Our Favorite Albums, 2025: Individual Contributor Lists & Reflections, Part 2

Tone Glow writers reflect on 2025 through albums, songs, and more

Edited still from WINDWARD (Sharon Lockhart, 2025)

Each of our writers was asked to submit a list of their 10 favorite albums from this year. They also had the option to list their 10 favorite songs and to create another list of any 10 things of their choosing. Below, find reflections and individual lists from our contributors, listed in alphabetical order by last name.

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Michael Hong

2025 in numbers: 118,000 minutes listening to music; 21,000 dollars spent on a pool no one ever used, save for a very evil weasel and some fat raccoons; 900 plus hours of TV; 240 blurbs across three lists; 46 runs on a basement treadmill; 30 or so restaurants; 18 train trips delayed by over an hour; 2 people I went to the hospital for; 1 promotion that has left me constantly playing catch-up. I should have been more Chinese. 我应该多拍些照片.

Ten Albums

• Bad Bunny - DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (Rimas Entertainment)

• Enno Cheng - Moon Phases (Walking Music)

• Erika de Casier - Lifetime (Independent Jeep Music)

• Li Liangchen - 最一开始的风 (Taihe Rye Music)

• Kevin Atwater - Achilles (Mutual Friends)

• Mary Lily - Glad You’re Doing Well (POCLANOS)

• Rochelle Jordan - Through the Wall (EMPIRE)

• Peterparker69 - yo, (self-released)

• Yaka - JUNGLE + (self-released)

• 2pillz - PILLZCASSO (Warner Music Vietnam)

Ten More Songs

• boylife - “1Time” (self-released)

• Gen Hoshino - “Eureka” (Victor Entertainment)

• Homecomings - “every breath” (IRORI Records)

• Jen Jen - “Beloved (feat. Chen Yi-heng)” (Elephlow)

• Laura Stevenson - “I Couldn’t Sleep” (Really Records)

• Nourished by Time - “9 2 5” (XL Recordings)

• Shan Yichun - “有趣” (Baimu Entertainment)

• Sunset Rollercoaster - “Believe U” (Sunset Music Production)

• Tate McRae - “Revolving door” (RCA Records)

• thức - “nỗi buồn đô thị” (+84 Vietnam New Wave)

Ten Dramas

• After School Doctor (Japan, 2024)

• Born for the Spotlight (Taiwan, 2024)

• Daily Dose of Sunshine (South Korea, 2023)

• Everyone Loves Me (China, 2024)

• Forget Me Not (Taiwan, 2025)

• Her (China, 2025)

• Mobius (China, 2025)

• Moving (South Korea, 2023)

• To the Wonder (China, 2024)

• When Life Gives You Tangerines (South Korea, 2025)

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Vincent Jenewein

A few months ago, I realized that I have an archive of end-of-year lists I have publicly posted on the internet going back to 2010, when I was seventeen. That’s fifteen years of lists, a list of lists of my entire adult life. What is it about the list that always keeps us music nerds coming back to our lists? I think it is that every such list is always both absolutely universal and radically incomplete; a crystallized refraction of a person’s taste and life, never quite comprehensive, but always guiding towards something.

Favourite Albums of 2025

• F7 - Lost In Flower (Acting Press)

• Sa Pa - Ambeesh (Short Span)

• Jules Reidy - Ghost/Spirit (Thrill Jockey)

• Xenia Reaper - Gambling (INDEX Records)

• Elias. - FM Therapy Extended (Ranges)

• Carrier - Rhythm Immortal (Modern Love)

• Voices From The Lake - II (Spazio Disponibile)

• Eliane Radigue - Asymptote Versatile (1963-64) (Amgen)

• Susannah Stark - Minor Gestures (STROOM)

• Emer - Fog (Short Span)

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Colin Joyce

Top Ten Albums of 2025

1. Chuck Roth - watergh0st songs (Palilalia)

2. Friendship - Caveman Wakes Up (Merge)

3. 2hollis - star (Interscope)

4. Eliana Glass - E (Shelter Press)

5. Soup Dreams - Hellbender (Pleasure Tapes / Candlepin Records)

6. Betty Hammerschlag - Forever Young (Collerette)

7. Child Star - 9 EP (self-released)

8. Bedridden - Moths Strapped to Each Other’s Backs (Julia’s War)

9. Shinetiac - Infiltrating Roku City (West Mineral)

10. Spencer Radcliffe - Ohio Vision (Orindal)

Top Ten Songs of 2025

1. Fraternal Twin - “Evil Eye” (self-released)

2. Erika de Casier - “Delusional” (Independent Jeep Music)

3. Pluto and YK Niece - “Whim Whammie” (Motown)

4. Jawdropped - “Outside” (Fire Talk)

5. Purelink and Loraine James - “Rookie” (Peak Oil)

6. Zoya Zafar - “Body Count” (House of Feelings)

7. Fib - “You Ruined Everything” (Julia’s War)

8. Wombo - “S.T. Tilted” (Fire Talk)

9. Halloween - “Spiral Staircase” (funeral party)

10. Yellow Eyes - “The Thought of Death” (Gilead Media)

Top 8 Movies I Saw for the First Time in a Theater in 2025

• Babylon XX (Ivan Mykolaichuk, 1979)

• Chinese Roulette (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1976)

• In The Spirit (Sandra Seacat, 1990)

• The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977)

• How Green Was My Valley (John Ford, 1941)

• Love Torn in a Dream (Raúl Ruiz, 2000)

• Pola X (Leos Carax, 1999)

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)

