Episode 8: "Best of 2025" with Reviews of Rosalía's "Lux," Blawan's "Sick Elixir," Madonna's "Veronica Electronica," Efdemin's "Poly," FKA Twig's "Eusexua," Little Simz' "Lotus," Lucretia Dalt's "A Danger To Ourselves," Bad Bunny's "DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,"

MusicWeek: A Roundtable Review of the Latest Electronic Music Albums

The Best of 2025

Monty Luke and critics Dan Cole, Zuzana Hamm aka Friday, Peter Kirn and Dean Mushin give analysis of the year’s best (and worst) Electronic Music album releases available now in most formats.

Albums:

Rosalía - Lux (Columbia Records), aya - hexed! (Hyperdub), Blawan - Sick Elixir (XL Recordings), Efdemin - Poly (Ostgut Ton), Madonna - Veronica Electronica (Warner Records), FKA Twigs - Eusexua (Young), Little Simz - Lotus (Little Simz), V/A - Pattern Gardening (Wisdom Teeth), V/A - SFX 5 YRS (SFX), Nasar - Demilitarize (Hyperdub), V/A - Tectonic Sound (Tectonic Recordings), Lucretia Dalt - A Danger To Ourselves (RVNG Intl.), Whatever The Weather - Whatever The Weather II (Ghostly International), Bad Bunny - DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (Rimas Entertainment), Oneohtrix Point Never - Tranquilizer (Warp Records), Haykal, Julmud, Acamol - Kam Min Janneh (Bilna'es), DJ Haram - Beside Myself (Hyperdub), V/A - No Pare Sigue Sigue Sigue 4 (TraTraTrax),

Monty Luke is a Berlin-based DJ, Electronic Music Producer, Radio Host and owner of record label Black Catalogue. He has remixed and released music on labels like Rekids, Hypercolour, Planet-E, Ostgut Ton and many more.

MusicWeek comes to you live and direct from Berlin, featuring reviews of the latest and best album releases from the spectrum of Electronic Music.

For more information on the MusicWeek podcast:

Monty Luke on Instagram: @monty_luke

Black Catalogue on Bandcamp.

electronic music album reviews, ostgut ton, berghain, resident advisor, electronic music album podcast, best new electronic music albums, weekly music podcast

Transcript

Monty Luke (00:02)
Welcome back to Music Week.

I'm your host, Monty Luke, and today we'll be discussing the best of 2025. For this episode, I'm joined by a big ornery crew of critics, Dan Cole, music journalist for The Berliner and voice of the Vinyl Futures podcast, Zuzana Hamm, former journalist at Resident Advisor and resident DJ at Cashmere Radio, Peter Kern, journalist at Create Digital Music, and Dean Mushin publicist at Dispersion PR. So I wanted to switch things up with this particular episode and instead of a curated
list of things to discuss. I've come up with a predetermined selection of questions. Hopefully that will be able to spark us off into talking about some of the best releases of the year. So y'all ready?

Dean Muhsin (00:45)
Yes sir.

Zuzana (00:46)
Let's go.

Peter (00:47)
Let's go.

Monty Luke (00:47)
Los ghets,

Los ghet's. Which critically acclaimed album didn't deserve the hype? Peter, let's get started with you.

Peter (00:57)
⁓ you knew me so well. Yeah, it's gonna be Rosalia, obviously. I love that, actually, so I feel overwhelmed with all of the negative things that I could say about this album and why it's overhyped. ⁓ You know, one person had said, I knew that something was bothering me about the track "Berghain" like something felt familiar about it, and someone finally said, it sounds like a jewelry commercial, and then I realized which jewelry commercial it sounds like.

Zuzana (01:11)
I knew it.

Peter (01:26)
It sounds like the De Beers, "Diamonds Are Forever" ad from the 90s. And it doesn't just sound a little bit like that. I would challenge you to go find that audio and play it over top of "Berghain" It's not only in the same key, it's basically the same song. I don't understand. I mean, I understand how this got... I mean, it's crap, right? It's schlock. The whole album is schlock.

Monty Luke (01:45)
Wow.

Peter (01:51)
She's an amazing singer, she has an amazing voice. I don't want to knock her as an artist, but the critical acclaim doesn't make any sense. I get why people like it. People like schlock, like schlock works. People like cheese. But you know, you can enjoy a Kraft mac and cheese dinner. You don't go and say that was the best meal of the year, right? So no, it's incredibly overhyped. It's not really clear to me why it got overhyped the way that it did. And then it's just a sort of weird things like
⁓ You know, with all of the Arabic language music that you could have talked about this year, it's weird that we're talking about a Spanish artist who doesn't speak Arabic singing in Arabic, right? Like, I mean, that more credit to her for doing that and attempting that, but it sort of revealed where a lot of the critical focus is still very, very off. But go, listen to the De Beers ad. It is basically De Beers ad. "Two months salary can last forever."

Peter (02:55)
Everyone's silent, I broke the internet. What happened?

