Welcome,

Back to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group, and specifically to my monthly column about the best shows in New York.

It’s Rocktober in the Big City, culminating in this writer’s favorite holiday, Halloween! There are a great many Halloween parties in our little town, and while I found some good ones, there are undoubtedly more that escaped my watchful eye. If you know of any good ones I missed, slap those fuckers in the comments, please.

In the spirit of the scariest night of them all, I’ll let the shows I chose for this month be a surprise, so you’re probably gonna wanna go ahead and scroll down.

October 7: Night Sky Salon w/ Discovery Zone & Paint @ Westlight

A night under the stars and you get free telescopes.

FREE RSVP

Read my review of Discovery Zone’s latest album

October 8: ANTICS 2nd Anniversary: Slow Fiction, Native Sun, Kip Berman, Avery Friedman @ LIFE WORLD

Full disclosure, I am the senior editor of ANTICS Magazine and it would be really awesome if y’all came out to support. Our 7th issue was just announced and will be out very soon, and it’s absolutely beautiful and full of amazing writing.

As a bonus, there are four awesome bands performing, including ascendant shoegazers Slow Fiction and the one and only Kip Berman, former frontman of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. I know a lot of y’all grew up with that band, don’t even play with me.

Tickets

SUBSCRIBE TO ANTICS NOW

October 9: DJ Rashad’s Birthday: DJ Chad, DJ Manny, TCJ, Mikasa @ Night Club 101 [late]

Celebrate the late footwork legend with sets from his son DJ Chad and Chicago scene leader DJ Manny, as well as the best married DJs in town, TCJ and Mikasa.

FREE RSVP

October 9–10: Kelela @ Brooklyn Paramount

Kelela is still blurring the boundaries of R&B nearly a decade after Take Me Apart broke our brains in 2017. Her excellent new album starts with her take on shoegaze (see above), which is better than 99% of shoegaze songs made in the 21st century. Unfortunately, both of her shows at the Paramount are sold out, and resale is looking quite pricy.

Tickets: October 9 | October 10

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October 11: Josephine’s Next Million Miles, Vulver, Zachary Mezo, Foal Slippers, Alain C. Montgomery & Friends (DJ) @ Stone Circle Theatre

Laptop twee like you’ve never heard it before.

RSVP — $10 suggested donation, NOTAFLOF

October 12: The Residents, DJ Alex Kayne @ Sony Hall

Hard to make it to adulthood as a fan of weird music without going through a Residents phase at some point. What better way to spend a Monday evening than underground in Midtown with Shreveport’s finest freaks?

Tickets

October 14: Chanel Beads, Horse Vision, Nirosta Steel, Car Culture @ Knockdown Center

Chanel Beads are one of those rare breakout bands that completely deserves the hype, and the undercard on this one is extra strong. Nirosta Steel, most notably, is a septuagenarian former Arthur Russell collaborator whose whose strange, eclectic, brilliant music blew up out of nowhere this year.

Tickets

Read my profile of ULYSSA, the label behind Nirosta Steel’s rise

October 15: Show Me The Body, Lip Critic, Crown of Thornz, Truck Violence @ Webster Hall

Four very good punk bands. Wear a mouthguard in the pit.

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October 16: Marie Davidson, Xeno & Oaklander, Andi (DJ) @ Xanadu

The queen of Quebecois EBM on a roller rink. Sounds like a good time to me.

Tickets

October 17: June McDoom, Anant Pradhan @ National Sawdust

June McDoom’s music sits on the outskirts of folk and jazz, with snatches of chamber pop and R&B courtesy of her concentric collaborative circles in NYC and reggae from her Florida youth. It’s all a vehicle for her shadowy soprano, a uniquely gorgeous and mysterious presence on the track.

Tickets

October 19: Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE @ Brooklyn Paramount

MIKE and Earl are arguably the two best living rappers, and their collaborations are always elite. “plz don’t cut my wings” is one of my favorite tracks of the 2020s, and the above video finds an enterprising YouTube uploader setting it to scenes from Jim Jarmusch’s 2000 Forest Whitaker vehicle Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Hopefully they figure out a way to do that live.

Tickets

October 20–21: Juana Molina @ LPR

65-year-old Argentine drone-pop queen Juana Molina released her first album in almost a decade last year, and, for my money, it’s her best. Just listen to how simultaneously cushy and catchy and weird this track is. I have seen her live twice now accompanying herself on synths and guitar along with her longtime live drummer, Diego López Arcaute, and she truly rocks.

Tickets: October 20 | October 21

Read my interview w/ Juana from November

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October 21: FUJI|||||||||||TA, Ka Baird, Actress @ Lincoln Center

Everyone should see FUJI|||||||||||TA before they die. The Japanese homemade pipe organist and throat singer is truly one of one. Contact mic freakout specialist Ka Baird is pretty awesome too, as is constantly avant-garde producer/DJ Actress. Their performances will be accompanied by VR puppetry, motion capture, stage actors, musicians, a motorized racing simulator chair, and edited-in-the-moment camerawork from virtual performance studio Team Rolfe, according to the event page.

