The list is in chronological order: top to bottom, earliest to latest listen.
Noam Chomsky - The Clinton Vision: Old Wine, New Bottles
The Clinton Vision: Old Wine, New Bottles Noam Chomsky
Even though this album is old, it still applies. Chomsky is sharp as hell here.
Talk about metal music: Gordon applied contact microphones to actual metals, then hit, spun, and electronically warped the sounds. Very good, not only weird.
Wojciec Ru…
The list is in chronological order: top to bottom, earliest to latest listen.
Noam Chomsky - The Clinton Vision: Old Wine, New Bottles
The Clinton Vision: Old Wine, New Bottles Noam Chomsky
Even though this album is old, it still applies. Chomsky is sharp as hell here.
Talk about metal music: Gordon applied contact microphones to actual metals, then hit, spun, and electronically warped the sounds. Very good, not only weird.
Wojciec Rusin - Honey For The Ants
Honey For The Ants Wojciech Rusin
A wondrous glitchy electronic album that one would expect from Warp records, but in a better way.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Shahen-shah
Shahen-shah Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Originally released in 1989, the album is now posthumously remastered. Wondrous singer. Muslim hypnosis - I love this.
Adrienne Lenker - Bright Future
This album made me discover the greatness of Adrianne Lenker: not surprisingly, there’s three albums on this list where she features: two under her own name, one as part of Big Thief.
Ethel Cain - Perverts
Wonderful EP. Actually, I prefer this EP to the LP that was also released in 2025.
Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
Altars of Madness Morbid Angel
Groundbreaking death-metal music. The album is relentless and necessary.
Me and You - Egg Hunt
This is supposedly a one-off project from Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, both formerly of legendary hardcore band Minor Threat. Wow. These songs are anything but off-the-cuff. This is some brilliant, nod-your-head, jump along, scream to, serious shit.
Ron Everett - The Glitter Of The City
The Glitter Of The City Ron Everett
What an experimental and jazzy album. Something to listen to after a long day at work.
Quinton Barnes - Black Noise
Bow down, there’s a new Black experimental musician in town. Not that Barnes hasn’t made music in the past, but oh my Bog, they came out of some shell to begin with... Thank the LAWD.
Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out
Speaking of Black musicians who know what they’re doing? This is some deep life-and-death shit, not only some fierce rappers with grand beats. This is really something, especially when the innards of their mother’s death partly turned into this beautiful album.
Jonathan Richman - Only Frozen Sky Anyway
Only Frozen Sky Anyway Jonathan Richman
I’ve loved Jonathan Richman since I discovered Modern Lovers around 30 years ago. Since then, he’s made a lot of music, always in his wonderful Boston-based dialect, digging in deep with love for Latin American music. This album shows how deep a musician can get with a lot of fun, taking the piss out of himself while showing up lovely and loving songs about a range of things. This is a truly valuable record, one of my top five favourite albums of 2025.
Blanck Mass - She Rides Shotgun
A new soundtrack from one of my favourite modern electronic musicians? Yes, please. His best soundtrack since ‘Ted K.’
Adrienne Lenker - Live at Revolution Hall
Live at Revolution Hall Adrianne Lenker
This is much more than just a live album. First, the humour and warmth from Lenker’s connection to music and their audience... damn. Second, their playfulness and ability to insert experimental ditties back and forth between live songs, ditties that actually are radiant, more so than most artists’ A-sides. Wow. I bow down.
Tim Reaper - RA. 1000
RA.1000: Tim Reaper Tim Reaper
This is the best DJ mix I’ve heard in 2025, and it’s more than seven hours long. Listen to the whole thing online! It’s astoundingly good. Tim Reaper is still one of my favourite drum ‘n’ bass/jungle composers out there, constantly releasing music and collaborating with other artists.
Napalm Death - Scum
Complete. Utter. Destruction (of capitalism).
DJ K - Radio libertadora!
This might be my #1 favourite album of 2025. It’s so inventive, so great, towering far over many other brilliant albums, not only because of its simple, rave-like production, but how it includes different rappers, sounds that return several times over the entire album, how the album is dark and minor in tone yet sounds like a witch’s party. No wonder that DJ K has invented their own music genre, bruxeria. This is some really wonderful stuff. DJ K’s label, Nyege Nyege Tapes is a wonderful music label, go hear their stuff as well, along with DJ K’s older releases.
