Music of the Month: The Best Albums and Tracks of March 2025

Hexed! reveals Aya as a master of sound design, functioning as both a storytelling tool and as a descriptor of emotion. The last minute of ‘heat death’ sees the final electronic pulse go out, leaving the sounds of car wheels whooshing through rain-soaked asphalt. The track drops underwater at the very end, like a soul sinking to the ground, then soaking into a puddle as life continues without them, a dark joke. Aya’s voice is absent for the title track, on which she builds a sculptural altar of drone and feedback, her pain and dread physically palpable. The more minimalist ‘peach’ approximates the hard-soft of BDSM using whips as percussion, contrasted with gentle electronic pools in which Aya’s quieted voice floats, tentatively. Her processed screams are layered with too-perfect harmonies, in avant-garde mimicry of nu-metal vocal dynamics.

La Brea is a truly inexplicable, revelatory debut. Spending 80 minutes with Chilean band Hesse Kassel, and their writhing, scampering, soaring post rock, is as genuinely life-affirming as it gets. It is music of the most cathartic and reinvigorating nature, and an elemental listening experience that makes everything feel new, exciting and possible. The sextet from Santiago spend most of their debut trawling dark, gristly undertow, but within their sprawling, flowing ten-minute songs, they always break through into euphoria.

Circuit Des Yeux’s previous record, 2020’s -io, was a spectacle. With its orchestral sweep, she made the crushing emptiness of grief into something more tangible. With its many players and multi-phase compositions, it formed a gorgeous landscape out of messy and difficult emotions. Halo On The Inside instead opts for beastly physicality, and is even grander than what’s come before. It takes the shape of a character study, one which makes its central performer gargantuan. The study of the artist’s internal world is cosmic in scope. That could make for an imposing listen, so it’s impressive that the record also stands as Haley Fohr’s most instantly loveable collection of songs.

Rift is a quiet and delicate record, little more than acoustic guitar, piano and the slightest roll of percussion as backing to Clara Mann’s precise and exquisite singing. It all moves together slowly, gently, delicately. And yet, the record never drifts. It holds a tight grip. The sparsity of the instrumentation doesn’t feel designed to soothe, but rather to push Mann’s vocals to the fore, leaving the record to live or die by the quality of her songwriting. Just as lyrically, these deeply personal songs present deep emotions unvarnished and raw, so too does Mann give herself nowhere to hide, her back pushed intentionally against the wall. It’s extremely telling how much she thrives creatively in this position, proving that vulnerability and confidence need not be opposites. The album’s title refers to the everyday rifts of human experience documented in her lyrics – heartbreak, change, instability – personal cracks that in the grand scheme of things might appear to be of little consequence. And yet in the right hands such as these, something of immense and universal power pours through the fissures.

No Floor feels more widescreen than some of Claire Rousay and More Eaze’s previous projects, but there’s still space for experimentation. On ‘Kinda Tropical’, contemplative acoustic guitars strum for a few seconds and then disappear without a trace. More Eaze’s string arrangements, which are great throughout the album, are lush and swelling, but they never build to anything. The fragmented nature of the track only adds to its emotional resonance. There are moments in the middle of No Floor that feel a bit soundtrack-y, but the record ends on a high note with ‘Lowcountry’. The strings really shine here, calling to mind some of Eiko Ishibashi’s recent work. Then, in a wave of glitch, it cuts off abruptly, and we’re left with the sound of passing cars and unheard conversations in the distance. The album as a whole feels like a dream that’s always at risk of being interrupted by reality, where pure bliss is just out of reach. But there’s more power in the in-between anyway.

2024 was a very productive year for DJ Narciso, one of the most daring members of Lisbon’s RS Produções crew. He spent much of it quietly self-releasing outlandish Príncipe-esque tunes on his Bandcamp, probably in preparation for solo full length debut Diferenciado. In recent years, many of us will have become quite accustomed to beautifully produced and impactful club music that is also a little too standardised and over-polished. Even radical producers are now more prone to submitting to dancers’ expectations, and it often shows in DJs’ selections in clubs and at festivals. DJ Narciso’s productions exist on the other side of the spectrum, his obscure style characterised by dusty and muddy textures, organic-sounding percussion, off-kilter time signatures, peculiar vocal chops and occasionally sinister atmospheres. His music is more unpleasant and weird than it is predictable, and I love him for that. I cannot enjoy this album readily, because his unorthodox mixture of kuduro, batida and tarraxo defies my reference points. It is demanding and idiosyncratic. Next time you hear Mark Fisher’s disciples complaining dance music lacks innovation, show them Diferenciado. 

