If you told me that 2025 would be the stupidest year I’ve lived through, well, at least there’s the possibility of accidental entertainment in that, right? But when you combine stupidest with cruelest, no amount of gallows humor can do much to counteract our uniquely revolting moment in time. I’m thankful then that I frequently find myself in the company of people actively combating our various forms of social deterioration, that I don’t personally know anyone who is psyched about generative AI, and that I’m getting old enough that the years are truly starting to whizz by anyway. Much like this ever-enduring music blog, I’m a work in progress, and hope to someday meaningfully kick back against the pricks to an extent that I might feel proud of.

In the meantime, let’s look back on twelve months of excellent music. The hurdles seem higher every year, from the artists trying to find a reasonable way to share their work with the people who might enjoy it to the prospective listeners trying to find a way to discover new music that really speaks to them (and hopefully avoid the horrors of “dynamic ticket pricing” if they decide to go to a show). So, thank you all for persisting! If I can offer one piece of advice to those listeners, it’s this: pay closer attention to fewer things. It’s a rich suggestion coming from a guy who talks about thirty new records every month, but bear with me! The oligarchs want to turn art into a fire hydrant spew of contextless noise, an endlessly-scrollable deluge that you can neither process nor enjoy. It’s the worst way to experience culture, so please, actually spend some money on music (maybe even buy some MP3s if you’re feeling saintly), and then spend the same amount of time with it you gave to a compact disc in 2002. Even if you hate it, too – some of my fondest listening experiences are with music I cannot stand. (You should’ve been in the van when we played that first Geordie Greep single over and over, ahahahehehe!) Besides listening to records at home (while surrounded by IKEA Kallaxes at all angles), I got a modern MP3 player earlier this year (the terribly-named FiiO JM21) and I put something like seventy full-lengths on there (roughly 0.000007% of Spotify’s library). It’s been deeply satisfying to blast the same few albums for weeks at a time. The two or three companies that lease most of our digital lives back to us are so desperate to own the remainder, so while we still have this semblance of freedom of choice, I strongly urge you to exercise it.

While we’re looking back, I’m also gonna take this yearly opportunity to toot my own horn, however small it may be. Some quick personal highlights:

– Irish punk band Problem Patterns invited me to sing on their song “Sad Old Woman”, and not as the titular character, believe it or not. It’s on their Boring Songs For Boring People EP. I actually got to perform it live with them in Brighton over the summer, and I bonked my head really bad on a PA speaker during it, just as nature intended

– Pissed Jeans played fifteen shows this year (slightly under our median average of eighteen), and shared our cover of Lou Reed’s “Waves Of Fear”

– I got a new project going called Shirtless with Jonathan Krohn and Alina Pleskova, and we released our debut album Empty Powers on Downwards Records

– I did a fun interview with Gabi Page-Fort of Hex Enduction Records & Books for the shop’s Hex Enduction Quarterly zine, focused mostly on this very music newsletter/blog, which was lots of fun. I believe it’s only available in print form, but they’re extremely generous folks and would love to share with any interested parties I’m sure – you won’t regret reaching out to them!

Thank you for bearing with – we’re almost to the lists! I’d be remiss if I didn’t share my favorite song (and music video) of the year, too. Without question, it’s Jim White’s “I Don’t Do / Grand Central” featuring Zoh Amba. I talked it up earlier this month in my album review, but I need to reiterate it once more. Their pairing of homespun meditative groove with oddball comedic riffing is one of a kind, and you can sing along with it – in fact, you must sing along with it. The friendship displayed between these two artists is moving, probably because it’s just funny and natural and they are in no way trying to move us with it. If I could send holiday cards to my friends in the form of a song, it’d be “I Don’t Do / Grand Central”, make no mistake. See you next year!

