BEST ALBUMS OF 2025

 

أحمد [Ahmed] - سماع [Sama'a] (Audition)

OTOROKU

Akai Solo - No Control, No Glory
Break All Records
His free, powerful flow—guided by deep contemplation and his own internal rhythm—has grown increasingly unique in the current underground hip-hop scene.

Alabaster DePlume - A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole
International Anthem
His gentle melodies and words are just healing, and mending wounds is itself a protest against this terrible world.

Alex G - Headlights
As you know, I've been a huge fan of him for over a decade, and this is his first major label album (he's now  labelmate of A$AP Rocky, Childish Gambino, and Britney Spears!). And he continues to deliver these crazy songs. I hope this will give us hope in this crazy music industry.

Andrew Bernstein - Shadows and Windy Places

Annahstasia - Tether
The most impressive voice of the year. This is the debut album by Nigerian-American singer Annahstasia Enuke. Rooted in folk, its delicate acoustic arrangements are beautifully supported by a band sound enriched with horns and strings.

Antoine Bellanger & Sammy Stein - Depuis les cimes

Arthur Russell - Open Vocal Phrases Where Songs Come In and Out (Live 12/20/85)
Audika
Arthur Russell’s influence continues to grow more than thirty years after his death. The importance of the extensive archival work undertaken by Steve Knutson and Tom Lee at Audika Records cannot be overstated.

Atletas - Reflexão Meteórica

Ben Glas - Fifteen Vibrations For Generic Bluetooth Sex Toys

Bill Callahan - What a Night!

Bill Orcutt - Another Perfect Day 

Black Eyes - Hostile Design
Dischord

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Purple Bird

Brannten Schnüre - Landschaft Aus Tränen

Bridget Ferrill - Domschatzkammer
This is the kind of music I'm always searching for. Ascetic minimalism played on acoustic instrumentals, accented with more abstract electronic. Harmony and chasm, beauty and discomfort. and with a touch of Celtic mood.

Bryn Davis - Sometimes Things Change

CAMP COPE - Live at Sydney Opera House

Carla Boregas & Anelena Toku - Fronte Violeta
A culmination of sonic experimentation by two Brazilian sound artists, drawing from object sounds, voices, synths, taishōgoto, and gongs.

caroline - caroline 2
I learned through a Reddit AMA that this album was influenced by ---__--____, the project by More Ease and Seth Graham. That made immediate sense—on first listen, I found myself thinking of it as a kind of emo ambient. To me, this record feels quintessentially modern: melancholic folk music refracted through a digital sensibility.

Cass McCombs - Interior Live Oak
Genius songwriting, genius storytelling. He's always been great, but this has to be said again and again.

Chaz Knapp - Winter Music
An outdoor guitar improvisation following 2023's masterpiece "microfolk". Primitive folk music played with frozen fingers in the cold of midwinter, its lonely tone echoing through the landscape along with a short tape loop. Simply wonderful.

Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt - Empty Bottle
This is the best Orcutt-related release of the year. An incredible duo performance.

Chuck Roth - watergh0st songs
This is Roth's first release on Bill Orcutt's Palialia label. Roth's playing style, rooted in classical and improvisational, is presented here as song with defined melodies. A free-form, melancholic performance. Beautiful.

Chuquimamani-Condori - Edits
Formerly known as Elysia Crampton, they reached new heights in 2023 with the truly astonishing "DJ E." This "Edits" compilation gathers the past live set and DJ mixes, and the result is once again remarkable. Pop, country music, and traditional South American music are reshaped into DJ E’s style through a maximalist approach. That gives us sustained, euphoric catharsis unlike anything else.

Cities Aviv - Electric Chair

claire rousay - a little death

Content Provider - Endless Summer
This is insane. A new project by Bristol-based experimental vocalist Dali de Saint Paul. showcasing her prowess as a producer, she brings together a cast of guests to explore dub, industrial, ambient, and warped chanson. A midsummer soundtrack for an apocalyptic world.

Costin Miereanu - Poly-Art Recordings 1976-1982

Cruelster - Make Them Wonder Why
It's hardcore for sure, but the guitar sound and riffs sit somewhere between 70s punk and post-punk. Beastly vocals, catchy chorus, and even silly skits. This is Crazy American hardcore.

