Dec. 27, 2025
I was working on a list of my favorite recordings from 2025, but it was starting to get way out of hand. Too much good music! In order to make it more digestible, it makes sense to put all of the releases by Pacific Northwest artists in a separate post. Besides, I love to be a cheerleader for the home team. I'm constantly astonished by the remarkable quantity and quality of adventurous music we have in the region, and I'm proud to be associated with so many excellent artists.
So here's a sampling of 30+ albums from this year that grabbed my attention. Apologies to anyone I missed. Some of these artists no longer live in the region, though they did at one time; a couple of them have never lived here, but they visited and made beautiful music with the local crew. I'm happy to claim all of them as ours and show them off.
elijah jamal asani - as long as i long to memorize your sky (LP/Digital; AKP Recordings)
This Portland artist spent two months at an artist residency at the Grand Canyon. He brought home with him the recorded shards of the many sounding things he encountered there, and mingled them with piano and synths and other things less easily identified. These elements weave together organically in a way that is simultaneously haunting and comforting, an afterimage of his profound experience in that extraordinary landscape.
Heather Bentley - Chthonic (Digital; no label)
Bentley is a go-to string player in the worlds of classical, improvisation, and any number of other scenes in the Seattle area. In fact, she shows up on a few albums in this list. She's got the chops to play the most complex through-composed music, but she can also wail with the outest free players. This album of chamber works is her debut as a composer in the contemporary classical idiom, and it's great to hear her step forward. People who consider themselves to be allergic to "modern music" will find the harmonies juicy but not overly atonal, and the rhythms engaging. This isn't music that fits neatly within any particular -ism, but comes from the heart. If you like artists like Rachel Grimes, this should do nicely.
Noel Brass, Jr. - Piano Loft Sessions (Digital; no label)
The mastermind behind the freeform instrumental trio Afrocop also keeps very busy as a solo artist. His latest features a series of spontaneously composed etudes in which the piano – both acoustic and electric – meanders contentedly through fields of electronic mist. There's no hurry. It's less about reaching a certain destination and more about the journey and what he discovers along the way.
Brown Calvin - colors for closed eyes (Digital; no label)
Andre Raiah showed up at the Chapel a few years ago from Portland as a member of Roman Norfleet's Be Present Art Group, a sprawling, anarchic/ecstatic descendant of Sun Ra's Arkestra and other large-scale collectives that emerged from free jazz. His own music as Brown Calvin is very different, constructed mainly from electronic keyboards that in a way recalls Hans-Joachim Roedelius at his least pastoral. Call it ambient if you like, but there's plenty going on here to hold one's attention.
Andy Clausen - Heart of Tones: Solo Trombone at The TANK, Vol. 2 (Digital; no label)
Andy is half of the trombone section in the Westerlies (see below) and plays with Fleet Foxes and others, but he also does his own thing. This is his second volume of solos recorded in a decommissioned railroad water silo in Colorado that is now a haven for artists exploring the wonders of huge natural reverb. This places him firmly in the lineage of Seattle legend Stuart Dempster, who set the bar for playing trombone in reverberant spaces. The pieces here are mostly originals, with a few by Nico Muhly, Jeff Beal, and Pauline Oliveros, and an anonymous medieval piece. Extravagantly beautiful.
Faith Coloccia & Daniel Menche - Smelter (CD/Digital; Room40)
Faith (aka Mamiffer) lives on Vashon Island and runs the mighty SIGE label. Menche is a venerable noise maestro from Portland. The work here is based on Faith's piano and voice pieces that were given to Daniel for electronic manipulation, then mixed with hi- and lo-fi field recordings by both of them that explore the sonic textures of water in its many forms. If that sounds like a recipe for New Age fluff, think again. Most of this ends up sounding little like any of the source material. There is beauty to be found here, but also emotional intensity.
Mario Layne Fabrizio - kostochki (Digital; no label)
I met this multi-media whiz kid briefly last March when he played drums on a Carlos Snaider gig at the Chapel. He was a whirlwind of energy and ideas, but I wasn't aware of his own music until recently, when I randomly stumbled across this album. This is a different kind of chamber music – loose, mercurial, rough around the edges, with influences ranging from Feldman and Rudhyar to Braxton and the AACM. Not sure as to the ratio of composed to improvised but it probably doesn't matter. An excellent surprise!
Eliana Glass - E (CD/LP/Digital; Shelter Press)
Born in Australia and now living in New York, pianist/singer Eliana Glass says she was "raised in Seattle." I don't know when or for how long she lived here, but I'm fine with calling her family. These hushed and spacious ballads recall enigmatic jazz chanteuses like Annette Peacock and Patty Waters. You could say these songs all sound similar and you wouldn't be wrong, but why break the spell?
Vinny Golia Chamber Quintet - New Chamber Idiom (Digital; Sonic Action)
Multi-reed player Vinny Golia is a legendary elder of the L.A. improvised music community. He visited Seattle last April for this gig at the Chapel with a group of top-shelf local improvisers, some of whom appear elsewhere on this list. I suspect he'd encountered Steph Richards (trumpet) and Aniela Perry (cello) when they lived in L.A., but I'm guessing this was his first time playing with Kelsey Mines (bass) and Neil Welch (saxes). In any case, they managed to coalesce into a mighty improvising chamber ensemble, though that sounds considerably more genteel than it is in practice. No shortage of wild abandon here.