Top Singles of 2025
1. Blawan BouQ 12″
2. Jorg Kuning Elvers Pass 12″
3. Alex Kassian Body Singer 12″
4. Gombeen & Doygen Prada / Sequel 12″
5. Rigorous Institution The Tormentor 12″
6. Bruce Belly / Burned Alive 12″
7. Actress Tranzkript 1 12″
8. Kissland Girls Mignon 7″
9. Oh Mr James I’m Not Here EP 12″
10. Chronophage Musical Attack: Communist + Anarchist Friendship 7″
11. Miles J Paralysis Turf Step EP 12″
12. Vehicular Vehicular 12″
13. Upsammy Open Catalyst 12″
14. Jonathan Kirby This Is Your Song 7″
15. Tornado Wallace Bitter Suite 12″
16. Dwig Beyond Cry And Smile 12″
17. Eddy Current Suppression Ring Shapes And Forms 7″
18. Yu Su Foundry / Bonita 12″
19. Young Eman Popstar In Da Bits MP3
20. Carrier The Fan Dance 7″

Honorable Mention:
The Native Cats Aces Low / Lose Count 7″
Bruce The Price / Mimicry 7″
Dopplereffekt Metasymmetry 12″
Skee Mask Stressmanagement 12″
The Bug Burials / Mud 12″

Top Albums of 2025
1. Blawan SickElixir
2. YHWH Nailgun 45 Pounds
3. Nourished By Time The Passionate Ones
4. Erika de Casier Lifetime
5. Kaleidoscope Cities Of Fear
6. Darkside Nothing
7. Fish Narc Frog Song
8. Marie Davidson City Of Clowns
9. Safe Mind Cutting The Stone
10. Schatterau Übers Jahr
11. Cube Lucky Numbers & True Weight
12. France Destino Scifosi
13. Dark Thoughts Highway To The End
14. Rat Heart Dancin’ In The Streets
15. Unchained Frontalier
16. Headache Thank You For Almost Everything
17. Evan Parker & Bill Nace Branches
18. A Happy Return Hamewith
19. Carnivorous Bells Beacons In Limbo
20. Carrier Rhythm Immortal

Honorable Mention:
Real Lies We Will Annihilate Our Enemies
Index For Working Musik Which Direction Goes The Beam
They Are Gutting A Body Of Water LOTTO
JJulius Vol III
Black Eyes Hostile Design

Blawan BouQ (XL)
Alright, here’s some proof that my year-end best-of lists come straight from the heart: who in their right mind would pick the same artist for best single and best album if any sort of savvy posturing came into play? If my main goal was to strategically generate clicks, I’d be looking outside of my gut for the answers, but seriously – do you want new wave or do you want the truth? BouQ arrived by storm early in the year, subtly smoother and more sensual in comparison to the forthcoming SickElixir album, which of course we didn’t know at the time. These tracks are heavyweight pop caught in a violent windstorm without sufficient shelter, the cyber-femme vocal hooks cutting through waves of hot dust and the occasional shard of wrecked industrial equipment. “Fires” is Rihanna versus Godzilla in the Las Vegas sphere as officiated by Bill Kouligas… motion-sickness-inducing techno years ahead of its time. Since Blawan’s excellent Dismantled Into Juice single (coincidentally my favorite EP in 2023, ehrm), his accompanying artwork has utilized close-range photography of domesticated animals with neon spray-paint accents. The visceral and uncanny sheep’s wool doused with jarringly artificial pigmentation here is a perfect visual complement to the music. I’m so glad Blawan continues to share his unique vision with the world.

Blawan SickElixir (XL)
Real talk, the album category always comes with the stiffest competition. YHWH Nailgun, Nourished By Time, Erika de Casier, Kaleidoscope… they all produced stunning records that enriched my 2025 deeply, and had any of those artists chosen to whittle their albums down into EPs, they could’ve easily topped the singles list. However, there can be only one #1 in the numerical ranking system I stubbornly cling to, and this one’s a no-brainer: SickElixir is the high point of Blawan’s career. I’m not sure how he can ever top this, and I’m scared to think he might try, as I expect to be reckoning with this record for quite a while to come. Aggressive electronic music is a hard fruit to squeeze fresh juice from, and yet Blawan is here dumping it over us like a Gatorade cooler in the final seconds before a championship victory. Squint and you’ll hear Korn and Doja Cat, squint even harder and you’ll hear Napalm Death and Mr. Oizo, and if you squint so hard that your eyes start to bleed, congratulations – you’ve finally achieved the true state of SickElixir. I’ve seen the album appear on a few other best-of-2025 lists – rightfully so, of course – yet I’m more dismayed by those that have heard it and not given it top billing than those that haven’t heard it at all. Imagine tasting freshly-ground Alba Ceylon cinnamon for the first time and then ranking it third behind store-brand dried parsley and onion powder. That’s the trouble with blazing new ground, but I don’t have to wait for the world to catch up with Blawan… not when I can karate-mosh to “Casch” in my living room right this very moment. In fact, wait here a sec – I’ll be right back.

