8.
Inland See – Bitchin Bajas
True to form, Bitchin Bajas embrace patience and gradual transformation on their latest release. Spanning just four tracks, each piece unfolds slowly, layering analogue loops that subtly evolve over extended runtimes. Far from background ambience, the music swells toward moments of genuine transcendence, guided by roaming sax lines, shimmering keyboards and other celestial details. The album’s closing stretch, particularly the climactic finale of its longest piece, delivers a radiant payoff that feels both serene and deeply affecting.
7.
Humming Fuzz – Trystero
Following their uncanny debut, which felt like an unearthed artefact from the 80s, Trystero refine their sound with a looser, more playful energy. The expanded Luxembourg collective maintains its hypnotic blend of krautrock pulse and downtempo propulsion, but injects a stronger sense of movement this time around. Acid house textures, big beat swagger and buoyant rhythmic details animate the dense arrangements, while bright synth hits and elastic basslines give the album a welcome dancefloor lift.
6.
Unconscious Sonic Adventures – Metaphazis
Arriving quietly at the tail end of 2025, Unconscious Sonic Adventures feels like a hidden transmission rather than a conventional release. Metaphazis builds the album on firm, unfussy rhythmic foundations, but surrounds them with intricately sculpted synth work and an array of striking, often unfamiliar textures. Elements that feel almost archaic - including the resonant presence of instruments such as the didgeridoo - lend the music a ritualistic pull, as if the tracks are tapping into something older than electronic music itself. Across its 13 largely instrumental pieces, sparse melodic fragments and isolated tones gradually interlock, forming unexpectedly rich harmonies that stretch from sub-bass depths to piercing, high-frequency shimmer. The cumulative effect is transportive, nudging the listener into a parallel sonic space where simplicity and complexity coexist effortlessly.
5.
Dream in Dream – Saeko Killy
Known for her murky, late-night atmospheres, Saeko Killy broadens her palette on her second album by letting moments of brightness seep in. Ethereal vocals in Japanese and English, rippling synth patterns and snippets of birdsong drift through cavernous bass and dubby echoes. Alongside the submerged grooves, there are flashes of 80s guitar pop and post-punk momentum, with hints of krautrock psychedelia and club music woven throughout. Even when the tracks flirt with dancefloor functionality, they retain a woozy, disorienting quality that keeps them dreamlike.
4.
The Internet Will Break My Heart – Chris Imler
Chris Imler captures the claustrophobic pull of perpetual online life with unnerving accuracy on this album. Blending krautrock, post-punk and sluggish club rhythms, the songs feel airless and compulsive, mirroring the mental churn of endless scrolling. He recites digital detritus over mechanical loops, lurches abruptly between geopolitical dread and intimacy, and builds tracks that feel knowingly uncomfortable. Highlights like Agoraphobie, featuring Naomie Klaus, heighten the sense of enclosure, making the record unsettling yet difficult to disengage from.
3.
Affectionately – Raisa K
After years embedded in bands and DIY collaborations, including Good Sad Happy Bad, Raisa K steps into the spotlight with a debut that feels disarmingly personal. Written around work and childcare and assembled entirely on a laptop, Affectionately has the unpolished closeness of a private journal. Her lyrics are direct and understated, delivered in a flat, unfussy tone as she dwells on the small frictions and affections of relationships. Repetitive lines and gently woozy melodies, shaped from creaky beats and scrappy electronics, give the album its quietly addictive charm.
2.
Ambam – Sacred Lodge
Sacred Lodge’s second album makes its impact immediately through a feral, guttural vocal style that veers between confrontation and atmosphere. At times it dominates the mix; elsewhere it lurks at the edges, threading through the music as distorted cries and echoes. Drawing from field hollers, ritual chanting and the artist’s ethnomusicological research into his Equatoguinean roots, the voice anchors an album charged with tension. That intensity carries through the pounding drums, horrorcore-tinged electronics and ominous bass pressure, resulting in a relentlessly gripping record.
1.
Listless – Dania
Trip-hop’s hazy, downcast aesthetic has saturated releases across the spectrum this year, but Dania’s Listless never feels like a hollow imitation. Built on languid, off-kilter rhythms, shadowy synth work and delicately stacked vocals, the album leans fully into its nocturnal mood. Created in the aftermath of midnight shifts working as an emergency doctor, the music feels purposefully tethered to those hours: introspective, heavy-lidded and quietly uneasy. Rather than chasing a trend, Dania uses familiar textures to give shape to an intimate, late-night headspace.
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