Here are my thirty favorite albums of 2025 in alphabetical order. My AOTY is Alan Sparhawk's With Trampled by Turtles with Kristen Pilon & Demdike Stare's To Cut & Shoot being a very close second.

- Ancestral Voices: Nemeton
- Backxwash: Only Dust Remains
- The Beths: Straight Line Was a Lie
- Bézier: Decompose
- Chris Brokaw: Ghost Ship
- Raven Chacon + Present Music: Voiceless Mass
- clipping.: Dead Channel Sky Plus
- Cloth: Pink Silence
- :dead voices on air:: Silence, Melt and Mourn
- Debit: Desaceleradas
- DJ Haram: Beside Myself
- Ex-Vöid: In Love Again
- Kinski: Stumbledown Terrace
- Charmaine Lee: Tulpa
- Leperwitch: Curse of Consciousness
- Kali Malone + Drew McDowall: Magnetism
- Matmos: Metallic Life Review
- Lawrence Matthews: Between Mortal Reach & Posthumous Grip
- Mint Mile: andwhichstray
- Nina Nastasia: Songs for a World of Trouble
- Optic Sink: Lucky Number
- Kristen Pilon & Demdike Stare: To Cut & Shoot
- Ramleh: Hyper Vigilance
- Red Lorry Yellow Lorry: Strange Kind of Paradise
- Alan Sparhawk: With Trampled by Turtles
- Sudan Archives: THE BPM
- The Tubs: Cotton Crown
- The Young Gods: Appear Disappear
- yttriphie: an extremely slow motion explosion
- Thalia Zedek Band: The Boat Outside Your Window

My favorite archival release of 2025 is Vinyl on Demand's massive, comprehensive :zoviet*france: Châsse ∴ box set, which cost me roughly as much as my first car did, but which was absolutely worth it.

Jacques wrote: Tue Dec 16, 2025 3:09 pm Kristen Pilon & Demdike Stare's To Cut & Shoot being a very close second.

I didn't know Demdike Stare had a new one out. I follow them on Instagram, but it mostly just shows EU gigs they're playing. Will check it out.

Good year for music…here’s what I liked that came out in 2025

New
Marc Ribot - Map of a Blue City
Maia Friedman - Goodbye Long Winter Shadow
Patricia Brennan - Of the Near and Far
Deerhoof - Noble And Godlike In Ruin
Ikue Mori - Of Ghosts And Goblins
Fieldwork - Thereupon
Dirty Projectors, David Longstreth & stargaze - Song of the Earth
Maya Dunietz - Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru Played By Maya Dunietz & String Ensemble Live In Paris
Cécile McLorin Salvant - Oh Snap
Trio of Bloom - Trio of Bloom
Chris Brokaw - Ghost Ship
Neko Case - Neon Grey Midnight Green
Fred Frith/ Mariá Portugal - Matter
FKA twigs - Eusexua


Old
Arvo Pärt - Selentium
Arthur Russell - Sketches For World Of Echo/Open Vocal Phrases Where Songs Come In & Out
MORRICONE / BERIO / MADERNA / NONO: Sound And Silence - Four Pioneering Modernist Italian Composers
Jimmy Webb - Life In Words & Music – The Reprise 70s Box Set
Terry Riley - The Columbia Recordings
Steve Reich - Collected Works