As we hurtle towards oblivion from every possible angle… how about I numerically rate the records I like, for your entertainment? Does that help?? Even as I playfully mock this yearly self-indulgence (in hopes that acknowledging the silliness of this exercise grants me permission to continue with some sort of self-respect intact), I have to say, writing this website-turned-newsletter (but-still-also-very-much-a-website) brings me a lot of joy. Music is my favorite thing, and while the act of blogging, or really doing anything online, can often feel like you’re transmitting directly into your own navel, I have felt more connected than ever via Yellow Green Red to whoever might be reading it. All your emails, comments, notes, re-grams, charitable in-person comments, Substack recommendations (and even Substack donations!), whatever, they all mean a lot to me, even if I still find the act of responding to warm, friendly praise to be difficult and uncomfortable. If you dig it, please, tell a friend, and tell me about the thing you’re doing, too!

Speaking of things other people are doing, I’d like to strongly recommend John’s Music Blog, an email newsletter written by John Chiaverina I discovered this year. He writes with such an obvious passion for underground music, completely ambivalent to trends yet not unaware of them. Most importantly, I’ve discovered so much good stuff from his newsletter, which also makes me routinely chuckle. I never checked out his music project Juiceboxxx back in the day (certain project names just give me an immediate “no thanks, I’m good”, and I’m sure he’d be the first to understand), but maybe I should? Truly, if you enjoy Yellow Green Red at all, I can only assume you’ll enjoy John’s Music Blog a whole hell of a lot too. I’d also like to recommend the fantastic zine newsletter written by underground rock-lifer Jay Hinman, Fanzine Hemorrhage, which made my 2024 significantly brighter. You probably know him from any of his multitude of writing projects: the Superdope zine back in the ’90s, the Agony Shorthang blog from the ’00s, or most recently, his Dynamite Hemorrhage zine and radio show. I really appreciate his perspective, and I think it shines best with Fanzine Hemorrhage, his extended exercise in reviewing old zines. Kind of a funny concept, but he really digs in deep and dissects the underground culture with a reverent yet critical eye that I find deeply entertaining. I don’t want to smudge my thumbs with newsprint, nor do I have any interest in straining my already-weak eyes at the 6-point fonts favored by amphetamine-fueled teenage editors back in 1978, so I thank him for his service. I subscribe to a bunch of newsletters, and buy zines here and there, but John’s Music Blog and Fanzine Hemorrhage receive my highest recommendation.

Now, getting back to me… my band Pissed Jeans released our sixth album this year, Half Divorced. (I know, John is probably thinking “you’re telling me you’re too good for ‘Juiceboxxx’ yet your band is called ‘Pissed Jeans’?” and he’d have a very valid point.) If you haven’t checked it out, that’s alright, I understand, but I’m kindly asking you to please give it a listen wherever you like to consume your digital music free-of-charge. I’m super proud of it, and while every album, big or small, gets lost in today’s cavalcade of new releases, I hope some of y’all will care to pull it up and give it a listen. Or really knock me off my chair and actually buy a copy! I can’t help but think about that one news article from a few weeks back that said more new music is released in a single day in 2024 than in the entire year of 1989. A wild stat, but ‘releasing’ music has never been easier, which is great for those without the financial means for a traditional 1989-styled record release, even if it means there is more being produced than any one person can conceivably check out in a lifetime, let alone a year. That’s why I am suspicious of so many indie year-end lists still looking pretty damn similar to each other! If a list doesn’t have at least a handful of things I haven’t even heard of in 2024, there’s a good chance it’s more beholden to some proprietary algorithm than the writer’s own curious sense of adventure, you know?