Cyrus Pireh - Thank You, Guitar
Michigan guitar maniac Cyrus Pireh pursues a singular, highly technical approach he calls “transcendental shred electric guitar music.” Playing a custom-built nine-string electric guitar, he vastly expands his expressive range through strict cycles and relentless repetition that astonish the listener. Bill Orcutt’s Palilalia label remains an essential force in contemporary experimental guitar music.

David Vélez - capsicum: music against racism
David Vélez is UK-based sound artist, researcher. His work focuses on the sounds of cooking and the acoustics of food and horticulture. In this work, he underscores the political significance of food in British immigrant communities through the sounds of Indian and Jamaican cuisine. Field recordings of culinary sounds and market activity are integrated with improvisational performances by immigrant artists. A remarkably distinctive sound essay.

Derek Baron – The Holy Restaurant
As the cover art suggests, this is a beautiful collage of fragments drawn from everyday improvisations, field recordings, playful sound effects, and spoken recitations. It's unclear how deliberately these sounds were recorded. Even if they were collected without a clear purpose, he has woven them together into a richly textured narrative.

Devin Music - Elf Holding Mouse
Formally known as Pink Navel, they built a reputation for rapping extensively about nerd culture—video games, YouTube, and memes (And they have publicly identified as non-binary). In October, they launched a new, more personal project under the name Dot Dev. And this album, released under the name Devin Music, is different again. It's a collection of guitar-based songs recorded in an early Mountain Goats style. It’s simply a self-released album, quietly put out on Bandcamp. and music like this always gets me.

Dorothy Carlos - Ear World
Based in Chicago and New York, cellist Dorothy Carlos’ latest work unfolds as a glitchy collage of electric cello and voice. Many of the pieces originated as multi-channel sound installations. While Berlin-based saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos explores similar terrain through spatialized sound, extended techniques, and digital manipulation, Carlos’ music drawing the listener inward rather than bodily intensity that defines Pitsiokos’ work.

Dustin Wong - Gloria

ear - The Most Dear and The Future
This is the debut release from a young American duo on the hip-hop label Surf Gang. Details remain scarce. One thing I can say—it’s so obvious we forget it: The Postal Service’s "Give Up" rules.

Earl Sweatshirt - Live Laugh Love
Listen to “Tourmaline.” This may be the first time you’ve heard him sing with such cheer. A decade after declaring I Don’t Go Outside, he now stands bathed in sunlight, staring straight into the lens. Backed by a new generation of gifted underground beatmakers like Theravada and Navy Blue, Earl delivers his warmest album to date. 

Elisabeth Klinck - Chronotopia

Ellen Arkbro - Nightclouds
Yes, slow-moving pure organ drone. I like organ drone so much. That's all.

DJ Elmoe - Battle Zone

éric la casa - Zones Portuaires 2
Field recordings captured at various commercial ports across the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Lebanon, Portugal, Turkey, and Australia. A captivating natural industrial drone.

Ernesto Díaz-Infante - Pocket Strings

Every Slut Could Be A Star - ESCBAS 12" LP
This album compiles recent works from Every Slut Could Be A Star, the signature project of Brooklyn-based, New York–born artist Alex Bienstock. Built around an explicitly “anti-genre” ethos, it collages punk, grunge, indie pop, industrial noise, grindcore, and hip-hop into deliberately provocative pastiches. Bienstock’s lyrics are deeply personal, grounded in his experiences as a gay living with schizoaffective disorder. 

Everything Is Psychedelic - The Beautiful Malaise

Ex Spiritist - Brass Knuckles

feeo - Goodness
A stunning debut album emerging from London's experimental scene. The contrast between radical drone-based electronics and melodic R&B vocals creates an exceptional beauty.

Felicity J Lord - FJL
In 2025, we live in a world of dots and pixels. Everything is constantly connected online. We know everywhere is bad. Someone's murmuring the name Sarah Jessica Parker. Someone's murmuring the name Celine Dion. Will my heart go on? Are you kidding?

Ferdinand Schwarz - Views Of A Sculpture

Fielding Daws - Yesterday's Weather
A sound collage project by Colorado-based poet Michael Klausman. This album is created under a very audacious concept. Every sound is stolen from the non-vocal passages of Looks Like Rain, the 1969 album by the late great Texas singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury. Chopped, looped, and time-stretched, these fragments are reassembled into something interesting and beautiful. As you know, all tracks on that album are seamlessly connected by the sounds of rain, wind, thunder, trains, and wind chimes. Klausman’s work functions simultaneously as a loving homage to Newbury and a sly parody of the recently popular genre of field recording.