Monty Luke (02:48)
Dan.

Dan (02:52)
⁓ Yeah, sorry. The critical album from this year, I think that didn't deserve the hype was by Aya, the album called Hext. And ⁓ I've seen already, it's at the top of many people's lists of albums of the year. And it falls into this kind of like ⁓ hyper pop, hyper break or hyper metal style that's being popularized and I guess is a byproduct of the brat summer but to me it lacks kind of ⁓ it lacks like conscious narrative it lacks thought and just sounds like a stream of badly thought together ideas that's kind of ⁓ stylized towards like an ADHD generation and also just also sounds a little bit naive and immature. So I don't say it's a bad record at all and I think it's good that Charlie XCX and the likes have helped popularize this style of music but at end of the day I just don't feel it deserves the hype at all.

Monty Luke (04:06)
Zuzana.

Zuzana (04:08)
⁓ I just want point out that ⁓ in the music video for "Berghain" Rosalia actually is in a jewelry store to get her heart necklace fixed. I think it might be a conscious choice, ⁓ maybe not completely rubbed but I wouldn't think that...

Monty Luke (04:20)
Really?

Zuzana (04:33)
all the music references she does without knowing. I would maybe cut her some slack here. But I don't know. I'm not sure. But for me, ⁓ I think it's gonna be Blawan and maybe it's on your favorite albums of the year list so we can discuss. I'm not saying it's a bad record, I think it's a very good record. It's just that maybe for me personally it came at a time that I'm somewhere else and the topics are definitely relevant, know the topics of mental health, depression or addiction, maybe like reckoning and sort of like facing your demons. mean demons are ugly but my problem with it is that the album just sounds really ugly, the music. I can't...

I got listened to the end, I tried and I think that if I was in another part of my life maybe if I was an angsty teenager I think that it could like hit the spot the same way

But for me, it's just it just sounds ugly. I just I can't do such an ugly music right now. ⁓ I'm not saying I'm not saying that it's not well produced. I'm not saying that it's not like reflecting what the topics that he's ⁓ sort of like, in a very personal way. putting it to music out there and on the record. I'm not saying any of those things. But also this stick of chopped up mutant vocals got wore off very quickly for me. Yeah, so that's the one.

Monty Luke (06:09)
So Peter, while you were dropping off and coming back on, Zuzana had pointed out that the video for Rosalia's "Berghain" is actually, she's in a jewelry store. So this is partially in a jewelry store. this might add to the inference about the De Beers commercial.

Zuzana (06:21)
Partially, yeah.

Peter (06:25)
De Beers has been robbed!

Dean Muhsin (06:30)
Peter might have discovered like a really...Hidden brand activation.

Peter (06:38)
Ha

Zuzana (06:39)
Maybe it's like very subliminal message out there. Maybe she has like a hidden partnership we just don't know about yet.

Peter (06:41)
Yeah and it's only culminating now, 30 years later.

Dean Muhsin (06:49)
Yeah

Monty Luke (06:51)
So Dean, what critically acclaimed album didn't deserve the hype for you this year?

Dean Muhsin (06:56)
Well, Peter and Dan's choices really resonated with me. ⁓ I kind of probably would have chosen those. But I've got one that, like, because of my day job, you know, I look at what gets written about and there are certain things that crop up that make me really angry when I think there's so much music to talk about. And the one that I saw repeatedly getting covered by serious journalists and major outlets this year that pissed me right off was the Madonna, "Veronica Electronica" remixes album, which was a bullshit lazy cash grab that didn't even feature some of the better versions of the remixes that were in there. They were all edits and I didn't know who it was for apart from maybe Madonna completists who have a really strange idea of what being a completist is. And the idea that we were wasting like, digital column inches on it really, really wound me up. You know, I know that everyone argues that Madonna has got a huge part of playing kind of dance music culture and, you know, I agree with that to a certain extent, but I just feel like it was, it was just a waste of everyone talking about it.

Monty Luke (08:14)
Could you remind me who were some of the remixes that were on there?

Dean Muhsin (08:18)
Well, there was Sasha's remixes, which were kind of quite iconic back in the day. You know, it was a period when he was touring in the States a lot and he was him and John Diggweed were at Twylo and they didn't include the full versions of them. They didn't include the dub. ⁓ I think.

Dan (08:35)
Let me guess, Masters at Work. You can't have a Madonna remix album without some Masters at Work.

Dean Muhsin (08:41)
I don't even think, no, they weren't on it. There was like seven tracks on it. It was the choice of the Sasha remixes at the time that really pissed me off. Purely because, like I said, they were edits. And I don't even think those versions have held up that well, but they were quite an interesting snapshot in time.

Dan (08:49)
Ha ha ha.

Dean Muhsin (08:59)
also felt really strange at the time kind of do that. It felt like cynical.

Monty Luke (09:06)
So moving on to number two, 2025 album release best represents where electronic music is going next? Dan, your thoughts.

