Q1 Music Wrap - Winter 2025
a batch of words on three month's worth of music - nine projects a month and each one gets exactly three sentences
John Gardiner, 2005
January
Ethel Cain - Perverts *January 8, 2025*
She’s hitting some aggressively Grouper-esque notes in the cracks of this album’s oppressive drone weight, and parts of this may as well function as a companion piece to the film Begotten. Strongly oriented toward those who were raised to believe only in things bigger than themselves. A stained glass window at night.
Highlight: Amber Waves
Orchid Mantis - rain tape *January 24, 2025*
It’s always difficult to visit childhood textures without coming across as some kind of spiritual malingerer. Orchid Mantis manages to filter those memories without belaboring them, and as a result these songs function as successfully balanced spinning plates. Very sound addition to a very sound catalog.
Highlight: follow
Klark Sound - this is music *January 3, 2025*
He builds a series of connected reflective spaces here and keeps them sparsely furnished, preferring to let in unobstructed shadows (cast by Arthur Verocai, Osmar Milito, and oddly James Taylor). Someone once remarked of Jeff Buckley that his presence was like an open window, allowing a breeze - the same can be said of Klark, although one obviously hopes his story comes to a happier conclusion. I asked him once to draw what he’s running from and he sketched a mirror.
Highlight: in the body
Osamason - Jump Out *January 30, 2025*
So much of underground rap is submerged under the refraction patterns of post-Pierre maximalist atmosphere plugins, and the kinetic anger baked into everything Osamason has released in the past five years makes him stand out dramatically. As a project this does come off as less daring than maybe it could have been, but it’ll still probably end up being one of the most interesting things we’ll hear this year. It’s hard to describe the amount of motion this man has.
Highlight: The Whole World Is Free
FKA Twigs - EUSEXUA *January 24, 2025*
This is Twigs’ signature pitched chamber pop forced into something more cinematic than it needs to be, and because of that it comes off as more cloying than it really is. There’s a core of genuine emotion, mostly subtextually dedicated to aging and the passage of time but also intermittently to identity’s malleability. Drums of Death is a definite high point, and if the rest of the album followed suit it’d be a remarkable project but it regrettably does not.
Highlight: 24hr Dog
MIKE - Showbiz *January 31, 2025*
Great showcase of his ability to ride grooves tinged with deep discomfort and pain. Because of that, nothing particularly new aside from perhaps a differently-angled view (on songs like When It Rains or You're the Only One Watching) of the ambient sorrow we are all feeling all of the time. There’s not a lot I can say that’s not already covered by the TikTok clip circulating of a white kid performatively playing chess at one of his shows.
Highlight: Bear Trap
Mogwai - The Bad Fire *January 24, 2025*
Time’s tough to deal with. It’s deeply funny to go from impactful pieces like the moments that dot Happy Songs for Happy People to what is essentially anxiety-driven Millennial Burger Place music. This is almost redeemed by the twinkling vacuum of Fact Boy, but not quite.
Highlight: Pale Vegan Hip Pain
Asian Glow - 11100011 *January 6, 2025*
Some fantastically strong melodies slipped around and underneath alternating breakbeat lapses, belting synths and shoegazy pedal funhouses. Shin Gyeongwon benefits greatly from layered construction (Untitled*3, Dorothee Thines) and when we see him attempt things a little more structurally bare (1110011, Feel All the Time) we find him a little lacking. It’s hard to be two things at once.
Highlight: Camel8strike
Jamie xx - In Waves (Deluxe) *January 29, 2025*
In Color (2015) was probably always going to be an impossibly high watermark, and that album’s transformation via a decade’s passing into a monument for various zillennial cohorts probably proves that. Even when he’s forcing us into genuinely arresting points of contemplation (Wanna, Do Something), there’s an overriding sense of datedness to this record, and that is very easy to confuse with earnestness. Although there are some inventive flourishes like recruiting Oona Doherty for a Northern Irish rephrasing of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot and some slightly more interesting sampling than we’re used to, the end result is closer to an extended BBC Radio 5 guest set than something with gravitas.
Highlight: Daffodil
February
Yazz Ahmed - A Paradise In The Hold *February 28, 2025*
This is disjointed but extremely worthwhile series of multi-instrumental adventures contoured strongly by trumpet and synth. While there’s absolutely a formula she’s beholden to, songs like Al Naddaha and Mermaids Tears combine the hydraulic with the haunting. A sky filled with brass stars.
Highlight: Her Light
Dean Blunt, Elias Ronnenfelt - lucre *February 7, 2025*
The abyssal strings and hypnotic riffs that usually imbue his stuff with a sense of melancholic awe feel cramped and pointless cradling Ronnenfelt’s vocals. I don’t think this particular pairing is a functional complement - Blunt’s style loses something significant (unmistakably so on songs like 2) when he collabs with someone like this versus a go-to like Joanne Robertson. There is certainly an emotion here but it’s not an emotion worth feeling.
Highlight: 6
Oklou - choke enough *February 7, 2025*
choke enough alternates between a point-and-click adventure game, rainforest tree frogs adoring elementary school textbooks, and the VHS tape warp of something like a library-rented Eyewitness video (thank you for recording). These are each lovingly constructed, buoyant images of lost futures pieced together with vulnerable worry. AOTY so far for me.
Highlight: choke enough
Drake - $ome $exy $ongs 4 U *February 14, 2025*
It’s hilarious to respond to having your persona ripped to shreds in an increasingly higher-reach series of public spheres with an assortment of what may as well be PND-type beats and something as atrocious as MEET YOUR PADRE. There’s a moment midway through this on SPIDER-MAN SUPERMAN where he expresses what might pass for genuine regret over a spectral interpolation of The Real Her, one of the better cuts from Take Care, fourteen years later. He had flown too close to the sun somewhere between Passionfruit and when he started dressing like Thugnificent, and his downfall might’ve triggered some universal sensation of hubristic tragedy were it not for the pedophile certification.
