12. Milo J – La Vida Era Más Corta (Sony)
Perhaps the only unsurprising thing about his new album is his voice: a clean, direct, meslima-free, grounded baritone which sounds almost weightless. Here, Milo J’s timbre finally gets room to breathe. Divided into two discs, this project leaves no room for remixes or collages. Genres such as tango, chacarera, and Argentine folk are presented in their purest form. There’s no heritage-baiting or pop accessibility-chasing here.
In a way, what Milo J does in La Vida Era Más Corta compares to what Rosalía did in El Mal Querer(the Spanish singer’s stunning flamenco album released in 2018): it’s a display of youth inserting itself in an ancient landscape with more pride in its history than anxiety to modernize it. Thus far, among the most well-shaped Spanish-language albums of 2025, La Vida Era Más Corta arrives at a moment when Latin pop stars with global exposure are embracing their roots with more pride than ever, and Milo J does that for Argentina gorgeously and sincerely. – Ana Clara Ribeiro
11. Kayatibu – NI HUI – Voices of the Forest (Da Lata Music)
It’s not every day that the rich tones of a remote Amazonian commune find their way up the sonic ladder to a global audience. The Indigenous Brazilian music collective Kayatibu bring us to the nucleus of their world on their stunning sophomore record, NI HUI – Voices of the Forest. It’s an album of encounters—between human societies, humans and animals, plants and humans—proudly infused with the life force of the Amazon. In the midst of increasing existential threats to Indigenous life and land in Brazil and worldwide, Kayatibu stand at the frontlines of cultural preservation. NI HUI is an encounter worth staying for, and it delivers on its mission to convey the voices of the forest, including those of its people. – Adriane Pontecorvo
10. James Yorkston – Songs for Nina and Johanna (Domino)
James Yorkston is working once more with soft-voiced ex-Cardigans frontwoman Nina Persson, following on from 2023’s highly acclaimed The Great White Sea Eagle. He’s also recording with Swedish DIY collective the Second Hand Orchestra in Stockholm again, as he did for his previous two albums. On this new project, though, he’s adding to the mix the pure voice of Johanna Söderberg of First Aid Kit. She’s agreed to be his Emmylou on four of the ten sensitive and heartfelt songs on Songs for Nina and Johanna.
With such a combination of talent, then, how could Yorkston possibly go wrong? Well, essentially, he doesn’t. He is, after all, heading up what might conceivably be called a Scottish/Scandinavian supergroup, with all members playing distinctive roles in making music that is full of intimate charm, wit, and candor. Yorkston’s the songsmith with the wilting voice and the acoustic guitar. – Adam Mason
9. Moonrisers – Harsh & Exciting (Easy Eye Sound)
Moonrisers’ debut album, Harsh & Exciting, is a stirring invocation that finds Libby DeCamp and Adam Schreiber using instrumentation as their primary storytelling tool. Relying on DeCamp’s 1930s Slingerland May Bell parlor guitar and Schreiber’s century-old calfskin drum kit, Moonrisers craft a hypnotizing experience.
The contributions of bluegrass musicians Tim O’Brien and Chris Scruggs add subtle layers of mandolin, pedal steel, and banjo, enhancing the album’s musical complexity. Consequently, Moonrisers effectively fuse various musical influences without adhering to traditional conventions or a single genre. This genre-blurring approach combines tradition and innovation to evoke emotional responses and vivid imagery musically. – Elisabeth Woronzoff
8. Ethel Cain – Willoughby Tucker (Daughters of Cain)
It’s hard not to be disappointed that Hayden Anhedonia doesn’t want to be a pop star. It was made abundantly clear with the menacing drone of January’s Perverts, a statement so defensive and subsuming that it seemed possible she’d prefer to see her star extinguished than deal with the prying eyes of obsessive fandom.
However, Perverts ended up being somewhat of a fakeout, a vengeful flood of the world she’d created and the pesky little creatures that had shown up in it. In its wake rose Willoughby, a narrative prequel to her surprise smash debut, poised to redefine what the Ethel Cain project is actually about: walking the line between tenderness and vulgarity, folk storytelling for a crass and tacky world.
Graciously, Hayden allows herself some earworm melodies again, but keeps the BPM to a drunken dirge lest anyone get any ideas. She opens the door with “Nettles” and “Fuck Me Eyes”, then traps you with 15-minute character studies that you can’t look away from. She has her cake and eats it too. The relief of Willoughby is the potential of Ethel Cain realized on new terms: rich stories of violence sung through gauze, a siren calling over doomed waters. – Nick Malone
7. Derya Yıldırım – Yarın Yoksa (Big Crown)
Derya Yıldırım is no easy artist to pin down, and neither is Yarın Yoksa, the new release from her and Grup Şimşek, the ensemble she leads, comprising keyboardist Graham Mushnik, guitarist and bassist Antonin Voyant, and drummer Helen Wells. With a title meaning “if there is no tomorrow”, it’s devoted to yesteryears and the now.
