The Respins: Fall 2025 in Review

Ok, we’ve reached the end of this odyssey. We’ll quickly review the albums of note from the last three months and see if we can reach any grand conclusions about music this year other than Addison Rae is mid at absolute best.

I, shockingly, do not have any errata for this post. Honestly, I probably do, but I don’t remember what they are. And if I don’t remember, they don’t count. Let’s get started. As always, it’s in alphabetical order by first letter, and I don’t acknowledge “A” or “The” because I’m not a cretin.

Armand Hammer & The Alchemist, Mercy

A boutique rap showcase if there ever was one. Armand Hammer, the duo of billy woods and E L U C I D, team up again with The Alchemist to deliver an album of impeccably worded raps and stylish loop-based beats. The Alchemist tailored his style a bit more this time to fit with the verbally dense flow of Armand Hammer, and the project benefits for it. Of the billy woods projects this year, this one has the most replay value.

Black Eyes, Hostile Design

A band I never expected to hear from again returned from the dead with a good album. Hostile Design is furious, righteous, and groovy. It is everything that the band did back when they were a going concern in the mid-2000s, but better. It feels more focused and clearer than that earlier music, and I like the higher emphasis on grooves on this album. If you told me that this would happen in 2025, I would laugh at you and tell you to get out of my house. Since it did, I won’t laugh at you, but I will tell you to get out of my house. How did you get in anyway?

Boldy James & Nicholas Craven, Criminally Attached

As I noted earlier in this process, I was planning on doing a bit involving Boldy James, putting one of his albums in each rundown. I could do it easily. He released four strong albums this year. But, since I forgot to start that in the first post, this is the only one I am going to mention. If I can only talk about one, this is the one to talk about. Craven is a long-time collaborator with James, having already released three albums before this one. As a result, they know each other’s styles well. Craven’s beats provide plenty of space for James to unravel his lyrically dextrous tales of trapping and miraculously staying alive and out of jail. I’m still truly amazed that this man can release so much content and keep the quality extremely high. It’s a magic trick I’ll never understand.

The Boojums, The Boojums

This album is not the most original album that I listened to this year, but I’ve put it here because it knows exactly what it is. It is a garage rock album played loudly with intensity and focus. It packs a lot of riffs and fun into its 31-minute time, which is a perfect length. I had a great time here, and I think others would as well.

claire rousay, a little death

This year was a great year for claire rousay. With this and her collaboration with her friend More Eaze, rousay’s mixture of raw lyrics, field recordings, and ambient and noise textures truly hit a stride. Her work really spoke to the minefield that the year 2025 has been in profound ways. It is just another great release from a unique artist.

Faten Kanaan, Diary of a Candle

A truly transporting ambient album. In the space of 28 minutes, Kanaan creates an entire world, full of stories, landscapes, and emotions, without using a single word. I remember being really excited about this during The Spins, when I wrote about it previously. That excitement has not diminished. It’s a remarkable listen.

FKA twigs, EUSEXUA Afterglow

FKA twigs has had quite the year. She started off releasing her amazing EUSEXUA at the beginning of the year. Months later, she drops these extra tracks as a separate album. While they started as material for a bonus release, they needed to be released on their own, which becomes evident when you listen to them. The songs touch on the ideas of eroticism and pleasure like the main album, but the vibe is different. The beats are more relaxed, more exploratory. The vocals are looser. It is in conversation with the earlier album, but it is its own beast.

Flock of Dimes, The Life You Save

Jenn Wasner is not one to sit on her laurels. Between her work for other artists and her work in Wye Oak, Wasner has created a stunning body of solo work as Flock of Dimes. This album is another inclusion to that archive. Unlike on previous releases, the synthesizers take a bit of a backseat. Using more acoustic instrumentation, Wasner’s lyrics and voice come more to the fore, and she creates a delicate, thoughtful album that is as powerful as anything else in her catalog.

Genevieve Artadi & Real Bad Man, Everything Is Under Control.

On this collaborative album, R&B singer Artadi works with hip-hop producer Real Bad Man to make a trippy, electronic-infused R&B album. The beats are a bit outside of RBM’s wheelhouse, using a lot of synthesizers and drum pads rather than looped samples, and Artadi’s cool, relaxed voice reminds me of Nedelle Torrisi, an artist that I would love to hear new music from soon. The whole is a fun, engaging listen that breezes by in less than 40 minutes.