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Jinhyung Kim

I came here to write down this thought: the desire to live a certain way is at once the most vaporous and the most tenacious desire. The epitome of this in my youth was making lists of things I wanted to do without ultimately doing 95% of whatever was on those lists. Right now, I think: smoke less, spend less, less YouTube, less Tetris. But also nobler, positive things: read more, listen more, write more. Reading Sontag [Essays of the 1960s & 70s] made me think today of how modernist diarists (Gombrowicz, Kafka, Pavese, Leiris)—and modernist writers in general, with their interior orientation and semi/auto/biographical focus—exemplify, for myself, a kind of adolescent depression. Sontag describes it as an attempt to feel something, anything, to verify one’s existence; it’s always about failure, about shortcomings, in life and in art. It’s about suffering, of the delight one takes in suffering (melancholy), the justification of suffering as a force in the law of motion for both life and art. The feeling of pointlessness, of the emptiness of feeling, of the ultimate failure of thought, emotion, and any construction in the face of an entropic movement toward a distant horizon of existence and time… Add on top of that the way all this turmoil quickly becomes a necessary foundation for the subject to remain atop and identify with in order for them to find any meaning in their life, trapping them there—this is all very teenager-y to me, and I just as strongly (if less consolably) felt that it was so even when I was a teenager, going through it. Nowadays, I might add that it’s basically bourgeois—a terminal point for the atrophying soul of the man of letters, the man whose soul was prepared for existential annihilation in the 20th century by the plague of neurasthenia in the 19th. But it’s ideologically (rather than merely symptomatically) bourgeois, and so over time, it spreads to other classes and strata, like an illness. We call the democratization of this depressive negation or emptying-out of the bourgeois ideal of the man of letters “boredom.”

But reading Sontag today made me more sympathetic to my younger self than I’ve been in a while. Her writing strikes me as both unsparing and generous, which is the ideal critical voice and a pretty demanding tightrope. I think Sontag’s generosity in her reading of authors whose weltanschauung I identify with my own as a teenager lets me observe a certain continuity—the thing I’ve named “the desire to live a certain way”—between my past and present. Then I can bracket it as an object of reflection, rather than feel caged in by it. And I think if I can understand this desire as itself a mode of reflection rather than a failed or unactualized “plan” or “intention,” then it’ll give me the breathing room I need to make whatever changes I want to with my life, at the pace that I want to.

—My diary, August 8, 2025

Two extremes are certain to me: the future of the human world, at least from mine to some later generation; and my individual fate. The latter is the ordinary end of a biography that only expects from itself, as it has up to now, indirect truths; the former is the fully unfolded and prolonged conflict, not really final but conclusive of an era, for world communism. In it—which in its variety and subversive violence will need all the forces that from the past move towards that end—will find its place even the most minor mark traced by those who, in this European American summer, with neither honour nor hope, burdened by uncertain discomfort or futile rage, make use of their residual intelligence and passion and repeat the two or three truths without end which shone for them in the highest or lowest moment of their existences.

But everything else, between this body and the future, is darkness and chaos. I wouldn’t want to say anything about what tomorrow will bring. The signs are contradictory. Our work has no place. Not everything, but much can happen. What’s more[,] I no longer want to glimpse what’s to come but only do what I can, hour by hour. If the word [”]revolution[”] had not been made almost ridiculous by its abuse, one would have to say that today revolutionary action must be even more reformist than the reformist, seemingly myopic, dedicated to small and certain works, to cutting diamonds or artificial and lethal flints, to sabotaging with minute precision, to destroying with patience but all the way to the ground—the mole, of which the classics spoke. Only in this horizon can I justify in my eyes these pages, with their apparent immediate polemic and apparent autobiography. The dogs of the Sinai are not only those fellow Europeans Americans who have vented their hatred for the different and the opposite (yesterday today the Jews, today the Arabs, tomorrow today the Chinese, the Latin Americans, any ‘red’ [and any Black])—they are also the ironic metaphor for our closest and clumsiest enemies, those who bark in defen[s]e of the tablets of a law that no God ever gave and that no one any longer knows how to decipher, so encrusted it is with ancient massacres. To attract some barks or bites is really of no moment, devoid of merit or demerit. One must want something very different; and above all to believe, with Lenin, that for every situation there is one way out and the possibility of finding it. That is, the truth exists, absolute in its relativity.

—Franco Fortini, The Dogs of the Sinai, 1967

Favorite New Releases of 2025

• @xcrswx - Moodboard (Feedback Moves)

• أحمد [Ahmed] - سماع [Sama’a] (Audition) (OTOROKU)

• ake 阿科 - ake 阿科 (Sub Jam)

• Dominic Coles - Fantasy and Fugue for 53rd bet. 10th & 11th (Or: I’ve Always Been Afraid of Horses) (Lateral Addition)

• Effie - E (A Mass Culture)

• ju sei - 申 (Mousu) (Basic Function)

• Sunik Kim - Formenverwandler (Feedback Moves)

• Lil 50 - This My Life (Remain Solid)

• Manaka - Pretty Machine Gun (self-released)

• Molasses - Ring of Fire (self-released)

Favorite Archival Releases/Reissues of 2025

• Collectif et cie - Collectif et cie [C.01], Collectif et cie [C.02] (Creel Pone)

• Michio Kadotani - ‘87 KAD 3:4:5:6 (wine and dine)

• L’empire des sons - L’empire des sons (Glossy Mistakes)

• Lou Mallozzi - Became These (Pentiments)

• Bob Nicoloff & His Orchestra - I’m Not Going: A Macedonian Band from Lorain, Ohio ca. 1954 (Canary)

• Willem Nyland - Piano Studies 337 (Mississippi / Psychic Sounds)

• Sonido Dueñez - Rebajadas Tape 1 + 2 (self-released)

• John Wall - Constructions I–IV: 2025 (self-released)

• Toru Yamanaka / Dumb Type - Suspense and Romance (conatala)

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

Favorite Songs of 2025

• BbyMutha - “gossip <3” (self-released)

• edeF. - “Se le città potessero volare II” (gud serben)

• JT - “Girls Gone Wild” (Quality Control / UMG)

• Le grand couturier - “Hula Kong” (unjenesaisquoi)

• Los Thuthanaka - “Huayño ‘Ipi Saxra’” (self-released)

• otakotak, Shelhiel, Mulan Theory - “KTV Baby” (self-released)