Dan (09:18)
I'm gonna have a very basic answer, but I was really into the FKA Twigs albums this year, particularly the most recent one, "Eusexua." Even though it borrows from a lot of tropes from, let's say like 90s music styles, like it's very Bjorky, there's even a bit of jungle in there. The fact that it has this kind of meta references, but still very well produced, still almost feels new and alien and I hate to use the word, but exotic. It's experimental and it's an album that gets written about in major newspapers. And I feel like it gives agency to other people to make this kind of music moving forward instead of sticking to like a more kind of generic template of styles and stuff. I celebrate a lot what she's done with these two albums in particular. Especially "Eusexua", I played a lot. really like, it has like waves of like different peaks and where it's at and stuff. So yeah, big fan.

Zuzana (10:20)
I can actually second this. From the albums that I caught, ⁓ the "Eusexua" and also the follow-up that was released more recently, they are both brilliant. And I've been observing her career since EP1, I think. So I saw it twice when she still was... ⁓ before she released her first debut, her debut album, and ⁓ then after that.

Monty Luke (10:21)
No, go ahead.

Zuzana (10:47)
It's amazing to see an evolution of an artist like this. But at the same time, feel like from the very beginning she had a real knack for collaborating with producers and kind of creating her own productions that are sort of out of this world and they are very forward thinking. I'd like to remind that ⁓ Arca was her collaborator on the second EP I think already, which is maybe 10 or plus years ago. So before Arca became Arca

Monty Luke (11:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Zuzana (11:15)
Yeah, so I second this one.

Monty Luke (11:17)
Cool, well, it seems like we've lost Peter again, but ⁓ Dean, what do you think?

Dean Muhsin (11:23)
Well, was the, this is helpful, isn't it? Because this is the one question that I didn't answer. Purely because I kind of feel like, you know, dance music's now entered this realm where like, you know, major shifts in electronic music.

Monty Luke (11:29)
Ha ha ha!

Dean Muhsin (11:43)
cumulative mass and I feel like you still look at like EPs and singles to kind of see these little pockets of movements and scenes moving through. Although I do agree with Dan's sentiment about FKA Twigs where ⁓ I do feel like in terms of electronic music we are now at peak kind of regurgitating what's gone on in the past and that's not always a bad thing. There are some, actually there's quite a lot of artists who are reframing things in a really, really interesting and original way without anything sounding like it's being hackneyed or, you know, someone's putting rips into their own jeans. You know, it's like, ⁓ so it's an old Matthew Styles phrase, but ⁓ yeah, it's yeah, you know, I feel like there wasn't there wasn't anything that I listened to this year that I felt like was like, OK, that's where we're headed. ⁓ But there was a lot of projects where I feel like it would would fall into this kind of reimagining kind of different eras but doing it in a really really positive and forward thinking way and actually some of those projects kind of make them form the basis of all of the other answers.

Dan (12:59)
Yeah, and you know what, like, I'm a jungle kid at heart and I always thought that jungle was the sound of the future and you don't hear so much of that anymore in any contemporary new releases apart from the new FKA Twigs has kind of a couple of jungle breakcore tracks on there and the album by Sherelle, which I'll talk about later as well.

Zuzana (13:21)
I would like to differ there because I actually hear not entirely jungle albums. I mean there are amazing jungle albums and some of them also came out this year but the elements that come from this lineage of jungle, of hardcore for example. For example, Low End Activist, which is one of my favorite producers and this year's album... ⁓Last year he also released an incredible record Municipal Dreams which was more of It's a narrative but this year the album is called "Airdrop 2" and "Airdrop 1" was more into the hardcore, ⁓ like looking into the ⁓ hardcore history but Airdrop 2...

For me it's actually sort of like, it doesn't use jungle in a very obvious sense but it really continues in this space in Broken Beats kind of lineage but in a more like ⁓ minimalist, more mysterious sort of even cinematic manner. And I think that actually like being inspired by this even people like Al Wooten they also take it to new places, you know, they call it different things but in a way for me, like it still comes from dub or it comes from jungle so I think that people actually rework it or Chuli, who is actually one of my favorite artists ⁓ and I think that maybe Chuli makes one of this like forward thinking production that's kind of like inspired by the UK sound in many ways but like pushes it to this sound design-y newer post-dub step music

Monty Luke (15:07)
So which album accurately captured the cultural or political mood of 2025, either intentionally or unintentionally? Dan.

Dan (15:15)
So, I know this is primarily an electronic music podcast, for me, I'm going to step a little bit outside the box and say it's Little Simz "Lotus." And I would probably say that each year she releases a record. I mean, it's not just the lyrical content that she uses, even though it is bit of an album that digs at a previous producer. you know, those ones always come across the best anyway.

But it's the musical references that she uses in there, the way that she combines soul jazz, classic hip hop, even modern styles of even modern, a little bit of trappier productions as well. But she is like, for me, she's the voice of the modern generation, particularly from the UK. And I don't think there's any better album that captures the zeitgeist at the moment than the one from Little Sims.