Good Flying Birds, Talulah’s Tape

Another group of young people who have taken it upon themselves to ingest the entire history of indie pop and make something from it. Good Flying Birds have succeeded in this task quite easily. Their sound references movements from all over the world and across the decades. There are times that sound like Guided by Voices. There are others where they have the intricate interplay of early Felt. There are other times when they just let it rip like The Feelies. Even though I can play the reference game, they still sound like themselves through and through. It’s a remarkable debut album, and I can only hope they can keep this up for all the indie pop kids’s sake.

Hannah Frances, Nested in Tangles

Here, Frances and her collaborators make an album that mixes folk, country, and Americana with prog rock and adds Frances’s poetic lyrics to the mix. The result is an album that does not sit on its laurels; it moves constantly while maintaining an overall consistency that is truly impressive. Frances’s voice is great, and the trip is excellent. Another great release to add to the pool of strong Americana albums that dropped this year.

Hilary Woods, Night CRIÚ

This is a spooky little album that recalls the gothic nature of Marissa Nadler and the dreamy universe of Maria Somerville. Rather than using a folk palette like Nadler, Woods uses synthesizers and electronics to create the haunting, droning soundscapes that her lyrics inhabit. I found this album to be amazing, striking in all of the ways. A fully encompassing listen.

Jamie Liddell & Luke Schneider, A Companion For The Spaces Between Dreams

Electronic music producer Liddell and pedal steel guitarist Schneider come together to make an exploratory ambient album that recalls the great work that was coming out of labels like Kranky back in the 2000s (e.g., Charalambides). And much like that work, it is cosmic in the best sense possible. It unfolds in your ears, developing textures that expand and collapse upon themselves. The album, more importantly, is very patient. Its ideas come out slowly, forcing you the listener to sit back and wait for them to develop. When everything is so fast in our current time, this is a great thing.

Lorelle Meets The Obscure, Corporal

The duo that make up Lorelle Meets The Obscure burned out on the synth-heavy track they took on their previous album Datura. While they thought about shutting it down, they decided to reboot instead, and that was the right call. Corporal brings in what they learned from their synth work, particularly the experimentalism and the danger, and integrates more of the trippy psychedelic influences that they were using on their earlier albums. The result is a head trip of an album that embodies the best elements of the current psychedelic underground. If you’re interested in getting weird, this would be a great album for it.

Malibu, Vanities

If you are in the market for some very deep ambient music, this is your album right here. Over the course of its runtime, Barbara Braccini does some Julianna Barwick-esque work, using simple, deep synth lines and pairing them with her dreamlike vocals. Her voice fills the sonic landscape carefully, never overpowering it. The care and detail of the production can be heard as you sink into its world and flow on its trip. An excellent album to put into your headphones for a quiet day.

Rosalía, LUX

Many critics put this album at their top of their lists, and I am hard pressed to argue against that. Is this album exactly to my taste? Not totally. That said, I would have to be the biggest asshole on Earth to say that this album is anything less than what it is: an absolute moonshot. The sheer confidence of this woman is amazing. I’m going to make an album about my personal struggles using double-digit languages, dozens of collaborators, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Oh, and I’m going to sing large parts of the album in an operatic style. The sheer artistic accomplishment is unprecedented for a pop star, and here’s the crazy part: she completely pulls the project off. Entire thing works from back to front. There are no flaws. It’s beautiful. Her training is clearly evident from the first note. The collaborations all feed into her very clear vision. It’s utterly remarkable. I’ve never heard something like this before, and I doubt I will again. If I did, it’ll probably be her doing it.

Say She She, Cut & Rewind

Say She She is a trio of women based out of New York who make a modern version of disco music. Infused with the spirit of Chic and ESG in equal measure, their songs reference the past while staying thoroughly modern. In addition to the updating, they have excellent harmonies. They sound absolutely great together. If you want to listen to something fun and funky, you will get that in spades from this album.

Snocaps, Snocaps

As I have said before in this newsletter, Katie Crutchfield (a/k/a Waxahatchee) is in her imperial phase. She is writing phenomenal music and she sounds strong and focused. She’s so on it right now that Snocaps—a side project involving her; her twin, Allison; MJ Lenderman; and Brad Cook—can surprise drop an album and it be better than so many other indie albums that came out this year. Katie and Allison are in great harmony, and the songs are as well written as one would expect from this creative team. It’s a great album back to front, and it’s only a side project. When you have the juice, you have the juice.

