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Part Two favourite albums of 2025 collage
Welcome to the second part of Song Bar favourite albums of 2025. There is also a first part and a third part this week. There is no countdown nor describing these necessarily as “best” albums of the year, but they are chosen by their quality, originality and reader popularity
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First selection of 25 favourite albums in no particular order …
Welcome to the first part of Song Bar favourite albums of 2025. There will also be a second and third part this week. There is no countdown nor describing these necessarily as “best” albums of the year, but they are chosen by their quality, originality and reader popularity
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Tortoise: Touch
New album: A welcome return with a cinematic and mesmeric groove-filled first studio LP in nine years, and the eighth over all by the eclectic Chicago post-rock/jazz/krautrock multi-instrumentalists Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire and Jeff Parker
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Danny Brown: Stardust
New album: The seventh album by the Detroit experimental, eclectic hip-hop and hyper-pop artist pushes the envelope with some extraordinary, dynamic sounds, dance music with warp-speed, slick rapping and multiple guests through an invented “90s-era pop star” persona called Dusty Star
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Hannah Frances: Nested In Tangles
New album: Following her acclaimed 2024 album Keeper of the Shepherd, the Vermont-based composer, vocalist, guitarist, and poet returns with a truly entrancing, beautiful wild garden of tumbling polyrhythmic experimental folk-jazz-prog, packed with complex stories and emotions grown through finger-picked guitar, wind, brass and string arrangements
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Poptones: Pure
New album: Dynamic, mysterious, dark, stormy, whispered and explosive, a truly striking, mercurial, rich sonic soundscape of the angular, beautiful and dissonant and thematic perceptions of reality distorted by the experimental rock band from Copenhagen
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Titanic: HAGEN
New album: Following their 2023 debut Vidrio, the Mexico City-based partners Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti and guitarist Hector Tosta return with another mesmeric, exciting and highly eclectic experimental album, moving here from jazz into more pop and classic rock in combinations yet unheard
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Caroline 2
New album: The London eight-piece experimental group return three years after their self-titled debut, with a stop-start, meandering, sometimes challenging but also magical album of interweaving vocals and analogue instruments – guitars, trombone, violins and more, but also electronica – and a guest appearance from Caroline Polachek
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UMMA, the fourth album by Ecuador’s Don Bolo
New album: Striking, otherworldly, ghostly, evocatively cinematic and powerful experimental instrumentals by the band from Quito, Ecuador, this fourth LP is inspired by the work of Dune author George Herbert as well as the dark, dystopian events of modern times
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da Googie + Cary Tivey: The Golden Thread
New album: A mesmeric, cutting-edge, experimental tapestry of dark, magical, musical textures and songs by an English duo of seasoned, innovative collaborators – My Bloody Valentine bass player Deb Googe, and pianist and composer Cara Tivey in a superb debut LP together
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The second part of our favourite albums of 2024
Favourite albums of 2024: Welcome to The Song Bar’s favourite albums of 2024 Part 2. Part 1 can be found here. There’s no such thing as ‘best of’ and everything is subjective, but please dig into this rich seam of originality and quality, and even suggest more of your own
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This year’s selections include some returning veterans at the top of their game as well as some fabulous newcomers
Favourite albums of 2024: Welcome to The Song Bar’s favourite albums of 2024 Part 1. There’s no such thing as ‘best of’ and everything is subjective, but rich seams of originality and quality are certainly here to be enjoyed. Peruse away …
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Aphex Twin: Music From The Merch Desk (2016-2023)
Album review: A decade since his last album, Syro, electronica’s brilliant British outsider and pioneer Richard D James returns with a surprise fan-pleaser, a mass compilation release of 38 numbers played at festivals, and previously only on limited-edition vinyl sold at the merch desk of select events
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Image inside a carriage of sound from E.U.E.R.P.I’s 1971 album
New album: A truly evocative, alternative experimental project of the Bulgarian composer Mirian Kolev from Tryavna, here combining music with detailed field recordings of an old Soviet train, one still running on trips along the Bulgarian railway line Gabrovo-Tsareva Livada
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Angel Olsen and various: Cosmic Waves Volume 1
New album: A novel form of “compilation reimagined as a dialogue” LP by the acclaimed, serene-voiced American singer-songwriter, showcasing five different lesser-known artists on Side A, and then covering other songs by them on Side B
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Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp: Ventre Unique
New album: Wonderfully energetic, rhythmic stylish, inventive and witty sixth album by the 12-piece experimental Geneva collective who sing politically in French and English, their music decorated with oodles of of clever brass, violins, double-bass, marimbas, percussion and more
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Warmduscher - Too Cold To Hold
New album: The mischievous mayhem post-punk band of Clams Baker Jr.), Mr. Salt Fingers Lovecraft, Quicksand, The Witherer, Three Piece aka the Worm and Bleucifer return with more songs on the seedier side of life, but also one of their most musically adventurous LPs of their five, with guest vocalists including Lianne La Havas, Janet Planet and Coucou Chlo
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The Smile: Cutouts
New album: Following January’s Wall of Eyes, the trio of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke, alongside Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, return with a second LP this year, and third overall – of intricacy and invention – with dark, moody lyrics, and musical excellence
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Nala Sinephro: Endlessness
New album: Mesmeric, experimental new work and the follow-up to 2021’s meditative Space 1.8 LP by the Brussels-born, London-based pedal harpist who mixes jazz and electronica and with extraordinary and unconventional results
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Spirit of the Beehive: You'll Have To Lose Something
New album: Pennsylvania’s and Portugal’s Zack Schwartz, Corey Wichlin, and Rivka Ravede return with another bewildering collection of abstract, feverish dream weirdest deconstructionist experimental rock, with a collection of 12 songs that at times feel more like a hundred
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