Monty Luke (16:10)
Dean.

Dean Muhsin (16:11)
I wholeheartedly agree. I've seen her twice this year as well. ⁓ just everything about her is that there's such a clarity of voice from her. But I didn't kind put it down ⁓ for some reason, probably because I'm an idiot. ⁓

I kind of chose to dodge the political mood side of this because I think the only thing that really kind of accurately reflects the political mood of this year is a bin that's on fire. But culturally, actually, I want to touch on something that I've already mentioned as well. And this is a bit of a reach. But actually, you know, what I was saying earlier on about dance music kind of looking to the past.

Monty Luke (16:44)
Ha

Dean Muhsin (16:59)
And ⁓ I kind of think it's very specific to this year because I think we're in electronic music, we're starting to look at eras that haven't kind of been revisited. So culturally and within electronic music, I chose Wisdom Teeth's "Pattern Gardening" compilation for this. The main reason was because I don't really feel like the micro house and minimal era has been really successfully revisited until I heard this compilation. I'm also really pleased to see that almost every track on this felt like a really kind of natural evolution of that sound, almost as if it was kind of like there'd been no gap before we'd looked at it. But I really enjoyed it. It was like, and it wasn't like a nostalgia thing. It was like, ⁓ wow, there's elements of that sound and that scene that are still a little bit underexplored and the technology because a lot of a lot of that sound even though it was minimal and kind of stripped back and stuff technology kind of played quite a big part in it i think particularly with um like richie's minus and stuff like that um and it's here day anyway um and yeah i kind of i felt like oh okay if is 2025 the year that we start revisiting things from this century that has previously not not kind of been looked at and I'm kind of hoping that that happens next year. You know, we spoke about a lot of people revisiting stuff in the 90s, but that period in the early 2000s, like probably from 2000 to 2007, was incredibly rich. And a lot of the music from that period, I don't really feel like has been celebrated enough because a lot of those scenes ended up in dead ends. So, yeah, culturally, I kind of thought that that was quite an interesting selection and an interesting compilation because it also didn't feel like it was kind of heralding anything specifically, it just kind of sat on its own and it was fascinating for me.

Monty Luke (19:02)
And could you repeat the name of the album and the compilation name and the...

Dean Muhsin (19:06)
Yeah, it was

"Pattern Gardening" on the Wisdom Teeth label. Monty, you'd love it.

Monty Luke (19:11)
⁓

Okay, yeah, I'll have to give that one a listen. Zuzana

Zuzana (19:17)
Yes, I think you would actually love the compilation as well. I think I played some of the tracks on my radio show because also I think I was drew to it by thanks to some of the artists featured like Polygonia and K-LON obviously who also released a really nice album I think this year. ⁓

But that one is really nice and ⁓ since you mentioned this minimal era Dean I have to say that if you haven't listened to it yet Beatrice ⁓ is the head honcho of Bait label ⁓ one of the labels that I really really love and listened to many of the releases this year she made a two episode radio show that kind of looks into the intersections of dubstep and minimal from the exactly the first half of the 2010s, is it how we call it now, ⁓ where she plays music by the likes of Shackleton, Shed maybe too, like all the people that you would expect, but because for her, I think she's maybe slightly younger and for her it's like a discovery of something that she didn't know. So I feel like the early 2000s are retro now....you know the era that we actually ⁓ experienced going to Scuba's event at Berghain, what's the name again? you know when he had like

Peter (20:46)
Substance.

Zuzana (20:47)
Substance when he had like dubstep in the main room and then he had more minimal at Panorama exactly. She talks about the two she's even questioning Laurie Appleblim about about this era in Berlin So and the track selection is great. So it's it's happening exactly like you're saying Dean And then for me, sorry

Dean Muhsin (21:09)
I will 100 % check that out, that sounds absolutely fascinating.

Zuzana (21:12)
It's really good.

It's really really good. ⁓ I actually also picked up a compilation. ⁓ It was difficult for me to pick just one thing. One compilation. But ⁓ since I mentioned Chewlie before...

I have to make a pause and just check on the baby, sorry.

Monty Luke (21:33)
Okay, no problem.

So Peter, the question is, which album accurately captured the cultural or political mood of 2025 for you? Okay.

Zuzana (21:41)
Okay, so Chewlie is featured in this compilation, but ⁓ it's SFX, so that's the output of Zoe McPherson. And SFX is now ⁓ celebrating five years, it's a five year compilation. And I'd say that the tracks there are a complete strange collage of everything possible.

