Hey, I’ve done four of these year-end lists in a row now. Consistency and discipline are my middle names. It started in 2022, when I made a list with no descriptions and then added a guest list by Shawn David McMillen where the actual rock writing got done, and goddamn did he tear it up or what? So good, go read it, or re-read it, right now. I did lists in 2023 and 2024 too, no guests, and here’s the latest for 2025, still no guests, essentially a holiday clip show at this point, where I just recap most of the year’s records I managed to review. But other stuff sneaks in there too, as you’ll see. In order of release date:
SPECTRE FOLK Quabbin Winter (ARBITRARY SIGNS/SOPHOMORE LOUNGE) (January 3rd) Remember fellow rock critics, when making our year-end lists, let’s not forget the records that were released back in January, in this case as early in the year as January 3rd. In fact, I probably listened to this shaggy swaggy loose (mostly-)one-man-VU psych-jammer more in 2024 than I did in 2025 (advance copy, ya know), enough that it even got mentioned on last year’s list. Time to get it back out. Original review here.
EMILY ROBB Live at Jerry’s (NO LABEL) (January 5th) Original review here, all the way at the very end of the piece. To quote myself: “. . . sounding more ‘VU boot’ than ever, using a loop pedal to be both Sterling and Lou . . .”
WILLIE LANE Bobcat Turnaround (CORD-ART) (February 19th) Original review here, one of my favorites of these favorites.
MULTIVERSES/MULTIDIMENSIONAL COWBOY Spring Morning at Pepe’s (TYMBAL TAPES) (April 17th) Lincoln NE keeps keeping on, original review here.
NATURAL INFORMATION SOCIETY & BITCHIN BAJAS Totality (DRAG CITY) (April 25th) Original review here, and I’ll bet the other Natural Information Society release from 2025, Perseverance Flow on Eremite, should go on here too — but I haven’t heard it yet.
JERRY DeCICCA Cardiac Country LP (SOPHOMORE LOUNGE) (April 25th) Original review here. Sometimes a guy singing and playing simple/patient/heady contemporary country tunes on a guitar is all you need. Especially when the legend B.J. Cole is sitting in on pedal steel, Red Rhodes-ing and Ben Keith-ing his way through pure vistas of dreamtone.
A SINGLE OCEAN s/t (SHMEE) (May 2nd) Originally mentioned here as part of 2025’s fabled “ECM-Core Watch 2025” piece.
MAZOZMA Bathing in the Stone (SOPHOMORE LOUNGE) (May 16th) Original review here. Really love this one and the slow-stone earth-time way its enigmatic folk-song meditations roll out.
MARSHALL ALLEN’S GHOST HORIZONS Live in Philadelphia (OTHERLY LOVE/ARS NOVA) (May 23rd) Listening to Sun Ra Arkestra guitarist DM Hotep interviewed on the Transmissions podcast a couple weeks ago was how I learned (or was reminded) this album had gotten released in 2025, excerpts from a series of recent-past shows in Philadelphia where Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen, limited in ability to tour by his corporeal centenarian age, stayed home and played a series of loose improvised concerts with revolving guest musicians, including Wolf Eyes, who sound great on two tracks (“Back to You” and “Warn Them”). That’s who got my attention, but almost every track on here has a different lineup; Allen is also joined by no less than Luke Stewart, Chad Taylor, Tcheser Holmes, William Parker, James Brandon Lewis, Mikel Patrick Avery, and several Arkestra members as well (including Michael Ray who tore it up on trumpet in between Kool & the Gang tours during that extremely choice Lanquidity etc. run by the original Arkestra in the late 70s/early 80s). It also has “Square the Circle,” in which a power trio of Allen on sax/synth/electronics/vocals with James McNew from Yo La Tengo on bass and Charlie Hall from The War on Drugs on drums play some of the most killer tranced-out American Krautrock of 2025.
NUKE WATCH “Wait For It…” (IMPATIENCE) (May 23rd) Original review here, also part of “ECM-Core Watch 2025.” Frankly not ECM-Core, but it’s also not any other one thing, like, at all, so put it wherever you want and let it braindance the night away like no one is watching.
PHI-PSONICS Everything is Possible (GONDWANA) (May 23rd) Also part of “ECM-Core Watch 2025,” specifically one of the very best currently doing that modal/ambient/spiritual thing going on in L.A. lately. (Scott McDowell at his Jazz Realities substack calls it “Gorp Jazz,” but yo, that’s an even worse name than ECM-Core! More focused description and primer though, thanks Scott!)
