We’ve reach the top ten albums I reviewed in the last five years. It gets more difficult to make these lists as the numbers grow smaller, but here goes.
#10: Yard Act – The Overload (2022)
These post-punkers seemed to come out of nowhere and hit us with multiple sharp singles from their debut. The whole album was witty, biting, and wicked.
#9: King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard – PostDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation (2023)
Part-thrash metal, part-environmental activism record, all great. The title and cover image alone let you know you’re in for a wild time, and King Gizz pull no punches on it.
#8: DITZ – Never Exhale(2025)
A whole post-punk album about tension – a topic that post-punk does very well, as do these Brits. The cover image conveys the sense of the record and, like the music, puts you on edge and keeps you there.
#7: Aaron Frazer – Introducing… (2021)
Stepping out from his main gig with Durand Jones and The Indications, Frazer dropped one of the best soul records of recent memory and probably got a thousand date offers just from the first couple tracks.
#6: Gum / Kenny Ambrose-Smith – Ill Times (2024)
This dynamic Australian duo created a cool, electro / dance-rock record that tackled grief and uncertainty. It made you want another one from them right away. I still do.
Who made the top five? Come back tomorrow. It was a tough call, but I made it.
Today, Cornelius returns with his first new music in years, opening a long-awaited new chapter on Eat Your Own Ears Recordings. His new single, a cover of “Yumenemi,” was originally released in 1989 by one of Japan’s most iconic singer-songwriters, Yosui Inoue, and remains a cult Balearic classic.
Reimagined through Cornelius’s singular lens, the track marries his signature collage-like production, intricate rhythmic detail and soft-focus electronics with a lilting tropicalia inflection, for a swirling, heady track befitting of it’s title, which roughly translates to “dreaming”.
The new track arrives following a recent resurgence of interest in his work, including a viral TikTok moment and a nod from Rosalía, who featured “Typewrite Lesson”, originally a b-side from Cornelius’s iconic 1997 album ‘Fantasma’, in her Met Gala–themed Vogue playlist of all-time favourites.
Cornelius is the musical project of Japanese multi-instrumentalist Keigo Oyamada, who began his career in his teens and launched the Cornelius name in the early 1990s after his band Flipper’s Guitar. The project takes its name from Planet of the Apes.
He broke internationally with 1997’s Fantasma, a genre-blurring album of cut-and-paste production that drew comparisons to Beck and The Beastie Boys and was released worldwide by Matador Records. Often dubbed a “modern-day Brian Wilson,” Oyamada became a sought-after producer and remixer, a “musician’s musician”, collaborating with artists including Blur, Beck, Sean Ono Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, Haruomi Hosono, James Brown and many others.
With 2002’s Point, Cornelius shifted toward intricate loops of organic sound sources, from water droplets to vocoder-heavy reinterpretations, pushing his meticulous sound design further on 2007’s Sensuous. His live shows are renowned for precision-synced visuals, custom lighting, and immersive, band-led performances that treat the stage as a fully integrated audio-visual system.
The companion release Sensurround + B Sides was nominated for Best Surround Sound Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards.
“Yumenemi” marks the start of a long-awaited new body of work, set to unfold over the coming months.
I’m far behind on this, as it’s already mid-May 2026, but I’ve meant to create a list of my favorite records (and concerts, see other posts) of the last five years. I created such lists for my top stuff from 2020 through 2024, so I’m continuing the trend. Mind you, these are the top twenty-five albums I reviewed, not albums released during those five years. There were many excellent albums that slipped through the cracks. Enough backstory. Let’s get to it before this gets delayed yet again.
#25: Rochelle Jordan – Play with the Changes(2021)
This is a beautiful, funky, and sexy record that introduced me to Ms. Jordan’s music and instantly made me want to find out more about her work that mixes house music with R&B with ease.
#24: Brijean – Feelings(2021)
This lovely dream pop record came out of nowhere (for me at least) and floored me. They’re a fun duo who have yet to make a bad album.
#23: Ty Segall – Harmonizer(2021)
I was a bit surprised to hear Ty Segall embracing synthesizers and going into electronic music somewhat on this record, but then I wasn’t surprised because Segall is always exploring different genres and embracing his many influences. It was a cool surprise from him.
