reckonslepoisson

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From the Private Collection of Saba and No ID, Saba & No ID (2025)

For some artistic brains, interesting forms of expression come easily. Saba is one of those brains, an artist whose approach is rife with unconventional, fascinating impulses, who one can tell doesn’t exhaustively strive for the profound but instead simply achieves it. Even on (comparatively) lesser tracks, Saba can fall back on that brain and still succeed, and Private Collection – bolstered by the slick beats of No ID – is his finest display of artistry yet.

Pick: ‘a FEW songs’

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hexed!, aya (2025)

Tense fractions of time before an explosion, compressions of nothingness before energy is unleashed – that is the sensation between every beat on hexed!. I first heard these tracks live, and what a way to hear them; umpteen influences collapsed into one with immense technical skill, the reverberations of each blast felt long, long after.

Pick: ‘off to the ESSO’

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Seeking Darkness, Huremic (2025)

Since his passing in 2019 Takashi Mizutani’s soul has been wandering, lurking behind the grill cloth of gargantuan amps and crackling pickups of age-old guitars, awaiting a new vessel. Seeking Darkness sees Mizutani settle, at least partially and temporarily, in the bones of Parannoul/Huremic, unleashing a sound extraordinarily akin to Mizutani’s legendary and exhilarating Les Rallizes Dénudés’; anchoring bluesy bass, boundless and subsuming noise, grandiose longform glory. But Seeking Darkness is not just a record exquisitely reminiscent of my favourite rock bands, it is a career revival (and highlight) for Parannoul, whose previous few have seen him ailing, flailing and out of ideas. 

Pick: ‘Seeking Darkness 1’

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Georgie, Twin Shadow (2025)

Georgie stinks of ‘my-label-pressured-me-to-release-something’ but Twin Shadow (George William Lewis Jr) perplexingly has no label, no management, no one getting him to put out such dross. Lewis goes for the cliché of stripping it all back to focus on the songwriting, and then puts out some of the most mundane writing of his career so far. I cannot fathom why one would be so passionate for Georgie to see release. 

Pick: ‘Headless Hero’

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The Burden of Mules, The Wolfgang Press (1983)

Some bands blast out of the starting gates, others need a little warming up. The Wolfgang Press were a slower burn (at least in studio form), The Burden of Mules a very arty and atmospheric work slotting in well with much of the rest of the era’s gothy post-punk, though lacking proper focal points and confusing edginess with intrigue. There are only flashes of the rhythmic experimentation that’d define later Wolfgang Press releases. 

Pick: ‘Lisa (The Passion)’

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Portrait of the My Heart, Spellling (2025)

Portrait of the My Heart draws lines between musics of an era that I didn’t realise were so clearly related, its drawled vocal deliveries linking ‘00s nu metal and dance-pop, System of a Down with Christina Aguilera. But that’s just about the only interesting thing Spellling does here. For the most part, Portrait of the My Heart simply rehashes sounds, styles, melodies heard so, so many times before. 

Pick: ‘Sometimes’

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High Tide, Able Noise (2024)

Able Noise, cross-continental duo of George Knegtel and Alex Andropoulos, were originally a live and mostly improvisational arty rock outfit; debut studio recording High Tide has plenty of echoes of that, jazzily spare in its empty spaces and temporally liberated in its stretches and compresses. It’s intriguing enough, but also sounds like it would be far, far more gripping live.

Pick: ‘To Appease’

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Lonely People With Power, Deafheaven (2025)

Deafheaven once did something truly admirable for a massive group of people, opened eyes and minds to entire worlds. Sunbather inducted hordes of indie kids into metal and was as wide a gateway to a genre as any before or since. And that’s something to be celebrated, especially as Deafheaven return to the near-exact sound of Sunbather on 2025’s Lonely People With Power, which is the band’s heaviest and most truly ‘blackgaze’ work since New Bermuda and largely does away with the past couple of records’ pop. 

Sunbather wasn’t my introduction into metal, but I came into the genre at a similar time – and by 2025 enough time has passed to have moved past metal’s accessible gateways, and to have become a more discerning listener. And that passage of time does not really benefit Deafheaven. While Lonely People With Power is an improvement on the band’s past two – mightier, better-written and more solidly performed – it is also vocally quite flat and in parts sloppy and untechnical. The band’s best record in a decade, sure, but unable to hold a candle to much prime metal.

