Yet again I came up on December worried that there'd be a scrawny list this year, trying to remember any releases I was excited about, and then as I considered it I kept remembering more and more.
Djrum – Under Tangled Silence
April 25
There's no reason for me to try and sum this record up in one adjective, but I think "beautiful" is probably what I'd choose if I had to. There's so much complexity here—interwoven melodies and keys, dynamic mixing, strange one-off background noises and fluorishes—and yet at no point does it lose sight of the whole, or stop moving at an engaging pace. This is a gorgeous ambient album for relaxing or working, enjoyable in its coarse structures, but the more attention you pay the more rewarding of a listen it becomes.
Claude Lavender – Pure Lavender
May 13
Listening to Pure Lavender for the first time, every single track gave me the feeling of discovery typically reserved for finding an incredible song on the soundtrack of a video game you've never heard of. Sure enough, a couple of them interpolate chords and melodies from Boku No Tennis Jinsei for the Dreamcast and Flying Warriors for NES, neither of which I knew existed. Both of these are great, and the original work on this album is equally lovely: fuzzy, warm synthesizer work reminiscent of early Jerry Paper, catchy hooks backed up by just enough mass. It's all sort of unstuck in time without screaming "retro" and lighthearted without veering into silliness. This is an album that, simply put, makes me smile to listen to.
Ninajirachi – I Love My Computer
NLV Records / August 8
There is a lot to say about I Love My Computer: its raw emotional edge, its undertones of virtual self-perception and childhood Internet exploration, its earnest joyfulness. On my first listen I was blown away by just the sound of it: Data Airlines-esque synths and sawteeth and compressed kicks that feel alone like they could have been plundered from peak-era Monstercat releases, but fused together in a slick and seamless envelope with an intention and skill that goes well beyond pastiche. The sonic palette is, of course, part of the text: from the pretty surface-level reminiscences of iPod Touch to the more nuanced investigation of technology poisoning on tracks like Delete, this album is up-and-down a story about the incredible things exposure to the Internet can do for a young person, and the ways that our real and virtual selves can grow and change differently.
FM Skyline & Equip – Music 2
100% Electronica / March 14
I love an album that builds a srange little world to hang out in. Between FM Skyline's impeccable MIDI craft and Equip's talent for carving out deep grooves, Music 2 is a winner, whipping between over-the-top CD-ROM bangers and sprawling, lush soundbaths. There are so many great sounds in here, leads and samples and pads that—despite their obvious 90s influence—don't really sound like anything I've heard before. Might be a contender for my favorite cover of the year, too.
Tres Leches – The Smooth Sounds of Tres Leches, LHCC Mart Vol. 1
Brainfeeder / August 15
Look, I am a huge unironic enjoyer of Smooth Jazz, no matter how corny or dated-sounding. So while I can admit the idea behind Tres Leches is silly (great modern psychedelic band Hiatus Kaiyote covering their own songs in the style of Weather Channel easy-listening beds), I also straight-up love it. The unconventional chord choices and progressions of the original tracks lend these softened versions an unpredictability that elevates them above the sea of vintage background noise they're imitating, taking classic ingredients (reverbed saxophone, Yamaha DX7 patches, nylon guitar) and molding them into a new, weird, highly enjoyable shape. I listened to this two or three times in a row the day it came out.
Wednesday – Bleeds
September 19
This is probably the one album on this list that you'll see on [really annoying guy voice] mainstream year-end roundups, and it does fall kind of far outside my typical zone, but spent a lot of the year growing on me. I once heard someone say that all music can be charted on an axis from loving your hometown (radio country) to hating your hometown (midwest emo). Bleeds bends that axis together to pierce both ends like someone explaining wormholes in a movie; it's a slice of the rural experience that skips the posturing and an inventory the ennui-haunted shuffle of young adulthood in the 2020s: grocery-store sushi, Narcan, the "angel hum of an electric car." Raw and striking vocals from Karly Hartzman (owner of a great website) are cushioned by backing tracks full of steel-pedal and MJ Lenderman, a blend that flows with 70s smoothness on a rambling ballad like Gary's II and spins nearly apart on harder tracks like Pick Up That Knife. We got to see Wednesday live in November and it's easily the best show I went to this year.
Up next is some stuff I missed when it came out but really got into this year, which given my slow rate of finding stuff is only a fair concession to myself.
US Golf 95 – 天気ジェネリック1
September ‘21
I don't think I'll alienate you by saying that 2025 was a pretty tough year. Critically, it contained a lot of late nights feeling crummy or avoiding feeling crummy, and that's when this record was there for me. It's pretty strike-zone vaporwave: dusty, cheap jazz samples filtered into a textural collage that feels like remembering something you heard years ago. From that fog emerges something at once sweet, sad and a little unnerving: shades of satellite TV, waiting rooms, bureaucratic phone mazes, but also the human impulse to inject some comfort and peace into the most banal experiences—something I know I needed a dose of this year, and maybe you did too.
Jun Chikuma – Bomberman Hero Original Soundtrack
June ‘98
This is my top album of 2025 in terms of raw listening minutes. I got off Spotify and into collecting mp3s this year, so I added some game soundtracks to my library that aren't streamable. This is one you always hear people refer to as one of the greats, and they are right. I don't think I will ever bother to play Bomberman Hero on the N64 but I'm so glad it got made so it could carry this insanely crisp, wildly futuristic-sounding drum & bass album into the world.
Thanks for reading this. I hope you dig these records as much as I did. If you think I missed something this year I'd like, send it my way!
Script courtesy of Luke Haas.
Type set in Neue Montreal by Mat Desjardins.