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Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Thoughts On The Future

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.”

https://kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp.com/album/thoughts-on-the-future

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Hannah Cohen – Earthstar

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.

https://hannahcohen.bandcamp.com/album/earthstar-mountain

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Bvdub, East Of Oceans – We Remembered When We Danced

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.

https://lilaone.bandcamp.com/album/replicant-memories

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Martinou – Paean

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?

https://nousklaer.bandcamp.com/album/always-there

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Lb Honne – Deeper

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.

https://smallville-records.bandcamp.com/album/smallville-71-lb-honne-br-cke

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Molly Nilsson – All the Way

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.

https://mollynilsson.bandcamp.com/album/amateur

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Voices From The Lake – Voices From The Lake II

Voices From The Lake’s eponymous album came out way back in 2o12, and I’ve probably returned to it on a nearly weekly basis every since. Donato Dozzy and Neal’s collaborative project started as a one-off live performance in the Japanese Alps before birthing an album that, according to the press notes, “become a touchstone in ambient techno, reshaping the global landscape of hypnotic and atmospheric electronic music.” I heartily agree. I cannot express how much I’ve loved this album over the last decade and more. The follow up, Voices From The Lake II, arrived today, and is already in my top 10 of the year.

https://voicesfromthelake.bandcamp.com/album/ii

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h.pruz – Arrival

h.pruz’s new album Red sky at morning is a stripped mix of folk songwriting and small, tactile electronic details. Co-producer Felix Walworth adds Wurlitzer, soft synth lines and loose percussion that drift under the vocals rather than lead them. The tracks feel like short scenes, each clearly shaped by specific moments and memories. The sound is quiet and spacious but warm, built on acoustic guitar, piano, sax and concise synth phrases, and calls to mind similarly reflective LPs by artists like Adrianne Lenker and Tomberlin.

https://hpruz.bandcamp.com/album/red-sky-at-morning

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Dylan Henner – Her Parents Were Out So We Shared a Joint and Floated Around In Her Pool Under the Starlight

“Late one evening, I was listening to the radio alone at home. I couldn’t find the station I wanted, so I shifted the dial around for a while. Between frequencies, fading in and out of fidelity, I found a station I’d never heard before. To my amazement, the station was broadcasting my own memories. Memories from when I was seventeen. Some of the most formative and important moments of my life, alive on the air.”

https://dylanhenner.bandcamp.com/album/star-dream-fm

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K-Lone – someone else

K-Lone’s new LP sorry i thought you were someone else – his debut release on Incienso – was produced after his father’s passing and became a place for the Brighton-based artist to escape and reflect. And while the majority of the album isn’t necessarily something I’ll be going back to, the opening track someone else is inarguably lovely.

https://k-lone.bandcamp.com/album/sorry-i-thought-you-were-someone-else