Frog - 1000 Variations on the Same Song
Self-imitation is usually spoken of in negative terms: “It’s all the same,” “There’s no growth,” “It lacks creativity.” Frogs’ sixth album directly confronts this familiar dilemma faced by creators. As the title suggests, all eleven songs are built from a single idea. Yes, they're all just variations. And the result? This is creativity. This is originality.

Gate - We Want A Riot

Geese - Getting Killed
When I heard their debut, I thought, “Sure—another post-punk-ish band.” The second album gave me pause: “Wait—did they always sound like this?” Cameron Winter’s solo work answered that question decisively. He’s an extraordinary singer-songwriter. And now, this. Nothing more to add.

Giant Claw - Decadent Stress Chamber
Discarding the capitalist constraints from commercial pop music—that's what Keith Rankin did on this album. I have absolutely no interest in Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, or t.A.T.u. but the music he created by sampling their vocals is remarkable. Yes, I do like pop music.

Girls Rituals - I'm It!

Good Flying Birds - Taulah's Tape
Their band name is beautiful homage to Tobin Sprout—a genius melody maker, in my book. That same devotion runs through their music, which radiates love for glorious lo-fi indie rock and jangly pop of that era.

Gwenifer Raymond - Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark
Okay, enough about John Fahey. Drawing on folk horror, the occult, and science fiction—she holds a PhD in astrophysics—this is a new masterpiece of modern primitive fingerstyle guitar. Listen closely for the occasional drone textures woven throughout.

Helvetia - Welcome The Summer Heartbreak
Yes, I absolutely love Duster. And everyone loves Duster. So, what about Helvetia? Jason Albertini, Duster's former drummer, released numerous works under this name for a long time, but in 2023 he announced Helvetia's "final album." Two years later, he's back. It's his usual home-recorded lo-fi sound. Listen to the covers of Otis Redding and Talking Heads. They're sure to be hits.

Hesse Kassel - La Brea
This debut from Chilean art-rock band Hesse Kassel hits hard. The influence of Black Country, New Road’s first two albums is unmistakable, and comparisons to Slint, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, or Swans feel inevitable. Still, their sprawling songwriting—eight tracks across more than 78 minutes—resists being written off as simple imitation.

Hirjjo - Blunder

Horse Lords & Arnold Dreyblatt - FRKWYS Vol. 18 Extended Field

Hunx And His Punx - Walk Out On This World
The greatest gay garage band of the 21st century has returned with their first new album in 12 years after a long hiatus. Over the past decade, the world has broken down and become worse than a joke. but they declare "If it's the end of the world. I wanna have some fun".

Illat - VOLT OTT
A new project by Hungarian artist Gábor Kovács, also known as Új Bála. Meticulously composed immersive minimal music built from fragmented electronic noise and melodies that scarcely register as melodies. When a sample of Jandek surfaces from behind the noise, it is unexpectedly moving.

Jack Herscowitz - el instante centellea
The two pieces included here focus on slow process itself. One traces the gradual glissando of two violin strings as they move toward unison, while the other follows the slow descent of a cluster chord until it settles into a repeating pedal point. It feels like watching Michael Snow's structural films. Very interesting.

Jacken Elswyth with CA Conrad - A Cast of Flowers
This small collection of banjo improvisations by Jacken Elswyth—also a member of the UK radical trad-folk revival group Shovel Dance Collective—echoes the spirit of Bruce Langhorne’s monumental The Hired Hand soundtrack.

Jake Muir - Campana Sonans

James Ferraro - Sanctuary OST

Jazz Lambaux - Music for Fools (2022-2024)
Paris-based DIY bedroom singer-songwriter Jazz Lambaux’s debut album succinctly showcases his idiosyncratic style. It’s a strange hybrid—something like bagpipe hyperpop, or 2000s pop-punk with an Irish twist, messed up by cheap electronic textures and Auto-Tuned vocals.

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Gift Songs
For his first solo release in six years, shoegaze-ambient craftsman Cantu-Ledezma invited multiple players into the studio to form an acoustic ensemble. Minimal melodies and rhythms—piano, drums, cello, organ—acquire a mystical resonance as they dissolve into his signature drone ambience. It really feels like a gift.