Tickets — Choose what you pay, currently sold out but check back for availability

October 21–22: Animal Collective perform Feels @ Knockdown Center

My Animal Collective theory is that your favorite Animal Collective album is the one that came out when you were in middle school. Strawberry Jam came out around two weeks before I started the seventh grade, and so it is eternally my favorite. Still, Feels is an undeniable classic, perhaps the record that best blends the groundbreaking band’s early experimental era with their rise to indie superstardom.

Both of these shows are sold out, and for some reason there’s no wait list on DICE, so I won’t provide a ticket link, but I imagine many of you have your ways of finagling yourselves into sold-out shows.

October 22: Isabella Lovestory, B0YG1RL, Ali Rq @ MoMA PS1

B0YG1RL are a generational duo, combining just about every style of music that’s fun to dance to into euphoric slurry of pounding beats, wonderfully abrasive synths, and fiery vocals from June Vinette. There are plenty of excellent shows to choose from on October 22, but if I were you I’d go to this one.

Tickets

October 23: Stephin Merritt, Noa Britton, et al. @ Joe’s Pub

Stephin Merritt is the genius who’’s helmed The Magnetic Fields since 1989. I saw the band perform the first third of 69 Love Songs last year, and it was so lovely. I’ve admittedly never seen Stephin solo, and I’ve also admittedly never been to Joe’s Pub, but if the legends are true its a great place to see a show.

Tickets

October 23–24: Osees, Traps PS, Brigid Dawson @ Warsaw

I used to see Osees/The Ohsees/ Thee Oh Sees a lot in New Orleans, but it’s been quite some time, and I’m long overdue. If you’ve never seen John Dwyer and his absolutely electrifying garage punk outfit live, run don’t walk!

I am just now seeing these tickets are obscenely expensive. Still, if you have deep pockets as I know many of my subscribers do, it might be a great time to splurge.

Tickets

October 24: more eaze, Jadelain, Andre Schiavelli @ Cassette

It’s the release show for more eaze’s gorgeous new record valley and structure! Go see Mari rip!

Tickets

OR, come with me to see my friend Cady and her very good punk band Jeerleader at Hart Bar, where I got dumped one time. An absolute steal at $10 at the door.

October 25: Helado Tropical (Helado Negro & Reyna Tropical), Nick Hakim, Papi Juice @ Knockdown Center

Helado Negro and Reyna Tropical blended their effervescent energies this summer for their self-titled debut as Helado Tropical. I imagine it will be just as airy and lovely live as it is on wax.

Tickets

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October 27: Ka Baird & Chris Ryan Williams, Leila Bordreuil & Luke Stewart @ Roulette

Four of New York City’s finest and most intrepid experimental improvisers converge on arguably the city’s best venue for experimental music. If it wasn’t planned, I’d call it serendipity.

Tickets

October 28: Ak’chamel, Ecology Homestones @ Market Hotel

I’ve yet to be completely sold on the latest in a long line of bands that dress up like mythololgical woodland creatures, but Ak’chamel’s music is pretty mesmerizing, and I think that seeing them perform could be fun on this slow night, unless you’re a big fan of Jeff Tweedy’s solo music or the crazy drum stuff the Sō Percussion guys get up to.

Tickets

Speaking of which, read my profile of Jeff Tweedy and his solo music

October 29: YHWH Nailgun, Samba Jean-Baptiste, Morgan Garrett @ Warsaw

If you’re a certain type of guy you will want to go to this one, and if you’re another type of guy you’ll be at the PC Music extravaganza at Knockdown Center. There’s nothing wrong with either type of guy and sometimes these types of guys can live within one guy. This is to say nothing of the type of guy who’ll be in the pit at L.O.T.I.O.N. at the meadows, or the type of perhaps more mild-mannered and tasteful guy who’ll be at Public Records for Jeremiah Chiu. These are also great guys, and guys means girls too.

Tickets

October 30: Machine Girl, Deli Girls, yesterdayneverhappened @ Pioneer Works

There’s an embarrassment of riches on October 30 if you live in New York and are a guy or girl who likes to go to shows. There are lots of shows that are scary and lots that are fun. But, as October 30 is both a Friday and the eve of Hallow’s Eve, the most responsible thing to do is to point you to the show that will be the perfect balance of scary and fun, and that is this one.

Tickets

October 30–November 1: Halloween Nonstop: DJ Stingray, Convextion, Rene Wise, Juliana Huxtable, DJ Koolt, and more @ Nowadays

For those of you planning to go on a full-blown bender for Halloween weekend, a Nowadays Nonstop is always a fun way to do that. This one happens to be headlined by Detroit legend DJ Stingray, whose been making genre-breaking beats since most of us were just twinkles in our mothers’ eyes.

Sadly, you can only buy tickets for a few hours of action at a time, and they’re all roughly $60, aside from those for Sunday morning and afternoon, which I myself would not purchase.

Tickets

October 31: Cannelle EQ, Tommy Fleece, Corridos Ketamina, and more @ Elsewhere (The Hall)

Corridos Ketamina have cracked the code on hipster corridos, a sound that I have no idea why everyone isn’t listening to yet, and here they are opening for electropop superstar-in-the-making Cannelle. There are of course a thousand other places you could go on Halloween. Beyond Bassvictim at Knockdown, Nabihah Iqbal at Night Club 101 (and, conveniently, during the daytime at Tompkins Square Park), a house party, or—if you’re a deep head who’d rather spend the night in a blissful state of deep listening than at a sweaty event with a costume code—Oren Ambarchi at Blank Forms. Still, I would go to this one if I were in town. Alas, I will not be in town, so if you go to any of these shows from the 27th through Halloween and don’t see me, now you know why.

