Top 25 Records of 2025

We’re a quarter of the way into the 21^st century and whilst age has crept up on me, wisdom still eludes my grasp. The world keeps on dishing out surprises. The only surefire thing seems to be that there are no surefire things, that and the great galumphing musical juggernaut keeps on going. Although, with AI’s twitchy grin and greasy paws leering and clawing at its rags, even that has a question mark hanging over it… But this isn’t the time for dourness or doom-mongering - it’s the end of one year and the beginning of another, therefore time for celebration!

*weakly blows a limp fanfare*

To be fair, there is plenty to celebrate from 2025. As usual, some fantastic releases narrowly missed out on the full list, so I’ll do my annual cop out and crowbar in a few more suggestions before we get to the actual 25.

Kali Malone and Drew McDowall’s drone odyssey will serve you well through these winter months. Distraxi unleashed a number of releases for labels such as Eggy Tapes, Outsider Art, and Brachliegen Tapes, all of which are well worthy of your time. Something has been scratching to get out of the woods judging by the eerie noises made by Smote and Earthball (full review of the latter here). billy woods also dropped a forest-based belter. There was a beautiful collaborative record helmed by Lawrence English who kindly sat down and chatted with me for The Quietus, the new collaboration from Jonathan Krohn (Stave), Alina Pleskova, and Matt Korvette (Pissed Jeans) – Shirtless - is definitely something to keep an ear out for, as is Faith Coloccia & Daniel Menche’s team up. Human Leather finally delivered their bruising debut (reviewed here), Duncan Harrison’s Adhuman label fired out a pair of peaches courtesy of Kiran Arora and the head honcho himself, Blawan is back in banging form (another review), as is Shifted with his new Carrier alias, and VÍZ very nearly made the cut, much like A Thing Woven - the brilliant collaborative effort from Knifedoutofexistence and Whose Body Is This.

As the time-honoured tradition now dictates, here are 3 compilations that entertained my ears frequently throughout 2025:

Metal Machine Music: Power To Consume Vol.1 (Sony Music)

Record store day *spits* proved that a stopped clock can be right twice a year, first by including the reissue of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music in their April scrum and then following it up with this intriguing set of Reed reworks by Aaron Dilloway, Drew McDowall, Pharmakon, The Rita, Mark Solotroff, and Thurston Moore for Black Friday. I don’t know who had that on their bingo cards for the year, but I imagine they’ve done very well out of it.

An Irish Almanac of Noise and Experimental Music From 2025 (Nyahh)

Nyahh Records have been industriously putting out excellent releases by the likes of Robert Turman, Natalie Beylis, Mohammad Syfkhan, and One Leg One Eye for the past 4 or so years and this year they whopped out two compilations, in particular, that shone light on some underappreciated, underground music scenes. This one, covers the bold artists making up the Irish avant-garde, including Dressing’s frail electronics, caustic destruction from Cyess Afxzs, and the electro acoustics of Amanda Feery alongside the delightfully monikered Acid Granny and Enola Christ Metalizer. And that's not even mentioning the distinctive chops of various Lankum alumni.

The Alien Territory Archives: A Collection of Radical, Experimental and Irrelevant Music from 1970's San Diego (Nyahh)

An accompaniment to Bill Perrine’s excavation of a long-overlooked place and time in experimental music history. One quick glance at the track list for this and you’ll be scratching your head as to why it’s taken so long to research this period. Pauline Oliveros, Harry Partch, and Diamanda Galás rub shoulders with Robert Turman and Kathy Acker across a 4CD set that focuses, in turn, on drones & tape, ensembles, synthesizers & electronics, and voice. In short, it’s a treasure trove of the weird, the off kilter, the brave, and the brilliant.

Now, on with the show! The 25 releases of 2025 that made the biggest impact on me:

elijah jamal asani - ,,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,,, (AKP Recordings)

“,,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,,, the latest recording patchwork from elijah jamal asani, begins with the sound of an inquisitive bee. It’s a collection of nature recordings, with birdsong, rainfall, the gentle buzzing of crickets, and swished streams elegantly dovetailing with more human interferences: zither, wind chimes, wooden blocks, small bursts of padded synth, and softly fingered piano. These sounds were captured by asani during one of the sixty nights that he recently spent in the Grand Canyon. This pastoral approach brings the landscape drifting into our ears as if floating in upon a spring morning’s breeze.”

