It’s easy for end of year list fatigue to set in as people argue over which of maybe four movies should be the Washington Post’s movie of the year or whatever. Except! I do love end of year music lists. There’s inevitably a tonne of music I’ve missed throughout the year, and the holiday break is the perfect time to catch up on it.
So please, share your albums of the year, favourite recommendation lists, and especially all the albums you think should have got more attention in 2025!
To kick things off, here’s the first half of Bandcamp’s best of 2025 list, which always includes a couple of hidden gems.
Apart from albums people in the Gizz sphere might have already heard (Getting Killed - Geese and Trash Classic - FatWF), I do enjoy me some Nick Shoulders and he released “Refugia Blues” this year. Incredibly soulful folk-bluegrass music with the strong roots of rebellion and resistance that used to permeate Appalachia: REAL hill folk country music.
I’ll have to make my full list for this year! But I always have to differentiate between what was released this year and what my actual top ten for the year was haha.
A few of my favorites of the year (no particular order):
Olafur Arnalds & Talos - A Dawning beautiful, etherial meoldies from Olafer and vocals from Talos. Talos was terminally ill while this was recorded and passed away prior to its release. This is an absolutely haunting album. I challenge anyone to listen to “We Didn’t Know We Were Ready” and not be moved to tears.
Tunde Adebimpe - Thee Black Boltz solo album from a TV On The Radio co-founder. Magnetic & Ate The Moon are catchy as fuck!
Darkside - Nothing Desolate electronica that’ll just pull you in and then toy with your expectations
Bon Iver - Sable, Fable imo a nice return to form for Justin Vernon. He kinda lost me there for a few albums.
DJ Koze - Music Can Hear Us totally new to this guy. A fun listen! I’ve been falling into electronic pretty hard the last few years.
Oh, Thee Black Boltz is fantastic! My partner & I have been periodically relistening to it since it was just a couple of singles. It’s absolutely been a favourite this year. Psyched at the possibility of getting more TV on the Radio soon too.
oooooh there’s rumors of more TVotR?! Niiiiiiiiiice.
My partner and I really love them, too. Saw them in Boston and again at Red Rocks (en route to Field of Vision) this year, I’ll take any opportunity to see them they tour so rarely now.
Not released this year, just an evergreen. Foo Fighters - But here we are. A fantastic album and “The Teacher” is an outstanding piece of rock. No doubt the most mature album they ever made.
My favourite album from this year is very easily Eiko Ishibashi’s Antigone. Huge fan of hers, I think she’s my second most seen artist live behind Gizz (and Gizz opening acts). Really beautiful dark jazz pop record, check it out!
My runners up, purely alphabetically, are: Autotunes by Autoreverse, Birthing by Swans, Bosko by General Magic, Bye Bye Bird by Nina Garcia, Disquiet by The Necks, Ensamseglaren by Anna Högberg Attack, Extended Field by Horse Lords & Arnold Dreyblatt, Faces by Torso, Metallic Life Review by Matmos, On and On by mssv, s/t by Orcutt Shelley Miller, Sheer Hellish Miasma II by Kevin Drumm, Toxic Colour by Natasha Barrett, Traveling Light by Rafael Toral, Whistle From Above by David Grubbs
The wide, wide variety of tastes that we have here in the kglw.net forum community never ceases to amaze me. The way KGLW can unite fans of very disparate genres is a wonderful gift!
