Saya Gray – SAYA

I spent a month at my desk job listening to SAYA on repeat in 2025. The best songs off the album have an enjoyable push and pull rhythm – like “PUDDLE (OF ME)” and its “needle and thread pulling in and out,” as well as the ending song, “LIE DOWN..”. Saya, stuck in the dissolution of a relationship, vacillates between heartbreak and defiance, looping in and out of love. That is, until the murky hangover of “H.B.W” buries the relationship for good. (H.B.W standing for heartbreak wake.)

It’s well-tread ground, but SAYA’s approach is irresistible. The acoustic guitar and Saya’s tone bring a welcome brassy element to the album. It just scratches an itch. “PUDDLE (OF ME) has a delightful coyote-like ‘yip yip’. “HOW LONG CAN YOU KEEP UP A LIE?” has a falsetto which caught on my ear like a low-battery carbon monoxide beep. (In a good way!) There’s so much to say about this album. You should put Saya Gray’s SAYA on loop during a boring workday.

Ali Sethi – Love Language 

Love Language is a collection of love songs: censored, cheeky, worshiping, mournful. I fell in love with this album — so much so that I got tickets to see Ali Sethi at The Ford for his “cabaret for the end-times” and heard first-hand his beautiful voice, his deft lyricism, and his gallows humor. It was difficult not to fall a little bit in love with him as he winked at the aunties who’d gotten up out of their seats and lined the wall of the ampitheater to dance. I just want more, more, more from Ali Sethi. Please listen to Love Language and fall in love, with me?

Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover – What of Our Nature

Ever since I found a copy on vinyl, I’ve been relistening to A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America. It’s “widely recognized as the first album of Asian American music,” and it is no coincidence that the album is political – it’s an anti-imperialist, consciousness-raising project, in solidarity with its contemporary Latin American, Black, and Native American struggles. I’ve been wondering what it would look like to transport such an artifact — a political Asian American folk album — to today.

I think What of Our Nature is one such answer. It’s an album I’ll be returning to, much like A Grain of Sand. If you listen to any song off of the album, listen to “Song for Alicia”. It is a punch to the gut.

Lim Giong, Various Artists – Sounds of Taiwan

Last year, a friend asked me to record some sounds of the land for a short film project, and now I kind of adore field recordings. I love everyday sounds – the huff of the bus, the faint calls of seagulls, the insistent beep of the walk button. (I like pushing it just to hear the stilted, “Wait!”) Sounds of Taiwan loves the everyday sounds of Taiwan. I first heard the album at an In Sheep’s Clothing x Pure Person Press listening party, but I wasn’t able to properly appreciate it until later – it’s an album that rewards silence. And it is a gorgeous album, blooming like loose leaf tea in steaming water. The sounds of birds, grass, walking, children laughing. A sense of calm washes over me whenever I hear “麻豆糖廠の木洩れ日 (Komorebi at Madou Sugar Factory)” transition into “苗栗縣 泰安鄉 烏嘎彥 竹林 (Miaoli County Tai’an Township Wugayan Bamboo Forest)”. Highly recommend.

Patrick Shiroishi – Forgetting is Violent

At points, Forgetting is Violent is a viscerally uncomfortable album — for me it’s not easy to listen to; not really something I can put on in the background and forget about. The album calls to mind other Japanese American artists playing with sonic dissonance – traci kato-kiriyama’s Tales of Clamor, or Kyoko Takenaka’s public performance work. Specifically I’m thinking of Kyoko’s adaptation of “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” with Marlon Martinez on upright bass, performed at Tuesday Night Cafe last year. At points Kyoko screams, tortured, “Because my heart belongs to this country. Because my country it treats us so well.” She rasps, “so, so, so, well.” Forgetting is Violent is like that, especially with the opening song, “To protect our family names”. It begins with a Hiroshima survivor recounting that day. Her voice is repeated over and over, like a stamp on a piece of paper. Over her voice, a single sax twists itself into knots, until this too is snared, and snarls in repeated loops. Forgetting is Violent is an album I think everyone in the US should listen to at least once with their full attention. What have you forgotten about this country?