And some of the tracks that I think are more reflected in the cultural, not political, I'm also just gonna sideline that completely. The cultural ⁓ aspect I think is kind of included or like reflected in tracks by Arthur Puga and just its name I think encapsulates it all. "I Miss My Pre-Internet Brain." And it's like a short frenetic collage that sounds like switching between way too many tabs open at the same time, trying to practice mindfulness and stay focused on one tranquil memory, but at the same time having all those steps. this kind of strange, like a scatterbrain type of music, I think it just reflects maybe where we are culturally. There's also this other track that's like this ultra generic New K Garage, which flooded SoundCloud a years ago and it still doesn't seem to just like...be over. But also tracks like, that's an Arabic name, maybe you will be able to read it, Peter, can copy paste it in the chat. But it's like this 150 BPM techno or hard groove beat, which I think it's still something that's quite prevalent when it comes to like contemporary techno, like it's very, very full on. And it's But it just takes this trend, this sound, and it reworks it into a really haunted maximalist opus featuring bursts of bricks and metal riffs and choral vocals and gollum-like growls. And I think that this type of collage works probably reflected, for me at least, what's happening culturally. It's like way too many ideas in one and none of them is taking center stage or is being like...

You take one idea that you meticulously chisel into a distinct piece of work. It's just like way too many ideas. ⁓ Can't decide which one. Let's just put them all in. ⁓ It's almost like our real life, which is switching between our phone and our life. I'm in the kitchen, but I'm actually on Instagram. know what? I mean, I'm cooking, but I'm reading my emails. impossibility of committing to one plan, to one person, to one genre or idea.

Monty Luke (24:31)
Peter, which album accurately captured the cultural or political mood of 2025 for you?

Peter (24:38)
accurate is a tough word, but for me it was Naser's "Demilitarize" on Hyperdub. It's another reason actually that I kind of resist.

Monty Luke (24:48)
yeah.

Peter (24:52)
year-long compilations because I think it's important to go back and listen to the two albums that came before this. "Guerrilla" which is really ⁓ goes into the Angolan Civil War and his familial roots and then Enclave which kind of builds on that "Demilitarized" sort of to me is like the third installment of a trilogy but it's a different way of him processing the moment and processing trauma and ⁓ trying to transcend those things. He was also dealing with chronic illness, which is a reality for so many of us right now and also on a maybe a spiritual level kind of a reality for our world. And it's just a really intimate, imaginative, and vulnerable record worth listening to. Somehow he, I mean I say it's about the current moment, somehow he also thinks back to Ghost in the Shell, so we're in a different decade in that sense, but...But I think the intimacy and the kind of complexity of the nuance of that music for me really captures the moment.

Monty Luke (25:59)
think it was in, we reviewed that one in either episode one or two of Music Week, "Demilitarized" by Naser.

Peter (26:04)
Okay.

of not an episode I was on. So people should read my review, of course, and go back and listen to that episode. See which is better.

Monty Luke (26:09)
Dan.

Right.

Which album feels like it will still matter in a decade? Dean.

Dean Muhsin (26:23)
⁓ I feel like I might catch some grief for this. But it was another comp. It was ⁓ Tectonic's 20th anniversary comp. I thought it was amazing. I've loved Tectonic since the very beginning. I think Pinch and his interest in the evolution of dubstep and its cross-pollination with other genres.

Monty Luke (26:29)
Rosalia?

Dean Muhsin (26:52)
is fascinating and I think he's one of the people that's done it the best in terms of his A &R decisions. And what was really, really interesting is for 20th anniversary comp, kind of present or represent a sound that is still nicely evolving and, you know, had like sort of every element of what I consider to be the kind of modern iterations of dubstep from one of the better...

It's yeah, I think the reason why is that if you, the reason why I've kind of chosen it for this question is that if you look at what Tectonic were putting out 10 years ago, I still feel like it's relevant now. If you look like what they were putting out when they first launched, it still feels relevant now. So why wouldn't their 20th anniversary comp be relevant in a 10 years time? I think it's just a brilliant project. And there's two tracks on there. mean, re:nl's

Zuzana (27:27)
Yes!

you

Dean Muhsin (27:50)
"Sunrise on the Superloop" I think is a really amazing example of of the modern sound. Flora Yin Wong's "Virga" I think is probably one of my favourite tracks of this year. There's such a delicate kind of emotional charge to that track that I don't think is often heard within that genre. So yeah, I loved it.

Monty Luke (28:18)
Zuzana.

Zuzana (28:20)
I couldn't pick one, so I don't have it. Yeah, it's too heavy.

Monty Luke (28:22)
Okay, Dan.

Dan (28:26)
Which, what was the question again, sorry

Monty Luke (28:28)
which album feels like it will still matter in a decade.

Dan (28:33)
There's more of a bias to this just because I love the record so much, but it has to be Barker's "Stochastic Drift." think within the world of techno, think techno is quite polarizing now because we're fighting against this TikTok techno slop and what Barker's able to do and it can be even debated whether this is truly a techno album because of the sound design, the rhythms, the elements to it, but it's, you know, it has that very...

It has the qualities of Autechre but yet the vibe of Berghain you know, I could still, I would still hear these tracks, you know, in the main hall and still be like, okay, you know, damn, what is this? The sound design, each individual ⁓ sound and element in that sounds perfectly honed, well thought ⁓ and informed. And ⁓ whether...