• safmusic - “Encounter” (self-released)

• Sayuri & Sopholov, Fuentes Prod - “Secunena” (Sony México)

• Sister Nancy - “Live the Life / Love the Life” (Ariwa Sounds)

• svn4vr - “stop talking to AI talk to God” (self-released)

Favorite Books Read in 2025

• E. H. Carr - The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923, Vol. 1–3 (Pelican)

• Mahmoud Darwish - Memory for Forgetfulness (California)

• Neil Davidson - What Was Neoliberalism? Studies in the Most Recent Phase of Capitalism, 1973–2008 (Haymarket)

• Gilles Deleuze - On Painting: Courses, March–June 1981 (Minnesota)

• Franco Fortini - The Dogs of the Sinai (Seagull)

• Agnes Gayraud - Dialectic of Pop (Urbanomic)

• Arnold Hauser - The Social History of Art, Vol. 2–4 (Vintage)

• Fanny Howe - Nod, from Radical Love: Five Novels (Nightboat)

• Robert Lax - 33 Poems (New Directions)

• Cesare Pavese - Dialogues with Leucò (Sublunary Editions)

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Joshua Minsoo Kim

We made it and it’s over. Thank god.

Top 10 Albums of 2025

1. Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force - Khadim (Ndagga)

2. Liu Huirun - Firecracker (Sub Jam)

3. Oklou - Choke Enough (True Panther)

4. Los Thuthanaka - Los Thuthanaka (self-released)

5. Vanessa Rossetto - Pictures of the Warm South (Erstwhile)

6. Sean McCann - The Leopard (Recital)

7. Dijon - Baby (R&R / Warner)

8. Tara Cunningham - Almost – Not Exactly (Nonclassical)

9. Eliana Glass - E (Shelter Press)

10. Chuck Roth - watergh0st songs (Palilalia)

Top 10 Discoveries of 2025

1. 황일제 & 조아애 - 신들린 남녀가수 현장 생음악 디스코 관광 명콤비 1 (Danal, 1998)

2. Wolfgang Dauner Trio - Dream Talk (CBS, 1964)

3. Óscar Chávez & Guillermo Velázquez - Décimas topadas (Pentagrama / Discos Tecolote, 1986)

4. Basic Unit - Timeline (Nocturnal, 1998)

5. Toto Bissainthe - Chante Haïti (Arion, 1977)

6. Nelson Sargento - Inéditas (CCSP, 1990)

7. Latrice - Illuminate (Ultra, 2006)

8. Las Guanábanas - Guillaera (Flow, 2002)

9. Ana Margarida - Ana Margarida (Forma, 1965)

10. Us - The Us Rage to See the Day We Rule! (BMG, 1995)

10 Reasons to Remember 2025

1. I programmed over 100 films around the US and in Portugal, China, and Korea. This was another year where “simply asking” and “going for it” led to a ridiculous number of opportunities. It’s honestly crazy how going to events IRL and meeting people just leads to collaborations with the most passionate people you know. I was especially honored to spearhead the Korean experimental film touring program and host three excellent concert & film pairing events in New York (the Aaron Dilloway/Texas Chain Saw Massacre event is the best show I went to all year). I was deeply moved by the clown program I did in Chicago with an actual clown/puppeteer, as well as the film screening I did at a farm with food, drinks, and an audience who were mostly there because they frequently visit and volunteer in the space. Also very honored to have hosted screenings with Sandra Davis and Greta Snider and Kalil Haddad in person. I loved that my lesbian coworker came to my screening of old queer films and was moved by the experience.

2. There were many wonderful concerts I went to this year, and while I went to US festivals (Big Ears, Lollapalooza), the most thrilling festival experience was in Portugal for the SQUARE Festival. I was completely shocked by the way they handled things, ensuring the smallness of the audience size meant a one-show-at-a-time policy, lunch and dinner eaten communally, and buses that drove us around to different cities throughout Northern Portugal. I didn’t know festivals could be so intimate. I also loved meeting so many wonderful non-American music critics and musicians; their perspectives have stuck with me.

3. Puppetry remains a goated artform, and the best performance I saw at this year’s festival was Théâtre de l’Entrouvert’s Anywhere, which saw a puppet carved out of an ice block and then dangling on strings while a woman danced with it atop ice. The puppet melted throughout the performance, which was beautiful.

4. I still love film and went to the always lovely True/False Film Festival as well as saw some things at the Chicago International Film Festival. Still, the best features this year belonged to Alexandre Koberidze, Julian Castronovo, Isiah Medina, and Josh Safdie. The biggest discovery was Kumar Shahani’s Bamboo Flute at Prismatic Ground.

5. I concluded my five-year teacher fellowship this year, as well as finished my second year as a writer mentor for Asian Arts Initiative in Philly. I’m not sure I’ll ever be in Philly as frequently in my life ever again, but I’m grateful for all the memories in that city and all the people I met; it is not lost on me that I am a teacher in all my roles in life.

6. Teaching continues to be the best job in the world. I’m one of the Science Olympiad coaches at my school and I watched as our seniors (who I’ve been with since they were freshmen), finally made it to state. It was such a dramatic reveal during regionals—I’ll never forget the deflated emotions we all felt when we thought we didn’t make it, and then the screaming and tears that ensued shortly after the announcement that we did. Also, I can’t forget my student putting photos of me on his graduation cap.

7. I went to China for the first time in July and it was absolutely incredible. I spent my time in Beijing, hosting a film screening as part of the Invisible Spectrum festival run by Outtakes Screening Group. I loved the food, I loved how cheap everything was, I loved seeing the city, I loved spending a day in Inner Mongolia thanks to my lovely friend Anqi, I loved buying a horsehead fiddle there, I loved learning about film programming in China, I loved meeting with Chinese musicians, especially Yan Jun who invited me into his studio as we drank tea and talked about the music scene.