Jenny Hval - Iris Silver Mist
Her earlier work was grounded in physicality, marked by body-horror grotesquery and an excess of sexual reference. By contrast, what drifts through this album is an absence of presence—or perhaps the presence of absence. Like fragrance, like ghosts, like music itself, it moves through the world unseen.

Joanne Robertson - Blurrr
Blurry, introspective, lonely, and candid folk songs—this is the kind of music I’ve always listened to. It's Grouper and it's Nick Drake.

John Swanke - Rain Country
A wonderful cosmic folk record from Bellingham, Washington, a coastal town near the Canadian border. The beautiful guitar tones drenched in deep reverb and the ambient drone textures evoke images of a gray, calm rainy day.

Jonas Torstensen – Viser Og Countryrock På Fynsk
A self-released album by Danish artist Jonas Torstensen, also known as Franciska. He’s usually known for experimental work built from piano, tape loops, and field recordings, but here he takes a very different approach. The playing is clumsy, and he sings in a voice that feels like it could fade out at any moment. It’s completely low-skill and lo-fi—like overhearing someone casually practicing vocals in the next room. And yet, it’s one of the most beautiful records I’ve heard this year. It’s pure magic.

KeiyaA - Hooke's Law

Kevin Drumm - Sheer Hellish Miasma II
Over two decades after this century’s landmark harsh noise work Sheer Hellish Miasma, I never imagined a sequel would emerge. Having abandoned the guitar, his textures now focus entirely on electronics—familiar in feel, yet clearly shaped by where he is now. For noise fans, this feels like a reward.

Kieran Hebden + William Tyler - 41 Longfield Street Late '80s
An unexpected collaboration between a master of electronic music and a contemporary Americana virtuoso. While it might be categorized as "Ambient Americana" that's been popular in recent years, recall what Hebden did with his early band Fridge and his series of works known as folktronica, and Tyler's brilliant soundtrack for Kelly Reichardt's "First Cow." The result feels inevitable.

Klein - sleep with a cane

Lauten Der Seele - Unterhaltungen Mit Larven Und Uberresten
The German experimental folk duo Brannten Schnüre has been a personal favorite of mine for years. And I’m just into Läuten der Seele, the solo project of one half of the duo, Christian Schoppik. His dark, melancholic collage work, in which unease and comfort coexist in an uncanny balance, never fails to captivate me.

Lia Kohl & Zander Raymond - In Transit
In recent years, Chicago has emerged as a focal point for experimental music and sound art, and both of these artists are deeply embedded in that scene. Cellist Lia Kohl, fascinated by shortwave radio and found sounds, has produced a series of striking experimental solo works. Zander Raymond, meanwhile, is a synth-based ambient composer as well as a visual artist working in collage and sculpture.This collaborative album focuses on movement itself within the city. Urban murmurs captured at bus stops, inside taxis, and across train stations are subtly yet vividly colored by the duo’s touch. Much of our lives, after all, are spent in transit—on the lines that connect one place to another.

Liam Grant - Prodigal Son

Lori Goldston - Open Space
This is like drone metal played on a single cello—in fact, she was once a member of Earth, the Seattle band that pioneered doom metal. Brutally amplified through distortion pedals and amps, the cello’s intense sound sustains itself without pause for 75 minutes. I was completely blown away.

Los Thuthanaka - Los Thuthanaka

Lucy Liyou - Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name
I still remember the moment she revealed her singing voice on Dog Dreams, released by American Dreams. Once known for experimental sound art built from text-to-speech technology, Liyou has since transformed into a singer who delivers heart-wrenching ballads.

Ludwig Berger & Vadret da Morteratsch - Crying Glacier
The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers. In response, Germany’s pioneering field-recording label forms of minutiae has launched a series dedicated to the acoustic diversity of glaciers and ice. This release is the second in that series. Sound artist Ludwig Berger traveled to the Mortellach Glacier in Switzerland to capture these sounds. Listen closely to the melting ice—its textures are unexpectedly captivating. The sounds are very interesting. Yet this is not just beauty: it is the voice of a glacier in the process of dying.

Marco Avitabile – A Few Meaningful Things
A home-recorded improvisation by an Italian guitarist. Rooted in post-hardcore, his playing draws striking results from emotional melodies and a wide range of effects. 