It'll just be me listening to it in 10 years time or everybody else. I don't think it matters. But for me, this will be a timeless record.

Monty Luke (29:35)
Nice. Peter!

Peter (29:37)
I'm with Friday. have no idea what record we're going to be listening to in 10 years, but I do imagine that 2025 will be the year that we recall everybody turning their back on algorithms and streaming services and finally turning their back on Spotify.

So let's move on to the next question. ⁓ Which album grew on you the most this year? Let's start with Zuzana.

Zuzana (30:02)
Okay, so it's not an album, it's a single. And it's for obvious reasons, it's Nova by Earth Eater. So she made the song for or inspired by her daughter, Nova. released it maybe like in the spring this year. And I listened to it.

when it came out when I was pregnant and ⁓ then after I had the baby and it was one of the two songs that were stuck in my head for like the first month or two when I was at home. The other one was Little Star by Madonna but this one it was like a very strange ⁓ it was a very strange phase of life and I always have some music in my head when I'm alone I just can't shake it somehow.

And this was just the one that kind of guided me. It was looming, it was always there. And ⁓ it's a very beautiful song. ⁓ It's well produced, a beautiful Earth Eaters vocal. I'm a big fan of all of her work. And I'm anxiously awaiting the album. Or was it already released? It's hard to keep track. ⁓ So that one ⁓ is the release of the year for me. But I don't have an album.

Monty Luke (31:19)
So initially you didn't like it and it got better for you as time went on? Okay, so it didn't grow on you, it was already grown on you.

Zuzana (31:22)
No, I like it since the beginning. Yes.

this is...

I see, okay. Yeah. I liked this one in the beginning and then it grew almost into my tissue.

Monty Luke (31:35)
Okay, fair enough. Dan.

Zuzana (31:37)
Yeah.

Dan (31:41)
⁓ Yeah, I mean, guess everyone has like a whole bunch of albums that they're just going to refer to in this series of questions. But the one that grew on me the most was Lucretia Dalt's A Danger to Ourselves. This is an album about Lucretia. I don't think she's Berlin based anymore. She might still be. But Colombian artist who does a lot of kind of experimental recordings with field recordings and then blending them into kind of very contemporary avant-garde production styles. But this one's based on a near-death experience that she has. And so in doing so, she's kind of gone back to the roots, more organic stuff, a lot more like Spanish vocals, guitar playing, but still like embedded within her very unique... ⁓

the only way I can really describe her style of production, it just feels very earthy. It sounds like it ⁓ records very earthy elements, but then recontextualizes them into something that, I don't know, is kind of Steve Reich-y, but yet still atonal, house, broken beat feel. But this one feels really well because it feels very authentic. And at first I heard it. didn't really grow on me, but after a while it really stuck and I absolutely adore this album.

Monty Luke (33:05)
Nice. And could you repeat the title of that again?

Dan (33:08)
It's "A Danger To Ourselves" by Lucretia Dalt

Zuzana (33:12)
say that actually that album for me is one of the hits of this year. I liked it so much and especially because of the production. Like her voice is amazing but the production it's just something that I haven't heard in an album that has like lot of traditional songs. You know what I mean?

It almost sounds like you had a sound bank for audio plays or something and applied a lot of effects on it and then weave them into these really minimalist compositions. It's very, very cool.

Monty Luke (33:43)
I had heard about that release, but I haven't actually had a chance to listen to it myself. So I will definitely have to check this out based on these two recommendations. Dean, your thoughts.

Dean Muhsin (33:53)
I had a few to choose from but I'm going to plunk with one because it actually fits the question the most. An album I was really excited about, Efdemin's "Poly" on Ostgut One I was excited about the fact that the label was coming back. I thought it was a crying shame that that label was of temporarily laid to rest. But I'm an enormous Efdemin fan.

bit of a completist. I listened to the album when I finally got a hold of it and was really disappointed. then, quickly my kind of ⁓ stupidity became obvious because it's a stunning piece of work, but I think it's one of those things that, for me anyway, actually requires quite a deep listen.

there's kind of like delicate elements and there's kind of like vintage kind of Efdemin in there, but I feel like it's an album where as an artist, he's probably feeling the most freedom. yeah, from, I mean, it also, wasn't like an immediate, like I listened to it, didn't like it, ignored it for a few weeks. It's like I persevered, like probably for about a month.

And now I've ended up, it's probably some of my favourite work from him. And it's in my top 10 for this year. So yeah, I mean, it was like, it literally fits the bill perfectly. It grew on me enormously.

Monty Luke (35:35)
Yeah, we discussed that one actually at length a few weeks back for Music Week actually. And I think, yeah, it definitely ⁓ creeps up on you. It's very subtle in that way. It kind of creeps up on you. And then...

Dean Muhsin (35:45)
Yeah. I think subtlety probably his strongest suit, is why I've really thought about it quite a lot and I've really struggled now to work out why I didn't feel so engaged by it in the beginning. Maybe it was me, maybe it was a personal thing rather than the music. Almost entirely it was me, actually.