8. I went to Korea for the first time to speak as part of a music industry conference. I was frankly horrified by the deeply capitalist nature of Seoul and the way it impacted the way so many people thought about art. I loved the food and walking around and meeting people, of course. There were reprieves: going to Dotolim (finally) and seeing a concert there, and meeting two people involved in the film industry (Jeesoo, Sharon) who were incredibly refreshing in their perspectives about life and art and passion. While in Korea, I also visited the MMCA and wrote my first review of visual art, on the works of Kim Tschang-yeul. Hopefully more of that in the future. I also just visited more art galleries in general this year, which I think I’ll just do more often in general.

9. So many interviews I cherished from this year. The ones I think about most: billy woods, Debit, Mark Fell, Swamp Dogg, Takashi Ito, Akihiro Suzuki, Mary Stephen, and Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese. Many more I still haven’t published… my apologies to everyone. Will get around to those.

10. All the kissing.

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Sunik Kim

All artists quitting art and organizing their workplace: this is one negation of art. But the point of revolutionizing society is to create a world in which artmaking is just another activity, available to all, an extension of life: this is the final negation of art. Fascists string up communists, and artists, and art, too: art, negated. In these constellated negations lies the problem of art. Where is its music?

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Matthew LaBarbera

Hardly Hardly Original Original
mix | tracklist

Sometime ago, I saw a tweet which communicated something to this effect: “Another Tone Glow year-end list where people who say they didn’t listen to much new music list ten albums nobody has ever heard of.” The sentiment struck me for a few reasons; the first being that it does belong to that venerable category of its-funny-because-its-true. However, within this undoubtedly good-natured ribbing, there is an implied contradiction–namely that someone who does not seek out much new music would not list(en to) such obscura. It’s as if any degree of listening is completely exposed to the homogenizing algorithmic logics that deliver music to earbuds, desktop speakers, and hi-fi setups the world over. Moveover, for anyone positioning themselves as an ostensible music critic or reviewer or anything of more ‘elevated’ status than fan, there is certainly an expectation on the posturer’s part of pantophagy, a total voraciousness, or that we must roll all our strength and all our sweetness up into one ball and tear our pleasures with rough strife through the iron gates of This Year in Music–had we but world enough and time!

Thankfully, there is no actual contradiction to that statement, and I, as well as I presume some of my fellow tone glowerers, i.e. the non-listeners of much new music, have remote little habitats more apt to a floor-bound filter feeding tendency that gently carries over the undergobbled morsel while rendering more meaningless the trophic bonanza up above. In truth, much of the music that I saw on lists or discussed online was completely unknown to me and what I did recognize was largely through a completely inadvertent osmosis. Far from a boast, I rather do feel a pang in whatever sensory system registers failure–a self that once existed and perhaps now only does so virtually disappointed–as I scan top 20, 50, 100, 1000 lists and recognize so little and resign myself to merely imagining a year differently, perhaps more collectively, soundtracked.

Still, as JMK himself intimated way back in 2023, this is the primary value of the Tone Glow lists: they are, hopelessly, peculiar. There is little politic positioning or strategic selectorizing, no need to protect and project a clean brand or image. Unlike some other outlets, TG stands little benefit from privileging releases on its own storefront (2025’s AOTY: you & i are earth) or jockeying for influence within a larger online ecosystem. Instead, a heterogenous mess, a vertigo of experience and recollection, a vortex of conflict and confluence. A genuine friction. No smoothed-over aggregate, but chunky, irregular clods paving the way toward the new year.

The aforeparaphrased tweet also provokes some of the more classic music criticism questions: why even make these lists? Who are they for? What do hoi polloi expect of them? Is a proper praise of the popular necessitated (O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—)? Are they merely an index of our always incipient fascism? Will the items on the list ever become unshackled from our expectations, our crude demands for validation or sense of superiority? However, where I would like to focus is this question of tendency encapsulated within the ‘another.’

This is my sixth time tasked with doing one of these end-of-year reflections, and it’s hard not to feel like I’m just writing the same thing, variously costumed albeit, over and over again. The cliffedge of the year is also the site of a repetition compulsion of the most perverse sort: perpetually reenacting the same aborted ritual of breaking habits and forging some alternate way of living. I remain sempiternally suspicious of the resolution as a form–no oath sworn to myself has any chance of achieving fulfillment and so, consequently, do I.

Still, this year I feel some renewed cause, a genuine desire to rid myself of vow-perjurer’s disease. As an unknown and likely unknowable affliction slowly rots and robs my right eye of vision, with no guarantees on any degree of recovery, I hope to envisage for myself of myself a perspective simultaneously more narrow and more expansive, to embrace monocularity with its foreclosure of certain possibilities and disclosure of new ones. How this can be done I have no idea, but I will try to keep an eye out.

So what I bring this year is in the spirit of both the question of tendency and the questing of audiency. For the latter, I offer in place of a list, a playlist. (In the spirit also of retrospection, the mix is in reference to someone who, I believe, released no new music this year [probably wouldn’t have listened anyway…] but was the subject of the first writing for Tone Glow I was proud of.) While no real autonomy can be given to my selections, rather than having them inert, fossilized in file down to one, I can put them into some conversation, some play, some friction; I can give them a chance to speak for themselves and among others. This is not definitive but instead aspirationally discursive. To the former, I submit a further diversion while you browse these lists and reflections. I have drawn up a little Tone Glow 2025 bingo game–so feel free to get your own card and play along: Tone Glow 2025 Bingo

Indian Cinema of 2025

1. Game Changer (Shankar, Telugu)

2. Dude (Keerthiswaran, Tamil)

3. War 2 (Ayan Mukerj, Hindi)

4. They Call Him OG (Sujeeth, Telugu)

5. Dragon (Ashwath Marimuthu, Tamil)

6. Retro (Karthik Subbaraj, Tamil)

7. Subham (Praveen Kandregula, Telugu)

8. Kantara: A Legend – Chapter 1 (Rishab Shetty, Kannada)

9. Su from So (J. P. Thuminad, Kannada)

10. Madharassi (A. R. Murugadoss, Tamil)

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Alex Mayle

My sister had a baby in October :)

