25 tracks I kept on replay in ‘25
The tracks that shaped my year, each a portal into albums worth exploring
2024 gave me two generational cornerstones with Cindy Lee and Kendrick Lamar.
2025 didn’t deliver a comparable watershed, top-50-all-time LP. Instead, it served a scattering of significant entry‑points.
Each of these 25 tracks pried open an album, and led me down rabbit‑holes of atmosphere and groove with unexpected turns. All but one have links to Bandcamp, the most artist‑friendly way to listen, support and collect.
Here they are INPO with short descriptions of their gusto and gravity.
Sharp Pins – (I Wanna) Be Your Girl
Jangly garage‑rock haze, a Chicago solo offshoot sharpening the edges of Lifeguard’s youthful buzz. Hooks in lo‑fi tones, and GBV nostalgia riff‑forward energy that hit me like a shot of summer in early spring.
Bandcamp →Decius, Lias Saoudi – Arctic Spring (Album Version)
Nightclub pulse with punk’s urgency, Decius fused dancefloor swagger and youthful urgency. This one track unlocked a full record layered with moody grooves and subterranean energy, my summer banger.
Bandcamp →Ale Hop, Titi Bakorta – Nitaangaza
Kampala-meets-Lima psych-ritual; swirling guitar lines echo over syrupy psych-rock textures. They culminate in a track that feels like watching dust motes move in golden afternoon light.
Bandcamp →dreamcastmoe, NAPPYNAPPA – heyyheyy
Davon Bryant-Mason twists contours of R&B, jazz and hip-hop into something playful yet astute. This cut was my compass to a series of genre-hopping experiments, mostly coherent under his crooned code.
Bandcamp →Gryphon Rue – Blue Eraser
Ambient collage that dissolves structure into ghostly fragments. It feels like listening to a memory unsplintering: eerie, beautiful and elusive.
Bandcamp →Mary Halvorson – Polyhedral
Sextet jazz with razor-sharp interplay among guitar, vibes, brass and drums. Brief but as dense as the NYC guitarist’s 2025 album on which improvisation breeds a modern architecture built to last.
Bandcamp →Gelli Haha – Spit
Alien disco-club chaos with warped analog effects and half-serious carnival-pop energy. Hearing “Spit” once was like crashing through a wall and realizing there’s a rollicking funhouse beyond, a wrecking‑ball of musical convention from the City of Angels.
Bandcamp →Surprise Chef – Bully Ball
Melbourne cinematic funk, dusted with smoke-room soul and muscle. A cocktail of ‘70s jazz-funk, DIY grit and afro-beat warmth. Recommended to fans of Clutchy Hopkins, Money Mark and Madlib.
Bandcamp →Pink Butter – Voice Memo
This Stockholm quartet bends jazz improvisation with hip-hop and soul energy. The deep-groove undercurrents on this track reminded me why spontaneous music still matters.
Bandcamp →Matthew Herbert & Momoko Gill – Babystar
Textural subtlety and emotional weight. Herbert’s tactile production meets Gill’s intimate voice to spawn clay‑like songs. This track is reminiscent of his ‘90s-‘00s house collabs with Dani Siciliano.
Bandcamp →Mdou Moctar – Funeral for Justice (Injustice Version)
Saharan guitar fury, urgent and relentless. A howl and a prayer at once. This song pulled me deep into Tuareg psychedelic tradition…updated for today’s fractures. It’s a fitting title for a year that saw the steady decline of democracy and human rights globally.
Bandcamp →Adam Fairhall & Johnny Hunter – Nicole
Sparse upright piano and snare drums channel early chamber jazz with modern tenderness. Their tribute to Mary Lou Williams reimagines musical history with affection and subtle reinvention.
Bandcamp →Rose City Band – Open Roads
Sun‑drenched Americana: guitar-forward country rock cruising toward dusty horizon lines. A song built for endless late‑night drives or quiet re‑reads of forgotten postcards.
Bandcamp →Baxter Dury – Alpha Dog
Louche London nightlife crystallized in sonic form: half‑insomnia, half‑cocktail hour melancholy. The track I dug most on the ninth studio album from an artist whose outsider wit ages weirdly well.
Bandcamp →Bios Contrast, Nilotpal Das – 115.14 Bm (Jazz Edit)
A textural collage from India that blends harmonium drones, electronic fractures, ethereal vocals and environmental noise. This sonic labyrinth demands multiple visits to fully appreciate it.
Bandcamp →The Cords – When You Said Goodbye
This Scottish sister-duo’s DIY jangle pop boasts tender melodies and lo‑fi charm that’s beautifully simple; and this track manages to feel at once new and nostalgic. What’s not to love?
Bandcamp →Brandee Younger – Breaking Point
Harp-led jazz soul that’s as spiritual as it is sparkly. Younger, Alice Coltrane’s harp in hand, bridges ancestry and the present on this track that shimmers with elegance and courage.
Bandcamp →Dictaphone – Casca il mondo
Dictaphone’a minimal post‑punk that’s somewhere between dark ambient and musique‑concrète is well captured on this track. It’s framed with ghosts of sax and violin melodies that produce a complex, global‑rooted sound. Unsettling, meditative and essential.
Bandcamp →Los Pirañas – Despectiva caridad
Bogota’s avant‑Latin jam: improvisation married to dance rhythms and dub sway. This track moves as if alive, looping, writhing and breathing. It makes me nervous in the best possible way.
Bandcamp →Bitchin Bajas – Skylarking
Meditative Chicagoland cosmic kraut drift that’s airy and weightless, like floating inside a slowly-rotating orb. Skylarking is the sonic equivalent of exhaling after a long-held breath. It’s immersive and hypnotic yet still grounding.
Bandcamp →Bb Trickz – Super
Barcelona‑bred rapper Bb Trickz is bold and unpredictable. She has a penchant for hyper‑pop with street‑corner edge. This track on a release barely long enough to be an EP was a spark that kept me ‘rewinding’.
YouTube →Maria Somerville – Stonefly
This cut from the Irish shoegazer makes me feel as though I’m drifting into a Galway fog at TR6 speed. It’s folk roots tangled with post‑punk wings. Beautiful melancholy.
Bandcamp →Milkweed – Drinking in the House of Fedlimid
Speaking of Irish roots, Milkweed’s modern folk LP earned accolades for transforming ancient tales through an experimental lens. The distorted vocals, shimmering synths and existential echo of this track’s analog elements refused to leave my headphones.
Bandcamp →JB Dunckel & Jonathan Fitoussi – Tanzanite
I stumbled on this album from AIR’s Dunckel and fellow Parisian Fitoussi while in the City of Light this summer. Their electronic minimalism has copious retro‑futurist polish, and this track’s floating rhythms and crystalline melodies create moments of pure sonic light.
Bandcamp →Ben LaMar Gay – roller stakes
Chicago composer and instrumentalist Gay weaves a percussion‑rich tapestry that’s kaleidoscopic in motion. This track brought me into a world every bit as warm as I hear the quartet’s jam sessions are.
Bandcamp →
2025’s musical register?
In a word, polychromatic. Eschewing labels. Shards of sound. Each capable of piercing the dimmest environs.
All of these tracks guided me deeper into new releases I returned to often.
If my 2024 post, Signals from the Deep, was about albums that settled like bedrock, this 2025 list captures the scatter and fracture of colors that refract.
Bright pieces. Sharp corners. Resonance…waiting to be rediscovered.
