"How has this been the best year for music so far this decade? The 2020s have been a rough enough ride that you could say that about every year, and I'm hesitant to waste space with a troubled-times spiel, but the amount of great music released in 2025 is at odds with just how drab and anti-art everything seems these days."
"The first is ML Buch's Suntub, the first album I've heard to use the musical tools of the virtual world without actually referencing it at all. There are no mentions of screens or computers, and even a driving song is so ambiguous I thought that flowers "sliding by" were moving on their own, but its definition of beauty is so in touch with the spirit of this time in history it proves that beauty existed there in the first place, which is reassuring."
"The second-the best album of this year-is MK Velsorf and Aase Nielsen's Opening Night. This is not an album I think anyone involved expected to be a masterpiece, except maybe Laurel Halo, who put it out on her AWE label on Valentine's Day. It's a recording of two improvisers, both from Denmark, performing on guitar (Velsorf) and synth (Nielsen) at the opening night of a small underground art space in LA."
2025 produced an unusually rich crop of music that balances digital textures with analog warmth. Artists are finding a middle ground between virtual musical tools and traditional sounds. Much of this music originates in Europe, with Copenhagen producing two standout albums. ML Buch's Suntub employs virtual-world musical tools without explicit references to screens or computers, offering ambiguous, intimate imagery and a timely definition of beauty. MK Velsorf and Aase Nielsen's Opening Night captures an improvisational performance—guitar and synth—recorded at an underground LA art-space opening and released on Laurel Halo's AWE label, emerging as a surprising masterpiece.
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