#22: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – The Silver Cord extended version(2023)
Speaking of cool surprises: King Gizzard goes full rave! There was the “regular” version of this all-synth album by the Australian psych giants and then this “extended” version of the album that I preferred. Once again, KGATLW showed they can adapt to anything they decide to play.
#21: Anika – Change(2021)
Haunting and gorgeous. That’s the best way I can describe this synthwave album from Anika. It snuggles / slithers up next to you and doesn’t leave for days.
Who’s in the top twenty? Come back tomorrow to find out!
I’m not sure if I knew ambient trance music was a thing until I heard OrangeTone’s newest EP, Breachlight.
The sound and feeling is as bright as the EP’s cover, beginning with the shining title track. It bubbles with synth bass tones and stuff that sounds like the happiest video game you’ve ever played while also relaxing you at the same time.
“Silkloom” is what you’d hear as you land on a vibrant planet where plants grow and flower by soundwaves. “Joie” drifts into your mind like a pleasant wind off a warm beach and makes you feel like you’re about to embark on something big.
“Dream Spiral” features guest vocals from diana starshine to elevate the track into a modern house classic. It has to be blowing up nightclub floors by now. “Solar Daze” ends the EP with sounds that perfectly resemble the title – shining keyboards, trippy beats, and happy bass.
The whole EP is blissful. You’ll want this as the weather gets warmer, and especially when it gets colder.
JWords —the project of Brooklyn-based producer Jennifer Hernandez—announces her new album, Sound Therapy, out May 8th and presents the lead single, “LUSH.” JWords is known for her production “nodding to both hip-hop’s brawny metronome and more uptempo electronic and dance influences” (Bandcamp). Her career is defined by collaborations, from her work with rapper maassai as the acclaimed duo H31R to her production on Nappy Nina’s 2021 record Double Down. Meanwhile, JWords has built a stylistically broad body of solo work, starting in 2020 with mixtape Sin Señal followed by a string of EPs that climaxed with Sonic Liberation. In the interim, she’s made major strides as a DJ, scoring a monthly residency at The Lot Radio and regularly hosting NTS shows.
Sound Therapy, the follow-up to her 2022 debut solo LP Self-Connection, deals with the troubles and triumphs JWords experienced over the last few years. It gets heavy at times, but the music she’s making now reflects her present circumstances. Instead of building a rollercoaster record based on the traumas of yesteryear, she opted for a confidently Zen approach: “It’s a new era,” she says. “A calmer, chiller, ‘Yeah, I got my shit together’ kind of era.”
Despite the fact that she began as an MC, Sound Therapy marks the first time JWords has been a lead vocalist on her own productions. On today’s single “Lush,” she repeats the phrases “I see me in you” and “I see you in me” over pillowy synths and a crinkly techno backbeat until her words become a mantra.
Growing up Dominican-American in Union City, New Jersey, JWords was a sonic omnivore, devouring the hip-hop and R&B she heard on BET’s Rap City, the Jersey Club that took over the neighborhood, and the Latin music she heard at home. JWords’ music career has been ascendant since she first laid hands on a synth, but her personal life has been less steady, and she fell into a particularly deep rut in her late 20s. Sound Therapy looks back on those years with a sense of tranquility that’s absent in her earlier work. Her subject matter is still serious, but she addresses her trauma without fear or malice, acknowledging that it’s there without giving it the power to define her.
While Sound Therapy marks the first time JWords has been a lead vocalist, it’s her production that shines brightest. Opener “Lotus” contains the type of sparkling synthplay one might expect to find stowed away on a lost Dilla hard drive. “FELT” pummels you with a techno drum line but slowly morphs into a much chiller arrangement of synths. And “LoveCrime” presents an entrancing, oddly shaped structure that JWords somehow finds a way to rap over.
In the end, JWords is grateful for all of the experiences that have brought her to the present moment. She’s seen rock bottom now and never wants to return, but she learned some of life’s most essential lessons there. These days, she’s enjoying her hard-won serenity. She’s got a job teaching kids how to DJ and make electronic music. She’s learned to solder and has plans to create her own style of synth. She’s making her best music, transcending nominal genre boundaries in pursuit of brilliance. She’s calmer. She’s chiller. She’s got her shit together.