Born into Hamburg’s sizable Turkish diasporic community, Yıldırım draws on folk songs and themes from her ancestral homeland, as well as her own deeply personal sentiments and experiences of love, loss, and oppression, while weaving together bağlama melodies and funky grooves that offer irresistible retro touches to a gripping album. – Adriane Pontecorvo
6. Yasmin Williams – Acadia (Nonesuch)
Guitarist Yasmin Williams has never quite fit a simple story. She came to the guitar first through video games, moved from electric to acoustic, and developed a solo fingerpicking approach that wouldn’t settle into familiar styles. Folk would show through, but little of the American primitive that a listener might expect, and a variety of international and unrelated domestic influences would help her travel unique paths.
She had a sort of breakthrough in early 2021 with Urban Driftwood, a multidimensional release that came out of COVID-19 and was inspired in part by the political protests in the area. She performed thoughtful, bright compositions that offered relief and revealed her growing proficiency as a writer alongside her formidable technical skills. Almost four years later, Williams expands her work further for Acadia, drawing on a range of influences and incorporating a variety of guest musicians for a full sound that proves to be her best and most ambitious work yet. – Justin Cober-Lake
5. Elana Sasson – In Between (PKMusik)
Rarely is “beautiful” the most accurate or informative descriptor for anything, especially music. Even so, something is striking about In Between, the latest work from singer and composer Elana Sasson, that is hard to describe any other way. Sound, sentiment, and intent all work in exquisite aesthetic and affective concert here, the layering of these aspects giving the album multiple dimensions that are sincerely beautiful from start to finish.
In Between is indeed a rarity, and Elana Sasson and her quartet perform with the depth it takes to anchor the beauty of their output in artistic and personal truth. Beauty does not automatically make music good or interesting; good and interesting music is not always beautiful. In Between sits at the unlikely nexus of all of these things. – Adriane Pontecorvo
4. Clara Mann – Rift (state51)
The UK-based multi-disciplinary artist Clara Mann’s debut album, Rift, barely lets the light in, but, when it does, it’s a glorious light. The narrator drives along rain-blackened roads without explicitly saying what she is leaving behind—heartbreak, confinement, loneliness are all contenders—which endows the rough-hewn record with a haunting subtext: an unspoken and phantom-like past.
Rift is a driving album, so much so that you feel as if you are beside the narrator in the car, traveling along English country lanes—memories shoot by like road signs—discussing if the journey will lead to self-discovery? If the past is as infinite as the road? It’s heartbreaking until, through the fissures of despair and longing, the slant of sunlight hits the steering wheel.
Like eminent folk artists, say, Anna Briggs or Shirley Collins, Mann makes you believe in the song, in the narrator’s tale, before turning it back around to the subject to make them believe in their own story. In other words, Mann inhabits tracks like an actor, whose mask reveals and conceals their interior world. However, without visuals, she conveys this through tremulous quivers, Joan Baez-esque vibratos, and caesuras. In fact, Mann has a supple voice that cuts you from the inside without words having to register. Oh, Mann should—you’d think—be a good driver after Rift. – Jack Walters
3. Violeta Parra – Las Últimas Composiciones de Violeta Parra (Vampisoul)
Perhaps no nueva canción singer-songwriter in Chile was more important than Violeta Parra. A movement with a broad definition from a region with a maybe even broader definition, nueva canción arose from the same confluence of revolutionary activist movements that spawned so many of the 1960s and 1970s most important musical genres. Tied to progressive movements of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, nueva canción emphasized local folk sounds. Indigenous instruments and melodies intertwined with acoustic guitars from the European side of the Atlantic accompanied lyrics of resistance and social justice.
Every iteration of Las Últimas Composiciones de Violeta Parra is a good one. Garcia’s lush arrangements are works of art in and of themselves, beautiful, elaborate frames for Parra’s creative brilliance. There is, though, an intimacy to listening to the album as Vampisoul has produced it in this latest printing. –
Adriane Pontecorvo
2. Richard Dawson – End of the Middle (Domino)
Richard Dawson finds his way out of a labyrinthine trilogy of albums (Peasant, 2020, and The Ruby Cord) with an Ozu-inspired collection of songs about the dramas of domestic life. Though the arrangements here are dialed down to a comparative whisper, End of The Middle reveals how the memory and minutiae of what transpires between four walls can be so momentous as to have ongoing generational effects.
The singer welcomes characters from previous songs and sees others born and die. Sally Pilkington, a welcome presence on dozens of albums across Dawson’s varied discography, has a scene-stealing verse on “More than Real”, a song that may signal Dawson’s next musical direction. Longtime fans will easily spot connections between these sketches of home(s) and the dense narratives of Dawson’s past work. Yet End of the Middle is also an ideal entry point for those only now discovering Newcastle’s finest folksinger. – Thomas Britt
1. Jade Bird – Who Wants to Talk About Love (Glassnote)
It’s been four years since Jade Bird‘s last full-length release. She has plenty to say. That doesn’t mean she knows the answers. As the title suggests, she’s ready to chat. The songs are filled with internal dialogue and are often told in the second person as if she is having a conversation with her listeners.
More importantly, the British-born singer-songwriter crafts compelling art from her emotional experiences. The lyrics are simultaneously intimate and intense, insightful and poetic. Jade Bird passionately delivers the material. Her insights come off as poetic revelations. “Is this what dreams are made of? / Being so in love, I can only break your heart,” she croons in a pained voice after “Dreams”. – Steve Horowitz