Each day of December this year, I’m highlighting one of my favourite albums of 2024. Counting down the list, we start with #31 on December 1st and go all the way down until we’ve reached #1 on December 31st. Today, #2 on my Album of the Year list: Bicurious – ‘Your Life Is Over Now…’.

Hi! Hope you’re doing alright. Today, I would like to do things a little differently. Most of the reviews I’ve written up until this point have gone quite deep into the album: whether it being about their intricate concepts or refreshing song structures. This is all fun and games and I thoroughly enjoy diving deep into the core of these albums. However, next to being a place where I can shamelessly promote my own impeccable music taste, Jam of Today also serves kind of as my online musical diary. That’s why today, I would like to share something a bit more personal than usual.

As many of you know, this year marked an important one in my life. For the first time ever, I moved abroad. Me and my partner packed ours bags and relocated from Amsterdam to London, a massive city renowned for its endless possibilities and… its music: from a business perspective because pretty much every major record label and their subsidiaries have an office here in some shape or form, and from a cultural perspective because of the many amazing acts hailing from the metropolis. Another perhaps somewhat overlooked topic is the amount of live music opportunities in this place. With access to countless amounts of pubs and venues, I once joked you could probably try and visit a gig each day of the year if you really put your mind to it. Now, I know I’m a bit of an oddball when it comes down to music. Not only do I spend 40 hours a week working with music professionally, I also go and spend pretty much all the time I have left in the week on it, too. That naturally means that for someone like me, living in a city as musical as London is quite like a dream becoming reality.

Now, I won’t reminisce all the way back into the past of why music means such a big deal to me (I’ve written some of that over here, if you’re interested). However, I would like to highlight one specific part: visiting gigs. Attending a live music show has always been one of my favourite pastimes. A few examples: as you can expect from someone as autistic as myself, I made sure to make a detailed list of each and every band or artist I’ve ever seen perform live (I’ve currently seen 1194!) and when I was still blogging on De Spotlight, one of my favourite items was the so called ‘venue tour’, taking me all across The Netherlands in search of its best pop venue. Good stuff! As soon as I set foot in London, I realised this is kind of the holy grail in terms of attending shows. Especially when it comes down to those of the more niche and underground artists.

This is the point where we add Bicurious and their second album ‘Your Life Is Over Now…’ to the story. For those that don’t know: Bicurious is a Dublin-based duo consisting of French guitarist Taran Plouzané and Irish drummer Gavin Purcell, excelling in releasing experimental post-rock/math-rock music. It’s one of these bands that I’ve been following for ages but had already kind of given up on ever seeing them perform live. I mean: they’re a small act within a very specific genre. What are the chances of ever seeing them live, right?! Well, October turned out to be my lucky month. Not only was there a brilliant 2nd album which (here comes the review) leans more towards an alternative rock-influenced math-album, including for the first time ‘proper’ vocals by Taran (there you go), but also did Bicurious play a gig in The Lexington in Islington. Obviously, I had a great time attending this show but it wasn’t necessarily the performance itself that made me feel overjoyed. At this point, the realisation had kicked in that I was now able to catch all these acts live that I’ve tried to see perform for so long.

The reason this meant so much to me is because live music, in my opinion, elevates your music experience to a whole other level. When I went to catch The Fall of Troy play the Garage in Highbury in August, they brought along Hail The Sun, one of my favourite bands of recent times. As soon as they started playing ‘Made Your Mark’, I ended up (while being slightly intoxicated) bawling out of pure happiness. Never did I think would I be able to see this specific song – which I love so much – being performed live! Of course, I’ve attended many great gigs living in The Netherlands, but the world seems to be my oyster now.

To sum it up: my move to London this year was a life changing one for several reasons. Not only did I find a version of myself that I felt I’d lost living in The Netherlands, I also gained an opportunity to expand my passion for music once more. I grew a closer connection with the medium than I ever had in the past. Music is simply beautiful and it genuinely means the world to me. Wherever I may end up in the future, whatever place I will call home: music will always be there with me. It will be on my side during all my adventures, when I wake up and go to bed, and all the times in between those, too. And I’m sure, wherever I may be in the world, whenever I hear a song off of ‘Your Life Is Over Now…’, I will forever think back of the phenomenal times I’ve had in this magnificent part of the world that I am in right now. This album has played a vital part in creating some of the best memories I’ve ever made, and I will be forever grateful for that.