EDEN – Dark

I’ll admit, part of why I love this album is it reminds me of EDEN seven years ago, and his raw, confessional quality. You know how there’s a stereotypical type of Mitski fan who’s like, oh I cry to this? That’s what EDEN is for me. Dark feels like a return to form for EDEN.

Mini Trees – Slow it Down

Yasmine Hamdan – I remember I forget بنسى وبتذكر

Now Always Fades – Into the Doldrums

Dijon – Baby

JENNIE – Ruby

Takuro Okada – Konoma

UMI – people stories

ALIE BLACKCOBRA – Angel Energy

Awich – Okinawan Wuman

Bloodywood – Nu Delhi

Saint Levant – Love Letters

Mohinder Kaur Bhamra – Punjabi Disco

#3

Star 99 – Gaman

People argued over song of the summer this year, but my summer album was Star 99’s Gaman — a crystallization of pure, honest, punky, friendship. Star 99 is the band you want to hang out with and throw back some beers and go to house shows and ride around on bikes with. Gaman captures the fierce love of your hometown.

#2

Jay Som – Belong

You feeling stuck? Maybe things didn’t turn out how they should have? Every song on Belong scrapes that thick residue of life off the soul. My expanded thoughts are in my review, but this record made a lasting effect on me this year, and I continue to come back to investigate its simplicity and complexity. Kinetic, driving, tender and onward— this album takes you to the next place.

#1

Lola Young – I’m Only F**king Myself

No other album this year put my heart in a stranglehold like Lola Young’s. With every shout, scream, and tremble, I never skipped a song. I clung to each lyric. This album’s range, production, and identity is so impressive, in major part due to its confrontations with pleasure and mental health. This is my album of the year because it made me cry, made me sing, made me laugh, made me gasp, and made me want more. Beyond a doubt, I can see this album inspiring generations in pursuing music, less afraid. I’m hoping for the best recovery for Lola Young possible.

#2

Camp Kona – Everything EP

Camp Kona knows how to craft a groove. Head bopping and contemplative, these four tracks pack a major punch. Everything is a delightful preview of things to come. Permanent summer vibes.

#1

Unflirt – Fleeting EP

Drizzling, sparkling and at times ghostly, it was so hard to articulate my attraction to Unflirt’s Fleeting EP. Maybe it’s the dreary delivery of Christine Senorin. Maybe it’s because it feels like the best reconstruction of comforting 2000s alt rock. Or maybe it’s this liminal fondness like a memory I have watching television right as the sun goes down. Go try it and let me know if you feel the same prickles on your neck when you hear the guitar swings on “Cut My Hair”. Simultaneously one of a kind and referential, it’s my favorite EP of the year.

Peterparker69 – yo,

The self-described pop duo Y ohtrixpointnever and Jeter have teamed up as Peterparker69. The pop music of Peterparker69 feels the same as BROCKHAMPTON’s boy band. Portraying yourself as more mainstream than you are only works when you’ve already established your bona fides, and for Peterparker69 the influence of autocrooners and electronic-infused alt-hiphop runs deep. The assault of sounds from left and right speaks to a hypermaximal approach to production, but the effect is somehow cohesive in the madness, overstimulation and clarity –  like deep breaths while crying. yo, is uniquely emotional and raw with an unmatched sense of musicality among its peers.

FiFi Zhang – FLEETING HEARTS

FLEETING HEARTS is incredible for a first album, even moreso considering FiFi Zhang’s role as solo writer, singer and producer (excluding features). It’s focused, almost to a fault — most of the songs are about her ex-partner with little variation. The aesthetic mixes Neon Genesis Evangelion and Frutiger Aero. If it could, it would bleed in translucent microplastics.

FiFi Zhang hits every major point out of the park with only minor blemishes. The record is an easy recommendation for anyone into music influenced by house, garage and D&B interested in seeing it given a yearning twist.

