
It was another year of slow, magical growth for this little collective. 🍄 Our master playlist now includes eighty-three hours of wordless music ⌛ and our collaborative playlist (join here!) has forty. 🤝 Our annual best-of wordless mix has our favorite stuff from 2024 🥂 and we’re pumped to announce new guest mixes from two certified music nerds:
Joel’s playlist, clocking in at five and a half hours, is vibey and eclectic and delightfully blissed-out, reflecting his Californian roots. As explained in his write-up, Joel* spent two decades as a TV show editor – where he was often responsible for building soundtracks from massive collections of pre-licensed music. That deep and broad listening experience shows, and it might explain why the mix feels like a perfect soundtrack.
Fortune Dweller’s playlist is by Craig, an illustrator** and musician from Atlanta with an affinity for moody post-rock and its precursor Krautrock (aka 1960s German cosmic music). But don’t let that intimidate you, as Craig’s playlist ranges far and wide, from Fleetwood Mac to Coltrane to Steve Reich, culled from his decades of mixtape making and record-shop crate digging.
And here are highlights from last year's additions to our master playlist and annual best-of mix. Loosely sorted by our five genre submix categories:
Instrumental
Everything in our universe is technically instrumental, but our instrumental submix means “mostly drumbeat free” (i.e., lots of piano and acoustic guitar). Some instrumental highlights from 2024:
One of our favorite new folk-adjacent albums was Yasmin Williams's, with collaborations from a range of notable wordless musicians, including bluegrass talent Aoife O’Donovan (of I’m With Her, which just dropped their first new track in five years) and guitarist and experimental musician Kaki King.
Sibling duo the Oh Hellos, who made one of the best neo-Christmas albums, made it onto our list via an expansive track representative of their style from the album Boreas.
The Swiss-Ecuadorian brothers of Hermanos Gutiérrez put out a gorgeous follow-up to their 2022 breakout album, drenched in spaghetti-western twang – pairs well with the new guitar-forward collaborative album from Kyle McEvoy, Richard Houghten, and wowflower.
Denmark duo Svaneborg Kardyb makes mythical nordic music and put out one of our favorite new wordless albums last year.
Canadian pianist Chilly Gonzalez has produced for Daft Punk, Drake, and Feist, but his classical albums Solo Piano and its sequel are what keep us coming back.
We caught wind of this lovely mix by brilliant writer and music savant Michael Chabon, featuring mostly-acoustic wordless gems from mostly-1970s classic bands – a few of which (Sun Kil Moon, Uncle Tupelo, Umphrey's McGee) made it onto our playlists.
Electronic
If it has a computery-sounding beat, it ends up here:
Speaking of mythical nordics, DJ’s trip to Iceland coincided nicely with his favorite new album of the year, words or not: II by Kiasmos, the Icelandic supergroup of Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen that's already heavily featured on our master playlist. II is technically their second-and-a-half album, ten years after their self-titled debut and an EP in 2017. If you like Kiasmos, watch Ólafur's video for Cercle, which is beautifully filmed in the middle of a volcanic landscape. It’s very cool and looks very cold.
For atmospheric electronic, ordered by increasing moodiness, check out these three UK artists:
British producer Tom Ashbrook (who’s made nearly a dozen appearances on our playlist in the last couple years) lays a perfect soundtrack for wordless dark winters in his solo collection.
Ishmael Ensemble weaves saxophone, synths, and increasing electronic influences on their three albums over the past five years.
Max Cooper, whose songs have made their way onto our playlist almost every year, produces physical visual art installations along with his music – and he was apparently the first electronic musician to perform at the Acropolis.
Beats
Our newly-created beats submix is kinda like dubbed trip-hop or anything with a more pronounced beat. Some highlight additions from the last year:
New York based Mishegas (Yiddish for crazy) has released only singles for the entirety of his music career – we’re here for it, and keeping an eye out for more.
We threw on a 2001 throwback by Prefuse 73, whose prolific career includes collaborations with Mos Def and wordless playlist darling Four Tet (whose new song “Loved” made it onto our playlist and got the Pitchfork nod).
On the new album from Laura Misch, sister to our wordless favorite Tom, she mixes her saxophone with electronic beats and sounds from nature in the foreground.
Khruangbin’s new album was everywhere in 2024, including our playlists.
Post-rock
Our post-rock submix didn’t see a lot of new light in 2024, but we’d be remiss not to mention:
Canadian post-rock legends Godspeed You! Black Emperor, whose music in the early aughts was proto-inspiration for this project, released their eighth album in 2024 (which features on our slop mix, i.e. the nearly 1,200 songs from the last decade that one of us loved but the other vetoed).
“Other”
Bit of a cop-out genre title, but if it doesn't fit elsewhere, mixes genres, or defies categorization, it goes on our “other” submix:
We loved last year’s new album (or series of EPs, released as three "suites") from not-bad Canadian instrumentalists BADBADNOTGOOD.
The charango, a plucked mandolin-like string instrument from the Andes, is star on the pulsing album by German-by-way-of-Mexico musician Aukai (Hawaiian for seafarer).
We reached back into the crates and added two songs from one of our original favorite wordless sets, Cinematic Orchestra’s 2008 curated Late Night Tales. The Late Night Tales series is generally great for background dinner-party vibes; we highly recommend Bonobo’s set, too.
We fudged our “wordless” rule a bit to bring Don Chicharrón back onto the playlist, adding a song with palabras españoles from the Denver based, Peruvian-cumbia band’s new album. It pairs well with another song we added last year, “Up From the South” by the Budos band.
The new albums of British jazz from breakout quintet Ezra Collective (their previous album won UK’s Mercury Prize and their new stuff got an Obama nod) and up-and-coming trio Slowly Rolling Camera.
Non-singer Delicate Steve’s ironically titled new album Delicate Steve Sings (it's the guitar that does the singing), and Sigur Rós's lead-singer Jónsi’s mostly wordless solo album.
Last but not least, thanks to folks for dropping their own favorite wordless music onto our collaborative playlist. Again: join here!***
Happy listening and see y'all in 2026 – same wordless time same wordless channel.
*Joel’s the kind of guy who creates custom playlists for all of his friends’ events, with over 110 and counting, often with punny names: from “Ditty City” to “Spring a Ding” to “Sunshine Suppository,” there’s something for everyone. Come for his specially-curated wordless mix, stay for every other possible occasion imaginable.
**Craig even designed his own custom Spotify playlist art, and it’s beautiful. Check it out!
***And if you want to create your own 100-song wordless mix and write a blog about it, send us a note: wordlesscollective[at]gmail[dot]com
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