Surf rock rubs up against traditional Colombian cumbia, Latin American rhythms and West African highlife on this record from Los Pirañas. Post rock, wonky Beefheartian beats, the single-minded trance repetition of Konono Nº1, ska, calypso and jazz inflections all appear across the record before being dissolved in the indomitable forward current of the group’s music. Whilst I, as a listener with my own reference points, can glean all of these influences in this wonderfully fluid music, it’s unlikely that the trio have consciously placed them there, and entirely more probable that they appear briefly and mirage-like due to their so extensively exploring the possibilities of their guitar, drums and bass configuration. Whatever labels one might care to throw at it, this is unique music capable of reflecting many moods but driven primarily by a sense of irresistible forward movement that celebrates life at its most joyous. As winter begins to shade into spring, Another Chance To Succeed In Life might be just what we all need. 

The first thing that immediately stuck out to me about Antigone is that the orchestration on it is fantastic. The string and horn arrangements were done by Eiko Ishibashi and her partner and frequent collaborator Jim O’Rourke, so it’s no surprise that the record sounds as good as it does. Still, the two outdid themselves here. On opener ‘October’, Ishibashi’s vocals are augmented by recordings of traffic instructions and warped synths. The drums, from regular collaborator Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, sound lush and expressive, and Marty Holoubek’s bass has a rich tone informed by jazz fusion. Second track ‘Coma’ absolutely nails its languid 70s singer-songwriter vibe, with a classic Fender Rhodes warble and some truly heavenly harmonies. It calls to mind Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’, but with a perspective and an arrangement that could only come from Ishibashi. It’s helped along by an accordion contribution from Kalle Moberg, an unexpected but truly inspired addition that adds a whole other layer to the song. Every moment on this record is coloured with these sorts of intricate details, and they’re crucial to its success.

Nyahh Records follows up recent stellar compilation Slow Airs By Fine Fiddlers (reviewed in Patrick Clarke’s folk column here), with a full album from one of those featured, County Clare fiddler Ultan O’Brien. He plays an alto fiddle, set to his own tuning, which gives his tone a distinctively lower register, and rough timbre. He welcomes in the sounds of the outside, such as field recordings from White Strand beach in County Clare, and some accordion by Martin Green in tunes that need more anchor or wallop like ‘Packie’s Pandemonium’. Percussion comes from the recorded sound of Nic Gareiss dancing, where the feet putter, stutter and swish with the reels, sounding like brushes on skins, as in ‘The Boyne Hunt’. For the final track, ‘Death Doula Meet’, the voice note of Leitrim dancer Edwina Guckian is coddled in soft drones as a lonesome fiddle croons in empty space.  

In January, when Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh gave her first interview on Moonlight Concessions to tQ, she summed up the intent behind the switch to acoustic instruments for the group’s eleventh album by saying: “I record in a horse stable where you can hear all these horses booming through the wall. It’s a constant reminder to never lose the big hollow power of muscles. Electric guitar can’t do that because it’s through wires. You can try to mimic it through pedals and amps but really the power is in the body.” Acoustic guitars are layered up “to the point where they’re almost unrecognisable as guitars”, and the wonderfully atmospheric cello of Pete Harvey, and focus on concise and gritty storytelling, make for a powerfully emotive and cinematic experience. This is an invigorating reinvention of Throwing Muses’ sound when compared with the fuzzed electric guitars of the album’s also excellent predecessor, Sun Racket. It is also a testament to the power of creativity in transmuting difficult experiences into honest and empathic art, since these songs derive from a time Hersh spent living amongst the homeless and displaced of Moonlight Beach, Encinitas, California. That Hersh can continue to transform her music yet retain its power in those different guises throughout a career lasting over four decades, just goes to show how truly essential and unique her art remains.

Returning to billy woods’ essential Backwoodz Studioz label four years on from 2021’s ruminative Load Bearing Crow’s Feet LP, PremRock, otherwise known as one-half of razor-sharp rap duo ShrapKnel, is on typically scintillating form on Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…? Pulling together production from an extensive cast of collaborators that includes Child Actor, ELUCID and YUNGMORPHEUS, as well as lyrical contributions from billy woods, Pink Siifu, Cavalier and ShrapKnel bandmate Curly Castro, it’s testament to PremRock and executive producer Willie Green just how focused and fluid the 16-track project sounds. Weaving together laidback, jazzy beats (‘Void Laquer’, ‘Doubt Mountain’) and more expansively epic instrumental moments in cuts like ‘Steal Wool’ and ‘Love Is A Battlefield Simulation’, it’s all brought together masterfully by its protagonist’s astute wordplay that explores love, loss and grief in its various forms. Did you enjoy your time here? I certainly did.

