We’re now halfway through my list of favorite albums from last year. Who’s here? Read on!
#15: Lammping – Never Never
Take a trip-hop duo (Lammping) and combine them with a Canadian rockabilly one-man-band who was described by John Waters as “Roy Orbison with a head injury” (Bloodshot Bill), and you get the neat Never Never EP. It sounds like something you’d find in a dusty record bin among “2000s Music – Misc.”, and is well-worth seeking out. It’s the first of four EPs from Lammping, so they’re off to a good start.
#14: King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard – Phantom Island
Would it be a “best of” year list without a King Gizz album by now, since they release at least one album a year? Phantom Island combines the Aussie psych-rock / thrash metal / rave music giants with an orchestra because…why not? It’s a lush album with as much mystery as its cover.
#13: pôt-pot – Warsaw 480km
Here’s a post-punk band that emerged from seemingly nowhere to knock me back into my chair. “Damn, that’s good,” was my first thought after hearing it. I’m delighted that so many good post-punk bands are still appearing, and this is one of them.
#12: John Also Bennett – Ston Elaióna
This is a lovely ambient record mostly made of synths and field recordings John Also Bennett made around Greece. One song is inspired by the oldest known written song found on a stone pillar.
#11: Paddang – Lost in Lizardland
It’s a French psych-rock concept album about a future world dominated by evil lizard people and a lone heroine in the wasteland trying to defeat them. What more do you need to know?
It’s time for my annual review of my favorite albums of the previous year. Who made the top 25 (or 40+) albums I reviewed? Read on!
#25: GoGo Penguin – Necessary Fictions
This is a solid jazz / prog album full of great beats and slick piano work. It was a pleasant surprise to discover it and this band last year.
#24: Beta Voids – Scrape It Off EP
This is a wonderfully nuts punk EP with songs about women kicking ass, people named Alan, and how much toxic masculinity sucks. A full LP from Beta Voids is in the works, so watch out before they run you over and laugh on the way out of town.
#23: Ric Wilson – America Runs on Disco EP
Speaking of good EPs that came out last year, here’s another. Ric Wilson is still somehow a secret force despite being a top-notch producer, songwriter, rapper, and cheerleader for the overly maligned city Chicago (Don’t believe what you hear. Go spend a couple days there, especially in the summer.). This EP is funky and joyful, which was exactly what we needed when it was released and still need right now.
#22: Bonnie Trash – Mourning You
On the opposite side of the spectrum, here’s an album about grief that’s one of the heaviest records of the year. The lyrics cut deep if you’ve lost a loved one, or even witnessed someone’s grief from afar.
#21: Dusty Rose Gang – A-One from Day One
Just when you thought rock might be taking a vacation for a little while, along comes this quartet to deliver one of the best straight-up rock records of 2025.
Chicago rapper, producer, an all-around cool cat Ric Wilson finds and speaks many truths on his newest EP, America Runs on Disco. The title alone is accurate, whether you want to believe it or not. Wilson wrote the record during his bafflement over the 2024 election results and wanting to shake off the doldrums he was feeling.
He comes up with the funky, fresh, and frisky “They Can’t Get Next to You,” which blends rap with house music and Italo-disco touches. “Blah Blah Blah” (with Kiela Adira helping out on vocals) sizzles and snaps and will slide right into your next house party mix. Party Pupils join Wilson on “Missin’ My Window,” a fun track about not opening the door when opportunity knocks and offers you love or at least a fun night. It sounds like he missed a lot of opportunities while on tour, and “Chicago to London” is a bit of a sequel to it (“Come and get deez these disco balls.”).
The title track drops enough groovy bass to power a couple hip hop albums and comes with plenty of wisdom (“The only way to live is to accept you’ll die.”). “Everybody Red in the Face” has Wilson looking for calm in the storm of rage that’s grabbed the country by the throat, and wondering if he’s the only person searching for it (“Is anybody else out there, or am I alone?”). “When Pigs Fly” closes the EP with bright synth notes while Wilson drops bars that call out people who are embracing that anger or pretending to be hard because they’re afraid to be vulnerable or admit admit they’re wrong.
Wilson continues to drop sweet records like this. He knows the country needs to have a good time. He’s getting up early to make the disco. Don’t disappoint him by not getting any.
Mikhail Galkin and Jay Anderson, sometimes known as Lammping, are a Toronto duo known for producing beats, combining genres, and making interesting, and sometimes weird, decisions that create intriguing music you feel like you’ve heard before…but you’re not sure.