Highlight: BRIAN STEEL
YAYAYI - YAYAYI SC BOL. 1 & 2 *February 24, 2025*
In these tapes YAYAYI foregoes the comedic menace and goofiness which lurked in between moments of soaring awe on the 2013 s/t for more aloof, disquieting tones. Catches loose enigmatic rays in a placid amber screen on the first volume (I Saw Her at the Golf Course), and then punches a hole through it on the second one (Geeked). Nobody can sculpt unease like this.
Highlight: Not Gonna Sleep
Elijah Fox - Ambient Works For The Highways of Los Angeles *February 14, 2025*
This is the most fully Elijah Fox has embraced synth and in the process shows that a huge component of the charm within his body of work is dependent on bare piano. Intentionally saccharine stretches on this album (Never Let Me Go) give way to more complex meditations like Pacific Coast Highway but the jarring switch between the two gives this an overarching vibe of an hours long Youtube video titled something like ‘1988 Office Ambience [MELANCHOLY]’. If you try, you can hear echoes of some of Vangelis’ moodier pieces hiding in the corners.
Highlight: 134 West
Panda Bear - Sinister Grift *February 28, 2025*
Pleasant is the best description I can find for most of these songs. Much of it drips in just as much acid as ais present in any given Anco record, and there’s certainly ample room provided to explore those textures. There’s a sense that he’s trying to communicate something extremely dire but he can’t resist shrouding it in his inner (outer) Brian Wilson.
Highlight: Defense
Sharon Van Etten - Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory *February 7, 2025*
Much of Sharon Van Etten’s material is a direct and unconcealed meditation on the diversity of ways to detach. Throughout her career we’ve seen any number of angles for tackling Bad Things, and here she’s switched out the straight-played drama of We've Been Going About This All Wrong for a kind of uplifting, bouncy Annie Lennox impression she pulls off comfortably. I’m happy for her.
Highlight: Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)
Larry June - Life Is Beautiful *February 7, 2025*
This is a slog to get through, even with 2 Chainz coming in as charisma-for-hire. Moments of actual memorable feeling like I Been and Any Day never really develop enough to escape the monotonous gravity well of Alchemist production. But the chopped & screwed version is pretty good.
Highlight: LLC
March
Evilgiane, Harto Falion - The Hurtless *March 7, 2025*
As a vehicle for showcasing evilgiane’s production this does it’s job well, but that’s about it. From syrup-drenched songs like Long story short. or i Really don't give a fuck to the more kinetic Like Lain there’s a discomforting, heady, ket quality to this album that doesn’t really evoke much other than being stuck in The Long 2017. I don’t personally enjoy that feeling anymore, but I understand the desire to.
Highlight: pH
girlpuppy - Sweetness *March 28, 2025*
There’s a lot of genuine palpable ache propelling this album. Certain touches like the twang lurking around Beaches or the twee piano discoloration of Windows feel slightly insincere. She successfully layers tight meditations on a fucked up relationship within often transcendent melodies (I Think I Did), and does so with an impressive economy of sound and language.
H: In My Eyes
Lust For Youth, Croation Amor - All Worlds *March 7, 2025*
A bit of an optimistic departure for Croatian Amor, blending an oughts space zoom with more robust material from Purient and YL Hooi. A revolving light shines through on songs like Nowhere and Fleece. It feels like something’s being illuminated, and it’s honest but not pointed or clear.
Highlight: Still Here
Men I Trust - Equus Asinus *March 19, 2025*
Despite some interesting flutters (Purple Box, The Landkeeper), not a tremendous amount of new ground tread by the band on this record. A pervasive cozy peace makes for comfortable, but uninspired listening. The slight tinges of resigned melancholy we’re allowed (What Matters Most, All My Candles) are probably the most defined negative spaces Men I Trust has drawn, and it’d be nice if we got to explore them more.
Highlight: Girl (2025)
Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) *March 21, 2025*
Surprising country twirls are embedded everywhere in this album and coalesce into sweeping whimsygoth landscapes painted by someone willing to take their experiences seriously for the first time. And for narrative reasons I guess Jeff Bridges also. Frankly, unlike many of their previous records this feels fully and painfully alive.
Highlight: Orlando In Love
Jefre Cantu Ledesma - Gift Songs *March 21, 2025*
Here he’s taking a turn into a more traditional method of storytelling, largely shifting into environments of clearly defined lines and shaded w primary colors bordering on garish. Because of that, in comparison to the impressionist tape loops and noise sketches which compose the bulk of his discography it feels less full. And less patient.
Highlight: Gift Song II
Playboi Carti - MUSIC *March 14, 2025*
A friend compared Yeezus to a kind of pre-figurative accelerationist rap, and in doing so claimed this to be Futurist trap. The speed is still there but the fragments of Capital A Atlanta he meshes in read more like signals of self-awareness than legitimate attempts to ground in something bigger. I still can’t believe he released EVIL JORDAN
Highlight: OPM BABI
Brdrml - evergreen *March 7, 2025*
Following on the excellent paradise footage series, this is a collection of collages constructed with no less attention to texture, grasping at whatever eternity is, and capacity for elaborating The Pattern than an incredible body of visual work. And like any truly great collage, resisting the urge to identify the samples scavenger-hunt style yields a form of meditation bordering on hypnosis. What’s happening to us?
Highlight: we keep moving
Fust - Big Ugly *March 7, 2025*
There’s some primitive beauty ensconced in the twangy woodworking of songs like Mountain Language and Bleached. Some of that gets lost in exaggeration, but that’s okay. It’s a fun listen.
Highlight: Sister