Tickets

Read my 2025 interview with Corridos Ketamina

Read my 2026 profile of Corridos Ketamina

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Thanks for reading,

Everyone. I hope you enjoyed every single word. If you didn’t read closely, there were probably lots of brilliant insights and clever innuendos you didn’t catch, and perhaps even one or two things about my personal life. As they say, the close reader reaps the greatest bounty.

Below are some other shows I’d recommend checking out this month if the above ones are not to your liking or if you’re afraid you might see one of your enemies there. The bolded and italicized ones are the most honorable mentions of all.

October 7:

YOB @ Saint Vitus

October 7: Basement, Momma, Big Boy, Frbuary @ Brooklyn Paramount

October 7: Ella Dee b2b KYRUH & LORD ASA @ Bossa Nova

October 7–8: X Amendments @ Roulette

October 8:

BRAT, U.S. Bastards, FACA @ Gold Sounds

Horse Lords, Jules Reidy, Silk Fence @ Pioneer Works

Cor de Lux, Editrix, Yuvees, Big Girl @ The Broadway

Lava Gulls, Jersey Star, watergh0st @ Cassette

Knocked Loose, Denzel Curry, Superheaven, Boundaries @ Brooklyn Paramount

mal sounds, Talia, Isa Reyes @ Night Club 101

Mx Lonely, Taraneh, Interlay, Warmachine @ The Meadows

Doss & Friends @ Paragon

Octo Octa & Faited, Eva Loveless @ Nowadays

Neko Case @ National Sawdust

Modest Mouse, Caroline Rose @ Pier 17

The Linda Lindas, Deux Visages, Ym, Jennifer? @ Brooklyn Steel

Tyshawn Sorey & Tim Dahl, Chaser, et al. @ TV EYE

October 9

Moss Cathedral, David Grubbs, Leah Coloff @ Ki Smith Gallery

DjRUM @ Nowadays

James Brandon Lewis & Anne Waldman, Oliver Pace & Josh Wener, et al. @ Roulette

RA 25th Anniversary Party: Nick León, Galcher Lustwerk, et al @ Good Room

Wata Igarashi, ISAbella, Subb-an, Meilgaarden @ BASEMENT

Aurora Halal, Amelia Holt, et al. @ H0L0

Stewart Bird , Jadelain, Ezeta, Yaka, kk.Shucko (DJ) @ LSD

Whisper Doll, Starcleaner Reunion (DJ), et al. @ Baby’s All Right

The Carry Nation, Mike Servito, Kim Anh + Sissies of Mercy, Spyware @ Paragon

Overmono @ Terminal 5

Liam Benzvi & Blue Mena @ Public Records

October 10

DJ Shadow, Prince Paul @ Terminal 5

DJ Sliink, Martyn Bootyspoon b2b Swami Sound et al. @ Paragon

Buena Vista Orchestra @ LPR

50 Cent @ Pacha

Honey Dijon, Derrick Carter, Luke Solomon, Anastzja @ Knockdown Center

October 11

Loren Conners, James Ilgenfritz, Joseph Dee Bradshaw @ PIT

October 11: William Parker’s Pocketwatch, No Land feat. Luke Stewart & Oliver Ray, Luisa Muhr & Kochis @ First St. Gardens (2pm)

October 11: MC Lyte @ Brooklyn Bowl

October 11: Eamon Harkin, Justin Carter @ Nowadays

October 12

Cortex, Adrian Younge, J. Rocc @ Knockdown Center

William Parker & habby fluke-mogul, Melissa Almaguer & Eliana Fishbeyn, Luke Stewart Big Band @ First St. Garden (2pm)

October 14

Ikue More, Reggie Nicholson @ Roulette

Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 @ Webster Hall

Dan Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble

Charlotte Greve, Kaoru Watanabe @ Public Records

Sylvan Esso @ Brooklyn Paramount

October 15

James Brandon Lewis, Nicole Mitchell, et al. @ Roulette

GZA, Phunky Nomads, Keznamdi @ Brooklyn Bowl

Mei Semones @ Lincoln Center

Gilla Band, Piss @ Elsewhere (The Hall)

Slow Magic, Maxo, 4evr @ Elsewhere (Zone One)

Arushi Jain @ Guggenheim Museum

Rave Flyers of the ’90s launch: DB, DJ Miss Parker, DJ Three, S4M23 @ Nowadays

October 16

Open Mike Eagle @ Sultan Room

DJ Dave, Arushi Jain, et al. @ Elsewhere

Mexican Slum Rats, Taraneh @ Market Hotel

Juliana Huxtable et al. @ BASEMENT

October 16-17: BRIC Jazz Fest: Bilal, Mohini Dey, et al. @ BRIC House

October 17

Prymek & Sage, Loren Connors @ Public Records

Drew McDowall w/ the Cartographic Ensemble @ Blank Forms

Acid Mothers Temple, Magick Potion

Wishy @ Racket

JPEGMAFIA, redveil, Matt Proxy @ Terminal 5

Jana Rush, Loqum, Love Higher, Sugo2000 @ Bossa Nova

October 18

Growing, Ryan Sawyer Shaker Ensemble @ Union Pool

Billy Jones Block Party @ Baby’s All Right

Paul Wallfisch, Secret Music Society, Anna Johnson @ Pianos

Aurora Halal & Justin Carter @ Nowadays

Robert Glasper @ Blue Note

Soul Summit @ Public Records

October 18–19: Giallo Disco: Kellen303 @ “TBA (Rock Bar)”

