While our Listmas celebrations as a whole aim to reflect on what the past year has given us, our annual EP list is often more about looking forward into the years ahead. It’s about the promise heard in these collections, and the excitement they instil in us for what the road ahead may have in store from the acts which crafted them. Listening to a great EP often feels like a fateful first meeting, hearing your next favourite artist before you even realise it. Perhaps your next fav is just waiting to be discovered in this very list, so let’s dive right in to the best EPs that 2024 had to offer.

10. Cristina Hart – Online Therapy

Belwood favourite Cristina Hart has gone from strength to strength since dropping her debut EP Sell a Dream back in 2020. Over the past few years her skill and confidence as a songwriter has really grown, with a string of superb standalone singles, all culminating in the release of her sophomore EP Online Therapy. This promising pop powerhouse feels more assured than ever, and ready to make 2025 her own.

9. Hayden Calnin – All Kinds of Light

Though not quite as captivating as the two Turning of the Tide EPs he released just last year, Australian singer/songwriter Hayden Calnin still delivers plenty of elegant baroque pop with his latest offering. To my mind All Kinds of Light tends to shine brightest in the moments when it forgoes conventional pop formats in favour of crafting more atmospheric passages, and it’s here that you can experience some of the most haunting music of the past year. 

8. Tamzene – In Any Weather

Scottish singer Tamzene has been floating around my radar for some time now, whether through catching the odd live session on YouTube or seeing her hailed as a superb support act up and down the UK. Operating at a perfectly balanced mid point between folk and soul on tracks like ‘Best Of Me’, ‘Holding Onto You’ and ‘Lose Yourself’, In Any Weather sounds like an artist on the precipice of something truly special. 

7. Isabel Dumaa – Just My Nature

As much as I love following a new artist and watching their talents grow with each new release, there’s a unique buzz to stumbling upon an artist that seems to have just emerged fully formed and nailed it on the first try. Isabel Dumaa is just such a talent. From the absolute bop that is ‘Quarter Life Crisis’, to the expansive slow burning balladry of ‘Price of Getting Older’, to the cathartic climax of ‘Everything At Once’, Just My Nature is a dazzling debut by every measure.

6. The Greatest Endangered Thing – Phosphenes: Vol. 1

Our favourite transatlantic troubadours return with some of their most tender and airy Americana offerings to date. Samuel James Taylor and Rebecca Van Cleave deliver plenty of bittersweet nostalgia and wistful longing, all tied together with a silver lining of the promise of brighter tomorrows. The sweet, serene arrangements and the charming interplay of their vocals provide an idyllic escape that will leave you longing for Volume two.

5. The Bedside Morale – Still Life

The bass work on ‘Bitter Things’ is some of the best I’ve heard in the indie scene in recent years. Frontman Tim Kazer delivers an assured vocal performance on ‘Early Morning Sonnet’, ‘Safeword’ is brimming with energy, and the lyricism on ‘Yours Sincerely’ carries real emotional weight behind it. This debut EP is straight forward, no nonsense, and delivers everything you’d hope it would. 

4. Ålesund – Restless Tides

Full of verve, passion, and a drive to live life to its fullest, Restless Tides was a cornerstone of my summer soundtrack. Between the thunderous drum work and Alba Torriset’s soaring, spellbinding vocals, the EP taps into the same rich vein of bombastic grandeur as Florence + the Machine. There’s a fire burning at the very heart of this EP, and I’m excited to see just how bright the band can blaze on future releases.

3. Picture Parlour – Face In The Picture

I didn’t quite buy into the buzz around Picture Parlour when their debut single ‘Norwegian Wood’ dropped. Their debut EP however, now that’s another story! Face In The Picture finds the perfect balance between style and substance. The stellar title track has all the swagger of an Alex Turner penned Bond theme, blues rocker ‘Dial Up’ has hints of early Rush or Led Zep, while the elegant strings and stylish solo of ‘Moon Tonic’ brings into focus the band’s grand ambitions. 

2. Yoshika Colwell – There’s A Time

This is what contentment sounds like. Full of warmth and tenderness, the gorgeous arrangements found here are a soothing balm for the soul. The kind of record you want to drop everything for and just bask in, like the first sunny day of spring. There’s A Time is home to five faultless tracks that manage to come together to form an EP greater than the sum of its parts. An entrancingly expressive release that I’m certain will be a favourite of mine for years to come.

1. Bon Iver – Sable

If the role of an EP is to build anticipation for what the future may hold, then none has done that better than Sable. It’s been a long time since we’ve had new music from Justin Vernon, and longer still since we’ve heard anything quite this raw and mesmerising from him. This pitch perfect return to the stripped-back indie folk sound of For Emma, Forever Ago instils me with so much hope and yearning for the next full Bon Iver album to follow the same path. Many EPs on this list are like fateful first meetings, but listening to Sable is akin to reuniting with an old friend and feeling like no time has passed.