Favorite Albums of 2025

• Weirs - Diamond Grove (Dear Life)

• Reinier van Houdt / Jürg Frey - Composer, alone (elsewhere)

• Jim Ghedi - Wasteland (Basin Rock)

• Liam Grant - Prodigal Son (VHF)

• Širom - In the Wind of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper (Glitterbeat)

• Mateus Aleluia - Mateus Aleluia (Sanzala Cultural)

• Dagmar Zuniga - In Filth Your Mystery is Kingdom / Far Smile Peasant in Yellow Music (self-released)

• Eliane Radigue - Asymptote Versatile (1963-64) (Amgen)

• Toby Hay - New Music for the 6 String Guitar (The State51 Conspiracy)

• Ellen Arkbro - Nightclouds (Blank Forms)

Favorite Songs of 2025

• Weirs - “Lord Randall” (Dear Life)

• Dagmar Zuniga - “Even God Gets Stuck in Devotion” (self-released)

• César y su Jardín - “Todos los fuegos al fuego” (self-released)

• Sean Pratt - “Wedding Shoes” (Worried Songs)

• Wolfgang Pérez - “Só Ouço” (Hive Mind)

• Liam Grant - “Salmon Tails Up the River” (VHF)

• Mateus Aleluia - “Oh, música! / Aleluia” (Sanzala Cultural)

• Qur’an Shaheed - “Mixing Colors” (Leaving)

• Richard Dawson - “Gondola” (Weird World)

• Haress - “King David” (Wrong Speed)

10 Works of Art I Thought About This Year

• Utagawa Hiroshige, Night Rain at Karasaki (c. 1835)

• James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket (c. 1875)

• Paul Sérusier, The Talisman (1888)

• Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Kobayakawa Takakage Debating with the Tengu of Mt. Higo (1892)

• Jan Toorop, The New Generation (1892)

• Jeanne Jacquemin, The Crown of Thorns (1892)

• Édouard Vuillard, The Dressing Table (1895)

• Ejnar Nielsen, And in his Eyes I Saw Death (1897)

• Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation (1898)

• Kazimierz Sichulski, The Hutsul Madonna (1909)

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Michael McKinney

If my 2024 was marked by a settling of sorts — into new and old relationships, into unfamiliar spaces, into new methods of work — then, in 2025, things got a bit rumpled again, for both good and ill. (But let’s not bury the lede: largely for good.) I picked up a new job in a new field, pivoting from what I studied in university towards something I’ve been chasing for the past decade; I was deeply moved by the communities I found in 3-a.m. warehouses, chain mail and chill-out rooms and all; I found joy and love in an ever-expanding pool of friends and family; ideas of partnership became, suddenly, much more real. None of this was new, exactly, but things took new forms both surprising and comforting me. The year wasn’t easy, per se, but it was nevertheless restorative: again and again, life nudged me back on track, after I spent a few years trying to go off course.

Ten Favorite Albums of 2025

1. Eliana Glass - E (Shelter Press)

2. Chuquimamani-Condori & Joshua Chuquimia Crampton - Los Thuthanaka (self-released)

3. Annie A - The Wind That Had Not Touched Land (A Colourful Storm)

4. Lyra Pramuk - Hymnal (7K!)

5. The Necks - Disquiet (Northern Spy)

6. Barker - Stochastic Drift (Smalltown Supersound)

7. Kilbourne - If Not to Give a Fantasy (Hammerhead)

8. Megabasse - Flamenca (Efficient Space)

9. Jemima - Even the Dog Knows (All Night Flight)

10. Djrum - Under Tangled Silence (Houndstooth)

The (Recorded) DJ Mixes That Most Moved Me This Year

• Julien Dechery & Ivan Liechti - Peekaboo

• Djrum - Essential Mix

• DJ Sprinkles / Frankie Knuckles / DJ Harvey & Andrew Weatherall - RA.1000

• iiiiju - inis:eto

• Joan Gila - The Observatory

• Nema Hän - Osmosis in the Trees 2024

• Kilbourne - Live at Touching Infinite

• JS & Ninka - JS & Ninka

• Significant Other - Dripping 2024

• Jack Rollo & Elaine - The Early Bird Show

• Sonido Dueñez - Rebajadas tapes (One / Two)

• Soupka & Stain - Soupka vs Stain

• Tom Val - Untitled

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Samuel McLemore

I was very boring and unadventurous artistically this year, I feel fatigued constantly and want nothing from art most days.

Five Best Old Jazz Albums I Listened to This Year

1. Larry Stabbins, Keith Tippett, Louis Moholo-Moholo - Live in Foggia (Ogun, 1985/2025)

2. Nate Morgan - Journey to Nigritia (Nimbus West, 1983)

3. The John Betsch Society - Earth Blossom (Strata-East, 1974)

4. Ted Daniel Quintet - Tapestry (Sun, 1977)

5. Yusef Lateef - At Cranbrook and Elsewhere (Argo / Él / Cherry Red, 1957-1958/2009)

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Ryo Miyauchi

Confession: I’ve still not deleted the Ticketplus app off my phone, even though it has logged me off due to inactivity so I got to jump through the whole “forgot my password” hoops if I want to see my digital tickets for the Sakurazaka46 Tokyo Dome show again. I like to think this is the modern equivalent of keeping the physical ticket stub for memory’s sake and not that I’m mentally stuck in July 2025. How could I not be, though? I had the time of my life this summer going back to Japan to see my favorite idol group ever live in their home country after 7 years of following them. This was my year of oshikatsu, dedicating my days to my favorites: watching their variety shows and Vlogs, streaming their concerts, listening to nothing but their music, even interviewing them! And of course, flying across the ocean to see them live. I’ve yet to tire out; I lean on them more than ever as my new job gets more stressful. I’ve logged a bunch of great music, new and old, but really, Sakurazaka46 was my true music of the year.

