2025

Wire 15 (13)
Tashi Dorji - we will be wherever the fires are lit (Drag City)
Dotz & DJ Goblin - Mirtazapine Dreams (True Unity)
Golem Mecanique - Siamo Tutti in Pericolo (Ideologic Organ)
Various - Aggregate: New Works for Automated Pipe Organs (Wergo)
Sumac & Moor Mother - The Film (Thrill Jockey)
Bill Nace & Evan Parker - Branches (Otoroku / Open Mouth)
Joy Guidry - 5 Prayers (Jaid)
John McKay - Sixes and Sevens (Tiny Global)
John Cage - Chamber Works 1943-1951 (Another Timbre) +498
Cerys Hafana - Angel (tak:til)
SYPH - SYPH (Tapete)
Brighde Chaimbeul - Sunwise (Tak:til)
HAYWARDxDÄLEK - HAYWARDxDÄLEK (Relapse)
Dog Soup - Fragments (Dark Circles) +502
Merzbow / Cavalera / Bernocchi - Nocturnal Rainforest (Pan) +502

record of the year
Brighde Chaimbeul - Sunwise (Tak:til)

#502

HAYWARDxDÄLEK - HAYWARDxDÄLEK (Relapse)

Drummer Charles Hayward and MC dälek unite for an album of hypothermic foghorn terror — James Gormley

#501

Brighde Chaimbeul - Sunwise (Tak:til)

Scottish smallpipes player Chaimbeul's fourth album takes a thrilling step further out. — Francis Gooding

#500

SYPH - SYPH (Tapete)

By 1981, SYPH had split, but as repayment, Czukay took out his scalpel and pieced together the swansong SYPH (Album 4). — Louis Pattison

#499

Cerys Hafana - Angel (Tak:til)

Moving between instrumental and vocal cuts, Hafana builds hugely powerful swells of feeling and atmosphere, with their virtuosity on both harp and piano allowing a push beyond avant folk toward darkling, rain-washed minimalism and sharp-eyed jazz-not-jazz. Don't sleep. — Francis Gooding

#498

John McKay - Sixes and Sevens (Tiny Global)

Who could have predicted this? Sixes And Sevens consists of 11 unreleased tracks from ex-Siouxsie & The Banshees guitarist John McKay, whose post-Banshees musical output was previously thought to be a lone 7″ with short-lived group Zor Gabor. Its mere existence is noteworthy, as is the music itself. — Claire Biddles

#497

Joy Guidry - 5 Prayers (Jaid)

Her playing sounds at one with the world, even if it’s only for this brief time. — Derek Walmsley

#496

Bill Nace & Evan Parker - Branches (Otoroku / Open Mouth)

The piece concludes after 40 breathless minutes, but in a way it feels eternal, already in progress when the record begins and stretching toward the heavens even as each musician falls silent. — Peter Margasak

#495

Sumac & Moor Mother - The Film (Thrill Jockey)

[I]n genre vernacular terms The Film (...) is probably the heaviest of the rock orientated releases Ayewa has worked on to date. — James Gormley

#494

Various - Aggregate: New Works for Automated Pipe Organs (Wergo)

Nancarrow created a dynamic repertoire of works for player piano, punching out scores on paper that, conceivably, no human could perform. Comparatively, the pipe organ contains an insane multitude of possibilities. — Peter Margasak

#493

Golem Mecanique - Siamo Tutti in Pericolo (Ideologic Organ)

Jebane’s dolorous keening over the undulating drone of her custom built hurdy-gurdy has often sounded mournful. This is the first time, to my ears, that it has sounded fearful. — James Gormley

#491/492-2

Dotz & DJ Goblin - Mirtazapine Dreams (True Unity)

[T]he palpable reality of tracks like “I Don’t Wanna Talk About It” and “Twelve Steps” impact deeper with their therapeutic barrage of hedonistic confession, cathartic nightmare and quasi-messianic fantasy. — Richard Stacey

#491/492-1

Tashi Dorji - we will be wherever the fires are lit (Drag City)

You would have to travel a long way to hear an acoustic guitar album as tough as this. — Derek Walmsley