JEFFREY ALEXANDER & THE HEAVY LIDDERS Synchronous Orbit (CARDINAL FUZZ/FEEDING TUBE) (June 13th) Tried to get a review of this done last ish, but got hung up on trying to find a Joe Carducci quote that may not actually exist, a beautiful Carduccian concept in which the art of jamming is how rock music creates its surplus value. I even sat down and skimmed through all 424 pages of Rock and the Pop Narcotic and still couldn’t find it. (Calling all Carduccians out there, if you’ve got a citation with page number, please leave it in the comments below.) Just wanted to bolster my point that Jeffrey Alexander & the Heavy Lidders are some of underground rock’s most unapologetic and effective jammers that we have left in this day and age, and are creating a rich and wealthy surplus value thereof over many releases and tours. This album from 2025 has three long tracks, breezy sunny folk-pop giving way to the jam on side A, and a side-longer on the B where the Heavy Lidders are joined by saxophonist Isaiah Collier, pulling that Branford-with-the-Dead move quite well.
A MAGIC WHISTLE The Solar Cell (LAMPSPEOPLE UNIVERSAL/PUBLIC EYESORE) (July 13th) Original review here, from a mere two weeks ago. This one was released in July but my complimentary review copy had been hiding halfway back in the ‘On Deck 1A’ pile for a few months until I finally put it on three weeks ago and it surprised the hell out of me. I thought Andy Puls aka A Magic Whistle was someone I’d never heard of, who came from out of nowhere with “the synth/folk LP of the year 2025 A.D.,” but it turns out I used to see him play crazy sets all the time over 20 years ago in Chicago with his band Neon Hunk. They lived in Milwaukee and were essentially a Chicago local band during that noise/now wave/rainbow rock heyday circa 2001-2003. Another full circle moment for us lifers . . .
RYAN DAVIS & THE ROADHOUSE BAND New Threats From The Soul (SOPHOMORE LOUNGE) (July 25th) Original review here. Everyone from Time Magazine to Rolling Stone to The Economist (?) have sung this record’s praises. I’ll even quote Rolling Stone because one J. Blistein was quite on point about what RD’s songs do and comment on: “It’s a mammoth meditation on fleeting success and failure’s shadow, the existential agony and malaise caused when expectation and reality collide.” Not to mention that the band and arrangements are superb as they comfortably take almost every song into the 8-12 minute range.
OREN AMBARCHI, JOHAN BERTHLING & ANDREAS WERLIIN Ghosted III (DRAG CITY) (August 29th) For me this was the year of Ghosted, or Ghosted, or I guess I should say the Oren Ambarchi/Johan Berthling/Andreas Werliin trio, who have now released three albums, Ghosted I in 2022, Ghosted II in 2024, and this one from this year, Ghosted III. I discovered the first one this year, even though it was released in 2022, and then quickly caught up with the other two, all of one rarefied experimental/ambient/jazz/world/groove piece and basically a triple LP. (For the record, I think the II is the best one.) (Oh yeah, original review here, also from a mere two weeks ago.)
SARAH CLAUSEN With Many Hands (EMPTY STAGE) (September 1st) Dedicated readers may remember a little something I wrote about seeing Chicago saxophonist/etc Sarah Clausen play a great set a couple years ago, and learning that she was working on an album; well just this morning, 5 days before press-time, I learned from Leor Galil’s “best overlooked Chicago records of 2025” in the Chicago Reader that she had completed said album, and that it was released on September 1st. And man, it’s very good. Still largely driven by saxophone and real-time looping/sampling/processing, but different than the set I saw (or is it?), something more like thick ethereal noise ambient (or is it?), with very striking vocals on two tracks. This doesn’t sit comfortably in any obvious genre, and that’s always a good thing.
ORCUTT SHELLEY MILLER s/t (SILVER CURRENT) (September 5th) Original review here. I was in a bit too jokey of a mood when I wrote that one, as this is a serious album with some serious jamming (yes, plenty of guitar/bass/drums surplus value created here as well). I particularly love how Ethan Miller uses the bass to drive the jams, not only rhythmically in tandem with Steve Shelley but also harmonically and melodically so that Bill Orcutt can rip pure energy and extrapolation. This is the record that got released so far, but one gets the sense that any of the many shows they’ve played in 2025 could’ve been just as much of a record, offering just as much surplus value. Anyone wanna tape trade? Can I send you blanks & postage?
SHUTARO NOGUCHI & THE ROADHOUSE BAND (SOPHOMORE LOUNGE/FEEDING TUBE) (October 17th) The Roadhouse Band strikes again, this time with original Equipment Pointed Ankh member Shutaro Noguchi stepping to the forefront for an incredible album that takes us on an epic journey through Tori Kudo appreciation, Amerikraut Trucker-Funk, Wyatt-worthy scat-singing, city pop melodicism, and probably even more, as if any more was needed. Our cups runneth over! Oh, original review here.