10 Best Japanese Albums of 2025

• BAILEFUNK KAKEKO - Desvio Full Throttle (self-released)

• cyber milk chan - Flesh (self-released)

• LanPage - ten pages (self-released)

• lilbesh ramko - Seikatsu EP (self-released)

• Peterparker69 - yo, (self-released)

• RAY - White (DISTORTED)

• soccer. - Internet (supersadsoccer)

• Suichu Spica - Lux (self-released)

• suisoh - FLTR (self-released)

• Yuka Nagase - Mofu Mohu (Kigensho)

10 Sakurazaka46 Songs of My 2025

1. “Kimi No Koto Wo Omoinagara” (2025)

2. “Manhole No Futa No Ue” (2023)

3. “Unhappy Birthday Koubun” (2025)

4. “Shindafuri” (2025)

5. “TOKYO SNOW” (2024)

6. “I want tomorrow to come” (2024)

7. “Zutto Harudattarana” (2022)

8. “Make or Break” (2025)

9. “Addiction” (2025)

10. “Blue Moon Kiss” (2021)

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Jude Noel

Best Albums of 2025

1. Khadija Al Hanafi - !OK! (Fada)

2. Sword II - Electric Hour (section1)

3. Alex G - Headlights (RCA)

4. The Tubs - Cotton Crown (Trouble in Mind)

5. DJ Elmoe - Battle Zone (Planet Mu)

6. Deer Park - Terra infirma (Deleted)

7. good flying birds - talulah’s tape (Carpark)

8. Candelabro - Deseo, carne y voluntad (Registro Móvil)

9. Navy Blue - The Sword and the Soaring (Freedom Sounds)

10. Raq Baby - I NEVER GAVE AF (Santa Anna)

Best Songs of 2025

1. Raq Baby - “The President” (Santa Anna)

2. The Tubs - “Strange” (Trouble in Mind)

3. OsamaSon - “yea i kno” (Motion Music)

4. Fakemink - “Music and Me” (EtnaVeraVela)

5. Quannnic - “Aviator” (deadAir)

6. bar italia - “Fundraiser” (Matador)

7. Horsegirl - “2468” (Matador)

8. Alex G - “Far & Wide” (RCA)

9. Sharp Pins - “Crown of Thorns” (K)

10. Zukenee - “EAR BLEED” (SLAYLIFE)

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Rose

I don’t really want to write too much about my year. Nothing truly notable happened and it would be filled of anecdotes about getting sick that makes it sound worse than it was, since being in bed with pneumonia for like two months left a stronger impression on me than the rest of the year. The most positive memory is traveling to the Netherlands to see Ichiko Aoba and hang out with a friend just a few weeks after the pneumonia went away. A very boring and mundane positive memory fit for a very boring and mundane year. It could be a lot worse. I'm still thankful.

Top 10 Albums of 2025

1. Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures (Hermine / Psychic Hotline)

2. Brannten Schnüre - Landschaft aus Tränen (Quirlschlängle)

3. Klaus Lang - tönendes licht. (KAIROS)

4. perfect young lady - PYL 4th SEASON… (self-released)

5. ju sei - 申 (Mousu) (Basic Function)

6. In Transit - In Transit (FELT)

7. SnPLO - The cocaines (Pin)

8. mess/age - 旅館 / RYOKAN (Neji Conga)

9. Zeicrydeus - La Grande Heresie (Productions TSO)

10. Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force - Khadim (Ndagga)

Top 10 Archival Releases of 2025

1. MOTH-WISH - Dreamechanization (Gendan / Snowstorm, 1993)

2. The Sleepwalk - flee from the Blind Cage!! (Gendan / Snowstorm, 1993)

3. Evelyne / Masao - Testpattern (Dark Entries, 1984-85)

4. Susumu Yokota - Unreleased Works 94’-97’ (Transmigration, 1994-97)

5. 角谷美知夫 (Michio Kadotani) - ’87 KAD 3:4:5:6 (wine and dine, 1987)

6. Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley - Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance, 1988)

7. Basic Unit - Timeline (Sneaker Social Club, 1998)

8. Sonido Dueñez - Rebajadas 1 (self-released, 1992)

9. Mentocome - Mentocome (Amok Age, 1992)

10. Various Artists - Techno Kayō, Vol. 1: Japanese Techno Pop (1981-1989) (Rush Hour, 1981-89)

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Gil Sansón

This year I had to make a mental adjustment and view the world through the glasses of historians; emotional involvement with all the urgent issues, at home and abroad, was dragging me down. This shift in perspective is helpful when it comes to navigating the cycle of news, which then ceases to be drama and becomes historical trend, and I cease to pretend anything about it is up to me, severing the bond of expectations from social media and contemplating the map of the world in 2025 with a somewhat clinical eye. Simply put, even though AI is making me lose revenue I can’t worry about it: to keep doing what I do to the best of my abilities and observant of the world around me is the only thing that makes sense, that reminds me that I’m an actor of history as well as subject.

Streaming and the culture that comes with it is having the effect of devaluating music, not just in the monetary sense, and I find myself listening to less music as the trend progresses. I won’t waste my time appealing to nostalgia about the community around record shops to people who came of age in the YouTube era, trying instead to engage with them on the stage or in workshops, confronting views and experiences directly. It’s probably no coincidence that my most memorable musical experiences of the year were not records or albums but actual music made on site with fellow musicians. It’s taken a long history of starts and stops within the experimental music community in Caracas and it’s finally seeming to gel into regular activity by a group of artists from three generations and coming from different traditions and I’m happy to be a part of it. Somehow the notion of artistic compromise seems more real when you see it coming from different directions and converging into a center that doesn’t want to define itself in any other way than through practice. And it’s a great way to remind oneself of the reality of music beyond statistics and playlists, mind you.