Read the rest of my review for The Quietus: https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/elijah-jamal-asani-as-long-as-i-long-to-memorise-your-sky-review/

aya – hexed! (Hyperdub)

An animalistic, machine-sewn outing from the artist formerly known as LOFT. This follow-up to 2021’s im hole cranks everything up about 67 notches. Every sound, every tone, note, beat, and enunciation has been sharpened and finessed to exquisite detail but without removing the deeply human element at the heart of all that aya creates. As evidenced in her raucous performance at Supernormal which was cut shamefully short (although not before she machine-gunned off the remaining lyrics in record time), this thing goes like the clappers, if the clappers were fuming at the state of the world and had a mind so livewire they no longer needed narcotics to make some of the most erratic, befuddling, and continually addictive music this side of Bisch Bosch.

Kara-Lis Coverdale – From Where You Came (Smalltown Supersound)

Here are some words that I wrote for the record shop where I work: “Breaking her 8-year silence with not 1, not 2, but 3 new records in less than 12 months, Kara-Lis clearly had something to say in 2025. It’s the first of this trio that I kept returning to, however. Its spectral electronics, enveloping drones, and wraith-like melodies summoning spring’s transcendence from obsidian nights.”

Creams – Through Being Cool (Opal Tapes)

Despite all of their downplaying, obfuscations, claims of elicit financial backing, and supposed collaborations with long-dead Scottish bassists, this cheeky outing from sonic lifers Louis Johnstone and Stephen Bishop (Wanda Group/A Large Sheet of Muscle and Opal Tapes/Basic House respectively) is a downright pleasure to behold. In places, it’s lighter on the ears than you might expect from this pair of aural bludgeoners. Sometimes even fragile and rippling with *whispers* melody. But don’t worry, they also deliver a mood ominous enough to scare off the sunlight. When it goes dark, it’s like Raime’s debut being re-recorded in the Sawyer household from Texas Chainsaw Massacre and they know just how to string out those unnerving sounds for maximum effect.

Creep of Paris – Virgin Brood (Krim Kram)

Much as Blawan’s past as a maggot farmer informs his creative output, Thomas LaRoche (Creep of Paris) leans on his insect breeding experience for this captivating journey into the clamour, bustle, and drone of the hive. Parallels can be quite easily drawn between the worker’s activities and the structures of Western society, but LaRoche never clobbers you over the head with this idea, instead he presents the notions matter-of-factly amidst a backdrop of churning, cyclical, occasionally erotic and always engaging avant-garde soundscapes.

Debit – Desacelaradas (Modern Love)

Doing precisely what it says on the tin, the 5^th album outing for the avant-garde electronic musician, Delia Beatriz, slows down the club-conquering sounds of Rebajada into a glorious smear of emotive ambience. Rebajada itself is a half-time manipulation of cumbia, a rhythm I became intimately familiar with courtesy of the staff of the ice cream shop I lived behind in 2019 who insisted on playing it at deafening volumes at 11pm every night. Fortunately, Debit’s reimagining of the sound has helped banish those unwelcome memories and replace them instead with a unique and surprising reworking of elements that seem simultaneously familiar but also enticingly new.

Decius - Decius Vol. II - Splendour and Obedience (The Leaf Label)

“Splendour and Obedience is a more voluptuous effort than the scratchy edges of Vol. I. It is party music for those frazzled by three consecutive nights consuming the hair, the tail, the whole of the dog. A magical thing seems to happen during the third night of non-stop revelry. Your mind and body submit, recalibrating to this new state of constant consumption. The new normal is accepted and, as long as you keep feeding that insatiable beast with liquids, pills, and powders, the sharp claws of a comedown remain out of reach, seemingly forever.”

Read the rest here: https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/album-of-the-week/decius-vol-ii-splendour-and-obedience-review/

DJ Die Soon – My Brothel The Wind (Drowned By Locals)

A chaotic outburst of searing distortion and panic-strewn rhythms that, by all rights, ought to sound like a panic attack being mainlined in an interrogation room yet, through some curious sonic alchemy, DJ Die Soon has pulled the various disparate parts - shrieked and mangled vocals, warbling electronics, and hallucinatory percussion – together to craft this immersive ode to the underworld that is as deeply invigorating as it is unsettling.

JJJJJEROME Ellis – Vesper Sparrow (Shelter Press)

As someone who’s been known to stutter on occasion (albeit quite mildly), Ellis’ 3rd album was an undeniably interesting proposition. Embracing the musicality of this glitch in speech, Vesper Sparrow is formed from chopped up and processed recordings that he made back in 2019, utilising an approach known as granular synthesis. There are great pauses between verbalisations, with phrases sometimes stretching across multiple tracks before they’re resolved. The swooning snippets lean in and out like snatches of saxophone being played out of cars tearing around the neighbourhood, doppler-ing in and out of earshot in a manner that adds an emotional heft, with each stilted stop leaving a gaping void into which we can insert ourselves.

