TRA​​​И​​​Ƨ​​​A

Fucking hell, this almost beats BRAT for album of the year
'TRANSA' is a charity compilation for trans rights. With over 100 queer and allied artists contributing to this huge masterpiece, you'd think you would get an absolute mess with some entertaining loosies and left-over demos by some indie darlings. But instead, the good people over at the Red Hot Org pir together a 4-hour masterpiece with every artist involved working their ass off to tell their part of the story. You got a beautiful Fleet Foxes track. Clairo singing over distorted guitars, which is unusual for her. A 26-minute Andrè 3000 flute experiment. A gorgeous return by Sadè Adu after six years, which is a perfect ballad about her trans son. Yaya Bey delivers a beautiful piano ballad. Moses Sumnes is involved with two amazing tunes, one of them is a SOPHIE cover with the one and only ANONHI. This is what dreams are made of. Then there is also Sam Smith being a barable artist for once. An amazing Prince cover that tastefully throws "I Would Die 4 U" right into modern times. You have Jeff Tweedy from Wilco. Beautiful performances by Faye Webster and Julien Baker. Some gorgeous poems and spoken work. Endlessly atmospheric ambient tunes. A guest appearance by my Nr. 1 celebrity crush Hunter Schafer. A stunning Adrianne Lenker tune of Big Thief fame. Perfume Genius shows up, Sharon Van Etten, Kelela, Cassandra Jenkins and Bartees Strange. And all of them deliver amazing performances. And I didn't even dive into all the great artists I don't know here: There are too many to highlight, but I need to know more about some of these more unknown people.

If you can't tell, this album is the indie avengers of 2024. A perfectly arrangened mess with an atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife. With a strong message and cause backing it. Fucking hell.