I did listen to recorded music, of course. Most of it, I admit, was old favorites. In a world that seems to be changing beyond recognition no one could be blamed for using songs and albums that work as anchors to reality. The current climate, though, made me listen to quite a bit of politically charged music; the artist I ended up listening to the most was The Fall, for some reason. Maybe I hope for music in 2026 to be a bit more caustic and not so obvious.

Oh, and I released a couple of albums I’m quite happy about, solo and with the one and only Lance Austin Olsen, that got no reviews. So very 2025.

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Shy Clara Thompson

I heard my favorite album of 2025 halfway through 2024, and had to listen to it about three dozen times. A representative for Ichiko Aoba reached out to me after, I suppose, being impressed with the review I wrote of her 2020 album Windswept Adan for Pitchfork to ask if I was interested in writing the bio for her upcoming record, Luminescent Creatures. I excitedly accepted the offer, but quickly started to crumble under the anxiety of the responsibility of the task. The words I would write would be every English speaking person’s introduction to the work. Every uncreative writer unwilling to come to their own conclusions would lift ideas from my copy, so I had to make it as good as possible. Ichiko was on the precipice of a big international moment, and I would have a small part in helping her step out with her best foot forward.

Writing an album bio is a pretty different skillset than writing a review or a profile. There are certain notes you have to hit, a complimentary tone you need to maintain, but you still have to make it narratively interesting or else it reads like soulless ad copy. In order to get my baseline, I was given the opportunity to ask Ichiko some questions. I agonized about them and made sure they were thoughtful and would yield revealing answers. I missed all my deadlines for filing and editing, and we ended up cutting things pretty close for the release—but I got it done and was proud of it. I felt like I wrote a fitting preamble to prime careful listening to Ichiko’s story.

As a courtesy for writing the bio, I was invited to be on the guest list when she started touring. The experience was kind of a beautiful mess. My name wasn’t on the list when I arrived at the venue, which left me scrambling to email my contact and figure out what to do. Fortunately, Ichiko’s manager was quick to get back to me, met me outside, and made sure I was squared away. He told me to hang back after the show so we could chat afterwards. Ichiko’s performance was spellbinding, and it would have been a perfect night even if that’s where it had left off.

Ichiko’s manager, Luka, met me in the lobby and we talked a bit about how the tour has been going. He asked if I had a copy of the record yet; I answered in the negative. He rummaged through a box behind the merch table and pulled out a copy of the new record. Stretching out his arms to hand it to me, he quickly pulled back. “Actually, I should let Ichiko give it to you.” I hadn’t assumed it would be a guarantee I’d get to meet her, but I considered the possibility. Still, I was the most nervous I’ve ever been as he walked me backstage.

She emerged from a far corner of the venue, and I was not prepared for precisely how tiny she would be. Short, cute, and soft-spoken, she relayed her message in Japanese for Luka to translate. I could understand her, but I replied in English to obey the social contract. Ichiko remembered me, thanked me for asking her good questions, and called me “Shy-san.” She signed the record in metallic silver ink, wrote my name on it, and then held it flat in front of her and blew on it as if to seal it with a magic spell before placing it in my hands. “Chotto” (ちょっと), she said, quickly disappearing into the back. She returned with a package of instant miso soup from her luggage—a spur of the moment gift because she wasn’t prepared to meet me. It was her comfort food she brought a bunch of from Japanese 7-Eleven.

Before leaving the venue, Luka told me he remembered me from a previous job doing PR for P-Vine records. My name had been passed along to relevant parties and they approached me for the job after ruling out some other potential prospects. It felt strange to be told I was remembered and acknowledged for my work by someone I had last corresponded with so long ago. Since then, I’ve reflected on the ways you might leave an impression and the unlikely ways it can manifest into something special. The world isn’t small, but the threads that bind us together don’t break easily, as long as you treat them carefully.

Top 10 Albums of 2025

1. Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures (Hermine / Psychic Hotline)

2. Telematic Visions - opposite mirrors (TELECORD)

3. Bitterviper - Bitterviper (Drag City)

4. Enji - Sonor (Squama)

5. icesawder - DOLL (self-released)

6. ju sei - 申 (Mousu) (Basic Function)

7. LanPage - ten pages (self-released)

8. nagareyama righteye - behind faint echoes (self-released)

9. Quinie - Forefowk, Mind Me (Upset the Rhythm)

10. sana - CLOUD HAIRPIN (sanapri)

Top 10 Songs of 2025

1. Sasuke Haraguchi - “Kasane Tomato Can” (CDs)

2. babababa - “Ningen wa.” (New Masterpiece)

3. PinkPantheress - “Romeo” (Warner)

4. Hoshimiya Toto + muyu - “Ah, baka mitai ni ongaku wo.” (self-released)

5. Ave Mujica - “Imprisoned XII” (Bushiroad)

6. ime44 - “The問題” (self-released)

7. adomiori - “we search” (KARENT)

8. TAK - “Lemon Melon Cookie” (Doridori Friends)

9. omu - “Blusher” (self-released)

10. litmus* - “マイブーム” (self-released)

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Evan Welsh

In many ways, 2025 was overcome with familiarity. The tempo and patterns of my everyday felt more settled than they ever have. Inhale for ten seconds. Exhale for ten. Comfort through repetition. I work. I go to shows. I see people I love. I appreciate and assist in great art. I am exhausted. I am overjoyed.

In years past, I might’ve misread this stability for stagnation, but as I’ve come up and reflected on my 10th year of sobriety, I have been feeling a deeper appreciation towards consistency and habit. Ultimately, it has left me mostly with feelings of gratitude. Thank you, all.