Flamingo Base Jumpers – Wet Past (Satatuhatta)

Appearing in this list for the second year on the trot, Nick Forte did the business in 2024 with his Green Tea project and this time round he’s successfully scrambled my brain, elegantly and joyously, under his Flamingo Base Jumpers pseudonym for the excellent Satatuhatta (I caught up with the label head, Vilhos, for Bandcamp’s Tape Label Report here). Wet Past exists in discombobulating flurries of sounds that have been merged, meshed, stretched, and chopped up, keeping you guessing with each enigmatic and dazzling source vanishing almost as soon as it appears. This is one to revisit and unpick, carefully untangling the kaleidoscopic and psychedelic web as it rapidly ensnares your mind.

Charles Hayward x Dälek – HAYWARDxDÄLEK (Relapse Records)

“For a project born out of improvisation, HAYWARDxDÄLEK feels carefully plotted. It moves elegantly from slow moving drones, through eye-popping rhythms, into melancholic synthscapes, ending on a speed run that careens along like kids in shopping trolleys hurtling down a hill towards a busy motorway junction. It’s only when that punchy rhythmic energy kicks in, bristling with the fervour of uncertain expectation, that it embraces that unpredictable, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants spontaneity.”

Read my full review here: https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/charles-hayward-x-dalek-haywardxdalek/

Incapacitants - Chwalfa (Otoroku)

If you were at last year's seminal Cafe Oto residency, you’ll understand the exultant tones in which the batshit psychedelic noise onslaught whipped up by these two Osaka businessmen is spoken of. That faraway look in the eyes of attendees is a longing for the rushing distortion, pinballing frequencies, and cathartic howls displayed over two days. If you weren’t lucky enough to be in the throng, this is the next best thing.

Eleonora Kampe – Breath. Play. (Cruel Nature Records)

A genuinely unique outing from the Estonian-Latvian singer and one half of Ringhold. This is full vocal exploration. Utilising her voice to parse a sprawling array of emotions, Kampe seems possessed by states of ecstasy, panic, reverence, fear, trepidation, and orgasm, as she crafts drone-like soundscapes from whispers, howls, shrieks, gasps, growls, and, in some quiet moments, even the rhythmic surges of snoring. Yet this is never boring. Breath. Play. is precisely that – play. With breath. But, just as small children learn from a little recreation, so too do we, and here each spirited experimentation unveils something wonderfully surprising.

Lower Slaughter - Deep Living (Human Worth)

Some words that I wrote for the old nine to five: “A lineup shuffle heralds the arrival of the first record from these South Coast heroes in 6 years and, boy, was it worth the wait! Gargantuan riffs and slamming rhythms combine with those new Wakefield vox to ram home belter after ruddy belter. Buckle up cos your new fave band just invited you along for a ride.”

Microcorps - Clear Vortex Chamber (Downwards)

“Clear Vortex Chamber, Tucker’s latest as Microcorps, takes this coalescing further, swirling samples of his own bass and cello performances into the beat-laden, sonic miasma. The straddling and blending of juxtaposed elements and ideas exemplifies Tucker’s interest in merging the digital with the tangible, the futuristic with the ancient, ritual with freedom, collaboration with individual expression, and art with music.”

Full review here:https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/microcorps-clear-vortex-chamber/

Milkweed – Remscéla (Broadside Hacks)

Blending tape manipulation, feedback, and distortion with their fingerpicking, strumming, and otherworldly howls, Milkweed’s take on folk is both disconcerting and experimental. And, in their live performances, they lob in a layer of theatricality that adds credence to the wicked and cruel narrative plotted through the heart of this record. Keep an eye on this lot as they’ve got a lot more going on than most.

Poor Creature - All Smiles Tonight (River Lea Recordings)

An array of traditional songs, ballads, and folk standards from both sides of the Atlantic are given a fresh lease of life courtesy of the drones, percussion, and dulcet tones of Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody. They manage to insert current worldly weight upon songs that have stood tall and strong through the testing of time and in the face of hardships from eras long gone. Applying elements of psych and kosmische to their drone folk means that, in these Poor Creature’s hands, these songs land as if they were written for today. 