Monty Luke (36:13)
Peter, did you have an album that grew on you the most this year?

Peter (36:18)
Yeah, I I liked it when I first heard it, but I'm going to go with Lorraine James' second Whatever the Weather album, or mean, I guess the Whatever the Weather ⁓ is her artist moniker for that. These are just great tracks to kind of come back and live in for a while. ⁓ So it's, ⁓ I had also my notes, because you asked about what was an unskippable track list. And she came up with a skippable track list for this, right? Like you can kind of drop in on any particular track and just be in that one at a time. It's a series of worlds or a series of moods more than it is ⁓ sequenced as an album, which is wonderful in that way.

Monty Luke (37:05)
Great. ⁓ What was the most important album of the year to each one of you? And let's start off with Dan.

Dan (37:14)
⁓ Going into the juicy stuff. ⁓ I'm gonna... Okay, my hot take. I'm gonna say the new Bad Bunny record, actually. ⁓ It really... In terms of... ⁓ I'm not saying I'm a massive Reggaeton fan, but the style of production, ⁓ the way that Bad Bunny presents himself is...

You know, he is the leading figurehead of reggaeton. But the directions and the styles that this album takes, could, if it wasn't Bad Bunny and it was someone else that, like if it were a Rosalia album, then this would be, we'd be talking about this more in Pitchfork and Resident Advisor. There's a lot of weird tempo changes. There's a lot of stretching of the vocals. weird beats and percussions and even like even those in the reggaeton community are also quite ⁓ astounded by this record because they don't know what to make of it and I think of when you have major artists and Bad Bunny is you know he's one of the biggest artists you can get on the planet when someone comes out and does something as gnarly as this then I think everyone really has to take focus but this is what I was going to kind of also lead towards ⁓ with this podcast. know, what I want to try and say is that when we do these end of year ⁓ look backs, we take a very Western focus ⁓ when it comes to our analysis of particular electronic music. And I think what's changed the most, where things are heading within the community, particularly within the Latin scene, you see a lot more experimentation, you see a lot more forward thinking and progression and a lot more risk taking. And this is very, this speaks to that quite a lot.

Monty Luke (39:19)
⁓ Dean.

Dean Muhsin (39:22)
⁓ I, I hated this question only. ⁓ I've written about six different answers to it, but I'm gonna plunk for one, and it's the really obvious because it's so hyped at the minute, but "Tranquilizer" by Oneohtrix Point Never. It's quite a personal reason for thinking this is important, but.

Monty Luke (39:27)
Ha

Dean Muhsin (39:46)
But I, know, the concept of the album is that it's being made from like sample CDs from the 90s. Right. Now, the reason why I think that's important and I think there's an important message in this is that I feel like, like, you know, I bought these sample CDs when I was a kid and I was first producing this stuff. And sample CDs and samples now are ubiquitous. They're everywhere. But the kind of brief period of sample CDs, like expensive sample CDs that were bought was like a kind of golden age in a way because the quality of the production and the studios and their sample sources were absolutely enormous. The talents of the engineers around this period as well were ridiculous and they were totally inaccessible and that was kind of probably the last time that I feel like samples were given like had so much kind of investment in them and now obviously you know you can go online you can find loops and things like that but I would genuinely question how the quality and the kind of ⁓ the production values that are kind of employed in a lot of these these days but I definitely feel like I was a golden era so for someone to kind of make an excellent album which I think has like an absurdly amazing flow to it, considering it was kind of like a tapestry of samples. ⁓ And then shine a light on this kind of this golden age of like kind of people making samples, I think is kind of important. It's kind of nice to go, hey, look, you know, this was once like a proper, proper like art form, a proper craft. And it was done in a way that, you know, is almost kind of forgotten about now.

Monty Luke (41:40)
It's a, you know, that that just came out, didn't it? It came out not too long ago, right? It's new. I hadn't gotten that one yet. ⁓

Dean Muhsin (41:45)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, it's. Yeah, all kind of reviews are kind of out there at the minute, and a lot of people are talking about it, but that was kind of my kind of personal feeling on kind of why, or certainly the story behind it that kind of struck me a little bit, because I hadn't thought about sample CDs from the 90s for a very long time.

Monty Luke (42:06)
Right. Peter.

Peter (42:11)
yeah, I also hate the term important, but I think for me this was the ⁓ breakthrough year, or we'll look back on it as a breakthrough year for Arabic music. to Dan's point, the artists in all these other scenes, it's not that they're doing something new or something futuristic or innovative, it's sort of the Western world kind of wakes up to the stuff going on or it finally gets a spotlight on it. So ⁓ I would probably pick that scene in general, maybe it's most important to take the record that comes out of the ⁓ one Palestinian label, is ⁓ Kam Min Janneh the Haykal, Julmud I don't know how say, this is why I'm a writer, because I don't know how to pronounce anything, Acamol ⁓ They did a record out of the Ramallah scene, but you can take, you could pick anybody out of that scene. That's the one Palestinian label, I think will have a big future kind of into the stage of people getting back into making music and sharing it again. But it also makes sense to listen to that alongside DJ Haram's record, which also has a bunch of collaborators like our friend Dhaka on it and some other folks, even though her perspective is the Arab-American side of this. If you listen to those two records together, I think you'll get the message. We didn't do Joy though. Did we miss Joy?