Mark Fell & Pat Thomas - Reality Is Not A Theory
A crazy collaboration between masters of electronic music and free jazz. Is this a shouting match or a tender embrace?


Mark Harwood - "or, Urim" ＆ "Two Actors"
Penultimate Press / AKTI
These two works were released simultaneously on different labels, yet they are siblings born of the same process. The concept is simple: just as capital exploits culture through algorithms, he too steals from existing works—a longstanding technique known as plunderphonics. While genre-mixing has become commonplace, his approach goes further, extracting extreme details from source material to create only what he himself wants to hear.

Medhane - Offering

Megabasse - Flamenca
Pierre Bujeau’s solo project—also known as a member of the mysterious French group Omertà. His sound unfolds in a haze of psychedelic tones. Psychedelic minimalism spun from his double-neck guitar drifts into a trance-like state.

Mess Esque - Jay Marie, Comfort Me
The third album by Australian duo Helen Franzmann and Mick Turner (guitarist for Dirty Three). It’s an ideal pairing, with voice and guitar complementing each other perfectly. Turner’s restrained yet beautiful playing recalls Mark Ribot and Loren Connors.

Michael Morley - I'll Get Them Rain
Self-released
https://gatemm.bandcamp.com/album/ill-get-them-rain
A member of New Zealand underground giants The Dead C, the guitarist continues to release striking experimental guitar albums on Bandcamp. This one is a solitary psychedelic blues that recalls the stark world of Jandek.

Michele Anelli - Lentamente Essere

MIKE - Showbiz!

Mother Nature - Loving, Joyful and Free
The hardcore record that blew my mind the most this year.

Natural Information Society - Perseverance Flow
Led by Joshua Abrams, Chicago’s meditative minimalist group NIS has, in recent years, expanded their scope by incorporating guests such as Evan Parker and Bitchin’ Bajas, or by recording with larger ensembles. For this release, however, they return to their core four-member configuration. The result is their most avant-garde album to date. Across its 30-minute runtime, themes and rhythms subtly shift, invert, and—just as they seem to settle—disperse once more. It’s a genuinely joyful listen.

The Necks - Disquiet
Northern Spy
If you have three hours to spare, take the time to listen to this album. Don’t worry—it’s about the same length as Magnolia.

Nick Drake - The Making of Five Leaves Left
Amid a market flooded with trivial reissues and profit-driven deluxe editions, this archival release stands as a genuine treasure. Perhaps true beauty lies in the process itself.

Ø - Sysivalo

Octavia M Sheffner - Shivering;
This album is completely trippy—a chaotic collage of sound fragments scavenged from YouTube and elsewhere. It feels like multiple songs blasting at once from different speakers. It’s maddening, yet undeniably beautiful in places. Even in the dump yard, hidden treasures emerge.

Old Saw - The Wringing Cloth
Vermont multi-instrumentalist Henry Birdsey has explored drone folk using pedal steel, banjo, bagpipes, harmonica, and more. His group project Old Saw is no exception. Like the American music of Harry Partch, Robbie Basho, and Ry Cooder—which can feel almost ephemeral today—Old Saw recreates a melancholic Americana utopia.

Oliver Chapman & Phoebe Eccles ‎- Dog FM
Mark Harwood’s Penultimate Press presents this duo’s strikingly unique debut. It opens with a car navigation system’s synthetic voice, drifting through confused exchanges between a man and a woman. As a dog begins panting heavily, the scene slips into a fantastical soundscape and a fragmentary poetry reading. It feels like daydreaming in the backseat of someone else’s car. Where am I being taken?

Open Mike Eagle - Neighborhood Gods Unlimited
A veteran OME of the art-rap scene—his head now seemingly replaced by a component stereo!—returns with his latest work. The production is consistently smooth and inviting, the hooks lean more melodic than ever, and the lyrics brim with irony and humor, powered by an amazing sharp eye for observation.

Patrick Quinn - Sonifying the Sun: The Mass Emergence of Brood XIII and XIX Periodical Cicadas, Volume 2
Released by Tokyo label zappak, this work documents the extraordinary summer of 2024, when 13-year and 17-year cicadas emerged simultaneously—an event that occurs only once every 221 years. Volume One, issued by Topos Press, was an almost cicada-harsh-noise; this follow-up, however, unfolds more like a narrative. The album opens with recordings from July 2022, two years before the emergence, and closes with sounds captured in July 2024, after the cicadas had died off. In both pieces, fireworks celebrating Independence Day can be heard in the distance. This cyclical framing quietly reveals the astonishing mathematical mystery embedded in life itself.