October 19

Marc Ribot Quartet @ Roulette

Daikaiju @ The Meadows

Elanor Moss, Jana Horn @ Night Club 101

Rena Anakwe, Muyassar Kurdi (w/ Kwami Winfield & Dorchel Haqq) @ Poetry Project

October 20

Yaz Lancaster, bounce kisses, KI-HOLE, et al. @ Bossa Nova

Robert Glasper, Questlove, Bilal @ Blue Note

October 20–21: Worldpeace DMT, Dyltwosix @ Baby’s All Right

October 21

Yaya Bey, H31R @ Baby’s All Right [early]

October 22

The Avalanches, Erick The Architet, Jesse Lanza (DJ) @ Terminal 5

Steve Reich @ 90: Bang on a Can All-Stars et al. @ Carnegie Hall

claire rousay, Martyna Basta, Giant Claw, Julek Ploski @ Licoln Center

Asher White, Nara’s Room, Retail Drugs @ TV EYE

The Damned, Flamin’ Groovies, The Courettes @ Brooklyn Steel

Ashes57 @ “TBA (14BC Gallery)”

Mate Mercereau, Carlos Niño @ Public Records

Ghostemane @ Stone Circle Theatre

Cradle of Filth, Moonspell, Worm, Black Satellite @ Warsaw

October 22–23: Beck @ Brooklyn Paramount

October 23

Valentina Magaletti, gabby fluke-mogul, Boring Tables @ Public Records

gum.mp3, Archangel, et al. @ Trans-Pecos

Matthew Danger Lippman, Horror Movie Marathon, Star 80 @ Union Pool

Meshell Ndegeocello, Samora Pinderhughes @ BAM

Thundercat, TiaCorine @ Kings Theatre

Trouble X Diamond Terrifier @ Roulette

Pardoner, Laughing Cocks, The Smartheads @ Night Club 101

Ultra Naté, Kilopatrah Jones, Karim Olen Ash & Saia, RATONC1T0 @ Paragon

Friko, Nine Perfect Lives @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

October 24

Tinashe @ Brooklyn Paramount

Liturgy (solo) @ Issue Project

Jeerleader, Balloon Snake, et al. @ Hart Bar**

Pixies @ Webster Hall

Mark Giuliana @ Public Records

Mac DeMarco @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Radiator Hospital, DUSK

Safety Trance, Manuka Honey, Caín Lima & WTCHCRFT b2b Simzii @ Paragon

October 24: Arthur, Tasha, The Untouchables, BEARCAT, et al. @ Nowadays

October 25

Floating Points & Justin Carter @ Nowadays

October 25–26: Mac DeMarco @ Carnegie Hall

October 26

Action Bronson, Human Growth Hormone

Labiahead, Lena Hell, Meg Toohey, Charlene Kaye @ Xanadu

October 27

Vince Staples @ Brooklyn Steel

October 27–29: St. Vincent @ Café Carlyle

October 28

Jeff Tweedy (solo), Case Oats @ Town Hall

Sō Percussion @ 92NY

Topaz Jones @ Lincoln Center

October 28–31: New York Philharmonic Get Out live score @ Lincoln Center

October 29

PC Music, A.G. Cook, Sophia Stel, et al. @ Knockdown Center

Jeremiah Chiu @ Public Records

L.O.T.I.O.N., Lathe of Heaven, et al. @ The Meadows

October 29: Palehound, Samia, Nuria Graham, Marem Ladson @ Cassette

October 29: Man/Woman/Chainsaw @ Night Club 101

October 29: Body Hack @ Nowadays

October 30

Masma Dream World, Human Dream Project, ’nguento @ Stone Circle

Neurosis, Uniform @ Warsaw

Dev Lemons, Venus & The Flytraps @ Elsewhere (The Hall)

Guerilla Toss, Ben Katzman’s Degreaser @ Elsewhere (Zone One)

Harlan Steed @ The Meadows

Haunted Hop: The Lemon Twigs, Swamp Dogg, Sheer Mag, et al. @ Knockdown Center

October 30: Chokhole X Function @ Xanadu

October 30: Shungu — Faith in the Unknown live film score @ Public Records

October 30: Man/Woman/Chainsaw @ Union Pool

October 30: Boris, Juana, Vile & DJ Swisha, nextdimensional @ Paragon

October 30: Kaytranada @ Pacha

October 30: Jayda G & Suze Ijó @ Refuge

HALLOWEEN!

