Best Music 🎵 of 2025!

[musicjunkiegreg]

Q1 Update

Total 2025 releases (albums/EPs/mixtapes) listened to as of May 1: 77

As I mentioned before, I'm set for listening to around 200-250 new releases this year, and I'm ahead of pace.

I have a fair quantity of favorites from Q1 already. I already see more to look forward to in the coming months. Saw four of these in concert this year already. Japanese artists comprise an unsurprising portion of the collage, with the newest from Ichiko Aoba (青葉市子) making a strong argument for my fave of 2025 crown.

Entries are alphabetized by band name/artist last name.

View attachment 233286

Spoiler: Titles

Ichiko Aoba (青葉市子) - Luminescent Creatures [ambient folk, chamber folk]
Circuit Des Yeux - Halo on the Inside [post-industrial, art pop, post-punk]
Marie Davidson - City of Clowns [industrial techno, electroclash, acid techno]
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power [blackgaze, post-metal]
Ethel Cain - Perverts [dark ambient, slowcore, drone]

Chihei Hatakeyama (畠山治平) - Lucid Dreams [ambient, drone]
Heartworms - Glutton For Punishment [post-punk, dance-punk, gothic rock]
Eiko Ishibashi (石橋英子) - Antigone [ambient pop, art pop, post-rock]
Ocean Moon - Ways to the Deep Meadow [new age, ambient]
Takuro Okada (岡田拓郎) - The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line [chamber jazz, ambient]

Oklou - choke enough [alt-pop, ambient pop, ambient trance]
Saor - Amidst the Ruins [atmospheric black metal, Celtic metal]
Laurie Torres - Après coup [modern classical, ambient]
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory - Sharon Van Etten & The Attachement Theory [indie rock]
The Weather Station - Humanhood [art pop]

Love seeing the Heartworms and Saor love!

 

[avecigrec]

Spoiler: The List

ALBUMS:
BRUIT ≤ – The Age Of Ephemerality
Dead Pioneers – PO$T AMERICAN
Flying Vipers – Off World
Chat Pile – Live At Roadburn 2023
duendita – a strong desire to survive
SUMAC & Moor Mother – The Film
Tunde Adebimpe – The Black Boltz
Web Web – Plexus Plexus
The Waterboys – Life, Death and Dennis Hopper
EPs:
Del The Funky Homosapien & thegoodnews. – This Just In!
Elori Saxl – Texada Original Score
Khotin – Peace Portal

 

[avecigrec]

For the past two or three years now, I have been sending a handful of friends a monthly 10 song playlist of odds and ends that caught my ear over the preceding month, and usually got played a lot while I was streaming. There's no set metric for what makes it and what doesn't—sometimes something quirky and whimsical slips in, and sometimes my choices may be a bit predictable ("ooooh, another month with a Moor Mother track or collaboration, how shocking!") The most important thing is I very much enjoy the songs, and I really love putting the playlist together. Some months it's hard to whittle the accumulated tracks down to 10* and others it can be pretty easy.

Anyhow, I figured this year I'd share here for kicks in case any of y'all are interested:



*while there is no set metric in place, often songs that appear in my top 9 for a given month are some of the first to get whittled away from the playlist, which is why, for instance, "****ology 101" by Lambrini Girls didn't make this edition of the playlist, despite being an absolute jam that I definitely played a LOT.