PERIMETER O - Silent Spring Within volume I-IX
Pernille Meidell, who runs the Norwegian tape label Breton Cassette, presents a slow, long-form ambient piece. Inspired by Rachel Carson’s renowned nonfiction work, the composition draws listeners in with floating synthesizer textures. Her vocals, appearing in the middle and toward the end, also leave a strong impression.

Phil Geraldi - Steele, ND
The crackle of a poorly tuned radio, insects chirping across open fields, the soothing drift of pedal steel guitar… Following last year’s masterpiece AM/FM USA, he once again crafts the perfect soundtrack for an imaginary road trip.

Pierre Gerard / Bruno Duplant - Support Surface
A duo release from Tokyo’s Ftarri, featuring Belgian improviser Pierre Gerard and French sound artist Bruno Duplant. Short acoustic guitar phrases and shifting electroacoustic textures gently interfere with one another, creating a quietly serene piece.

Piotr Kurek - Songs And Bodies

Poppy H - Treadwater Fury

Posuposu Otani - Posuposu Otani
Japanese throat singer and Jew’s harp player Posuposu Otani makes his debut on the London label 33-33. His deep dedication to overtones and distinctive vocal style feel like a delightful personal discovery.

Preservation & Gabe 'Nandez - Sortilège
Bilingual rapper Gabe Nandez, fluent in both English and French, wins from the outset by teaming up with Preservation for his Backwoodz Studioz debut. It makes you wonder why this collaboration didn’t happen sooner.

QNDFK - Vernaculars
This experimental techno tape incorporates Parkinson’s disease into its production process, its fragmented rhythms stiffening my body.

Rafael Toral - Traveling Light

Rashad Becker - The Incident
Renowned for his countless projects as a mastering engineer, he finally returns with his own music for the first time since 2016. Structured as a four-act pseudo-musical, the work reaches its most harrowing point in the final chapter, where the tribal beats that once propelled the narrative abruptly recede. In their place emerges a seething mass of grotesque drones and undulating electronic strata. This album is framed as the opening chapter in a series titled "Based on a True Story". But, will we hear what comes next before reality itself collapses?

Rian Treanor & Cara Tolmie - Body Lapse

Richard Dawson - End of the Middle
Richard Dawson, once hailed as an avant-garde guitarist in the vein of Derek Bailey, first gained attention for his grand albums themed around the medieval era and near-future dystopias. This album, however, turns its gaze inward, toward the enclosed world of a modest British middle-class household. His use of multiple perspectives heightens the effect, giving each character a vivid, tangible presence. The quietly devastating finale, “More Than Real,” sung as a duet with his partner Sally Pilkington, recalls “Little Person,” the closing theme of "Synecdoche, New York". Life begins, ends, and is passed down within the miniature world of the home.

Robert Turman - A Day In The Life
This is a collection of skipping records. The needle traps going round and round in the same groove. For us record store clerks, that's usually the worst thing, but this Turman's approach is so simple and much fun more than RRR 500's Locked Groove or Milan Knizak's Broken Music.

Romance - Love Is Colder Than Death
Romance, a devotee of Chuck Person’s Eccojams, has previously released reverent tributes to Céline Dion and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. This time, they draw us into the monochrome world of American film noir. Come to think of it, there’s hardly a title more fitting for this screwed dark ambient than "Out of the Past". Flashbacks and monologues merely delay the inevitable, prolonging a tragedy already foreclosed.

Roxane Métayer – Chênes
She is a violinist who loves plants and animals. And consider this album as the folk music of an imaginary land. The sounds of small instruments like the harmonica, jaw harp, and flute are the voices of the creatures live there.

Ryan Packard - Garden Variety

Sage Martens - Chamber Music for Lawn Mowers
Matthew Sage (a member of Fuubutsushi) and Lieven Martens (a.k.a. Dolphins Into The Future) have created a peculiar ambient work with a lawnmower as its unlikely protagonist. A sound more often associated with suburban irritation is tuned into a gentle, almost hypnotic drone, revealing an unexpected beauty within everyday noise.