October 31: Oren Ambarchi, Randall Dunn @ Blank Forms

Bassvictim, Dead Butterflies, Thoom @ Knockdown Center [early]

Bodega, Nabihah Iqbal, et al. @ Tompkins Square Park (2pm)

Nabhiah Iqbal, Tempers @ Night Club 101

Sexmob Kurt Weill Halloween @ the Stone

Beach Fossils, Winter @ Baby’s All Right

Major League DJz et al. @ Elsewhere (Full Venue)

Horsemeat Disco @ Knockdown

October 31: Neurosis, Primitive Man @ Warsaw

October 31: Cypress Hill, Immortal Technique, Lord Sko @ Irving Plaza

October 31: Reggae Fest @ Brooklyn Paramount

October 31: Swamp Dogg, Alana Amram (Muppet Cover Band) @ TV EYE

Hey,

Welcome back to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group, and specifically to my monthly column about the best shows in New York, back after a two-month hiatus.

This September, like all Septembers, is a very busy month for shows in NYC, and there are some heavy hitters coming to town. Scheduled on September 13 alone are Young Thug in Central Park, Raven Chacon at Roulette, and POiSON GiRL FRiEND at Webster Hall. And deep-pocketed/well-connected fans will be forced to choose two out of three legends—Grouper, Kim Gordon, and Haruomi Hosono—between September 15 and 16. The final weekend of the month is perhaps even more crowded, with the stacked Mezame Festival bumping up against shows from Sarah Davachi and The Prodigy and Knockdown Center’s last OUTLINE of the summer.

To keep myself sane this month, I’m not going to do any more writing after this intro because it has come to my attention that people don’t come to a show listings post to read the prose. As usual, I’ll start with my top picks and list the honorable mentions below them, with the mentions in bold being extra-honorable. In making these decisions, I took all considerations into account, which is the Jane Remover show at Terminal 5, for instance, didn’t make it into the top tier. Disagree with my opinions? I’m happy to engage you in an open debate at a venue of your choosing.

Finally, I’ve decided to demonetize this Substack, since I can never find time to post bonus content for paid subscribers, and it’s more fun if it’s free anyway. That said, I’m still a slut for likes, subscribes, and shares, so feel free to do all of the above.

God Bless You, Every One.

Subscribe now

SHOWS

September 3: Ken Carson, xaviersobased, Prettifun, DJ Moon @ Barclays Center

Tickets

September 3–4: Underworld @ Knockdown Center

Tickets

September 4: Goldie, Adred, Diverge & Anónima, LOKA @ Paragon

Tickets

September 5: Jeff Mills, Ben UFO, Craig Richards, Helena Hauff, x3butterfly, Shvili @ Under the K Bridge Park

Tickets

September 8: Jim E. Brown, Emperor X, Andy Burns @ Bowery Ballroom

Tickets

September 10: NAH, H31R, Cube, AFK w/ Tony Seltzer & Cashwan @ Trans-Pecos

Tickets

September 10–12: Nirosta Steel @ Night Club 101

ALL SOLD OUT

September 12: ear, NEW YORK, Bby Kell @ East 34th St Heliport

SOLD OUT

September 13: Young Thug, Nav @ Central Park SummerStage

Tickets ($$$)

September 13: Raven Chacon, Tashi Dorji, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Leo Chang @ Roulette

Tickets

September 13: POiSON GiRL FRiEND, Operelly, Judy Unisex @ Webster Hall

Tickets

September 15: Colin Stetson & Brìghde Chaimbeul, The Space Lady, Clarice Jensen @ Pioneer Works

Tickets

September 15–16: Grouper @ Town Hall

Tickets (9/16 SOLD OUT)

September 15–16: Kim Gordon, voyeur @ Warsaw (night 2 w/ Bill Nace)

Tickets (9/15 resale only)

September 16: Haruomi Hosono, Toro y Moi @ Radio City Music Hall

Tickets

September 17: The Femcels, ideasforconversations @ Elsewhere (Zone One)

Tickets

September 18: Wadada Leo Smith, Amina Claudine Myers, Qasim Nqvi, Andrew Cyrille @ Roulette

Tickets

September 24: Old Saw, Ximena Bedoya @ Night Club 101

Tickets

September 25–27: Mezame New York: Charlemagne Palestine, James Ferraro, Laraaji, Puerlink, james K, Hildegard, AraabMUZIK, et al. @ Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, St. Francis Xavier Church, and St. Bartholomew’s Church

Tickets

September 25: Sarah Davachi @ First Unitarian Congregational Society

Tickets

September 26: Flying Lotus, EYE, Olof Dreijer, Black Dice, By Storm, Carrier, gyrofield, Silicone Valley @ Knockdown Center

Tickets

September 28–29: L’Rain (early shows & late lineups of curated DJs) @ Night Club 101

Tickets: 9/28 | 9/29

September 30: Cate Le Bon, Lucrecia Dalt, Dagmar Zuniga @ Knockdown Center

Tickets

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MORE SHOWS

September 2–4: Erik Friedlander Residency @ The Stone

September 3: Miriam Elhajli, Savannah Harris, Malik Abdul-Rahmaan @ Public Records