This is a mind-blowing album. Mixed with some volume levels in the red, it contains loads of what I love about pirate radio DJs, baile funk, sound effects, minimalism, noise, dance music, house, 1990s rave music, and fun.
Fever Ray - The Year of the Radical Romantics
The Year of the Radical Romantics Fever Ray
This is an album of remixes. Karin Dreijer, a.k.a. Fever Ray, doesn’t cease in surprising me with material, be it remixed, re-recorded, or live. It’s undoubtedly from her universe, and it’s always worth listening to.
Blood Orange - Essex Honey
Blood Orange included Vini Reilly, god-sent guitarist, and a bunch of other England-based musicians, to make an album where every song is not only surprising but deeply personal? Get in.
Dijon - Baby
Prince is no longer alive, and that’s OK. People die. People are born. It’s unfair to drag up the old Prince moniker when Dijon’s name is mentioned, but it’s also apt: Dijon do their own thing but draw deeply from the Prince well. The entire album carries high quality. I was deeply surprised to hear something this soulful and here I am. I recommend this album to all.
Dexys Midnight Runners - Don’t Stand Me Down
Don’t Stand Me Down Dexys Midnight Runners
This is an old album, but when I read Kevin Rowland’s brilliant autobiography that was released this year, I had to re-evaluate this one. It’s clearly better than I remember it to be, a lot better, actually. It’s a masterpiece, perhaps the finest recording that Rowland has made during his career, so far. I mean so far, simply because he might make his ultimate masterpiece yet.
John Martyn - Solid Air
From nowhere, a sublime album that is equal amounts heartfelt and brain-working-overtime.
Ricky Force - Doomed Planet
A masterclass in drum ‘n’ bass. At times, not frenetic. Other times, just full-on bursting at the seams.
Looking For the Magic: American Power Pop in the Seventies
Looking for the Magic: American Power Pop in the Seventies
A grand compilation of American power-pop bands. Yes, you’ve got bands like Big Star, but there’s much, much more on here. The box set is keenly and lovingly edited and paced.
Joni Mitchell - Joni’s Jazz
A compilation that showcases Mitchell’s jazzy sides, including some live cuts from her most recent gig. The remastering of some tracks make them stand out even more than usual.
Sharp Pins - Radio DDR
This is garagey, low-fi power pop from heaven. Melodies, guitar jangle...aah! I still can’t believe this is the work of one person who’s just 21 years old. How is this possible? He’s released at least three albums in 2025, all of which are at a high level of quality.
Boris - flood
Hypnotic, all-compassing, thunderous, voice-of-God. Albini. Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Explosions In The Sky.
Big Thief - Double Infinity
Beyond country and distorted guitars comes a band that has released a few albums already but here prove that they still have great songs, a big and yet intricate sound; this is the opposite of ham-fisted where dynamics still are in place.
Lily Allen - West End Girl
While some tracks on this album aren’t really good, Allen is saved by her ability to write hit tracks, the song variations, the experimentation, and her willingness to hang her ex husband out to dry in this quasi-true tale of how he betrayed her, their marriage, and left everything in a smouldering pile of dirt. Allen comes out of it in public carrying this, a shining example of her point of view that’s very listenable, including hits that kept me humming for weeks.
Dave - The Boy Who Played the Harp
The Boy Who Played the Harp Dave
Dave has just released his best album yet. I thought his debut album, a fascinating collection of seemingly honestly told stories about his life, his mental-health struggles, and a heap of family issues; this takes everything a few steps beyond, both in terms of lyrical content, shape, and largesse; Dave now dares to expand beyond his older self, and I’m very glad that he released this album. I can’t wait to hear what he will do next.
Iannis Xenakis - Mycenae Alpha
Hibiki Hana-Ma / Mycenae Alpha / Polytope de Cluny Iannis Xenakis
In an interview this year, Diamanda Galás said this is one of her top terrifying albums, and that’s a lot coming from the person who made ‘Litanies of Satan’ and still makes Earth-shaking horrors, including music that some black-metal bands used to play before going onstage (hello, Mayhem) to get the right type of inspiration. Wow. This is some minor-key shit that warbles across an early synthesizer-based landscape. The album is intense and utterly rewarding, if you can handle the ride.
Mavis Staples - Sad and Beautiful World
Sad and Beautiful World Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples supported by Mark Linkous and friends; this is deeply soulful. Staples gives, Staples shows the world like it is, and she knows where she is, and she lets chance and wisdom lead her by the hand. Damn, what a lyricist, singer, and Soul.