Top 10 Albums of 2025

1. Los Thuthanaka - Los Thuthanaka (self-released)

2. Amina Claudine Myers - Solace of the Mind (Red Hook)

3. Titanic - HAGEN (Unheard of Hope)

4. Vanessa Rossetto - Pictures of the Warm South (Erstwhile)

5. Hamid Drake & Pat Thomas - A Mountain Sees a Mountain (Old Heaven Books)

6. Rafael Toral - Traveling Light (Drag City)

7. caroline - caroline 2 (Rough Trade)

8. Dimples’ - Obscure Residue (Ba Da Bing)

9. Daniel Bachman - Moving Through Light (self-released)

10. Jim Legxacy - black british music (2025) (XL)

Top 10 Songs of 2025

1. Kiran Leonard - “S/P” (Memorials of Distinction)

2. Chuquimamani-Condori - “Breathe Kullawada Caporal E DJ edit” (self-released)

3. Jim Legxacy - “stick” (XL)

4. Elliott Skinner - “RECALLING” (Ninja Tune)

5. Cold Court - “Nina” (self-released)

6. Paco Cathcart - “Bottleneck Blues” (Wharf Cat)

7. Titanic - “Libra” (Unheard of Hope)

8. caroline - “Total Euphoria” (Rough Trade)

9. Corridos Ketamina - “CEPILLíN” (Deep Love)

10. TaliaBle & Joe Goddard - “SoundBoi” (PRAH)

"Evan’s at a Show Loyalty Card™" Leaderboard (7 shows = 1 complete card)

1. Sam Weisenthal - 9

2. Cody DeFalco - 6

3. Raphael Helfand - 5

4. Katie Garcia - 4

5. Vanessa Ague* - 3 (*first-ever card finisher)
   Mari Rubio - 3

   Jake Saunders - 3

   Andrew Stocker - 3

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Maxie Younger

A lot of beautiful and un-beautiful things happened to me this year, most of which pass through my memory as unmoored fragments: the firm press of a knuckle upon my back, the thin layer of sweat between my skin and the blanket, worry, worry, worry, hope, impossible blues and deep, long darknesses. I’ve never felt so busy in my personal life as I have in 2025. I took on a variety of short and long-term projects that all demanded their own set of ascetic commitments to be properly seen through. Regardless, I’m thankful for the work; I spent the better part of my year learning how to do things I had never done before, and that’s immensely satisfying in retrospect (if overwhelming in situ).

I don’t have many complex thoughts on the year’s music. There are releases I like and even love that came out in 2025, but none besides my favorite (Gut by Baths) that call forth distinct sensations relating to who I was and where I was at in life this year. I’ve sung the lilting, bawdy refrains of “Sea of Men” to myself more times than I can count—it’s a great pick-me-up for long road trips.

Sheepishly, I’m really looking forward to 2026, both as an opportunity to see the fruition of work I began this year and as a time to express myself more forcefully and with greater vigor. I’ve started asking people to call me Sasha; I’ve never really liked having a name, but I like this one a little more than all the others I’ve tried before it. Maybe by 2035 I’ll be properly settled, but for now I enjoy each small step forward. To button things up: Dance, nasty girls, dance!!!

Some Albums

• Ailie Ormston – Frames that lean, pictures that roam (Akashic)

• Baths – Gut (Basement’s Basement)

• bryce hayashi – My life from March to May (self-released)

• Carrier – Rhythm Immortal (Modern Love)

• Chuck Roth – watergh0st songs (Palilalia)

• Dijon – Baby (R&R / Warner)

• J. Albert – Return to Sender (self-released)

• Los Thuthunaka – Los Thuthunaka (self-released)

• Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force – Khadim (Ndagga)

• WINO-E – WINO-E (Wah Wah Wino)

And Songs

• Billionhappy + SEBii – “She Sing It” (Eastern Margins)

• Underscores – “Do It” (Mom + Pop)

• Amaarae – “S.M.O.” (Interscope)

• Haim – “Relationships” (Polydor)

• Ninajirachi – “iPod Touch” (NLV)

• Blawan – “NOS” (XL)

• F7 – “Gasoline Rainbows” (Acting Press)

• Oli XL – “Nosebleed Melody” (Warp)

• Snuggle – “Sun Tan” (escho)

• Doc Sleep & Delta Rain Dance – “Virta Chords” (Hypno Discs)

Memories, Miscellany

• I relearned HTML and built my own website from the ground up this summer while the A/C in my apartment was broken; I fondly recall fiddling with <div> containers in my hot-ass room much in the way that one might reminisce about a long hospital stay.

• I visited my sister in Albany, NY for the first time since she moved there 6(!!) years ago. I rode one wooden rollercoaster, screamed my head off, and promptly made a tactical retreat to the nearest Dippin’ Dots stand.

• Traveled to Salt Lake City, hiked a bunch, wore out my poor calves, giggled at the Mormon chintz, and thoroughly enjoyed Air’s Moon Safari anniversary concert in spite of myself.

• Best man(?) at my best friend’s wedding in Austin. DJ didn’t play my song (I wanted “On Broadway”) but I danced my heart out regardless. Eternal happiness to Michael and Winter!

• I’ve played Catfishing for 213 consecutive days and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. My flag arc sent me down the path of the Trivia Person; now I’m working on learning all the world’s capitals. (My favorites so far: Chișinău, Windhoek, Skopje).

• 100%ed Balatro; good for me! My favorite games I tried this year: Crow Country, The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection (on the right day, Fortune’s Foundation is the best game of all time), Anthology of the Killer, Ultra Nothing, Hyperbeat (but only when I get a good score).

• My favorite non-2025 music I encountered: Frijoles Canyon, The Truth, Brown Sugar (how late I was—RIP), A Ether, Captured Entities, Black Mahogani, Family Galaxy, Love Songs For Machines, “Suicide on a Fine Day,” “Why.”

• Movies I dug: New Rose Hotel, The Company, Naked Acts, Prince of Darkness, Sunday in the Park with George, Chain, Occult, That Old Dream That Moves.

• My favorite DAW project files: “q mark -mike johnstone,” “fuck music,” “daytime – loop 1,” “Everything is unreal,” “terrify,” “interior space.”

• My cooking fell off a little this year, but the best meal I made was a big Dutch baby pancake for my partner. Honorable mention to Thai yellow curry with rice.

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