September 3: Amiture Music, Michael Eliran, Or Best Offer

September 3: Sylvan Esso (DJ) @ Elsewhere

September 3: Juan Maclean, Kiddo Sincere, Andi @ Bossa Nova Civic Club

September 4: Anthrax @ Saint Vitus * SOLD OUT *

September 4: Jamie xx, Sasha Crush, UMA DJ @ Public Records * SOLD OUT*

September 4: Matthew Danger Lipman birthday show @ Night Club 101

September 4: Memorials, Angel Deradoorian @ Union Pool

September 4: Common Loon, Paul Babre, Joeybee @ Cassette

September 4: Princess Nokia, Yaya Bey @ Lehman Center for the Performing Arts

September 4: Sofia Kourtesis (DJ), Sorley, EREZ, House Hats @ Elsewhere

September 4: Hiatt dB, Freak Out

September 4: My Body With Blood, Cal Fish, Isabella Ashton, T!lt @ Hart Bar

September 4: Robyn, Yaeji @ Barclays Center

September 4: Tracey Nelson,Torture and the Desert Spiders, Net Loss @ Rippers

September 4: Booker Stardrum & Evan Shomstein, Alfredo Colón Trio

September 4: DJ Rozwell, Kill alters, XXhardbit3s, Dani Rev, Soo Intoit @ Purgatory (late)

September 4: A Murder of Crows Festival (various artists) @ Bowery Ballroom

September 4: Soul Connection, Papi Juice, Oscar Nñ, Adam R @ Little Island Pier 55

September 4: Scrum Force, Idaho Green, Wild Lawn, Upnow! @ Pianos

September 4: Lidis, Enrica Falqui, Flo Massé, deep creep, J.Richards

September 4: Henry R, Sohrob, jumperrrr, DJ IGFMS @ Rodeoh

September 4: Soul Summit @ Le Bain

September 5: Merope & Shahzad Ismaily @ Public Records

September 5: mer marcum, Alice Does Computer Music, Starcleaner Reunian (DJ_, Crate (DJ), Amos Chapman (DJ), Gavin Sultan (DJ) @ Baby’s All Right

September 5: DOYG1RL, DILUVIA, DICAP, Juliana Huxtable, Sewa Choki, TYGAPAW, Via App @ Nowadays

September 5: JUSTICE (DJ), The Dare (DJ) @ Pacha

September 5–6: Rauw Alejandro @ Forest Hills Stadium

September 5–7: Arts For Arts (various artists) @ Children’s Magical Garden

September 6: Heavy Blanket feat. J Mascis, CRICKETS, Tami Hart @ Union Pool *FREE*

September 6: Converge, L.O.T.I.O.N. Multinational Corporation @ Saint Vitus

September 6: Crickets, Tami Hart, + special guests @ Union Pool *FREE*

September 6: Justin Carter, Eamon Harkin @ Nowadays

September 6: Embryoroom, ID-sus, TORIMIMASATAKA @ Pianos

September 6: Nita Aviance, Cakes Da Killa, Rush Davis, 550am @ Signlal

September 6: Ayanna Heaven, Shakakhan, SAVSSOUNDS, cry$cross @ Bossa Nova Civic Club

September 6: Ginja, J Gadget, Ethan Thomas, Gabsoul, J Surena

September 6: Badfish @ The Rockaway Hotel

September 7: Ikue Mori & Bill Nace, Popebama, Nava Dunkelman & Brandon Seabrook @ Striped Light

September 7: Jack Wright, TJ Borden, and Paul Nadien; Chuck Roth & Jack Wright @ Downtown Music Gallery

September 7: Anna McClellan, Lomelda, 100 Watt Horse @ Purgatory

September 7: Lydia Lunch, Joseph Kckler, Bibbe Hanson

September 7: Soul Summit @ Knockdown Center

September 8: Questlove @ National Sawdust

September 8: Astra Collective @ The Stone

September 8–9: LUCKI, Sk8star @ Brooklyn Paramount

September 9: Abraham Cruzvillegaz bewitches La Bruja de Texcoco @ Giorno Poetry Systems *FREE*

September 9: Brandon Seabrook w/ Bill Frisell, Marcus Gilmore, and Rashaan Carter @ Public Records

September 9: Vijay Iyer @ Columbia University

September 9: Mike D @ Knockdown Center

September 9–12: Matt Mitchell Residency @ The Stone

September 10: Angine de Poitrine (in the round) @ LPR

September 10: Robyn, Romy @ Barclays Center

September 10: The Callous Daoboys, Girl of Glass, Machine Baby @ Saint Vitus

September 10: Channel Tres, Eliza Rose @ Knockdown Center

September 11: zatru, ctrlfr33k, muda!, st47ic, and more @ Trans-Pecos

September 11: Yhapojj, Yuke @ Market Hotel

September 11: Yume Abe, Scotch Mist @ Public Records

September 11: Alex Cameron @ Baby’s All Right

September 11: Iceblink, Crying Laughing, Jeff Tobias @

September 11: Terror, King Nine, Whispers, Love Sick @ Saint Vitus

September 11: Jyoty @ Nowadays

September 12–13: Arts for Arts (various artists) @ Children’s Magical Garden

September 12: Thor and Friends, Hour, Jadelain @ Cassette

September 12: Olivia Block, Keith Fullertan Whitman, Lea Bertucci @ Light & Sound Design (2:30pm & 7:30pm)

September 12: John Zorn, Matt Hollenberg, Simon Hanes, and Chet Smith @ National Sawdust

