A playlist for 2025

Most every day I’m listening to new music, but only sometimes does it feel like there’s something to say about it. And just because I’m not going to dance about this particular architecture doesn’t make it not worth sharing.

So here are links to a playlist of what I’m loving most from the year so far, at any point. Sometimes it will be songs from the albums I write about here, sometimes it will be songs from upcoming albums or one-off songs worth hearing, but always I’ll be updating it weekly (at least) all year long.

2025, the songs:
Spotify
Apple Music

Below, excellent new albums from Klein and Ocean Moon, plus an experimental sojourn by Mattie Barbier from last November that didn’t hit right until just now, when I (we?) really need it. Also, a mix that gets better every time I listen to it.

Klein, thirteen sense

From start to finish, this has to be the best album I’ve heard in a long, long time. I’d call it shoegaze adjacent, but it’s so much more than that—metal-gaze, ambient-gaze, everything-gaze—it’s charting new waters for sure. Fuzzy, damaged, and courageous, it’s already an album of the year contender. / Bandcamp

Mattie Barbier, paper blown between the spaces in my ribs

Airy, longform textures like this aren’t typically my thing, but I got lost in here and came out thinking that maybe I’d cracked a genre a little outside my typical fare—or I was just looking for a reason to get lost, and this did it. / Bandcamp

Ocean Moon, Ways to the Deep Meadow

It’s Music From Memory’s first release of the year, and it’s a stunner. Lush and imperfect in all the best ways. If you don’t trust me, trust the science: I felt measurably better after I heard it. / Bandcamp, Boomkat

A gauzy mix

I can’t recommend this swirly, escapist set from Newworldaquarium enough—plus, more Ocean Moon. / dublab