My 2025 highlights continue. Here are bunch of albums I have categorised under "experimental", which is a cop-out way of saying "assorted genres but let's not get too hung up on labels, yeah?". Despite my laziness, it is still an excellent summary, and you should get these albums down your ears.
Adrian Sherwood – The Collapse Of Everything (On-U Sound)
Despite its apocalyptic title, Sherwood's first solo album since 2012's Survival & Resistance is an uplifting affair. It's got lashings of deeply dubby delights, more than a few jazzy soiree moments, and Brian Eno pops up on production duties for one track. The most fun moment is Spaghetti Best Western, which I guess is better than a Brown Rice Britannia.
Barker – Stochastic Drift (Smalltown Supersound)
It's nice to have Barker back for a second album. His music is sometimes called "post-club", which means chilled dance music rather than an enthusiast organisation dedicated to the Royal Mail. He keeps thinks clean and minimal, shifting and shiny, and thoroughly emotional throughout. The very definition of a headphone listen.
In Transit: In Transit (Felt)
Oh hello there. Dave Huismans appeared in two previous end-of-year blog posts: as his alias A Made Up Sound in 2016, and as 2562 way back in 2019. Nice to have him back. This album has only just come out, and develops his ex_libris work into an even deeper, duskier ambience. You'll get lost in the smokiness and the speckles of it all.
Josef Tumari – Dubovaya (DSL System)
All the way from Tashkent comes a killer collection of ambient dub, slamming house and spiritual breaks. Sublimation Collective's Josef Tumari gives us a real pick 'n' mix here, but that's part of the charm:. Once a groove lock in, it's truly transportive: his sounds and vocal use is never less than hypnotic. I'm off to check some Uzbek playlists.
Lyra Pramuk – Hymnal (7K!)
Techno, folk and classical music collide in a tasty Neapolitan ice cream mix for Pramuk's second album. The building blocks for this album are wild: a German classical music quartet, the poet Nadia Marcus, the I Ching, the artist Jenna Sutela, slime moulds, and some nifty CDJ work. Yes, I said slime moulds. Yet again, her vocal work is on point.
Powell – We Do Recover (Diagonal Records)
We do indeed recover. This album was collated over an eight-year period, finally achieving form after Powell lost a friend to suicide. This tragic loss forms one of the themes here, and it feels like an experimental producer working things out in real time. There are moments of contemplation, of grief, of darkness, of wonky piano and broken circuits.
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