Lori Goldston - Open Space (CD/Digital; Relative Pitch)
Intense solo amplified cello drone, recorded as a potential soundtrack for a very slow-moving video installation of light gradually changing over a vast canyon by filmmaker Jon Jost. I don't know if Jost decided to use it for the final installation or not, but it stands on its own as a massive sonic slab to be reckoned with.
Jeff Greinke - Late Rain (CD/Digital; Projekt)
Greinke was a pioneer of Seattle ambient and free improv in the 80s. He also led a fusion-y band called Land and had a dreamy duo project with Sky Cries Mary singer Anisa Romero called Hana. He's been based in Tucson for many years now, but still comes back regularly to visit and record. In recent years he's been integrating more improvisers into his vision, and for this album - his 25th! - he recruited some of Seattle's finest. It's a successful blend of tranquil atmospheric soundscapes and fiery playing, with a toe in the jazz world yet still very much in the ambient camp.
Doug Haire - Winks + Farmer to Farmer (Digital; no label)
Field recordings are now ubiquitous. Every third album I hear has a twittery dawn chorus or burbling stream or soothing surf or peeping frogs mixed in with the muffled piano and mellow synths. Doug is up to something entirely different. He's not a documentarian and he generally avoids musical instruments. Instead, he uses location recordings to conjure surreal cinematic scenarios straight out of your dreams. The only explanatory note accompanying one of these albums says,"Right you are." I take that to mean that any interpretation or meaning listeners may glean for themselves is correct.
Robin Holcomb & Peggy Lee - Reno (CD/Digital; Songlines)
Robin is among my favorite singing poets/composers/piano improvisers. It's a pleasure to hear her revisit some of her back catalog in the company of the fantastic Vancouver cellist Peggy Lee. The two have a long history of working together, and this documentation of them as a duo is welcome and overdue. Come for the new take on some songs you may already know and love, stay for the instrumentals and improvisations.
Anna Homler - Reverie (CD/Digital; Right Brain)
This wild woman who sings in an invented language lives in L.A., but she came up to Seattle in 2008 to record with a bunch of great local improvisers (and me) and the result is beautiful and strange and not quite what any of us were expecting. It took 17 years to finally find a label willing to release it, but it still sounds like it could have happened last month. I have no idea what she's singing, yet I understand it implicitly.
Wayne Horvitz - Music for Ten Musicians (Digital; Other Room)
Personally, I love Wayne's work when he's in chamber music composer mode and this is a fine example, featuring a fantastic line-up of musicians. As a way of balancing composed and improvised elements, each movement features one of the musicians as a soloist within the context of a trio. The music is generally quiet and introspective, but the focus and energy of high-level improvisation remains consistent throughout.
Christopher Icasiano - All of it, Derailed (CS/Digital; Ghost Mountain)
Chris is one of the hardest working drummers in town. Bad Luck, his long-standing duo with saxophonist Neil Welch, is a wonder to behold. But he's also playing with Fleet Foxes, Tomo Nakayama, and just about any other ad hoc configuration that might arise in these parts. His solo work tends to focus on unrelenting drumming patterns that gradually evolve over their duration, miraculously ending up in a place that is completely different than where he began. You could almost call it minimalist, except it's not at all.
Steve Layton - Ever Days (Digital; NiwoSound)
Layton is the most prolific composer I know. His catalog is so vast and his output so rapid, I can hardly keep up. Dude released 19 albums on BandCamp this year! It's all interesting and quite varied, so it's hard to single out just one. Fans of dubstep, ambient, downtempo, or abstract electroacoustic music will find plenty to enjoy on any of them. This one has a kind of trip-hop vibe at first, thanks to the sultry vocals of Sandy Dunes. Then all hell breaks loose and things get very weird. It's as good a place as any to jump in, though I also recommend Beacon.
Luna Moss - Dosti (Digital; no label)
Yeah, early punk was fun and exciting, but musically I've always preferred post-punk and its various offspring, much of which I still listen to. So when I hear echoes of that in current bands like Luna Moss I don't think of it as retro nostalgia, but as part of an ongoing continuum. Singer/bassist Char Easter has legit roots in that era, having fronted the all-female band Common Language back in the 80s and 90s. She and her bandmates come to this sound authentically, carrying it forward while taking into account post-post-punk developments.
Robert Millis - Interior Music (LP/Digital; Discrepant)
The latest solo outing from the taller half of Climax Golden Twins and Sublime Frequencies co-conspirator feels a bit like a musical seance. Ethereal tones, ghostly disembodied voices, decaying musical fragments... It's all very mysterious and haunted. But the ghosts seem friendly enough and they have good taste, so sit back and join the party.