Sean Armstrong - Velvet Ever After
Originally a member of Spinning Coin and part of The Pastels’ Geographic label, this Glasgow-born indie pop singer has since relocated to Berlin, where he quietly runs a small tape label with his partner Rocky Lorelei. His songs evoke the warmth and intimacy of Cat Stevens, Alex Chilton, and Epic Soundtracks.

sean colum - saeculorum

Shungu - Faith In The Unknown

Snowy Band - The Apartment
He must be writing songs and singing them with bedhead.

Some Images of Paradise - i expect the same of u

Soup Dreams – Hellbender
A Philadelphia newcomer dancing along the dirt paths trodden by Waxahatchee, Big Thief, and Wednesday. Okay, make it louder.

Spencer Radcliffe – Ohio Vision
Back then, I really loved Orchid Tapes. Alex G and Mat Cothran (Coma Cinema, Elvis Depressedly) and Sam Ray (Ricky Eat Acid, Teen Suicide), and Spencer Radcliffe (Blithe Field) were my heroes. As the years passed, Alex went far away. Mat and Sam went crazy. And Spencer came back with his guitar. That's enough for me.

Standing On The Corner - Standing On The Corner II
Creative Mysteries Arts

Standing on the Corner – Baby
Ever since being captivated by their 2016 masterpiece Red Burns, I’ve been a devoted fan of this group. A post-genre, amorphous collective straddling hip-hop, jazz, and the performing arts, they remain resolutely elusive—by the time you think you’ve caught up, they’ve already vanished. All the more striking, then, that this single arrived as an official release via major label XL. It's worth a listen. And “II” is an official new album released in DVD format. After being sold for a limited number of days in New York’s Times Square, it later became available for purchase on their website.

Stenhjärta - 2
Discreet Music
For the past few years, I’ve been obsessed with Sweden’s underground scene, particularly the circle around Gothenburg’s Discreet Music label. Stenhjärta is a project led by Gustaf Dicksson—also known as Blod—a central figure in that community. Their music is lo-fi folk that feels both idyllic and strange, reminding me a little of Jad Fair.

Steve Gunn – Daylight Daylight
Emerging as an heir to American Primitive, Gunn has in recent years leaned toward a more abstract expression, beginning with his collaboration with David Moore of Bing & Ruth and continuing in his duo with John Truscinski. This album marks his first SSW work in four years. Delicate string arrangements complement his gentle, slightly reverberant vocals, lending the entire record a quiet, beautiful intimacy.

Sullow - Dedications
A trio improvisation at Cafe Oto by Jacken Elswyth, Daniel S. Evans, and Joshua Barfoot, members of the UK's progressive traditional folk revival group Shovel Dance Collective. A superb performance ranging from the traditional music that they explore to free folk. These two sets were dedicated to Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, giants of the music world who passed away this year.

Television Personalities - Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out: The Television Personalities Radio Sessions – 1980-1993
This radio live collection from Fire Records is the ultimate gift for TVPs fans. The 1980 John Peel Session sounds even clearer than the studio recordings, vividly capturing Tracy’s raw, vibrant energy. The 1986 Andy Kershaw BBC Session is also essential listening, especially for admirers of the 1989 masterpiece Privilege. In the 1990s performances on American radio stations, Dan Tracy’s vocals are filled with anguish. It's utterly heartbreaking. 

Territorial Gobbing - I Will Defeat You In Battle

Theo Alexander & Qow – So Afraid To Show I Care
This collaboration between London-born sound artist Theo Alexander and Cairo-born Omar El Sadek is an experimental work with cassette tape and the theory of bricolage. Using material created during their residency, they performed live, sampled that performance, and then returned to the stage with new collaborators. This iterative process resulted in a dense, multilayered ambient drone.

Thollem - Worlds in a Life, Live
Improvisational pianist Thollem McDonas sampled six past recordings made with Nels Cline, Terry Riley, William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, and Michael Wimberly, using them as the foundation for a live performance. In effect, an entirely new improvisation emerged from six sets of improvisations.

Tony Bontana - Sunday Service

Tujiko Noriko - Echoes on the Hem
Longform Edition, a Sydney-based digital label that released numerous outstanding tracks, unfortunately shut down in January this year. This is one of its final four projects. Following the magnificent Crépuscule I & II (2023), this long-form ambient work incorporates text narration by an AI with a boyish voice. She stated that she wanted it to sound like rap, yet its unnatural accent instead evokes scenes of summer idleness and a vague sense of loneliness.

