mid-year picks 2025
How did we get half way through this year already?
Forget the already part, and cue up the Barry Manilow, because it looks like we made it. When you’ve had enough of Barry, here are seven other things to listen to, if you haven’t already. Roughly in order of release date, these are some of my favourites so far this year. There’s been some nice looking slices of vinyl this year!
Luster Maria Somerville (4AD)
Luster swirls with cool spectral pop for chunky wool sweater days.
Abyss Anika (Sacred Bones)
Abyss is dark and urgent, wrestling with the unsettling contradictions of self and society.
The Glass Curtain Billow Observatory (felte)
Waves of sonic light, diffract with frayed but delicate interference on The Glass Curtain.
In the Depths Silver Y (Bytes)
Exploring the theme of identity loss and death, In the Depths is an expansive range of emotive electronica that haunts, calms, uplifts and relieves.
LF29 / Charing Cross Underground Xqui (Mortality Tables)
“Charing Cross Underground” is a 15-minute haunted micro-dosing experience in the London Underground. Companion piece “Reverb Underground” doubles the dose. The two tracks are part of the Mortality Tables LIFEFILES series of creative exchanges.
Bowerbirds and Blue Things Jetstream Pony (Spinout Nuggets / Shelflife Records)
Bowerbirds and Blue Things stealthily infuses 60s Byrds-esque guitars and “Leader of the Pack” monologues into driving indie power pop.
Swallow Steve Queralt (Sonic Cathedral)
Full of anticipatory atmospheres and cinematic twists that quietly splinter or dramatically crack open, Swallow is cool and mysterious.
Two others I adore but did not include in the list are The Cure’s Mixes of a Lost World and Chapterhouse’s White House Demos, I suppose because they are songs from 1989 and 2024. 2025 feels like the revival year of the remix. The comfort of the familiar with the excitement of a new angle seems fitting for the time. And “See That Girl” is just hot damn. “Thanks” to Rough Trade EU for effing up my order, prompting me to buy a copy while in London, only to receive my original order when I got home.