That’s one thing that’s been on my mind, even after I did a ton of talking this year! It was mostly Pissed Jeans-related, but some personal highlights include:

– a long overdue chat with Damian Abraham on his Turned Out A Punk podcast

– a vibrant discussion with the wonderful poet Niina Pollari for The Creative Independent

– an appearance on Vish Khanna’s Kreative Kontrol podcast

– an episode of the Birthday Cake For Breakfast podcast

– book chat on the wonderful Reading Writers podcast with Charlotte Shane and Jo Livingstone

– an interview with Larry Fitzmaurice for his Last Donut Of The Night newsletter

– a mostly downtempo/outsider-y mix I put together for the Health Connection crew

Whew! I should probably shut up for all of 2025, but that already seems unlikely. Onward to my lists, though I want to mention that there were so many fantastic albums this year that narrowing it down (in this formal ranking, no less) was extra onerous. Conversely, I noticed a whole lot less happening in the world of singles, both punk and electronic and whatever else fits outside those designations. Many of my favorite singles this time around consist of little more than a YouTube link or a Bandcamp download, but that’s the reality of the world now, and I’m not about to withhold something from my best-of list just because it wasn’t granted an appealing format. Still, it’s wild to me that there’s only one punk seven-inch in my top twenty! The format is clearly dying off at an alarming rate, and I assume it’s a matter of economics, seeing as no one actually needs to buy a record to hear its songs anymore, and as prices continue to rise, I’m sure it feels awkward (and fruitless) to ask for (or pay) like fifteen bucks for a seven-inch, or twenty-plus for a twelve-inch single; and yet, the domestic thirty-dollar LP is now established as the low-end norm, even for punk records. Speaking of LPs, if you missed it, earlier this year I released The Burgundy Daughns on vinyl, a collection of rare, previously-digital Daughn Gibson material from the last few years. It sold out in two weeks, but I was afraid of sitting on boxes of ’em if I pressed much more, so I’m sorry if you missed it and wanted one. Hopefully it just means more Daughn records to come. Alright, Happy New Year everyone, see you on the other side…

Top Singles of 2024
1. Safe Mind 6’ Pole MP3
2. TisaKorean bEat uP dAt bOy MP3
3. Zillas On Acid Mars Hum EP 12″ 
4. Mikey Thrythm MP3
5. Marie Davidson Y.A.A.M. 12″
6. Artificial Go Hopscotch Fever 12″
7. Toribio Bring Dat Jazz 12″ 
8. Personal Damage Violent Ritual 7″
9. Carrier In Spectra 12″
10. Yambag Mindfuck Ultra 12″
11. 1900Rugrat Clean & Dirty MP3
12. ESP Promise MP3s
13. DJ Rat Nocturne 12″
14. Shed Applications 12″
15. Public Acid Deadly Struggle 12″
16. Her New Knife Chrome Is Lullaby CD-EP
17. Kite Losing / Glassy Eyes 7″
18. Michele Ottini Acqua Alla Gola 7″
19. Ciel & CCL Tilda’s Goat Stare 12″
20. Demdike Stare x Dolo Percussion Dolo DS 12″

Honorable Mention:
Zero Key Zero Key 12″
Alien Nosejob The Executioner / West Side Story 7″
Burial / Kode9 Phoneglow / Eyes Go Blank 12″
Extortion Threats 7″
Fake Last Name Three Persuasion Domains 7″

Top Albums of 2024
1. Disintegration Shiver In A Weak Light
2. Straw Man Army Earthworks
3. BASIC This Is BASIC
4. The Minneapolis Uranium Club Infants Under The Bulb
5. Anadol & Marie Klock La Grande Accumulation
6. Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew MAY
7. The Dark Sinking Into Madness
8. Shop Regulars Shop Regulars
9. Persher Sleep Well
10. B L A C K I E Noise God
11. Ulla & Ultrafog It Means A Lot
12. B. Rupp Pop Music
13. Jay Glass Dubs Resurgence
14. Mordecai Seeds From The Furthest Vine
15. Norms 100% Hazaárulás
16. K. Freund Trash Can Lamb
17. Morgan Garrett Purity
18. Tim Koh & Sun An Salt And Sugar Look The Same
19. Holy Tongue Meets Shackleton The Tumbling Psychic Joy Of Now
20. Moin You Never End