September 12: Black Rave Culture, gum.mp3 & Annie Lew, Nymphostar @ Paragon

September 12: Social Distortion, Descendents, The Chats @ Brooklyn Paramount

September 12: Shudder To Think, Miss Grit @ Bowery Ballroom

September 12: Aldous Harding, Sam Burton @ Brooklyn Steel

September 12: DJ Swisha, DJ Technics, Syd, Marsh Crane @ Trans-Pecos

September 12: Immolation, Ancient Death, Siege Column @ Saint Vitus

September 12: YG, Mozzy, Chef Boy @ Irving Plaza

September 12: Matt Ox @ Trans-Picos

September 12: Nice Strong Arm, Phantom Tollbooth, Flower @ Mama Tried

September 12: Jyoty, Shyboi, Sterling Juan Diaz, Belinda Becker @ Signal

September 12: Analog Soul, Chee Shizu, John Talabot, Kim Anh, 0.BEE @ Nowadays

September 13: Theo Parrish @ Nowadays

September 13: Benji B, Nabihah Iqbal (DJ) @ Public Records

September 13: Rico Nasty @ Knockdown Center

September 13: Wu-Tang Clan, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony @ Jones Beach

September 13: Tough Darling, Ty Varesi, Tom Carter & Loren Connors @ Pianos

September 14: Laurie Anderson, A.M. Homes, Sophie Cabot Black, Paul Muldoon @ 92NY

September 14: múm (in the round

September 14: Itzhak Perlman @ Beacon THeatre

September 14: ESDEEKID, Rico Ace @ Brooklyn Paramount

September 14–15: Charli xcx, underscores @ Barclays Center

September 15: Melt-Banana @ Elsewhere

September 15: Upper Wilds, Editrix, Chaser @ Union Pool

September 15: Sō Laboratories (in memory of Tim Thomas) @ Roulette

September 15: Wiki @ Elsewhere

September 15: Rivers of Nihil, Outer Heaven, Scumbag @ Saint Vitus

September 15: youbet, Hiding Places @ East Village, location TBA

September 15: Danny Elfman @ Central Park SummerStage

September 16: Truck Violence @ Trans-Pecos

September 16: Mary Lattimore @ Jack Shainman Gallery

September 16: Tyondai Braxton, Qasim Naqvi @ Public Records

September 16: Joy Guidry, A Space for Sound @ Roulette

September 16: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal @ Saint Vitus

September 16: Alex Cameron @ Baby’s All Right

September 16: Daisy Chain, Tea Eater @ ALPHAVILLE

September 16–19: Sana Nagano Residency @ The Stone

September 17: Frances Chang, Cate Kennan, Financial Collapse @ Night Club 101

September 17: Katherine Young w/ Olivia Block, Ben LaMar Gay, Brian Chase, and Yarn/Wire

September 17: Balkans, WifiGawd @ Baby’s All Right

September 17: Carla dal Forno, Acopia, Alana Markel @ Knockdown Center

September 17: The Garden, Ghost Mountain @ Knockdown Center

September 18: Erykah Badu, De La Soul, The Alchemist @ Forest Hills Stadium

September 18: Kuru, Helen Sun, Push Ups, Study Group @ 100 Feast 萬豪大酒家

September 18: Cassie Watson Francillon & Sasha Masakowski, Nick Hook @ Public Records

September 18: Eden Girma @ Issue Project Room

September 18: upsammy, Kamran Sadeghi, OK EG, Severja & Aion, Jacob Gorchov @ Public Records

September 18: OOMFCON 1 Year Anniversary w/ BODYHACK + BIAS (various artists) @ Paragon

September 19–20: Arts for Arts (various artists) @ Children’s Magical Garden

September 19: Oneida, Garcia Peoples, Sally Gates, Kevin Hufnagel @ George Seuffert Bandshell (Forest Park)

September 19: Liz Phair, Sleater-Kinney, Frankie Cosmos @ Lena Horne Bandshell (Prospect Park)

September 19: upsammy, Valentina Magaletti @ Public Reords

September 19: Jason Moran w/ BlankFor.ms, and Marcus Gilmore, Caroline Davis w/ Qasim Naqvi and Grey Mcmurray @ Roulette

September 19: CoOLD CAVE, Rosa Anschültz @ First Unitarian Congregational Society

September 19: The Sleeves, Ryan Sawyer’s Shaker Ensemble @ Union Pool

September 19: Nation of Language, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Anika @ Brooklyn Paramount

September 19: Nick Hakim, Arima Ederra @ Warsaw

September 19: All Shall Perish, CARNIFLEX @ Saint Vitus

September 19: David Byrne @ Forest Hills Stadium

September 19: Arklight, Diceholes, Some of Mine @ Mama Tried

September 19: Tove Lo, COBRAH, Mallrat @ Under the K Bridge Park

September 19: Jeff Rosenstock @ The Rooftop @ Pier 17

September 19: satandoll, Love Highwer, WADDLE, LeCamille, SELEKTRA

September 19: Zach Fox presents: UWAY (various artists) @ Elsewhere

September 19: WTCHCRFT, DJ Janky @ Rubulad

September 20: Dying Fetus, Sanguisugabogg, Crowbar, Left To Suffer, Deterioraion @ Brooklyn Steel

