Isabel Pine is a classically trained violist, composer and producer whose work draws deeply on nature, shaping vivid soundscapes through string textures, electronics and field recordings. After a series of self released EP’s and singles her debut LP Fables releases next month comprising a number pieces that were recorded in the fall of 2024, in a small, remote cabin and outside, primarily using stringed instruments. A Flickering Light is the second single, and it is absolutely beautiful.
More good stuff I missed from last year here courtesy of Mikel Rev. Rev is a mysterious figure from the depths of the Oslo underground, who primarily operates as part of the Ute Collective – a group of producers and DJs pushing a unique electronic and trance-forward sound, through various sublabels and live events often set amongst the lush forests of Norway. Following his debut album The Art Of Levitation on A Strangely Isolated Place back in 2023, last year’s Journey Beyond presents a selection of tracks demonstrating his obsession with the porous boundaries between ambient and trance.
Kaitlyn’s Aurelia Smith’s last album GUSH was one of the best albums of the year, and didn’t get nearly enough love in the end of year list, except mine of course. There’s a risk new EP Thoughts On The Future will also get a bit lost as it came out just before Christmas when no-one’s really paying attention, but it shouldn’t. Entirely instrumental, and echoing artists like Kelly Moran in its use of slowly evolving rhythmic repetition, Smith described it as “a contemplative body of work that examines what grief does to the body and the mind – the necessary disembodiment & cocooning — how it suspends us, how it empties us, and how it quietly begins to rebuild us in its own time.”
Here’s something else lovely I missed from last year; file this in the Natalie Bergman folder of 2025 albums that belong to an entirely different era. It also strongly reminds me Tim Heidecker and Weyes Blood’s majestic Oh How We Drift Away: arguably the greatest 60s single made this decade.
Nothing I write here about the backstory to bvdub’s new album Replicant Memories is going to do justice to the incredible write up on Bandcamp, so if you want all the details, go there. Briefly, it reminds me of both the long form, genre-flipping sketches of recent Burial and the emotional gut-wrench of 36’s ambient trance masterpiece Cold Ecstasy. So a fairly high bar.
Keeping this short as it’s my first day back in the office and I am struggling, but here’s a deeply atmospheric house cut from the extremely reliable Martinou to warm your souls. Taken from his new EP Always There. Welcome to 2026! It’s going to be good?
Lb Honne’s new EP Brücke comes on Smallville, a label with which I was mildly obsessed in the early 2010s thanks to sleepy, melancholy deep house from artists like Moomin and Christopher Rau: a musical theme which continues to this day. The pick of the bunch here is Deeper, which picks up the beautiful, reflective threads of his 2024 album Present Future / Here There, which is a must-listen if you missed it last year.
And so begins the inevitable march of posting all the music from 2025 that I missed, starting with this beautiful, devastating track from Ethel Cain’s album Perverts. It doesn’t really do justice to listen to it in isolation from the rest of the album, but it is an undoubted highlight – if a ‘highlight’ can make you want to curl into a mournful little ball and never go outside again. Perverts is one of the bleakest, most sorrowful albums of the year, and I can’t stop listening to it.
Molly Nilsson managed to sneak out an album without me realising back in October, which is pretty astonishing given how much I like her music and how much time I spent looking for new albums from artists I like. Amateur is described as both a “jubilee for losers” and “maybe her greatest yet” and while the latter honour still firmly resides with her 2018 masterpiece 2020, Amateur is awash with enough beautiful, hazy melodies and low-key hooks that, even on the first listen, it’s definitely up there.
All ranking lists are inherently ludicrous, and taking them too seriously is a fool’s errand, but I was genuinely shocked at some of the omissions in fairly high profile lists this year. I’ll leave it to you to work out which ones I’m talking about. And on the other side of the argument, everyone losing their minds over FKA Twigs this year had me initially baffled and then increasingly irritated. She worked with Anyma, the blandest man in all of electronic music!
My list is heavily biased towards droning ambient textures, unnecessarily bleak electronica and overly sentimental, er, sentiments, occasionally punctuated by some of the shiniest, most mainstream pop currently available, but it’s the best list by far.
These are the 50 best album of 2025.
50. Great Grandpa – Patience, Moonbeam
49. Lily Allen – West End Girl
48. Nation of Language – Dance Called Memory
47. Rainy Miller – Joseph, What Have You Done?
46. Penelope Trappes – A Requiem
45. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – GUSH
44. Dylan Henner – Star Dream FM
43. Klein – sleep with a cane
42. Marta Fosberg – Archaeology of Intimacy
41. Gwenno – Utopia
40. Night Tapes – portals//polarities
39. Curtis Harding – Departures & Arrivals
38. Lea Sen – LEVELS
37. Florian T M Zeisig – A New Life
36. Florist – Jellywish
35. Binary Algorithims – Reminiscencias
34. Jadu Heart – POST HEAVEN
33. Marina Zispin – Now You See Me, Now You Don’t
32. Dania – Listless
31. Sandwell District – End Beginnings
30. Kathryn Mohr – Waiting Room
29. Opsin – through the wall
28. Kelly Moran – Don’t Trust Mirrors
27. Demdike Stare – To Cut & Shoot
26. Arvin Dola – O Ghost
25. jp – we’re here all the time
24. Barker – Stochastic Drift
23. Valentino Mora – Biotope
22. 36 – A Warm Static Sphere
21. Addison Rae – Addison
20. james k – Friend
19. Joanne Robertson – Blurrr
18. Dijon – Baby
17. Yagya – Vor
16. Blood Orange – Essex Honey
15. anaiis – Devotion & The Black Divine
14. Camille Schmidt – Nude #9
13. Joshua Burnside – Teeth Of Time
12. Erika De Casier – Lifetime
11. John Glacier – Like A Ribbon
———-
10. Voices From The Lake – Voices From The Lake II
09. Kpop Demon Hunters – Kpop Demon Hunters
08. Saya Grey – SAYA
07. OHYUNG – You Are Always On My Mind
06. XENIA REAPER – Gambling
05. Tren – Tears Of Things, Sorrows of the Universe
04. Lucy Gooch – Desert Window
03. Voice Actor – Lust 1
02. Natalie Bergman – My Home Is Not In This World
The Predatory Wasp 