Pick: ‘Doberman’

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I was put on this earth, DJ Python (2025)

DJ Python goes more pop, and that is not such a bad thing; Brian Piñeyro’s influences are a wide and deep pool, and out of that mass emerges dance-tinted pop of smothering atmospheric weight but also embracing warmth.

Pick: ‘Elio’s Lived Behind My House Forever’

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Glory, Perfume Genius (2025)

Spinning between a country-indie sound that is currently oh-so-popular and a stripped back, strung-out palette vaguely similar to Mike Hadreas’ earliest, simplest works, Glory also has some of the most abstract and metaphorical Perfume Genius lyrics yet. All that combined – rocking guitar riffs, drawn-out atmospheres, indirect lyrics – makes it Hadreas’ least immediate, slowest burn release yet.

Pick: ‘It’s a Mirror’

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Tonky, Lonnie Holley (2025)

Lonnie Holley turns his explorations of the Black American experience into a glossy, cinematic production on Tonky, enlisting a starry and eclectic cast that includes the likes of Mary Lattimore, billy woods, Isaac Brock and Open Mike Eagle. Holley is masterful at revealing historic atrocities and presenting hopeful futures, reflecting on the past and finding contemporary clarity; Tonky does all that once more, with further resonance in its slick, polished drama. 

Pick: ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’

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Dan’s Boogie, Destroyer (2025)

I have indulged in Dan Bejar’s music for much of my adult life, each release pushing me closer to the realisation that simply very little other music can intrigue as much as he does. This is music for those already indoctrinated, never for the worse and always for the better. 

Pick: ‘Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World’

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Music, Playboi Carti (2025)

Playboi Carti’s music is oft-dismissed as superficial, but that mindlessness is its premier asset, the best tunes weightlessly euphoric, not sensical but indoctrinatory in a hedonism that leaves one without thoughts or cares. How does Music stack up on the mindless-ometer? Simply not mindless enough. Carti’s suspended vibe cannot withstand such fantastical lengthiness nor so many guests, many of which – no matter how starry – simply don’t get it. 

Pick: ‘Pop Out’

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Whatever the Weather II, Whatever the Weather (2025)

Perhaps after the first Whatever the Weather release one assumed Loraine James’ side project would be reserved for her ambient side; with the second instalment it becomes clear that these works are not simply calmer than her Hyperdub releases (though they are more obviously rooted in ambient and new age) but another way for James to express herself. Whatever the Weather II swoons, glitches and patters, lacking the statement-making punches of James’ Hyperdub works but accomplished in its own right. 

Pick: ‘3°C’

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Oto no suru heya, Ohzora Kimishima (2025)

Oto no suru heya [for which I cannot find a reliable translation – Sound Room, perhaps] features more of Ohzora Kimishima’s typically textured and innovative pop, but more interestingly it shows cross-pollination between Japan’s internationally-admired avant-pop darlings; the flitting glitches and flashes of all-out blare (as well as the androgynous vocals) push Kimishima closer to Hakushi Hasegawa than ever.

Pick: ‘Death Metal Cheese Cake’

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Dead Channel Sky, clipping. (2025)

Following clipping.’s two horrorcore releases of 2019/20 – by my reckoning, the best works in the trio’s catalogue – a new direction was needed and, frankly, to be expected of such an adventurous outfit. The focus this time is melding hip-hop with electronic music, something previously and successfully attempted by many, though clipping go broader and bolder, entertaining the likes of acid techno, pattering drum and bass and knotty IDM. In all, the beats fizzle but the vocals exhaust; Daveed Diggs’ technical brilliance lacks focus, whether that be narrative, atmospheric or otherwise. 

Pick: ‘Change the Channel

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Hornet Disaster, Weatherday (2025)

Weatherday remains admirably emotionally vulnerable, with plenty of talent for presenting those emotions with powerful noise and dramatic songwriting. There is still a misguided tendency to equate emotional depth with raw, blaring noise; perhaps the next step is to funnel all that undeniable talent into something a little more coherent. 

Pick: ‘Radar Ballet’