U.e. – Hometown Girl
US ambient artist Ulla E. Straus has reemerged under a new moniker, shifting toward lo-fi acoustic chamber music. Carefully recorded reverberations of instruments and voices intertwine with her familiar electronic textures, resulting in an unexpectedly melancholic and intimate atmosphere.

Ultan O'Brien - Dancing The Line
Ireland’s DIY label Nyahh Records has gained growing recognition in recent years for bridging local traditional music with experimental sound. Fiddler Ultan O’Brien’s debut album weaves 19th-century folk melodies with field recordings, sound collage, and electronic drones. This is genuinely mind-blowing.

UNIVERSITY – McCartney, It'll Be OK
For the past decade or so, people have been talking about emo revival. Also this year, First Day Black's debut sounds as if they’d time-traveled straight from the ’90s, and Algernon Cadwallader and Japan’s the cabs made glorious comebacks after quietly growing in stature during their hiatuses. Midwest emo, meanwhile, has become a meme, handed down to online music nerds. In such a situation, University’s fundamentally cheerful vibe felt genuinely refreshing. They aren’t trying to be emo or math rock, simply aim to be an extreme band.

Vanessa Rossetto – Pictures Of The Warm South
This is a truly moving work: an audio documentary and sound-collage piece by Rossetto that documents the final months she spent with her mother Toni, who passed away in 2024 at the age of 92. Conversations revealing the complexity of their mother–daughter relationship, the television murmuring in the room, her tearful voice recalling memories of a son who died young, numbers being called at a bingo game, the arrival of the death certificate, the memorial service—every moment is there. Listening this album, I was reminded of Chantal Akerman’s heartbreaking final film, No Home Movie. What is the purpose, the meaning, of recording? I found myself reflecting on the death of someone close to me—my grandfather. I used to ride on his back while we watched sumo on television. When I couldn’t attend high school, he worried endlessly, even tearing a comforter from me. When cancer spread through his body and he grew weak, my mother and I lifted him together, his frame already emaciated. The smell of a body approaching death. Well, we went see Ultraman movies together. I never imagined he would actually die. I couldn’t bear to see his face after death and fled the wake. My uncle, dressed in mourning clothes, crying. These memories do not become art.　So, this album is truly epic.

Various Artists - A Collection of Slow Airs by Some Very Fine Fiddlers

Various Artists - Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV Ireland

Various Artists - The Alien Territory Archives: A Collection of Radical, Experimental & Irrelevant Music from 1970s San Diego


Various Artists - The World Is But a Place of Survival: Begena Songs from Ethiopia / Elders of the Begena: The Harp of David in Ethiopia
Death Is Not The End
https://deathisnot.bandcamp.com/album/the-world-is-but-a-place-of-survival-begena-songs-from-ethiopia
https://deathisnot.bandcamp.com/album/elders-of-the-begena-the-harp-of-david-in-ethiopia
Field recordings of the 10-string vertical harp known as the begena, played by Ethiopia’s Amhara people, have been released across two consecutive albums by the UK label Death Is Not The End. I was completely captivated by the instrument’s sound.

Weirs - Diamond Grove
This record is dense with twisted ideas. American Negro spirituals, British broadside ballads, and Appalachian murder ballads are reimagined by indie musicians in North Carolina. At times, droning noise swells with a force rivaling doom metal; at others, MIDI-converted hymns emerge from iPhone speakers. What they attempt is to carry tradition forward by reshaping it into new forms.

Weston Olencki - Broadsides
He, too, undertakes strange experiments rooted in the traditional music of the American South. On the bluegrass standard “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” his self-made, electro-mechanically controlled banjos ricochet through an intoxicating drone. On “all my father’s clocks,” a deteriorated, out-of-tune autoharp sustains an eerie noise drone. From the opening field recording at Birmingham Station, the album carries an undeniable atmosphere of gothic horror.

The Worm - Pantilde
If Björk sang of a non-existent Celtic landscape in the voice of Vashti Bunyan, it might sound something like this.

角谷美知夫 - '87 KAD 3:4:5:6
It’s surprising that newly unearthed recordings by Michio Kakutani, Japan’s cult underground artist of the 1980s, are only now seeing an official release. I sincerely hope for a reissue of '腐っていくテレパシーズ'!


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