Nowadays, the duo have released the first of four experimental EPs — Never Never, this one with rockabilly one-man-band Bloodshot Bill, whom John Waters once described as “Roy Orbison with a head injury.” Take someone like that and put them in a studio with trip-hop and psych-rock music producers and you get a fun record.
The opening title track alone, with its brush beats, looped saxophone, and upright bass is enough to stop you in your tracks as Bill sings / raps about an unexpected love connection. The somewhat melted guitar on the instrumental “Coconut” oozes into mind-melting beats. “One and Own” is a fun example of Waters’ “head injury” description of Bill as he sings about his girlfriend but sounds like he might be punch-drunk.
“0 and 1” is a fun instrumental trip-hop cut that would fit right onto a St. Germain or Air album. Bill’s vocals on “Won’t Back Down” sound like he’s trying to keep up a brave face while crying into his beer. The gooey, chewy beat loops and western guitar on the track are slick — especially the guitar solo. In a just and right world, the quirky instrumental “Anything Is Possible” would’ve been remixed by MFDOOM by now. The EP ends with “Nitey Nite.” You can just barely hear Bill’s backing vocal sounds in it, which give way to his whistling (which is sprinkled throughout the record) that sends us out with a grin.
The whole EP will keep you grinning. It’s a lot of fun and a great sign of things to come over the next three projects.
Toronto psych-rock experimentalists LAMMPING return with “Never Never,” a full-tilt collaboration with Montreal rockabilly legend Bloodshot Bill, out May 6 via We Are Busy Bodies. The track supports their upcoming album Never Never, set for release on June 27, which marks the first installment of an ambitious four-album journey that will span genres, collaborations, and sonic time-travel over the next year.
After remixing Badge Époque Ensemble’s Clouds Of Joy album, Lammping’s Mikhail Galkin found himself re-immersed in the kind of sample-heavy hip-hop production he’d explored years earlier under the name DJ Alibi. Drawing on a style rooted in early ’90s East Coast rap but layered with live instrumentation and offbeat textures—somewhere between Pete Rock and The Avalanches—Galkin began blending those techniques into Lammping’s heavy psych-rock foundation.
The spark for Never Never came when the band reached out to Montreal rockabilly legend Bloodshot Bill, whose voice—gritty, elastic, and totally distinctive—felt like the perfect wildcard. The two had crossed paths over a decade earlier, and when Bill came to Toronto for a show, they booked a quick session. One track turned into three, and the album took shape around Jay Anderson’s breakbeat-style drumming, live jams, and flipped samples.
“‘Never Never’ was the first song that came out of this series of sessions, and it felt like a reset,” says Lammping producer Mikhail Galkin. “I was getting back into sampling, digging through records, pulling loops, then flipping them into songs. There are certain voices that always stood out to me. I always liked Bloodshot Bill’s voice and how he manipulates it and felt it would be a really cool instrument, so to speak, to feature on our stuff. It’s pretty harsh at times, but then he can drop it super low when needed. It generally has this animated feel.”
Originally built around a saxophone loop unearthed by bandmate Jay, the song became a springboard for collaboration. “I think the loop was kinda mischievous and rhythmically interesting, and it was recorded quite hot so it had a little bit of distortion. BB gravitated to it and used it as a springboard to write the song. He also shares a love of ’80s rap—when we were driving in his car, he had LL Cool J, Run DMC and Ultramagnetic MCs playing and all that, so it made sense that this project happened.”
Layer by layer, guitars, drums, and other samples were stirred into the mix, resulting in a gritty, genre-bending track that feels both chaotic and strangely cohesive. “I feel like BB is almost rapping on it,” Galkin adds, “but it still doesn’t become a hip-hop track. How weird the result became is what I love about the songs—I never get tired of it.”
Paired with a hallucinatory video directed and edited by Galkin himself, “Never Never” acts as a portal into the first chapter of Lammping’s upcoming 4 part series—a celebration of psychedelic music, hip-hop, the DIY punk aesthetic, and unfiltered creativity. It’s a record that doesn’t just reference influences, it inhabits them with total sincerity.
MC/Lyricist RawPoetic (aka JasonMoore) shares a new single, “Digits,” from his forthcoming album, Space Beyond The Solar System, out December9th on 22ndCenturySound. It follows lead single “A Mile In My Head,” which features legendary saxophonist ArchieShepp “soaring above a simple piano melody…with [IrreversibleEntanglements‘ Luke] Stewart’s bass driving it forward alongside a boom-bap beat and several smooth productional flourishes from Damu” (The FADER). “Digits” is immediate, with Raw Poetic’s vocals spitting over an atmospheric beat and keys. “‘Digits’ is basically about moving through the digital ages, yet being unfazed by it,” says Raw Poetic. “I like being an average joe. I like doing things in an organic way. So while the sound rides and moves into this unique digital format, we still give you what’s true to us.”