WEDNESDAY KNUDSEN Atrium (FEEDING TUBE/SPINSTER) (October 24th) Original review here, also from that fabled last issue where a lot of year-end business got settled. It’s funny, if you dig back into Shawn David McMillen’s Best of 2022 writings linked above, you’ll read his praise of Knudsen’s 2022 CD release Soft Focus Volumes One and Two, which was also the subject of a profile on Knudsen in the February 2023 issue of Maggot Brain (#11, young Pharoah Sanders on the cover). Reckless had a copy last week and I’m playing it right now. It’s not quite as laser-refined, but you can really hear her carving out the lush spectral territory that is fully inhabited on Atrium. It’s only been three years b/w so much happens in three years.
UNCHAINED Frontalier (STERN RECORDS) (October 24th) One more that you can read all about last ish.
JIM WHITE & ZOH AMBA “Grand Central/I Don’t Do” (DRAG CITY) (October 24th) I love how Matt Korvette, Vish Kanna, and myself, Larry “Fuzz-O” Dolman, have all separately declared “Grand Central/I Don’t Do” from the Jim White album Inner Day, featuring Zoh Amba on co-lead vocals, to be our favorite song of 2025. Surely others have declared this too, or will soon enough. Please do watch the official music video embedded above for the proper experience. The rest of the album, it’s all just keyboard sketches, and . . . I don’t know. As of now, I do not do. I think Korvette described it very well in his record review column linked above: “…he doesn’t sound particularly rehearsed, or that he considered what he would be playing before he started playing it. His synths wander, and the drums tend to follow like an off-leash dog on an empty trail, running up ahead, lagging behind, mostly just sniffing around.”
NATURAL INFORMATION SOCIETY Perseverance Flow (EREMITE) (October 24th) Yep, had to check it out quick, nine days before press-time, and see if it belonged on here, and . . . I think it does. Weird one, though. New direction for them, more mechanical and synthetic and robotic than the previous albums, and it oddly seems to be coming mostly from Lisa Alvarado’s harmonium, but also from Joshua Abrams’s sparse electro/echo “dubs” (as they are credited). There’s also a section from roughly minute 23 to minute 29 when Abrams’s guimbri kind of goes off the rails rhythmically, and I can’t tell if he’s boldly intentionally going off or if the piece wasn’t fully locked in yet. I honestly think this version captured live at Roulette in NYC on October 13th is even better than the record that was officially released 11 days later, more relaxed and spacious at least (“Perseverance Flow” starts at roughly minute 42 and pretty much goes for a whole hour itself, but man the whole entire video including opening act Kalia Vandever and the NIS version of Coltrane’s “Naima” is worth your time). Either way, I woke up the next morning with this thing still blasting in my head, long may it perseverate and flow.
NATASHA PIRARD Fernande, Cecile (DEEWEE) (November 24th) This one’s only been out a couple weeks as I write, so this is my first review. Cosmic melancholic elegaic mother-goddess synth composition by an “experimental electronic musician based in Ghent, Belgium,” dedicated by Pirard to her mother and grandmother.
EQUIPMENT POINTED ANKH Eggs a Little Late (PETTY BUNCO) (November 28th) The Roadhouse Band strikes again, for the third time on this list, although here appearing in their original experimental research & development guise as Equipment Pointed Ankh. (At least that’s how I took the liberty to describe them in my guest appearance on the CD Esoterik podcast back in September, an auspicious event that should also be mentioned in this year-end clip-show.) Yet another last-minute add, as it was released on November 28th and I first listened to it on December 12th, only 9 days before publication time. Of course Eggs a Little Late needed a chance to be on this list; Equipment Pointed Ankh are one of my favorite bands, Petty Bunco one of my favorite labels, and Max M over at the Philadelphia Record Exchange IG account, who would know, did call it the best Equipment Pointed Ankh yet. After only two back-to-back listens, with many more to come, I would have to agree. Not only their best, but their most expansive, relaxed, and spacious work yet. How much can be going on with a record when you say that it’s like a Faust/Caravan library-music team-up but with more lap steel guitar and occasional guest vocals by Kathy Morton of “A Letter from Home” and/or Lydia Tomkiw from Algebra Suicide, and still have all of that be far too inadequate to describe it? Spectral math, perhaps?? (You’ll have to listen to track two to get that last reference.)
OK that’s it for now. This space reserved for me to come back from the future when you’re not looking and update with the inevitable best of 2025 releases I haven’t heard or even heard of yet. (Walnut Brain Weird Wire and KeiyaA hooke’s law so far . . . oh hey, add Joy Guidry’s exquisite Five Prayers to the list.) Thanks for all the music, world. Thanks for the whole world, music. Thanks to you for reading today, and thanks to you who have read all year. Thanks to all of you who subscribe, and huge thanks to all of you who pay to subscribe. ($5 a month or $36 a year = $3 a month = cheap!) Happy Holidays, Happy New Year.
Haha, definitely a worse name, Fuzz-O! Thanks for the shout out!
Keep 'em coming, bless.