For the first three months of 2025 I feel that the music landscape of the year failed to capture me as much as 2024 did. I felt that 2024 was epic for music in more than one way. In fact, I was stubbornly listening to 2024 playlists for weeks and weeks in 2025 (I may have one more 2024 post to do, for the sake of closure). But the past few weeks, that’s changed. I’ve been listening to albums that enrapture me, like Japanese Breakfast’s luminous For Melancholy Brunettes (and sad women) which I feel to be her best album to date (plus, that epic duet with Jeff Bridges), and The Weather Station’s Humanhood. Then there was the quiet win exemplified by Perfume Genius’s Glory, which simply took my breath away. It seems like the 2025 crop of albums represent the best work of more than one musical artist and I’m happy to see if this trend continues. Another such offering is Bon Iver’s SABLE, fable. There’s also Σtella‘s Adagio, which may be my most listened-to album of the past two weeks. Makes me want to hunt down her discography because I can’t get enough of her music.
For one-off singles (that I have not listened to the album yet), some of recent favourites include Mamalarky‘s Won’t Give Up and the new offering from Stereolab (I know I’m not the only one excited!) : Aerial Troubles.
Classical music-wise, I’ve been mostly convalescing from acute/chronic pain and this made me want to listen more to my usual classical staples: Debussy, Ravel, and quite a bit of Schubert! My default however remains ambient/experimental because I’m forever an ambient/experimental music girly: Harold Budd, Brian Eno, Nils Frahm, Hélène Vogelsinger, Julianna Barwick, Erland Cooper, and Hauschka.