Tag: aya

Favourite albums of 2025

2025 has been an outstanding year for new music. More than in any of the last five years, I’m confident that my favourite albums this year will still be on regular rotation in years to come.

Indie

I had high hopes after their first record, but caroline 2 by caroline is a staggering follow-up. It’s my favourite sort of indie music: experimental, reluctant to fall into anything resembling predictability, yet filled with hooks that seem almost to embarrass the band in their catchiness. The opening track, ‘Total euphoria’ is exactly as its title describes, and it’s my pick as an exemplifier of the best music on offer this year.

Close behind is Brooklyn band Geese, who weren’t on my radar before 2025, but Getting Killed has secured them as one of my new favourite acts. Like caroline, Geese are fidgety and strange, and while they sometimes veer between soundalikes (particularly Radiohead and Slint), the sheer breadth of their range convinces, as do Cameron Winter’s vocals, jerking constantly as though he’s sprinting throughout. This album contains a greater number of tracks I adore than any other album this year.

Richard Dawson can do no wrong, but on End of the Middle he’s even more right than usual. His ability to swing between fastidious description of middle England’s quirks and frailties, to reaching for and finding profundity in small moments, to punishing listeners with experimental Fahey-esque moments and Beefheartian insanity… It’s simply unimprovable, and it’s absurdly my sort of thing.

Odysseús by Herman Dune is a far more approachable record than Dawson’s, and my love for it is partly informed by my two-decades-long love for the band, but it’s wonderful to hear David Herman Düne on form and appearing to enjoy himself so much, with beautiful arrangements for beautiful songs.     

Post-rock / Modern composition

The Necks have for a long time been a band I’ve appreciated but not loved. That’s changed with Disquiet, a three-hour daydream shifting (slowly) from Ambarchi-esque single-tone drones to barely contained skittering kaleidoscopic carnival queasy nightmares. It’s absolutely wonderful.

With ICONOCLASTS, Anna von Hausswolff moves further away from her recent pipe-organ dirges to the grand singer-songwriter demonstrated on her 2022 release, Live at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Many of the tracks on ICONOCLASTS are monolithic, often thanks to saxophonist Mats Sandsjö (sounding very like Colin Stetson, and surely inspired by his work). While less convincing lyrically, Anna von Hausswolff’s delivery is so wild, ranging from Kate Bush to primal screech, that it’s totally convincing, and frequently overwhelming. I’d love to see her play live.

One album that crept up on my over many repeated listens is Ghost Note by Kim Hiorthøy, a quiet and reserved collection of unusual rhythms that, while largely digital, sounds like pots and pans in the rain. Similarly affecting and meditative is Cassotto by Suzan Peeters, a short collection of treated accordion drones that are near-impossible to believe could be delivered by that instrument.

Some familiar names provided my favourite post-rock albums this year. Horse Lords and minimalist composer Arnold Dreyblatt prove a potent and unsettling combination on FRKWYS Vol. 18: Extended Field. Mogwai reliably come up with the goods on The Bad Fire. David Grubbs and friends deliver with the self-titled Bitterviper. Finally, Tortoise have returned! From its opening moments, Touch makes you believe they’ve never been away, or indeed that they produced any albums since TNT, their all-time high back in 1998.

Hip hop / Rap

hexed! by aya has been topping many end-of-year polls, and rightly so. It critiques a very different side of Britain than Richard Dawson’s End of the Middle – and a side of society I know far less well – but together these two albums represent a pretty damning state of the nation. ‘off to the ESSO’ is up there with my very favourite tracks of the year.   

One album I’ve had on constant rotation since the early in the year is 80’z by Spanish artist Bb trickz. Despite understanding little of the lyrics, I’m in love with the scratchy DIY vibe.

The ungoogleable act NEW YORK aresigned to Inga Copeland’s Relaxin’ Records, and on Push they sound very like her. As in, they’re wonderful.

Compilations / Reissues

Like the return of Tortoise, it’s emotional hearing The Notwist once again. Magnificent Fall may be only a rarities compilation, but there’s enough previous unheard material here to make me swoon all over again. A new album soon, please.

My two favourite multi-artist compilations this year are Pattern Gardening, a collection of hypnotic micro-house tracks from Wisdom Teeth, and Going Back to Sleep…, a compilation of dreamy indie tracks put out by A Colourful Storm.