Steve Gunn, Daylight Daylight

One of the dual entrants in this year’s rundown, Mr. Gunn followed up his excellent ambient album with a beautifully crafted effort done in collaboration with James Elkington that highlights his excellent guitar work and songwriting. While it never really gets above a simmer, the listening experience is absorbing, taking you into a beautiful world of Gunn’s creation. When you listen to this album—and you absolutely should—let yourself fall into its world. The experience will be much more rewarding as a result.

Sudan Archives, The BPM

The short explanation of this album is the following: you take Amaraae’s BLACK STAR, slow it down a few BPM, cut some of the drugs, and keep all of the horniness. Much like that album, this album is great. Brittany Parks’s move to the club sounds extremely natural, and I’m totally here for it. Just put it on and feel the music pulse through you. A great time to be had here.

They Are Gutting A Body of Water, LOTTO

I have always been respectful of this band, but I didn’t get it really until swanlake, their compilation of loose tracks from 2020 to 2023. I think this album brought their particular vision of shoegaze into clearer vision for me. As it has become clearer for me, I like it more and more. If you are expecting only gliding guitars and cooing vocals, you’ll be disappointed; this album is heavy on riffs and electronics, owing a debt to the legends as well as their city contemporaries Nobody. If you like it when shoegaze makes you feel like you are getting hit by a 50 foot wave of feedback and noise, this album is for you.

Final Thoughts on 2025

This has been a truly phenomenal year of music. Legacy artists and well established acts have come back with fantastic albums. There is a whole wave of new youth coming up who are making legitimately good music. We’ll see if they can keep it up over time, but the signs look extremely positive for that being the case.

While the results (four dispatches with at least 20 albums each) might say otherwise, there are albums that do deserve an honorable mention. These include the following (in no particular order):

• Men I Trust, Equus Asinus and Equus Caballus

• Mess Esque, Jay Marie, Comfort Me

• Sea Lemon, Diving For A Prize

• Sally Shapiro, Ready To Live A Lie

• Hotline TNT, Raspberry Moon

• U.S. Girls, Scratch It

• Tan Cologne, Unknown Beyond

• Nick León, A Tropical Entropy

• Coral Grief, Air Between Us

• Jim Legxacy, Black British Music

• Big Thief, Double Infinity

• Night Tapes, portals//polarities

• Theo Croker, Dream Manifest

• Brandee Younger, Gadabout Season

• Gelli Haha, Switcheroo

I know that these lists are rather long, so I thank you for taking the time to read through them. If you want to listen to all of them, have at it. It’ll be a really weird trip for you and probably take weeks, but that’s your prerogative, which I wholly support. If you came to me and asked which ones I should really listen to if I only have time to listen to like ten of them, I would probably hem and haw, trying to ask you a series of questions to filter some things out.

If you cut me off and tell me you don’t have time for such nonsense, I would tell you to listen to the following: Derya Yildirim & Grup Şimşek -Yarin Yoksa; Maria Somerville - Luster; Edith Frost - In Space; Rosalía - LUX; L.A. Witch - DOGGOD; Nourished by Time - The Passionate Ones; Faten Kaanan - Diary of a Candle; Horsegirl - Phonetics On And On; Rochelle Jordan - Through The Wall; and Broncho - Natural Pleasure. I’m leaving this here because I can’t spend twelve hours debating this with myself, which I am on the verge of doing as I type this paragraph. This set offers a nice cross section of the year, isn’t completely embarrassing, and gives some representation to albums that were good but didn’t get the critical consensus.

So, with that, I leave 2025 behind and get into 2026. I should forewarn you that The Spins for January are going to be special. I found some music lists that I physically wrote while clearing out a filing cabinet. One is a year-end list from 2014 and the other is a notepad of short reviews from 2018. For The Spins, I’m going to go through them and recommend the good albums from them. I have already started listening to the things I didn’t remember from them, and boy howdy, there’s a reason I don’t remember them. That said, some of these choices are, to be extremely modest, just fantastic.

For the long post, I don’t know. They will be women-centered because February is looking very masculine, so I want to offset it a bit. I have no idea who I will talk about. I only got this far in my process. You’ll see what I came up with next week when the next dispatch comes out. Until then, tell a friend about this project and take care of yourselves and each other. And, as always, pet a dog or cat if they are cool with it.