Australia-born, Berlin-based Baby Smith, made up of Ray Sonder and Saxon Gable, are set to release their debut album Lately, Love Is Dead on July 10th. Today, they are sharing the album’s title-track, laden with existential lyricism and an elegantly crafted arrangement.
On “Lately, Love Is Dead”, the band said “The song touches on idol worship and beauty standards. “I wanna be pretty, I wanna be sought after, I wanna be someone else, I wanna be somewhere else.” This comments on the way our capitalist society is built and how it constantly reinforces that we should always want more and we shouldn’t dare to be satisfied with who we are, how we look, where we are in our lives, or our circumstances. Everything is disposable, people are disposable, love is disposable. We honestly think love may be dead right now. The world is in such a dark place, and it’s pretty hard to bear. As people, we are becoming more isolated and individualised.”
Alongside the single release, the band also created a mixer to give an insight into the arrangement of the song, which can be found here: https://babysmithmusic.com/pages/mixer-llid.
Ray Sonder and Saxon Gable grew up in sleepy beach towns on Australia’s east coast. Their parents were hippies and rockers. They were spoon fed Nirvana and The Beatles on the car stereo whether they liked it or not. Both self taught musicians, they began writing songs from an early age, evoking the quiet beaches of Byron Bay and the wild Gondwana Rainforest that were their back yards.
By university, they were writing hazy, sun-kissed demos to upload online and burn onto CDs for their friends. Inspired by technicolour, small-town beatniks and surfers, and the romantic soundtracks of their early youth, the foundations of Baby Smith were laid a long time ago. But neither Saxon nor Ray knew each other yet, despite likely crossing paths.
The pair each moved to Berlin from Sydney separately and within two weeks of each other to explore new subcultures and write songs. They met, and soon married, spiritually united by their affection for the whimsical, intimate, deeply melodic sounds of 1960s psychedelia and 1990s Grunge. What followed their creative union was musical exploration and experiments that led to the genesis of Baby Smith in 2023.
Since then, Ray and Saxon have had their foot firmly on the gas, writing, producing, and releasing EP I and EP II. However, there is stark contrast between their early music and their upcoming debut album ‘Lately, Love Is Dead’. Written entirely in their Berlin flat using a deliberately stripped-back home setup including dented microphones, a broken mic stand, and a glitching 12-year-old interface, the record trades the sun-kissed haze of their early releases for something darker, sharper and more immediate. The songwriting carries new weight; the production feels urgent and alive. It sounds like the duo have jumped into a whole new sonic universe, and it’s catchy as hell.
Thematically, the album wrestles with the human experience at close range: love and loss, self-doubt and self-loathing, fractured relationships, substance abuse within inner circles, and a simmering disillusionment with modern life and the digital status quo. What began without a fixed concept gradually revealed itself as a portrait of a specific, volatile period in their lives.
Their creative collaboration drives the project. Ray approaches writing with philosophical intention and precision; Saxon works instinctively, often guided by texture and feel. A devoted film enthusiast, Saxon drew visual inspiration for the album from Gummo by Harmony Korine, while the band’s wider artistic references stretch from André Courrèges to Suzanne Valadon and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Baby Smith have had a busy start to the project which has seen the duo sell out their debut London, Berlin and Dublin headlines, play across eight countries, and support King Hannah, Sarah Klang, Cousin Kula and Lo Moon. Baby Smith are set to hit the road again in 2026 with a UK & EU tour in support of ‘Lately, Love Is Dead’, which is set for release July 10th.
Los Angeles-based musician Lee Lewis presents his new single, “White Flag.” Today’s single marks the first taste of new music from Lewis since his striking reimagining of Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater,” praised by FLOOD as a “stirring, soulful examination of queer Black identity.” “White Flag” is atmospheric, guided by a smooth bassline, and inspired by Bond films. The track is Lewis’ most personal song to date, expressing the built-up resentment when his relationship was reaching its breaking point and finds him declaring “enough is enough.”