Of my favourite reissues this year, the only one that was new to me is baby, it’s cold inside by the fun years, from 2008. What an album! And great writing music, too. Old favourites spruced up and reissued were cLOUDDEAD by cLOUDDEAD (2000), The Amateur View (Expanded) by To Rococo Rot (1999), the unsurpassed A Fragile Geography (10th Anniversary Edition) by Rafael Anton Irisarri (2015) and the raw, parallel-reality versions of 2004 album tracks included on Madvillainy Demos by MF Doom & Madlib.

Favourite albums of the first half of 2025

How is it possible that we’ve reached the halfway point of the year? But as that’s the case, here are my favourite albums released in 2025 so far.

Indie / Rock / Post-rock

A new Richard Dawson album is always cause for celebration, and End of the Middle is as wonderfully as anything he’s delivered, and a great deal more accessible than his early work, palatable even to my family when played in the car. I’m particularly spoiled with a wonderful new album by Herman Dune, too – Odysseús is the best work the band has released in years, and contains some spot-on observations on ageing. Moin continues its rattling, Sonic-Youth-esque good work with EP Belly Up. Displaying his best songwriting since the death of his wife and Low bandmate Mimi Parker, Alan Sparhawk teams up with Trampled by Turtles in a heartfelt self-titled album. On The Bad Fire, Mogwai pull their usual trick of their new tracks sounding straightforward, then worming into the mind over time. Perhaps inspired by last year’s Gastr Del Sol retrospective, David Grubbs’ new release Whistle from Above sounds more like that band than most of his solo work. The self-titled OSMIUM is pounding, industrial and intense, as you might expect when Emptyset pairs with Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Weird / Beats

Am I remembering this wrong, or did Darren Cunningham announce the retirement of his Actress alter ego years ago? Regardless, he’s been producing more than ever recently. Grey Interiors is an Eraserhead-esque 20-minute EP, whereas Tranzkript1 contains more familiar clacks and bubbles. Dawuna also teases with a short EP, Love Jaunt, which contains one of his least tampered-with vocal lines, sounding uncannily like Sly Stone. Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us ropes in the always amazing Ergo Phizmiz for vocals on Copia to create a more coherent mash of 1950s samples and found sounds than in her past work, and while it’s often headache-inducing, it’s genuinely incredible stuff.

Drone / Modern composition

After a detour into swoony vocal performances, Ellen Arkbro returns to her roots with the hypnotic organ drones of Nightclouds. The ever-dependable Oren Ambarchi, this time with Eric Thielemans, produces two more slabs of antsy skittering on Kind Regards. Abul Mogard reappears with his first full-length album in years, Quiet Pieces, featuring soundscapes that burrow under the skin.

Hip hop / Rap

aya seems to have been a poster child for UK hip hop recently, and deservedly so – hexed! is utterly brilliant, and gloriously abrasive; ‘off to the ESSO’ is one of my favourite tracks this year so far. Similarly scrappy and catchy is 80’z by Bb trickz, though I’ve no idea what the Spanish raps are actually about. The same applies to much of the French Violence Gratuite on Baleine à Boss, which sounds ace all the same. John Glacier continues to impress with the downbeat Like a Ribbon, and Doseone and Steel Tipped Dove have raucous fun on All Portrait, No Chorus, and clipping. channels righteous anger on Dead Channel Sky.

Compilations / Reissues

My favourite multi-artist compilation so far this year is micro-house collection Pattern Gardening from Wisdom Teeth, featuring artists all unfamiliar to me. The Arthur Russell archives have been opened again, and this time Open Vocal Phrases, Where Songs Come In and Out provides insight into Russell’s development of his key album World of Echo. Another compelling glimpse into the creation of classic album is provided in Madvillainy Demos by Madvillain aka MF Doom & Madlib, which in some cases have become my preferred versions of their tracks. In terms of more straightforward rereleases, I’ve been hooked on The Amateur View (Expanded) by To Rococo Rot and the still bonkers cLOUDDEAD by cLOUDDEAD. I also love three rereleases that are entirely new to me: baby, it’s cold inside by the fun years, SYR5 by Kim Gordon, Ikue Mori and DJ Olive, and the 2001 Peel Sessions by The Locust.