Kelsey Mines - Everything Sacred, Nothing Serious (CD/Digital; OA2/Origin)
I'm most familiar with Kelsey as a free improvising bassist/vocalist and as part of EarthtoneSkytone, her interesting songwriting project from last year with guitarist Carlos Snaider. So I was surprised by this new album, a collection of original contemporary jazz tunes, some with a Brazilian tinge. The band is tight and the music is lovely. She's moving to NY soon, and Seattle will be sorry to lose her.
Kassa Overall - CREAM (CD/LP/Digital; Warp)
In the 1990s it was not unusual for hip hop artists to sample classic jazz records, pointing listeners back to the vital roots of Great Black Music. Maybe this is jazz returning the favor – an album of covers of hip hop classics from the 90s, though it also draws heavily on the original songs those artists sampled. While it's interesting to be able to reference all those songs and original sources, that isn't at all necessary to enjoy this. Tight, funky grooves, fierce soloing, and intense group dynamics make this a thrilling listen on its own.
Tomo Nakayama - Ocean (CD/Digital; Porchlight Records/Den Tapes)
In the wake of Melonday, his 2020 foray into full-fledged electronic pop, Tomo returns here to singer-songwriter guitar troubadour world. But it's not a total retreat back into familiar territory. Though the synths are less out front now, a certain amount of the big production grandeur has carried over. And there's gorgeous pedal steel flourishes and a lovely duet with Tiny Vipers. In fact he's surrounded by friends here, and the vibe is cozy dinner party. And Tomo's falsetto never fails to stab me in the heart.
Raica - The Absence of Being (CD/Digital; Quiet Details)
Chloe Harris (aka Raica) has contributed so much to the electronic music scene, both locally and internationally. This album is her love letter to dear ones who have departed this realm. As such, it may lean towards ambient introspection but it isn't all somber dirges. Plenty of burbling bouncy bits weave in and out of the drift and drone, reminding us that Chloe still has one foot on the dancefloor. Her other 2025 release, If Not Now, When? (Silver Threads), feels very much like a companion piece, so I recommend both.
Singulars - Spate (CD/Digital; Yield/Debacle)
The duo of Michael Sparks and Paurl Walsh is mining a vein of electronic music that defiantly inhabits a terrain between the usual sub-genres. It's too chill for IDM, too active for ambient, but not quite anything else I can put my finger on. The notes name check DJ Shadow, but I don't even hear that. But this resistance to easy placement is what catches my attention. I don't need to pigeon-hole it, but I am curious as to what they're up to. That will require further listening.
Gregg Skloff - Concentrixities (Digital; Phrenomninon)
Down in Astoria, Oregon there's a guy I don't know with an acoustic bass and a bunch of pedals making dreamy dronescapes that I can easily evaporate into. Of the four albums he released this year, this one really hits my sweet spot, but I'm also partial to Samakat Kharji Almá, which, though less varied, is like a cozy warm blanket of low end drones.
somesurprises - Year Without Spring (Digital; no label)
A follow up to Perseids, their fabulous album of 2024, this three-song EP is more shoegaze-y goodness and hopefully a hint of what's coming in 2026, a little something to hold us over. Natasha El-Sergany's heavenly vocals waft through clouds of reverb and atmospheric guitars and keyboards. My New Year's wish: Someone please book them on a double bill with Luna Moss (see above).
Three Point Circle - Fluorescent Grey (CD/Digital; Palace of Lights)
Allow me a moment of self-promotion. I'm a member of this trio project, along with old friends and Seattle ambient veterans Marc Barreca and K. Leimer (who now lives in Hawaii). We released our third album earlier this year, and I'm really pleased with it. I'd like it even if I wasn't involved.
Talk Show (Steph Richards & Qasim Naqvi) - Miss America (LP/Digital; We Jazz)
Trumpeter Steph Richards is a fairly recent arrival to Seattle, and I hope she sticks around. This set of improvised duets with Dawn of Midi drummer and modular synth player Qasim Naqvi was recorded in real time, with no overdubs and minimal post-production funny business. The horn sounds electronic at times, and the electronics are restrained. Their dialog strikes just the right balance of energetic and subdued, density and openness.
Sumi Tonooka/Alchemy Sound Project - Under the Surface (CD/Digital; Alchemy Sound Project)
This inventive pianist was living in Seattle for a few years, and I was sorry when she moved back East a while ago. But she still has some connections here, as represented by local trumpeter Samantha Boshnack on this recording. The rest of the band seems to come from all over the map, but they coalesce into a solid unit on this album. There are some subtle nods to past masters – angular melodies a la Monk, lush harmonies that remind me of Ellington – but the music remains firmly rooted in the present, with an ear to the future.
The Westerlies - Paradise (CD/LP/Digital; Westerlies)
I'm a big fan of the Sacred Harp tradition – early American religious hymns written with differently shaped note heads to help facilitate sight singing by amateurs. It's a tradition that still survives, especially in the South and New England, with large groups congregating for all-day singing sessions and living composers adding new pieces to the repertoire. The harmonies are often unusual and the tunes haunting, which appeals to certain adventurous musicians from outside the tradition who occasionally draw on that source material for inspiration (myself included). A brass quartet (2 trumpets, 2 trombones) with roots in Seattle but now stationed in New York, the Westerlies treat these songs with respect while their arrangements explore the possibilities they present. Just lovely.