The first thing that strikes you, and I mean physically, about Sandwell District’s first album in over a decade is the bruising wallop of the bass drums. ‘Will You Be Safe?’ shifts samba beats into heavier realms, with added threat and potency. The slower downbeat atmospherics of ‘Least Travelled’ recall Gaspar Noé’s DMT chains expanding and contracting in Enter The Void. This rides an even more psychedelic bent with slow struck strings reminiscent of Raime’s guitar work from Quarter Turns Over A Living Line being left out in the sun. It’s a calmer effort that becomes increasingly grimy and frazzled before vanishing in a smudge of static. Sandwell District still seem eager to assault the biggest speakers in the darkest rooms and they eloquently marry the primal physicality of techno’s propulsion with its forward-facing techniques. It might not have the initial groundbreaking impact of its predecessor, but End Beginnings pushes the techno continuum on, inch by inch, bleep by alien bleep, beat by rib-crushing beat.

These New Puritans’ first release from forthcoming album Crooked Wing does a lot with a little. Simply crafted from light melodic percussion and opening with a delicate chorister’s vocal, ‘Industrial Love Song’ imagines romance between two cranes vocalised in a duet between Jack Barnett and Caroline Polachek. It’s a strangely affecting snapshot from what promises to be one of the albums of the year.

Having delivered some of the most beautiful music of the decade on their 2022 self-titled debut LP, caroline’s first new music in three years proves that they’re capable of higher peaks still. ‘Total euphoria’ is aptly titled, a clatter of duelling noise and layers of disparate texture, which ultimately dovetail into absolute sonic transcendence.

Effervescent Los Angelino Gelli Haha somehow manages to sound very much like a cross between the moody early electro-pop singles of Mylène Farmer and Italo disco one-hit-wonders PlusTwo on ‘Bounce House’, and right now I can’t imagine anything I want to hear more.

The first taste of billy woods’ forthcoming album GOLLIWOG finds the rapper linking up with longtime collaborator Kenny Segal. The producer delivers a riveting beat resplendent with wailing  horn samples and stuttering, jazzy drums as woods goes full horndog, laying down tongue-in-cheek lines about “bite marks on the breast” and “tangled sheets”. It’s a fitting introduction to the surrealism and absurdity that underpins the upcoming LP.

Scottish composer Carmel Smickersgill’s new single concerns coping mechanisms. The warping relationships between a person and their habit is mirrored in reversed saxophone samples, eerily manipulated vocal lines and unsettling percussion that relentlessly loop and mutate, spinning and spinning and spinning until the entire combination twists into a thing of dizzying brilliance.

It’s been somewhat satisfying of late seeing HTRK assert their position as one of the most interesting groups of the current century’s leftfield via their ongoing reissues programme, and the sense of taking stock that came across in my recent Strange World Of… interview. This understated new single of drum machine, guitar and Jonnine Standish’s vocal fits with the reflective moment and emphasises how the duo’s mood music is oddly chameleonic. Listening with the sun pouring through the windows, it seems to fit both the optimism of the northern hemisphere’s spring, and the autumn now looming in HTRK’s native south. 

Stick In The Wheel’s take on a Wizz Jones classic, where themes of trauma and PTSD hover unnervingly around a deceptively jaunty instrumental, first appeared on last year’s superb A Thousand Pokes LP, but gets a re-up here thanks to new cyber-surrealist visuals from Zeroh Projects, released to accompany the band’s ongoing UK tour.

It might have taken four-and-a-half years of teasers and false dawns, but Playboi Carti finally dropped his third album proper, MUSIC, this month. While its somewhat bloated and unfocused nature means it doesn’t fully hit the heights of past projects, it’s loaded with plenty of bangers, not least in ‘OPM BABI’. A febrile slice of bass-boosted Atlanta trap brilliance, the track pulls together a dizzying clash of gunshot samples, Carti’s falsetto-like vocals and the maxed-out hype-man shouts of Swamp Izzo, the Atlanta DJ whose voice appears somewhat erratically across MUSIC having lit up various mixtapes coming out of the city in the 2010s.