My top ten albums of 2025

Summers & Silvova's
How To Raise the Wind

As the new year begins it’s a good time to reflect back on all the great new music that appeared in 2025. The past twelve months saw the release of a cavalcade of stunning new albums, from the driving Zamrock of WITCH’s Sogolo to the meditative songwriting of Robin Adam’s The Beggar, through to innovative debuts like Kyson Point’s Underwater Sky and Anna Ling’s Light.

From Scandinavia came two vastly different offerings. The Norway-based Scottish/Finnish pairing of Sarah-Jane Summers & Juhani Silvova released How To Raise the Wind. This constantly-evolving duo take elements of Scottish and Norwegian folk, jazz and even a touch of Stravinsky to create a kind of groovy chamber music. Meanwhile, a darker side of Scandinavia is represented by the dark-folk of Wardruna. Their sound has become more expansive since 2021’s Kvitravn and, with Birna, we were taken on a journey into the world of the Old Norse she-bear. The result, which includes an all-female choir and the sound of ‘singing ice’ is immersive and remarkable.

(You can read my interview with Warduna’s Einar Selvik about the making of Birna here.)

Filkin's Drift's Glan

For sheer, gorgeous musicianship, we had Flook’s Sanju (a beautiful blending of flutes, guitar and bodhran.) Flook celebrated thirty years of music-making in 2025. With a similarly pristine sound – and using just fiddle and guitar – the duo Filkin’s Drift brought us Glan, a delicate album of Welsh folk songs and traditional English dance tunes. 

On the singer-songwriter front, 2025 brought us Gabriel Moreno’s consummate Nights in the Belly of Bohemia – a poetic marvel of an album, with songs that haunt and enthral. 

(You can read my full review of Gabriel Moreno's Nights in the Belly of Bohemia here.)

Anna Ling's Light

While I’ve long been an admirer of Gabriel Moreno, Scottish singer-songwriter Robin Adams was a new name to me. I was intrigued to learn Robin is the son of Chris and Pauline Adams (of one of my favourite 1970s folk-rock bands String Driven Thing.) Unlike his parents’ band, Robin’s music is quiet and reflective – unsurprisingly, since it deals with themes of bereavement and a slow recovery from a chronic illness. Robin’s vocal evokes something of John Martyn and other singer-songwriters of the 1970s. The beautiful songs on The Beggar reward repeated listening and deserve a wider audience.

Other corners of the UK produced some unexpected gems: from Devon we had singer-composer Anna Ling’s highly imaginative Light while, from Suffolk, the duo Kyson Point’s debut Underwater Sky featured accessible and memorable songs providing solace and hope.

WITCH's Sogolo

Veteran purveyors of Zambia’s Zamrock sound WITCH surprised us with another joyful and varied mix of psych-rock and afrobeat (with occasional echoes of Giorgio Moroder.) WITCH’s album Sogolo made most contemporary rock music sound tired and unimaginative. Finally, traditional Guinean music and Mandingo jazz were blended wonderfully in the music of Kaabi Kouyaté – an epic voice against a background of virtuosic musicians, fusing griotic tradition with contemporary music in Tribute to Kandia. 

I admit this is a very eclectic and subjective selection of my personal top ten albums of 2025 but I hope it introduces you to something you might have overlooked. For those of you who haven’t fallen out completely with Spotify I’ve even compiled an accompanying Spotify playlist that you can listen to here. 

So, in summary, here’s my Top Ten, with thanks and deep gratitude to all the amazing artists involved. Please support them by buying their music and seeing them live if you get the chance.

Okay, cue ‘Pick of the Pops’ music...

1. Gabriel Moreno – Nights in the Belly of Bohemia
2. WITCH – Sogolo
3. Wardruna – Birna
4. Kaabi Kouyaté – Tribute to Kandia 
5. Kyson Point – Underwater Sky
6. Anna Ling – Light
7. Robin Adams – The Beggar
8. Filkin’s Drift – Glan
9. Flook – Sanju
10. Sarah-Jane Summers & Juhani Silvola – How to Raise the Wind