YONLAPA – Velvet Petals EP

YONLAPA’s newest EP Velvet Petals has the skeleton of an album with less connective tissue. “Loop” is ethereal, blending in elements of dream pop to the YONLAPA equation. It’s leisurely with jazzy dissonance. The vocals of “Velvet Petals” and “Little Faster” remind me of So!YoON’s work with added guitar flourishes. “Misguided Ghost” paces quickly, flitting back and forth with drum rolls and dexterous vocals. It’s my favorite song on the EP.

“Saltburn” and “when the time runs out” come straight out of a 90s shoegaze record. The EP ends very differently from how it starts. YONLAPA has always excelled at making songs that express tangible malaise, but Velvet Petals explores faster sounds than their early work.

Chanpan – Endlessly EP

Chanpan is doing incredible and D&B-y things to indie rock.

Yaka – JUNGLE+

Yaka fuses together jungle and rage with the delicacy of someone welding together a boat and a car. Really good actually.

10

Esme Emerson – Applesauce EP

By the time Esme Emerson released Applesauce back in March, they had already released three out of the four songs on the project. Maybe that’s why the songs on here already felt so lived in – they’ve had so much time before the drop to take up permanent residence in my mind. A project chock-full of catchy indie pop classics, Applesauce is Esme Emerson at their best. The speedy rush of “Too Far Gone” contrasts beautifully to the tenderness of “Stay,” while “Together” and “Yard” are mid-tempo head-bobbing tunes that might give you whiplash if you’re not careful. There’s a special kind of magic that Esme and Emerson Lee-Scott bring to the table as collaborators, siblings, and musicians; whatever it is, I want more of it.  

9

Sea Lemon – Diving For A Prize

I’ve always known Sea Lemon (Natalie Lew) to make lo-fi dream pop that sparkles, but this year’s Diving For A Prize feels like something truly magical. The Pacific Northwest is the album’s birthplace and it shows – each of the 12 songs here feels drenched with a fog of guitarwork that is only pierced by Lew’s cold yet glimmering, almost meditative voice. It’s that gorgeous pitch that glistens and refracts above that fuzzy shoegazey landscape, forming prisms and vivid stories that come into focus on each track. As she sweetly murmurs on album highlights like “Change Your Face,” “Give In,” or “Sweet Anecdote,” you get the feeling that it’s too late: you’ve already fallen under Lew’s spell. 

8

jorud – The song

Outside of his role as one-third of Sobs (and honestly, one-third of the Singaporean indie music scene at this point with how often he’s popped up in other bands), jorud makes bangers for daayyyyysss. The song, the album that the producer/musician released this year, is a sugar-rush joy ride that feels digitally euphoric before taking an unexpected left-turn into headbanging mosh-pit territory. Is this 2000s future optimism-core? In 2025? I’ve already compared the lead title track as having the same whimsy as the Maplestory BGM (think Orbis or Mu Lung) and “Wideview” as an energetic EDM-hyperpop fusion, but the rest of the album fills in the genre gaps by beautifully covering everything in-between. These are songs with star-crushed beats that bombard you with dopamine before crashing out and knocking you about (“Uhhh,” “Harm”). These are songs that buzz along with glee (“Have it”) before transitioning into yet another perfect pop song (“Friend”). These are songs that stay with you.

If you’re a fan of Sobs (specifically “Friday Night” off their last album), old-school clip art, and having a great fucking time, load up The song on your iPod and get ready to dive in.  

7

Galdive – Blue

On Galdive’s Blue, you’re invited into a world filled with effortlessly smokey R&B-jazz. Meet me at the “Cinema,” where electronic bubbling beats harmonize with vocalist Tanisha’s apprehensive vocals before they get surprised by a Spanish guitar. Melt into each other as you leave the masquerade on “Night Charade,” a slow dance that makes its mark with piano flourishes and wonder. Learn about romance once more on “Teach Me How To Love,” the album’s standout track that feels at once modern and traditional – chopped vocals float around to form a love song that feels futuristic yet reads as a classic.

Each of the 12 pristine tracks here are steeped in that same type of sleeping lust that stirs within but only awakens with sapphire skies of the early morning. An instant classic that mines the influence of Urban Flora and modern day jazz-pop, Blue shines with all different hues of blue, painting a canvas with colors that are both sensual and romantic.

