Best Music of 2025
60 great albums
(I didn’t get around to doing this last year. Here’s 2023.)
I listened to more music in 2025 than I ever have before. This year’s list is correspondingly long, spanning jazz, world, classical, and more. I’ve split the collection into four sections: the very best, the near-misses, a handful of older recordings I discovered, and then a few dozen honorable mentions. I won’t venture to rank more precisely, so each section is listed alphabetically. There are a few from late 2024.
Links go to Bandcamp where available. I’ve reviewed a couple of these, and those are linked as well.
The Very Best
South Dakota Symphony Orchestra / Delta David Gier - John Luther Adams: An Atlas of Deep Time. JLA at his most powerful, sealed with unforgettable percussion.
[Ahmed] - [Sama’a] (Audition) (review). A worthy follow-up to last year’s epic Giant Beauty.
The Baltic Sisters - Värav / Vārti / Vartai. Lovely mix of Baltic folk.
Theon Cross - Affirmations (Live At Blue Note New York). Absolutely blistering set from the London tuba-jazz stud. Peak Isaiah Collier, too.
Hedvig Mollestad Trio - Bees In the Bonnet. In-your-face jazz-metal from Norway’s best.
Duo Ruut - Ilmateade. Unclassifiable Estonian duo.
Ars Nova Copenhagen / Paul Hillier - Caroline Shaw: How to fold the wind. Technically impressive choral piece that is nonetheless appealing.
Tedeschi Trucks Band and Leon Russell - Mad Dogs & Englishmen Revisited: Live at LOCKN’. Why waste money on rocket fuel when you could just blast this instead?
Also Outstanding
Lucian Ban / John Surman / Mat Maneri - Cantica Profana (review). Transylvanian improv in the footsteps of Bartok.
daoud - ok. House beats underpinning the self-effacing French trumpeter.
Maria Faust - Marches Rewound & Rewritten. When it seems like every musician wants to do political commentary, Maria Faust gets the final word.
Cerys Hafana - Angel. Strongest outing yet from the Welsh triple-harpist.
Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko - Гільдеґарда (Hildegard). Dramatic electronica accompanying 12th-century vocals.
Sirom - In the Wind of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper. Further adventures in the Slovenian avant-garde.
Sly and the Family Stone - The First Family: Live Winchester Cathedral 1967. Lively set from early Sly.
Chris Thile - Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2. Bach revivified via virtuoso mandolin.
Vintage Goodies
Miles Davis - The Lost Septet. The best live Miles I’ve heard from this era, featuring peak Gary Bartz.
Kakhidze / Tbilisi Symphony - Giya Kancheli: Symphonies 6 and 7. Georgian composer who pushes the orchestra to extremes, both loud and quiet.
Yoko Kanno - Cowboy Bebop [Soundtrack]
Louis Moholo-Moholo - Spirits Rejoice! A Liberation Music Orchestra-esque release from 1978 with Evan Parker and Kenny Wheeler.
Francois Nyombo - I’m Cool. Congolese guitarist who was, in fact, cool.
Kakhidze / Tbilisi Symphony - Avet Terterian: Symphony No. 5. What if Terry Riley had worked behind the Iron Curtain?
Honorable Mentions
Yazz Ahmed - Paradise in the Hold
Aïta Mon Amour - Abda
Aleph Quintet - Hiwar
Davide Ambrogio - Mater Nullius
Antibalas - Hourglass
Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu Plays Mulatu
Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon - Bach: Mass in B minor
Krystian Zimerman / Maria Nowak / Katarzyna Budnik / Yuya Okamoto - Brahms: Piano Quartets Nos 2 & 3
The Crossing / Donald Nally - Ochre
Danish String Quartet - Keel Road
Maria Faust & The Economics - Rahamaa/Business as Usual
Béla Fleck, Edmar Castañeda & Antonio Sánchez - BEATrio
Wayne Horvitz - Live Forever, Vol. 4: Pigpen: Berlin 94
Frank Dupree / Dominik Beykirch - Nikolai Kapustin: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 6
Dafne Kritharas - Prayer & Sin
Katia and Marielle Labèque / David Chalmin / Bryce Dessner - Sonic Wires
Lingyuan Yang - Cursed Month
Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra / Dmitry Masleev - Liszt. Rachmaninov ‘Dies irae’
Ensemble Marani - Sharatin
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė - Aletheia
Pavel Haas Quartet - Martinů String Quartets Nos 2, 3, 5 & 7
Madi Mwegne, Loya - Komor
Burhan Öçal, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, The Trakya All Stars - Trakya Funk
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra / Gustavo Dudamel - Gabriela Ortiz: Yanga
PRAED Orchestra! - The Dictionary of Lost Meanings
Rizwan Muazzam Qawwali - At the Feet of the Beloved
Rabbath Electric Orchestra - Amall
SANAM - Live at Café Oto
Abel Selaocoe - Hymns of Bantu
Brad Shepik - Hard Believer
Snarky Puppy & Metropole Orkest - Somni
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Philadelphia Orchestra - William Grant Still: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4; Margaret Bond: The Montgomery Variations
Ebo Taylor, Adrian Younge, & Ali Shaheed Muhammad - JID022
Tsapiky! Modern Music From Southwest Madagascar
Stein Urheim - Speilstillevariasjoner
Alune Wade - New African Orleans
The Westerlies - Paradise and Songbook Vol. 3