Another good year for music, with lots of great, absorbing albums hitting many of my long-time ‘musical sweet spots’. So, a mix of rock, pop and jazz but always with mood and atmosphere.
Let’s start with my #10.
10. Rosalía – LUX
A clever, elegant, and inventive album that pushes all kinds of boundaries yet avoids the temptation to go maximal. Rosalía blends global influences with sharp production and emotional sensitivity. It’s a reinvention of modern pop made by an artist who refuses to take the easy route. The Guardian called it ‘a demanding, distinctive clash of classical and chaos that couldn’t be by anyone else’. Pity I don’t speak Spanish!
One-liner: Experimental global-pop modernism – inventive, lean, and full of confidence.
9. Lady Gaga – MAYHEM
A return to full strength. MAYHEM is big, deliberate, and executed with a level of control only a handful of artists ever reach. The production is tight, the hooks land, and Gaga plays with persona and sound without losing the emotional core. Pitchfork wrote: ‘Lady Gaga returns to pop with the larger-than-life sound. She delves into the inner turmoil of fame while reminding you why she’s earned it’.
One-liner: Art-pop perfection – ambitious, sharp, and completely in command.
8. Tortoise – Touch
The band re-establish their relevance (did it ever go away?) without trying to sound ‘current’. The album has a unique instrumental architecture: clean lines, clever rhythmic shifts, and that unmistakable ‘Chicago’ sense of space. Uncut wrote that ‘These songs are full to bursting with sounds and ideas, suggesting a kind of wide-eyed maximalism, as though nothing is off limits except silence. Yet, like the best Tortoise albums, Touch still sounds carefully edited and precisely shaped. There is always method to their madness’. For me, an album that feels good from every angle and rewards repeated listening.
One-liner: Instrumental architecture – sharp, intelligent, and unmistakably Tortoise.
7. Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke – Tall Tales
A surprisingly intimate record built on minimalism, texture, and Thom’s ability to make fragility sound deliberate rather than, well, fragile. Mark’s production is precise and inventive. Mojo’s review was however a bit existential: ‘There isn’t that much hope on Tall Tales. It ends with the fluting white-out drift of ‘Wandering Genie‘, Yorke’s layered voice finally vanishing into beautiful abstraction, leaving whatever’s left to the monsters. ‘Everything is out of our hands’, he sings on ‘The White Cliffs‘, but when it comes to nameless dread, at least Yorke and Pritchard have a firm grasp on the situation’. Existential but probably accurate. This isn’t Radiohead-by-other-means; it’s smaller, tighter, and very focused. Oh, and quite beautiful.
One-liner: Architectural minimalism – subtle, precise, and emotionally controlled.
6. Maribou State – Hallucinating Love
Maribou State return with an album that feels effortless: warm, textural, atmospheric, and rhythmically grounded. Nothing is showy; everything is in service of mood and space. The NME review noted: ‘In 2022, Davids was diagnosed with a rare brain condition called Chiari malformation, which he revealed last year, that impacted productivity in the studio (he’s since successfully undergone surgery). Hallucinating Love was born out of these dark, anxiety-ridden periods, looking towards the future with hope. While the overarching sound feels like a safe but natural step forward from its predecessor, Hallucinating Love shines in its short-lived instrumental breaks, be it the spiritual piano and cello in ‘Passing Clouds’ or the John Frusciante-esque guitar solo in closer ‘Rolling Stone’. It’s the kind of record you think is simple until you try to describe why it works so well. I’ve had this on serious repeat in ’25, and it was almost my #1.
One-liner: Atmospheric spatialism – immersive, balanced, and beautifully assembled.
5. Joe Armon-Jones – All the Quiet (Part II)
A deep, atmospheric record that blends jazz harmony, dub, and electronic detail. A founding member of Ezra Collective, Joe has always had groove, but here he adds structure and (maybe) patience. In an interview with Music Radar, Joe said ‘While it’s a great thing that there’s a low bar for people getting into music and into production, it’s not great that less people are trying to perfect their art’. So Joe set out to rectify that with a beautifully produced ‘SciFi’ double. The music feels like a world you can actually walk into – a proper headphone album with lots to listen to, including a host of quality guest artists.
One-liner: Architectural groove – rich, spacious, and quietly confident.
4. FKA twigs – EUSEXUA
Twigs remains one of the most inventive artists working today. EUSEXUA is sculptural: vocals, beats, and textures arranged like objects in a very deliberate space. It’s experimental without being alienating, sensual without slipping into cliché. Mojo wrote that it is ‘an album that treats the body as an instrument, and sound as something to be physically inhabited’. Echoes of Björk, maybe, but it is hard to mistake this music for anyone else. Her most complete album to date.
One-liner: Sculptural avant-pop – daring but rooted in real musical intelligence, never indulgent.
3. Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo
Emma-Jean fuses brass, synths, funk, jazz, and spoken moments with a sense of personality that never feels over-bearing. The grooves have weight, the arrangements are playful, and the album moves from track to track with purpose. The Guardian review called the album ‘A fearless fusion of jazz, funk and electronic soul, powered by personality and precision’. For me, it hits hard without shouting – powerful jazz funk for today, executed with real musical craft.
One-liner: Powerful poetic funk – bold, joyful, and tightly put together.
2. Big Thief – Double Infinity
Big Thief summon up atmosphere with restraint rather than volume. The songs feel lived-in, observed, and softly intense, delivered with that painterly touch Adrianne Lenker has made her signature. Pitchfork called it ‘Quietly radical songwriting – intimate, observant, and deeply human’. I am not always taken by the words in songs, but for this I’ll make an exception. Pour yourself a good scotch and sit back. It’s an album that rewards your undivided attention but doesn’t demand it – a rare balance.
One-liner: Painterly songwriting, delivered with quiet confidence and emotional clarity.
1. Alfa Mist – Roulette
Alfa Mist stretches out confidently here, mixing jazz, electronic texture, and a sense of improvisation that never loses direction. The writing is sharp, the rhythm section is more deliberate than his earlier albums, and the production is clean without being sterile. Mojo called it ‘A confident expansion of Alfa Mist’s language – spacious, exploratory, and assured’. The Guardian reckoned that it is ‘Jazz that thinks structurally as well as emotionally’. Either way, it is the sound of an artist progressing without repeating himself – continuously exploring and finding new spaces to inhabit. A standard bearer for the ongoing British re-invention of Jazz.
One-liner: Continuously exploring – his most complete and forward-looking record yet.
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If you’d like some more, here’s my Top 30, with the Apple Music Playlist. Looking back over the years that I have been doing this list, I think this might be my favourite collection so far. Huge thanks to all my music-loving friends who suggested all kinds of new albums in 2025 – especially Jono Slack. And a big shout-out to the team at Raves from the Grave for their unerring good taste in suggesting new music – the best record store, anywhere.