Although Space Beyond The Solar System could be considered a concept album by its outcome, its inception started from a string of experiments between Moore and frequent collaborator/producer Damu the Fudgemunk. These initial sessions had no specific direction but became the catalyst for what would become a prolific wave of Raw Poetic projects; five of which have been released since 2020. At two hours, absorbing Space Beyond in its entirety may be overwhelming for most, especially in the present day, but Raw and Damu are very aware of this. With a total of over 40-plus years experience between the vocalist and producer, the two of them went down memory lane taking every influence and experience in their personal histories to extract ingredients for a groundbreaking statement. Space Beyond The Solar System is their most comprehensive environment to date.
The creation of Space Beyond sparked a conversation between Raw and Damu about their creative chemistry, with Raw likening their direction to a “space beyond the solar system.” His comment was a eureka moment for the two artists, giving their wandering efforts a sense of definition that was needed. “I think we’ve been exploring music beyond our limits for a few years,” says Raw Poetic. “It’s hard to tell where we’ll land, but we are constantly pushing our way out of the norm. Hence the title, ‘Space Beyond the Solar System.’ It’s just to say, this is new territory for us. Where the sky was once the limit, now it’s just the start.”
Raw Poetic will head overseas to headline the Jazz Cafe in London April 1, 2023. More European dates to be announced in the coming weeks.
Jeremy “JayWood”Haywood-Smith went through a lot, like all of us, in the last three years but he had an added gut punch to the mess – the death of his mother in 2019. He, again like all of us, wanted to put those times behind him, but he realized he needed to take an honest look back to move forward, which inspired the name of his newest album, Slingshot.
The album’s overarching story takes place in one day and covers topics ranging from childhood to religion to racial violence, and the musical styles across the record cover as much ground, if not more. “God Is a Reptile” is a bumping, thumping track with psychedelic guitar flourishes and trance bass while he encourages us to not beat ourselves up over trivial crap. In fact we should, as the next track suggests, “Pray, Move On.” “All Night Long” seems to skewer people who will party their lives away while the planet crumbles around them. The fact that JayWood makes it a lovely dance track only emphasizes the ironic point.
“Just Sayin'” has JayWood and Ami Cheon singing us a danceable Zen lesson with funky grooves and lyrics like “I’m not thinkin’ ’bout the future. We can’t go down that path. ‘Cause I’m just rooted in the here, the now, the black, the brown, the truth…” “Is It True (Dreams Pt. 3)” has a great mix of hand percussion, processed beats, soothing bass, clockwork guitars, and pulsing synths as JayWood wonders if love is real. His vocals get trippy and drippy on “Kitchen Floor” – a lyrically scalding track that has JayWood shaking up white folks, black folks, his friends, himself, and apathy in general.
“Shine” (with co-vocalist McKinley Dixon) is a plea let black people just live their lives. “Tulips” seems to be a song directed toward a lady who JayWood sees at church now and then, but it might be directed toward God – who really is the same person. He encourages us on “YGBO – Interlude” that “If you’re healing, you’re gonna be okay.” “Thank You” is a song for his “dearly parted” mother and other people he’s lost, and we’ve all lost, in the last three years. “I just want to thank you for the best years of my life,” JayWood sings, and you can’t help but clap along with him. His lyrics about dealing with grief are spot-on: “Here’s hoping time will help when feeling low. Here’s hoping it’s not that bad thinking you’re in heaven now. So I’ll just keep my head in the clouds. Seems hard to go down roads I’ve never known. Seems hard to flow forward, not thinking about what happens now, but Imma do my best to make you proud.”
Amen.
Keep your mind open.
[I’m just sayin’ you should subscribe, that’s all…]
King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard are one of the few bands out there who could start off an album with a song that’s over eighteen minutes long and everyone would think that’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Their new record, Omnium Gatherum, does just that with “The Dripping Tap.”
The album almost sounds like a greatest hits record, as KGATLW move back and forth between genres, time signatures, tuning preferences, and distortion levels. “The Dripping Tap” is a wild psychedelic freak-out, the kind that first got the band noticed just a decade or so ago (although it seems longer due to the massive output the band has generated in such a short time). “Magenta Mountain” starts off with soothing keyboard tones and then drops in slick beats that are perfect for a stroll or cruising on a Jet-Ski.