6

Linying – Swim, Swim

After the release of House Mouse EP back in 2023, it seemed like something changed. Linying’s music, which has always felt carefully orchestrated and perfectly put together, pivoted. While that natural ear for hooky indie pop persisted, Linying’s songs felt more expansive… more liberating. They turned into songs that weren’t just great to quietly nod along to but ones that invited a shoulder shimmy here and there. The production became fuzzier and felt lived in. We were seeing more of Linying the person slowly bleed into the persona of Linying the artist. 

On Swim, Swim, Linying’s first since her quietly gorgeous 2022 cleanly produced There Could Be Wreckage Here, that’s the vibe that it feels like the Singaporean musician is going for. Scuzzy, wonderfully warm songs dot the release, but are once again capped by intricately worded lyrics and Linying’s ever-present flexible vocals. This time, though, they’re run through a multitude of experimental vocal filters that allow the album to shine in different ways (“The Key,” “Pink Gel”). On one hand, songs like the pleasant “Birthdays on Video,” the lush “Centre of Attention,” and ethereal “The Key” perfectly meld into one new vibe. On the other end of the spectrum, there are the all-out squelching bangers like “Donovan” and the spritzy “Blondie.” These are indie pop songs for all different tastes, and Swim, Swim is Linying’s best so far.

5

boylife – jones

Did boylife have to go this hard on jones? Probably not, but he did anyways. After four years of near silence (save a cover here or there), Los Angeles-based musician Ryan Yoo burst back onto the scene with the incredibly sexy, infectiously romantic jones – a large tonal shift from the punchy, deeply personal gelato that was his debut album. This time on jones, some of that chaos that defined his debut is gently reigned in and tamed. Instead of solely looking inward, Yoo invites others into his life. Yoo explores love under different circumstances.

Try and picture this: a breakneck whirlwind romance that falls into a melt-into-you relationship that puts all others to shame. That’s the trajectory of the album, tackling lust from start to finish through immensely sexy R&B-pop almost through the decades. Take the soft and string-filled “tanlines,” where he sings “you got those tanlines / showing me where my hands go / I’ll be the one you wanna tell / that that pussy don’t know better” that is guaranteed to make anyone sweat. On the other hand, there’s “Baby Chop,” the keshi/No Rome collaboration that turns a dominating line like “Arch your back / A little like that / Tell me I’m the only one you needed,” into a surprisingly fun BDSM-y sing-along lyric. And on the album closer “sweet choco star,” he’s a romantic crooner in the spotlight after closing time, serenading the crowd right before he takes his final bow. It’s rare that an album can be so sweet and tender while still maintaining that edge throughout, but somehow Yoo has done it. 

4

Star 99 – Gaman

Clocking in at less than half an hour, Star 99 really makes the most of their time on their speedy, breezy sophomore album, Gaman. A twee-power pop record with a bursting DIY ethos, Gaman finds the five members of Star 99 getting loud, rocking out, and paying tribute to the familiar San Jose landmarks that have shaped the band’s unique identity. There’s a feeling that Star 99 are the scrappy underdogs here – they’re the real life Sex Bob-ombs… and having seen them live on tour, I think that comparison holds water. Vocalists Saoirse Alesandro and Thomas Calvo douse the record with sticky hooks that are just begging its listener to turn the dial up.  And at other times like on “Gray Wall” and the diaristic title track “Gaman,” there’s space enough to sit back and reflect in between another round of beer. When you listen to Gaman, there’s no way you can just sit still and watch. It invites you to rock out along with it and feel it. With friends and tunes like these, how can you not?

3

SAILORR – FROM FLORIDA’S FINEST

Ummmm… nonchalant baddies WON this year! It’s been a while since someone released something as unapologetically sexy, confident, and winkingly fun like the Florida-based singer SAILORR did, but FROM FLORIDA’S FINEST carries an energy that feels ready-set for a wild night at the club and the bedroom at same time. It’s a mixtape with hooks for days: pluck any lyric from a song like “DOWN BAD,” “SINCERITY,” or “ITADAKIMASU” and you’ll automatically have a line that’ll live in your mind rent free. It’s hard to believe that this is the singer’s first mixtape as she flexes with brimming confidence all over these 14 tracks (not to mention the bonus three that was released later on in the deluxe version), bringing a flirty and at times sapphic energy to each bar that she spits.