“In many ways, ‘White Flag’ serves as the preamble to the slow death of something chaotic and toxic, a moment where self-worth finally begins to outweigh the emotional cat chase,” Lewis reflects. “It marks the point where I start to recognize that love should not cost me myself. In the song the chorus sings ‘I’m waving my white flag.’ It’s me saying, ‘I surrender, you win, I lose, I have to let this go.’ Sonically, it’s my take on Bond music: luxurious, sultry, and powerful. The song sits in the richest part of my voice, allowing it to feel warm, buttery, and intimate. ‘White Flag’ is about surrender, not as defeat, but as self-preservation. It’s the sound of laying down my armor after a battle that took far too much from me.”
Lee Lewis, raised in the historically Black neighborhood of Ladera Heights, discovered his musical talent early. He trained at the Colburn School of Performing Arts and later at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, studying classical voice.
Transitioning to pop music, Lewis overcame the challenge of adapting from classical precision to expressive, varied textures. His emotional delivery, marked by smooth riffs and runs, have captivated listeners and led to sold out shows in Brooklyn and Los Angeles.
As a rising star during a time when Black artists are reclaiming genres they pioneered, Lewis believes Black musicians should freely occupy both mainstream pop and R&B spaces. “I just want to exist in both worlds. Black artists should be accepted in both.”
“Destinies and Melodies” is a cinematic, electro-acoustic pop ballad featuring a cool Madonna-esque bassline and dramatic string sequences. The beat-driven progression gives the song a sense of motion, yet within the interplay of harmony and melody lingers an unresolved tension, a question left open; is there a direction to this movement? Where does it lead? Is the movement itself the destination?
On the track, Melodi Ghazal [Gra-zal] muses: “I’ve been inspired by the red thread connecting the Sufis’ whirling meditation and Britney Spears spinning around herself on Instagram. Maybe we’re all just spinning around ourselves in search of the same thing? This track is a reflection of this movement to me.”
Lyrically, “Destinies and Melodies” explores being in the midst of transformation and the act of learning to lose yourself. It contemplates the feeling of time as vertical rather than linear. “For me, the track is about surrendering, following the melodies that arise when you let go of control,” she elaborates. “This music came into being during a deeply transformative period when much of my life was changing. Forces stronger than my intellect or awareness led me down unfamiliar paths, and all I could do was follow.”
Melodi Ghazal is a Copenhagen-born singer, songwriter, and producer of Iranian descent. Her left-field pop sound blends elements of R&B and folk, marked by a distinctive tonal language and a strong melodic sensibility. In her productions, she fuses electronic and acoustic textures where MIDI strings, subtle daf drum rhythms, and lush guitar layers intertwine. Her music balances melancholy and hope, woven together by her evocative vocals and lyrics that shift seamlessly between English and Persian.
Melodi has quickly established herself as one of Denmark’s most intriguing new voices. A graduate of the acclaimed Rhythmic Music Conservatory (RMC) in Copenhagen, she studied alongside peers such as Fine, Erika de Casier, and Clarissa Connelly. Her debut EP, released in 2023, was praised as a bold artistic statement and named one of the “15 best releases of the year” by Danish music magazine Soundvenue.
Melodi has since performed at some of Denmark’s most prominent stages, including Roskilde Festival, as well as being a part of the Copenhagen underground scene.
Today, the London-based composer, producer, and singer Lauren Auder is announcing her sophomore album Whole World As Vigil. The album will be out March 27th via untitled (recs) and to mark the announce she is sharing the incandescent new single “praxis”.
Auder’s baroquely orchestrated pop songs fuse classical, post-rock and experimental elements with contemporary reflections of generational discontent and personal turmoil, resulting in vivid musical portraits which have established her as one of pop’s most singular voices. Auder released her long-awaited debut album ‘the infinite spine’ in 2023 to critical acclaim, which documented how the weight of the world can transform you, following a remarkable run of 3 EPs, 2021’s 5 Songs For The Dysphoric, 2020’stwo caves in, and 2018’s Who Carry’s You as well as a myriad of nuanced, poignant singles and collaborations with Vegyn, Celeste, Clams Casino, Caroline Polachek, Boris, Danny L Harle and Wendy & Lisa.
Lauren has also composed music for Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton campaigns, and modelled for Marni, Gucci, Celine, Alexander McQueen, Ann Demeulemeester and Ganni, cementing herself as an auteur across the worlds of music and fashion. Lauren has toured with Deafheaven, Amen Dunes, Christine & The Queens, Celeste and WU LYF.