Monty Luke (43:30)
Zuzana.

Peter (43:35)
I think joy was the only question I liked. I mean apart from hate, we had hate with Rosalia. So joy is the other thing I like almost as much as hate.

Zuzana (43:36)
Yes, 2025.

Monty Luke (43:36)
What do you mean? What do you mean?

Dean Muhsin (43:38)
Hey

That's that's it, that's it.

Monty Luke (43:41)
⁓

Zuzana (43:44)
Totally. Well, I can finish with joy.

Dean Muhsin (43:48)
That's statement on 2025 alone, isn't it? "Did we miss joy?" But yes, me too.

Peter (43:52)
I have a Joy pick though. Maybe if we can squeeze that in for everybody.

Zuzana (43:55)
Yeah we can finish on a positive note and have a joy.

Monty Luke (43:58)
Okay, how about, okay then, why don't we, this is democracy at work here people.

Peter (44:01)
But Friday didn't get the most important question, right?

Zuzana (44:03)
No, we can just skip to joy, honestly.

Monty Luke (44:06)
Which album gave you guys the most joy? Let's go, Zuzana.

Peter (44:06)
Haha.

Zuzana (44:10)
⁓ So again, it's hard to pick one, but I have to say that ⁓ when I look for joy and it's gonna be a follow-up on what Dan and Peter were talking about, I go to TraTraTrax because I think that the label is just full of really cool, joyful, awesome bangers. They really have a knack for putting out ⁓ some of the artists of the Latin America...Regions and Diaspora and also Artists Like Mor Elian is featured on this compilation

Peter (44:45)
Yeah, Masha is a favorite of mine too. And also, constant source of joy.

Monty Luke (44:50)
the title one more time, Zuzana?

Zuzana (44:52)
"No Pare Sigue Sigue 4" I probably butchered that as a non-Spanish speaker.

Monty Luke (45:01)
Peter, which album gave you the most joy in 2025, buddy?

Peter (45:06)
This one was easy. This was Yara Asmar for me. "Everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so much." Oh, actually, sorry. The title is exactly, "Everyone I Love is Sleeping and I Love Them So So Much." There's two "so's." Yara is an amazing experimental composer, puppeteer, and accordion player out of Beirut, which she's been studying in the US. All of her albums are poignant and joyful and this one is just gorgeous and will make you feel happy. And I mean, it's not, know, to this being a year of joy, I mean, I know that both Yara and I were deeply unhappy for a huge part of this year. So it's not like she's just like in some kind of happy cloud and then this happy music comes out, right? I don't think I'm giving away any secrets to say like a lot of the DMs I've had with a lot of people, the messages are like, how are you doing? I'm miserable, you know, like...I hate the stuff that's going on around me or I hate where I am and all of this stuff. But if you need a record to kind of that can empathize with that pain but give you something really beautiful, Yara is always a go-to.

Monty Luke (46:16)
Great. And Dean.

Zuzana (46:17)
Yeah, actually.

Yes, sir.

Monty Luke (46:20)
Dean.

Dean Muhsin (46:21)
So I had two, which I'll be really quick with. The first one was Low End Activists "Airdrop 2," mainly because ⁓ it kind of felt like a non-retro kind of like audio documentary of my youth. There was kind of bits of Photek in there, bits of jungle. everything felt like it was, know, no points were labored in it. Everything was kind of fleeting in the narrative. It just felt like when I listened to it, I kind of was transported back to quite a, like an interesting time in my life. But Jamie managed to do it in a way where he wasn't like self-consciously retro, which I loved. just, I found that like such a, like a fascinating thing to pull off. And then the other choice is an album that I...This is a weird thing to say because it's almost a of the flippant definition of joy, but when I listen to it, I don't necessarily love everything about this album, but it makes me smile. And it's Facta's "Gulp" album on Wisdom Teeth. It is joyful and kind of optimistic without being cheesy. And I don't think there's enough of that around. And it makes me crack a smile. And anyone who knows me will tell you that I don't crack a smile very easily. So that felt like it really was joyful.

Monty Luke (47:45)
Well, I want to thank each and every one of you for participating. I've learned a lot of lessons in the last 55 minutes. Dean, thank you for joining us.

Thank you all for participating in this best of 2025 Edition of Music Week. Be sure to join us back in 2026 for lots of more album reviews and salacious gossip about diamond dealers Thanks guys

Dean Muhsin (48:14)
Cheers. Take care.

Zuzana (48:15)
one.

Zuzana (48:17)
best. Ciao!

Peter (48:19)
Thanks.