Dec. 28, 2025
You may have already seen my list of Pacific Northwest favorites from the other day. Here's a bunch of music I enjoyed from the rest of the world this year. I don't have it in me to write pithy descriptive blurbs for all of these, so instead I've arranged them by broad categories.
Speaking of which: It becomes clearer to me all the time that genre is an increasingly obsolete concept. Yes, it can sometimes still be useful as a kind of shorthand, but so many of the boundaries between different styles of music are being blurred that putting things in tidy little boxes becomes meaningless and irrelevant. And really, isn't a lot of the most interesting music the stuff that is hardest to pin down? Not surprisingly, that's where a lot of the music on this list lands. So dig in!
Songs (in English)
Maddie Ashman (UK) - otherworld (CD/LP/Digital; no label)
Beverly Glenn-Copeland (Canada) - What's Going On / Save the Children (Digital; no label)
Lucy Liyou - Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name (CD/LP/Digital; Orange Milk)
Ken Pomeroy - Cruel Joke (CD/LP/Digital; Rounder)
Songs (mostly not in English)
Atletas (Brazil) - Reflexão Meteórica (CS/LP/Digital; Transamericas)
Francis Beybey (Cameroon) - Trésor Magnétique (LP/Digital; Africa Seven)
Sonya Belaya (US/Russia) - Dacha (Digital; no label)
Lucrecia Dalt (Colombia/US) - A Danger to Ourselves (CD/LP/Digital; Rvng Intl.)
ganavya - Nilam (LP/Digital; Leiter)
Salif Keita (Mali) - So Kono (CD/LP/Digital; No Format)
Madala Kunene & Sibusile Xaba (South Africa) - kwaNTU (CD/LP/Digital; Mushroom Hour Half Hour/New Soil)
Antonina Nowacka (Poland/Italy) - Lamunan (CS/LP/Digital re-issue; Mondoj)
Araz Salek (Iran/Canada) - Peripheries of Nahavand (CD/DIgital; Worlds Within Worlds)
Massimo Silverio (Italy) - Surtùm (LP/Digital; Okum)
ZÖJ (Iran/Australia) - Give Water to Birds (CD/LP/Digital; Bleeemo)
Various (Ethiopia) - Elders of the Begena: The Harp of David in Ethiopia and The World Is But a Place of Survival: Begena Songs from Ethiopia (CS/LP; Death Is Not the End)
Global (mostly instrumental)
Bill Brennan & Andy McNeill (Canada) - Dreaming in Gamelan (CD/Digital; no label)
Ensemble Nist-Nah (Australia/France) - Spilla (CD/LP/Digital; Black Truffle)
Kwashibu Area Band (Ghana) - Love Warrior's Anthem (Digital; no label)
Putu Septa (Indonesia) - Piwal (CD/Digital; Other Minds)
Tar Bo Naiang (Myanmar) - Patya Thit (Digital; Rollers)
Electronic
Joy Guidry - Five Prayers (Digital; no label)
Rani Jambak (Indonesia) - Vibra Genetika (digital; Yes No Wave Music)
Miłosz Kędra (Poland) - their internal diapasons (CS/LP/Digital; Pointless Geometry)
Peter Knight (Australia) - For a Moment the Sky Knew My Name (CD/Digital; Room40)
Le Motel (Belgium/Vietnam) - Odd Numbers / Số Lẻ (LP/Digital; Balmat)
Mike Majkowski (Germany) - TIde (Digital; Room40)
Robin Parmar (Ireland) - Aletheia (Digital; Silent)
Yoga Nugraha Usmad (Indonesia/Germany) - Gurnida (Digital; no label)
Not Exactly Classical
Philip Blackburn - Another Intensity (CD/Digital; Neuma)
Peter Garland - Plain Songs: Love Comes Quietly (after Robert Creeley) (CD/Digital; Cold Blue)
Sarah Hennies & Tristan Kasten-Krause - The Quiet Sun (LP/Digital; Dinzu Artefacts)
Larum / Cornelius Cardew - Treatise (CD/Digital; 12K)
Scott Ordway & Lorelei Ensemble - North Woods (Digital; New Focus)
Zeena Parkins - Modesty of the Magic Thing (CD/Digital; Tzadik)
Richard Skelton (Scotland) - The Second Chamber (CD/Digital; Aeolian)
Vanessa Tomlinson (Australia) - The Edge Is a Place (Digital; Room40)
Jazz & Improvised
Tarun Balani (India) - Kadahin Milandaasin (LP/Digital; Berthold)
Daniel Carter & Ayumi Ishito (US/Japan) - Endless Season (CD/DIgital; 577)
Chris Cochrane - Unhinged (Digital; no label)
Denley Gorfinkel Farrar - Vents (CD/Digital; Relative Pitch)
Kommun (Sweden) - Kalpa (CD/Digital; Thanatosis)
Amina Claudine Myers - Solace of the Mind (CD/LP/Digital; Red Hook)
Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurik (US/Poland) - Greyhound Days (CD/LP/Digital; Mondoj)
SML - How You Been (CD/LP/Digital; International Anthem)
Web Web (Germany) - Plexus Plexus (CD/LP/Digital; Compost)
Mostly Guitars
Michael Scott Dawson (Canada) - Guitar, Solo (LP/Digital; We Are Busy Bodies)
Dead Bandit - Dead Bandit (LP/Digital; Quindi)
Michael Grigoni & Pan American - New World, Lonely Ride (CD/LP/Digital; Kranky)
Hyldýpi (Iceland) - Heilun (CS/Digital; Past Inside the Present)
JARR (UK) - Evangeline (CD/Digital; Sound in Silence)
Pan American & Kramer - Interior of an Edifice Under the Sea (LP/Digital; Shimmy Disc)
Field Recordings
Pablo Diserens (Switzerland) - ebbing ice lines (LP/Digital; Dinzu Artefacts)
Pablo Diserens & Ludwig Berger (Switzerland) - tracing basalt in the onsernone valley (CD/Digital; Vertical Music)
Brian House - Everyday Infrasound in an Uncertain World (LP/Digital; Gruenkorder)