://t.co/CCmPvgacZN @rcwlitagency pic.twitter.com/8tJ0jaUntc
Ferdia Lennon’s debut novel Glorious Exploits (published January 16th) is also set to make a big splash on the lit scene this year. The Dublin author draws on his History and Classics studies for a unique story set amid the Greek invasion of Sicily in 412AD; it has already been described as ‘madly ambitious and shockingly funny’. I’m also looking forward to Edel Coffey’s forthcoming second novel In Her Place (published March 21st), which sounds like it treads similar ‘page-turner’ territory to her harrowing but gripping debut, Breaking Point. A new Roddy Doyle book is always a treat, and The Woman Behind the Door will see the return of his character Paula Spencer, now in her sixties; a re-read of 1996’s The Woman Who Walked into Doors is inevitable ahead of its publication in September, too.
Irish writers aside, Maggie Nelson is a writer always worth reading and the American writer publishes her new collection of essays Like Love: Essays and Conversations on April 2nd - a collection of "profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols" that sounds an ideal tome to dip in and out of. As a Manchester music aficionado, I’m also looking forward to delving into Tales from the Dance Floor (published April 11th), part-memoir and part celebration of the city’s nightlife by Sacha Lord, founder of The Warehouse Project and the Parklife festival.
In the midst of all that listening and reading, I’ll be sure to make room for a few cinema trips, too. There’s a glut of Irish horror films en route in 2024 and I’m particularly looking forward to Paul Duane’s All You Need is Death as well as Aislinn Clarke’s Fréwaka, the first Irish-language horror feature. I can’t wait to see how Claire Keegan’s masterful novel Small Things Like These translates to the screen via the careful hands of screenwriter Enda Walsh and Cillian Murphy in the lead role of Bill.
There’ll be some theatre trips in the mix over the coming months too, I reckon - not least to see Hugo Weaving and the always wonderful Olwen Fouéré in The President at the Gate Theatre (opens February 8th), while Stephen Rea’s turn in Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape runs until February 3rd. New work by Marina Carr is always something to savour, and at the Abbey, Audrey or Sorrow - the first of two new plays by the acclaimed playwright - will run from February 23rd until March 23rd.
Phew. The calendar is already looking pretty full, and we’re only a few days into the new year - and that’s without adding gigs into the mix (if I had a granny to sell, it’d be for a ticket for Girls Aloud and not Taylor Swift, by the way.) Still, it’s good to have something to look forward to. It’s going to be a busy year.