Rooted in the idea of movement as survival, “praxis” channels momentum into sound, spiralling upwards into an exhilarating, revelatory chorus. Lyrically and musically, the song turns on itself: “every step I take keeps the world on its axis” is mirrored by cyclical strings and an oscillating instrumental palette that feels in constant motion.
Speaking about the single, Lauren says: “‘praxis’ is built around a sample of a power drill cutting through metal, its seemingly perpetual motion and unstoppable movement felt apt to parallel with an important part of my own philosophy, that keeping yourself moving forward, is enough to live for. Musically I was inspired by Steve Reich, Kate Bush and Bruce Springsteen, trying to bring all these worlds together in a way that felt uniquely me.”
Where 2023’s debut the infinite spine traced Auder’s journey toward self-understanding, Whole World as Vigil turns outward. Inspired by a romantic relationship, the album captures not only the electrifying sheen of being in love, but the introspection it demands. Stripping back her process, Auder largely wrote and produced the record on laptops with long-time collaborators dviance and Alex Parish between Paris and London. Most tracks began as acapella voice notes recorded on walks through the city before any instrumentation took shape.
There’s a physicality that has always been deeply embedded in Auder’s music, and this visceral emotion is in every corner of the new record: the tracks feel bigger, the production more bombastic and the overarching sentiment filled with greater urgency than ever. Booming 808s nod to Auder’s roots in rap and beat-making, while her instinct for sonic collage pushes each song into new terrain. Ultimately, the collusion of all these sonic experimentations have resulted in the record that sounds the most unmistakably like Auder herself, a culmination of years of experimentation, now distilled into something boldly assured. Rather than a reinvention, Whole World As Vigil extends her ongoing archive of self: a body of work that grows richer in conversation with its own history.
“Vigil” in French, Auder’s second language, refers to a guard or a watcher, and this bilingual connotation places even greater emphasis on the album’s title. What will we do when we know the world is watching? Auder wrote many of Whole World As Vigil’s lyrics as theses to live by. “praxis,” as both concept and track, embodies the act of turning belief into action. More than just succumbing to desire, it’s a manifestation that what we deserve is possible. “yes,” one of the purest love songs on the album, most directly gives way to this ecstasy in steadfast declarations, but Whole World As Vigil ultimately imagines what we can do once that’s embraced.
Lauren will celebrate the release of the album by playing a headline London show at Chat’s Palace on 26th March, tickets here.
More great live shows for you from last year! Who’s in the top half of the list?
#15: Johnny Jewel – September 25, 2025 – Levitation Austin, Austin, TX
Mr. Jewel opened for his own band, Desire, and, for my money, put on the best show of the night at the first day of Levitation Austin last year. It was a showcase of his film scores and covers of other film music ranging from his score to Drive to a David Lynch tribute and giallo-horror tracks.
#14: The Black Angels – September 28, 2025 – Levitation Austin – Austin, TX
The Black Angels always play Levitation. It’s their festival, after all. They help curate it. It was another fine set from them that included many tracks they don’t play often – one of the advantages of not having to promote a new album.
These Dutch funk-rockers played their first gig in the U.S. ever at Levitation Austin last year and had the entire place jumping by the end of it. This was easily the grooviest show of the entire weekend, and everyone was buzzing the rest of the day afterwards.
#12: DITZ – June 27, 2025 – Levitation France – Angers, FR
This was blistering post-punk in a heat wave that had gripped almost the entire county. You can see the dust being kicked up from the mosh pit in that photo due to the arid conditions of the park in Angers where Levitation France took place last year. The lead singer had run off-stage, into the nearby lake, and returned covered in seaweed by the end.
#11: A Place to Bury Strangers – September 28, 2025 – Levitation Austin – Austin, TX
The Palmer Event Center in downtown Austin, where Levitation Austin took place last year, is a big venue…and it still wasn’t big enough to keep the volume of APTBS from flattening you as soon as you entered the place. Lead singer and guitarist Oliver Ackermann used the high ceiling to his delight by tossing his now-famous “half-guitar” sky high multiple times. Two friends who’d never seen them until now were left stunned by the end. “That’s like an assault,” my friend Wes said, wide-eyed and not knowing how else to describe it.