Danny Brown - Stardust
Danny Brown is today sober and thank Bog for that. That doesn’t for a second mean that he’s let his guard down. Hell no! This is a surprising bunch of collaborations, solo tips, hyperpop over-the-edge electronics, processed beats, and sweet singing that only Danny provides us with in 2025. Shit. Let me have the next album now, please.
Michel Legrand - Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg Michel Legrand
I think I picked up on this album when Ron Mael of Sparks listed some of his favourite albums in The Quietus. This soundtrack is over-the-top dramatic and that works. The thematic melodies that recur throughout the album! The duettes! The intense violins! This is deeply romantic shit that could easily have become camp, but no, Legrand went out on a limb and made one of the most engorging soundtracks I’ve ever heard, something that goes beyond the film for which it was made into becoming an entity of its own. Few composers are able to do this, but here we are: a masterpiece.
Fred Neil - Fred Neil
Fred Neil made ‘Everybody’s Talkin’, the song that Harry Nilsson made world famous. Apart from that, Neil does ‘Cocaine’ on this album. This is like an outlaw country album with strings, some grand lyrics, and simple melodies. It’s a real winner.
Traidora - Una Mujer Trans Sin País
Una Mujer Trans Sin País Traidora
Hardcore, pro-trans, experimental, brutal music? Traidora got you, fam. They made this with a member of Crass, which says a lot about how experimental this album can be. It’s a banger. And it’s fucking angry, too.
Debit - Desaceleradas
Imagine David Lynch on severe downers and in a massively inspirational and successful cut-up phase. Actually, that’s not a fair thing to say; Debit makes ambient music with cut-up elements that are slowed down and still manages to create not a collage, but their own thing. This is adventurous and I’ll buy this.
Hania Rani - Non Fiction: Piano Concerto in Four Movements
Non Fiction - Piano Concerto in Four Movements Hania Rani
This is a collection of beautifully recorded and masterfully engineered orchestral works where the clarinet and violins are just as important as the piano and arrangement.
The songs soar, kind of reminding me of how Harold Budd handled arrangements on his masterpiece album Avalon Sutra and also of how Sigur Rós made some tracks on their latest album, Átta.
Fluisteraars - Manifestaties van de ontworteling
Manifestaties van de ontworteling Fluisteraars
Fluisteraars is one of my favourite black-metal bands, but this...is ambient music. Black metal can really be one of the shittiest music genres on the planet, if you wanna get negative: nazis, racists, and murderers have been involved and still are (which goes for any musical genre on the planet, for sure), but this is something that turns the entire genre upside-down. Thank Bog for bands like Fluisteraars and Rosa Faenskap, new, young, inventive, creative people.
Ahmed - Sama’a
سماع [Sama’a] (Audition) أحمد [Ahmed]
Ahmed is a collective of jazz artists that have turned out this near-free-jazz album that’s larger than the sum of its parts.
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Live God
Live God Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
This is, at best, a soaring, gospel-sounding experience. Just listen to ‘Frogs’, the first track on the album. The artist as preacher comes out; Cave quips lines like a reverend. This is closer to gospel than nearly what James Brown, Sam Cooke, and Little Richard did live at times.
Hear the guitar and the chorus of ‘Tupelo’. Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Where Depeche Mode went electronic, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds go back to gospel music. To choral music. To human breadth in mass voices. To simple chords on the piano, to Cave chanting ‘you’re beautiful’ again and again and again to a tambourine and the chorus singing ‘touched by the Spirit/touched by the Flame’.
Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch!
Free JAZZ! Actually, this is not unlistenable: people who say that haven’t really listened to this album. Granted, I don’t know if I would have liked this album a couple of years ago. Either I’m getting really fucking old and wasted or I’m just getting better...what?!
The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet - Free Jazz: a Collective Improvisation
Free Jazz The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet
What a bomb. Talk about free jazz. This is two takes that sound like they’ve sprung from a quartet that’s been in training camps together for years and then been threatened with death unless they create something new that’s relaxed and yet extremely spriteful in the extreme. A lot of people likely wouldn’t be able to listen to this and think it’s the jazz equivalent of an explosion but so what if it is? This is brilliant. Inventive. Far beyond the scope of regular and drab music, music that you can hum to, I thought - but hell, we can hum to this! It’s expressive and like staring into the sun: you might get hurt if you spend too much time doing it, but it could also just give you brand-new perspectives that could change your life.