The funky bass on “Kepler-22b” takes you into outer space and encourages you to have a good time there (as do the lyrics). “Gaia” takes us back to Earth with re-entry burn riffs. Then, just to confuse ads, they drops “Ambergris,” a bedroom slow-jam that would fit on a Thundercat record. “Sadie Sorceress,” believe it or not, is a rap track – and it works.
“Evilest Man” is electro krautrock mixed with roaring riffs and smashing cymbals that sounds like something they accidentally left off Nonagon Infinity. “The Garden Goblin” is a fun, bouncy track that could’ve been listed on Fishing for Fishies, as could “Persistence.” “The Grim Reaper” is another hip hop track, complete with trippy flute loops.
“Presumptuous” bounces with Outkast-like pep. “Predator X” is a return to hard-hitting thrash metal, countered nicely by the trippy “Red Smoke” and “Candles,” which literally has the band singing, “Wheee!” at one point. The album closes with an instrumental – “The Funeral,” an interesting name choice for the final track, and an interesting choice to close the record with a track that only has vocal sounds and no lyrics.
Omnium Gatherum is a great place to jump on the Gizzard Train if you’re new to the band. It showcases so many styles they can play, and play well, that you’re sure to like at least a few things here.
Dälek, the groundbreaking alt-hip hop duo who recently announced the impending arrival of their eighth album, Precipice (April 29, Ipecac Recordings), have shared a second single, and accompanying video, from the set, releasing “Boycott” (https://youtu.be/g7kmJ1Igd40) this morning.
Will Brooks, aka MC Dälek, said of the track:
“BOYCOTT is the amalgamation of all of our elements.
Cooked like they supposed to be.
This song is my chest ripped open.
It is about the pain in our communities.
It is also about our strength and our inherent worth.
I been tried telling you…. Society’s been failing you.”
The band previously released the single and video for “Decimation (Dis Nation)” (https://youtu.be/a80PM1sphrQ), which was directed by founder Will Brooks, aka MC Dälek. Album pre-orders (https://dalek.lnk.to/Precipice) are available now, with the collection available on limited-edition 2LP gold vinyl, as well as a standard 2LP silver vinyl. The album’s cover was created by Paul Romano (Mastodon, Withered) with interior packaging featuring the art of Afrofuturist painter, Mikel Elam.
“Precipice was a completely different record pre-pandemic,” Brooks explains. “We had been working on the sketch of what the album was going to be at the end of 2019. I think me and (Mike) Manteca had narrowed it down to 17 joints out of the 46 or so that we had started with. Me and Joshua Booth had taken the 17 and really fleshed out the joints. The idea was to bounce them back to Mike and then arrange write lyrics. 2020 obviously had different plans for everybody. We basically put everything on hold. I ended up doing the MEDITATIONS series that year on my own. I think the catharsis of that projects, its rawness, the pandemic, all the death, the social upheaval, everything that went down… when I went back and listened to what we had down… it just wasn’t right anymore, it wasn’t strong enough, it wasn’t heavy enough, it wasn’t angry enough. It just didn’t say what I needed it to say.”
Today, Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA, and Girl Talk present new single, “How The Story Goes,” from their forthcoming collaborative album, Full Court Press, out April 8th on Asylum/Taylor Gang. The album includes various combinations of the artists working together, and, following lead single, “Put You On,” today’s track features the trio of Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T. and Girl Talk. Built around a hazy sample, Khalifa and Big K.R.I.T. trade verses over Girl Talk’s (aka Gregg Gillis) production, complete with glimmering keys, an infectious bassline and a subtle backbeat. “Wiz recorded his verse first. I thought the beat was a slightly different vibe than normal for him, but once he got in the booth, it felt like a natural fit. K.R.I.T came in and built the rest of the song around that verse. He was able to capture the feel of the sample and take it somewhere new,” says Gillis. “This turned into one of the songs that I ended up going back to the most.”
Full Court Press is a culmination of friendships going back ten-plus years and a “unique intersection of all of our work,” says Gillis. From Wiz’s melodic sensibility to K.R.I.T.’s rhythmically tight delivery to DZA’s colorful wordplay, all of the artist’s distinct styles play off of each other. On Girl Talk’s first album since 2010’s All Day, his production keeps the project diverse, each song with its own individual style and mood, while still working as a cohesive body of work. The sample selection and arrangements highlight each of the artists’ most entertaining and compelling characteristics.
From years of expertise at finding unlikely pairs in mashup work, Gillis has an uncanny ability at finding samples that feel like a natural fit for his collaborators. “With any particular sample or beat, I usually have a strong idea of what I’d like to do with it. But when working with other people, it might go somewhere else completely. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to shake what I originally had in mind. I think that’s partially because I spent so many years working alone, in complete control of every detail. It’s both exciting and challenging to be pushed creatively, and in the best situations, you find yourself enjoying someone else’s ideas more than what you originally had planned.”