Honorable Mention:
Uniform American Standard
The Sheaves A Salve For Institution
Astrid Sonne Great Doubt
Maria Bertel & Nina Garcia Knækket Smil
Knowso Pulsating Gore

Safe Mind 6′ Pole (no label)
Top single of the year was a no-brainer for me, as “6′ Pole” was easily my most-played track of 2024. It’s not only the best track from the new duo Safe Mind, it’s their only publicly-available track, and I am absolutely dying for more (and the inevitable vinyl release – come on now, stop playing). Safe Mind is Augustus Muller of Boy Harsher on the beats and programming and Cooper B. Handy (AKA Lucy) on vocals, and “6′ Pole” combines the best of their respective worlds: Muller’s perfectly layered, never-overstuffed synths slide out of Boy Harsher’s goth basement and into the main club room and Handy’s unique use of the English language (in both the way the lyrics are written on paper as well as how they are pronounced out loud) pushes it over into a bullseye ear-worm whose joy has not lessened in the months since I first heard it. Through a deep Lucy discography, Handy has proven his ability to rap-sing over anything – the Titanic soundtrack, a TV commercial jingle, a malfunctioning MPC, whatever – and Muller lays it out for him perfectly, a vibrant, house-y bass-line with dance-pop drum programming, an uncommonly chime-y synth hook and even some occasional guitar licks as the cherry on top. Or are those record-scratch sound effects the cherry and the guitar is the whipped cream?? Either way, this song is so much fun, like The Rapture combined with Kid N’ Play via Not Not Fun Records appearing live at The Haçienda on December 31st, 1999. Knowing how Boy Harsher does it, I can only assume they’re eventually going to roll out like eight different ‘vinyl variants’ for Safe Mind and I might be stupid enough to buy more than one, if only to give my extra to a friend who hasn’t heard it yet.

Disintegration Shiver In A Weak Light (Feel It)
Like I said, lots of great albums made it into my home over the last twelve months, and while this list is very much a snapshot taking in the particular moment I decided to jot it all down and tally it up, I feel confident in saying that Disintegration’s debut full-length Shiver In A Weak Light gets my top honor this year. Yes, Straw Man Army are incredible, The Dark are on another level, I’ve got the BASIC album on repeat and that Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew set blew my mind, but Disintegration have satisfied all my listening needs, from the rough to the smooth. They’re experimental: their fusion of synths, programming and guitars is unusually muscular and gritty, and their songs aren’t beholden to typical pop structuring (though they’re not actively against it, either) nor are they averse to various forms of noise. They’re pop: “Pioneer” and “Messages” are huge, with hooks bred to entertain stadiums of idiots but cursed to whip stylish bar crowds into a frenzy. “Shot By Both Sides” combines gross Lords Of Acid-style squelching with the emotional grip of vocalist Haley Himiko, but “Hideaway” is the single to end all singles, stomping in like an electro Gary Glitter before flipping dimensions into some high-gloss amalgam of Xeno & Oaklander and Modern English. You couldn’t fit its massive hook in a freight elevator, and then someone drops a wretchedly distorted guitar solo in the mix, which somehow fits! It’s like Disintegration are making synth-pop with an entirely different set of stylistic references than the rest of the pack, giving me visions of La Roux joining Front 242 for their own Mortal Kombat soundtrack, only it was actually released on Coil’s Eskaton label… and went platinum. Year after year, I swear I’m not trying to be a Feel It mark, but my annoying neighborhood nemesis could’ve released Shiver In A Weak Light and I’d have no choice but to sing its praises all the same. I had to miss Distintegration’s Philly show earlier this month, and barring any life-threatening circumstances I won’t make that same mistake twice.