FROM FLORIDA’S FINEST takes a lot of influence from other R&B-pop artists occupying that same space – SZA, Summer Walker, and Doja Cat are surefire comparisons – without compromising SAILORR’s mischievous, half-joking tongue-in-cheek energy that makes her special. Remember those black grills, pink bows, and that áo dài – it’s a soft girl summer, y’all.

2

陳嫺靜 Hsien-Ching – 如果每天都可以happy happy 誰想要sad:)

“New notes, new thoughts / Stop thinking, just talk / 舊的不去 新的不再 (but) imma do it right /Imma fake it, imma make it.” Those are the first few lines of Chen Hsien-Ching’s debut album 如果每天都可以happy happy 誰想要sad:), and I gotta say that she’s onto something there.

Armed with an unshakeable stream-of-consciousness flow, Hsien-Ching’s songs read like off-the-cuff intimate journal entries that just cascade off the tip of your tongue. It’s clear that this album is one rooted in a deeply personal experience – hip-hop and bedroom pop production collide to form songs that range from overbursting joy (“Super hyper”) to, at its most vulnerable, overwhelming self-doubt (“Wui229”). But it’s that exact quality that made me revisit the album over and over again this year. happy happy constantly finds new ways to explore complicated feelings outside of genre constraints but keeps the focus on her singular vision. Take the psychedelic rock of the cheekily named “吸塵器 維他命,” for example. Or consider the funky synth landscape of “結晶,” the garage rock chaos of “e04嘛那麼累” as well as the bossa-nova charm of “Whisper to my ear.” Hsien-Ching dips into all of these sounds even as her central messages stand strong – like scrappy slam poetry but to a different beat. It’s not easy to balance feelings as varied as this into an album, but each of those pieces come together to form a different aspect of Hsien-Ching as a person and as a musician. In an era where music is often painted in broad strokes, happy happy feels intimately real. 

1

Mei Semones – Animaru

Everything about Animaru just tickles me in the right way. Brooklyn-based musician Mei Semones has been championing her unique combination of bilingual bossa-nova/indie rock/J-pop hybrid for a while now (see: the remarkably replayable Tsukino and Kabutomushi EPs), and that specific sound has only gotten sharper over the years – so much so that Animaru, her long-awaited debut, already feels like the making of a modern day classic. 

A record that could just as easily be filed under jazz as it could indie rock, Animaru hits the sweet spot for all kinds of music audiences while still retaining a distinct sound that feels surprisingly singular. Unlike a lot of other jazz-influenced Gen Z contemporaries, there’s a serrated edge around the sweetness that makes Animaru stand out. Take, for example, the discordant “I can do what I want” whose name is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Likewise, the prickly “Zarigani,” isn’t afraid to lean hard into tempo fluctuations and its frantic instrumentation.

On the flipside, “Donguri” sounds like a song straight out of a smoky jazz club, while “Tora Moyo” finds Mei straight up scatting alongside her guitar. But even though her influences may come from a lot of jazz greats from another era, another part of the charm of Animaru is just how playful it can get in this one. “Dangomushi” is a song filled with a sense of wonder, while a song like “Rat with Wings” makes use of a strange metaphor to accuse someone of not being who they say they are. Though a lot of Animaru finds its roots in the city of New York and finds its singer talking about love, there’s a pure-hearted innocence here that’s hard to ignore. Animaru is a genre in itself.  If you’re a fan of steamy Blue Note performances and sweaty indie rock shows like myself, this is the album for you – and it’s why it’s my personal album of the year.

Peterparker69 – Yo,

Saya Gray – SAYA

Jay Som – Belong

Kaneyorimasaru – Kino o Ikinai Watashitachi e

kurayamisaka – kurayamisaka yori ai wo komete

Joy Crookes – Juniper

Chloe Qisha – Modern Romance EP

Baobei – 886 EP

Unflirt – Fleeting EP