Later this month, Girl Talk kicks off his first tour in over nine years, with most dates completely sold-out. A full list of tour dates can be found below. Watch the Video for “Put You On”
Full Court Press Tracklist 1. Wiz Khalifa, Smoke DZA, Girl Talk – Mind Blown 2. Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA, Girl Talk – Put You On 3. Smoke DZA, Girl Talk – Season 4. Big K.R.I.T., Wiz Khalifa, Girl Talk – How The Story Goes 5. Wiz Khalifa, Smoke DZA, Big K.R.I.T., Girl Talk – No Singles 6. Wiz Khalifa, Girl Talk – Ready For Love 7. Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA, Girl Talk – Revenge Of The Cool 8. Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA, Girl Talk – Ain’t No Fun 9. Big K.R.I.T., Girl Talk – Fly The Coop 10. Big K.R.I.T., Smoke DZA, Wiz Khalifa, Girl Talk – Everyday ft. Curren$y
Girl Talk Tour Dates: Thu. Mar. 31 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues^ *SOLD OUT* Fri. Apr. 1 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom ^ *SOLD OUT* Sat. Apr. 2 – Boston, MA @ Royale^ *SOLD OUT* Mon. Apr. 4 – Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre^ Tue. Apr. 5 – Chicago, IL @ Metro^ *SOLD OUT* Wed. Apr. 6 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave^ *SOLD OUT* Fri. Apr. 8 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant^ Sat. Apr. 9 – Kansas City, MO @ The Truman^ Mon. Apr. 11 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre^ *SOLD OUT* Tue. Apr. 12 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot^ Thu. Apr. 14 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom^ Fri. Apr. 15 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom^ *SOLD OUT* Sat. Apr. 16 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox *SOLD OUT* Mon. Apr. 18 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent^ *SOLD OUT* Tue. Apr. 19 – San Diego, CA @ House of Blues^ *SOLD OUT* Wed. Apr. 20 – Phoenix AZ @ The Van Buren^ Fri. Apr. 22 – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater^ *SOLD OUT* Sat. Apr. 23 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s Ballroom^ *SOLD OUT* Mon. Apr. 25 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel^ *SOLD OUT* Tue. Apr. 26 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club^ *SOLD OUT* Thu. Apr. 28 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel^ *SOLD OUT* Fri. Apri. 29 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer Sat. Apr. 30 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE^ *SOLD OUT*
Wiz Khalifa Tour Dates: Fri. Apr. 15 – Northampton, MA @ Carniroll Festival, The Roll Up at Three County County Fairgrounds Mon. Apr. 18 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre Sat. Apr. 23 – Washington DC @ National Cannabis Festival Sat. Apr. 30 – San Bernardino, CA @ Smokers Club Festival, Glen Helen Amphitheater Sat. May 14 – Turlock, CA @ Dazed On The Green – Stanislaus County Fairgrounds
Big K.R.I.T. Tour Dates: Thu. Apr. 21 – Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theatre* Fri. Apr. 22 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore* Sat. Apr. 23 – Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa* Sun. Apr. 24 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts (TLA)* Tue. Apr. 26 – Boston, MA @ Royale* Thu. Apr. 28 – New York, NY @ Gramercy Theatre* Sat. Apr. 30 – Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore* Mon. May 2 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom & Tavern* Wed. May 4 – Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre* Fri. May 6 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues* Sat. May 7 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave II* Sun. May 8 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Café* Tue. May 10 – Denver, CO @ Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom* Fri. May 13 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater* Sat. May 14 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox* Tue. May 17 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall – Music Hall* Thu. May 19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Belasco Theater* Fri. May 20 – San Diego, CA @ Music Box* Sat. May 21 – Las Vegas, NV @ 24 Oxford* Sun. May 22 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom* Tue. May 24 – El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace* Thu. May 26 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s* Fri. May 27 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live* Sat. May 28 – Jackson, MS @ JXN Festival* Sun. May 29 – Arlington, TX @ So What!? Festival* Wed. Jun. 1 – Mobile, AL @ Soul Kitchen* Thu. Jun. 2 – Birmingham, AL @ Iron City* Sat. Jun. 4 – Louisville, KY @ Mercury Ballroom* Sun. Jun. 5 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl* Tue. Jun. 7 – New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues* Fri. Jun. 10 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle*
* w/ ELHAE and PRICE
Keep your mind open.
[Why not go to the subscription box while you’re here?]