“We’ve run out of tomorrows and there are no more yesterdays”

Preservation & Gabe ‘Nandez - Sortilége (Backwoodz Studios)

Turned out for billy woods’ vital Backwoodz Studios, this collaboration between the deft lyricism of Gabe ‘Nandez and DJ Preservation on production duties lands somewhere between MF DOOM's intelligent playfulness and the doleful kitchen sink surrealismof  Earl Sweatshirt. There’s an intricacy to their references (both musical and lyrical) that encourages deeper listening, and deeper reading… Hunting out the intentions in the samples, in the rhymes, and track titles. The mood of the whole thing is intoxicating, enveloping, damn well resplendent. It felt like a classic from the moment it first emerged.

Rainy Miller – Joseph, What Have You Done? (Fixed Abode)

From that rage-fuelled opener, through the blistering overload of ‘An Obsidian Lake Spews Out Of Me’, into the resolutely optimistic title track, Rainy Miller has pulled off a masterwork of Lancashire bred experimentation, masculinity, mental health, and gloomy ambience. He’s described the addition of acoustic strumming and a folkloric bent to his fizzing electronic palette as “Northern Gothic” which succinctly captures the dark streak that runs through the record, but that’s not all it is, it’s an empowering, localised mindset that seems to inform everything he does.

Ramleh – Hyper Vigilance (Sleeping Giant Glossolalia)

40 odd years into a boundary-pushing career, Dennison, Di Franco, and Mundy delivered yet another surprise in a career littered with dangling jaws. Hyper Vigilance is a deep psych expression of the creative unity that initially emerged in blistering power electronics form. This seems dredged from the same paranoia, the same bleak concerns but it worms through mind-warping psychedelia that barrels along like its trying to lose a persistent tail, throwing in left turns, double backs, and enough motorik carnage to grind a city to a halt.

Rat Heart – Dancin’ In The Streets (Modern Love)

This is the second appearance for Tom Boogizm’s Rat Heart project in the past 3 years. Just when I think he’s reached peak wooze and throb, he concocts another masterpiece of the genre, instilling a melancholy insight and a wicked venom to proceedings this time round. It’s got the blues in the way that feeo, Klein, and Loraine James distil so expertly, utilising modern techniques to expose feelings that are as ancient as they are pertinent. This is music for the afters after the final afters.

Gwenifer Raymond – Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark (We Are Busy Bodies)

“Raymond’s mastery of her instruments is unmatched. She can conjure detailed imagery with little more than carefully plucked strings and dexterous fretboard scurries. The title track, for example, starts with a rocking cadence – rocking as in your gran’s chair, not the riffs of AC/DC – that slowly develops into a pitching tumble of notes, relocating her Welsh Primitive to the Great Plains and evoking a stroll taken across the dusty landscape lit by the failing light of an aging sun... It’s cinematic in both its structure and depiction of Western vistas.”

Full review: https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/gwenifer-raymond-last-night-i-heard-the-dog-star-bark-review/

SUMAC & Moor Mother - The Film (Thrill Jockey)

“The guitars blare like fire alarms on ‘Scene 2: The Run’ before resolving into a sludge bloodbath of towering riffs with spasmodic piston drums and Aaron Turner’s scorched earth bellow gulping up the remaining headspace. Taking it even further, ‘Camera’ is a detonation of drums careening from ecstatic bursts and rapid fire hi-hat shots to rolling toms and snare collapses. It is the spirit of Haino, of Brötzmann, of Milford Graves, unleashed on Sunn O))) amps. It’s a Free Metal apocalypse, unshackled from the confines of structure, hooks, riffs, melody, rhythm, or song. The sounds bulge into view like a spontaneous eruption hailing from the combined psyches and souls of these four electric performers.”

More words over at The Quietus: https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/sumac-moor-mother-the-film-review/

Titanic - Hagen (Unheard Of Hope)

Another write-up pilfered from the day job: “Industrial drills, atonal cello slurs, and percussion that explodes like fireworks. You might not typically associate those elements with epic pop hooks but, on Hagen, Mabe Fratti and Hector Tosta have combined all of the above and pulled off the most infectious, forward-thinking pop record of the year. No question.”

U – Archenfield (Lex Records)

A collage of wyrd and wynderful sounds, songs, and recordings from across the Isles. Named after an area of Herefordshire where the dividing lines between Wales and England grew muddy, Archenfield is cobbled from the sort of odd folk balladry that you might expect to emerge from uncertain hinterlands. Places dripping in history of tussles, disturbances, and ghosts, all of which drift up to the surface of these expertly threaded sonic tapestries.

And as a little reward for making it this far, here’s my proposition for stinker of the year. There were likely worse albums guffed out into the world than this but the collaboration between the Avett Brothers and Mike Patton was definitely the worst thing that I wrote about in 2025. Stick it in your eyes if your ears can’t stomach it: https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/avtt-pttn-avtt-pttn-mike-patton-review/