September 20: Whirr, Luster @ Brooklyn Paramount

September 20: SHRED FOR YOUR LIFE (guitar battle) @ Union Pool

September 20: Samara & Tara Jane @ Pianos

September 20: Smut, Dirt Buyer, Foyer Red @ Night Club 101

September 20: Nara’s Room, Ava Mirzadegan, Puppy Problems @ ALPHAVILLE

September 20: Nai Palm @ Baby’s All Right

September 20: Buzz Kull, Kontravoid, Normal Bias @ Saint Vitus

September 21: Fontaines D.C., REW @ Kings Theatre

September 22: King Woman, Blu Annxxiety, Maiya Blaney, Reagan Holiday @ Saint Vitus

September 22: Jane Remover, Dazgxd @ Terminal 5

September 22: Action Bronson @ LPR

September 22: Alabaster DePlume, Tara Lily @ Elsewhere

September 23: Turnstile, Clipse, julie @ Forest Hills Stadium

September 23: Daniel Avery, Depplereffekt @ Elsewhere

September 23: Dan English, Wendy Eisenberg, Bella Litsa @ Elsewhere

September 23: The Beths, Chelsea Jade

September 23: Corinne Bailey Rae @ Irving Plaza

September 23: PROBLEMS, Anand Wilder, Bubblegum Octopus, Videopunks @ Purgatory

September 23: Dazzling Killmen, Intercourse, Memory Entry @ Saint Vitus

September 23–26: Sugar Vendil Residency @ The Stone

September 24: Mastodon, Deafheaven, Alcest @ Brooklyn Paramount

September 24: Suki Waterhouse, Charlotte Lawrence @ Radio City Music Hall

September 24: Otto Benson Group @ Trans-Pecos

September 24: Nauseous Ejector, Neuter & Kwami Winfield, Sight, Coagulative Necrosis, Supression @ Hart Bar

September 24–25: Bikini Kill, Downtown Boys/Lambrini Girls

September 24–26: Phoebe Bridgers, Alex G @ Barclays Center

September 25: Anarchist Book Fair Day 3 feat. SSAJ Big Band, Brandon Lopez, and more @ P.I.T.

September 25: Bush Tetras, Bad Static, Distance/Time, Hit By A Pitch @ Maker Park (Staten Island)

September 25: Armand Hammer @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

September 25: The Prodigy, Brutalismus 3000, Sextile, Lip Critic

September 25: Icona Pop @ Baby’s All Right

September 25: Karina Rykman, Guerilla Toss @ Webster Hall

September 25: Dutch Interior, Racecourse @ LPR

September 25: Takuya Nakamura presents: Cosmic Jungle (various artsits) @ Elsewhere

September 25: Mark Ernestus, Umfang, DJ Python, No Sir, Carl Luis @ Public Records

September 25: Horse Jumper of Love, 22° Halo @ Warsaw

September 25: Chloé Caillet, Dee Diggs, Kim Anh @ Knockdown Center

September 25: Laura Itandehui @ Public Records

September 25: Drag Talk, Zoon, The Still Out

September 25: AC/DC, The Pretty Recklless @ MetLife Stadium

September 26: Ms. Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey, Tomorrow x Together @ Central Park Great Lawn

September 26: Moodymann @ 314 LoHi Rooftop

September 26: CBGB Fest (various artists) @ Under the K Bridge Park

September 26: UNiiQU3, Miley Serious, Shyboi, DJ Goth Girl, Arielle Lana B2B Syd @ Paragon

September 26: DJ Assault, Sausha, purp @ Market Hotel

September 26: DJ SWISHA, Deo’Jorge, Maddylane, Will Buck, and more @ Dead Letter No.9 *FREE*

September 26: Back From The Dead Fest (various artists) @ The Meadows

September 26: Soul Clap, A lana, Nita Aviance, Dee Diggs, David Paglia @ Public Records

September 26: Goons, The Dracu-Las, Goddamn Wrecks, Take It Dee Dee, Not Gorgeous @ Maker Park (Staten Island)

September 26: Softcult, Sadness, The Sewing Club, Oldest Sea @ Saint Vitus

September 26–28: Arts for Arts (various artists) @ Children’s Magical Garden

September 27: John Zorn w/ Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder, Ches Smith, and Sae Hashimoto) @ Roulette

September 27: Mannequin Pussy, Evil Adeline @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

September 27: SCALP (early) @ Saint Vitus

September 27: Sofia Wolfson, Kevin Copeland, Jacob Drab @ Union Pool

September 27: Cassy, Eamon Harkin @ Nowadays

September 28: Nobody Your Heart: An Elliott Smith Concert (various artists) @ Public Records

September 29: DIIV @ The Meadows

September 29: Croz Boyce (Avey Tare & Geologist), Masaaki

September 29: James Brandon Lewis Trio, Trap Music Orchestra, Angelica Sanchez, Sheela Bringi & Clinton Patterson @ Roulette

September 29: Gorillaz, Little Simz, Deltron 3030 @ Madison Square Garden

September 29: Squirrel Flower, Dari Bay

September 29–30: Audrey Hobert @ Brooklyn Paramount

September 30: Frog, Woods @ Webster Hall

September 30: Nate Wooley’s Mutual Aid Music, Larry Ochs Safe Havens @ Roulette

September 30–October 3: Peter Evans Residency @ The Stone

Hello, everyone,

And welcome back to Apollo Frequencies, a property of the registered S-Corp Raphael Media Group©.

Today I am pleased to bring to you an interview with zayALLCAPS. Originally from South Sacramento, Zay started chopping samples before he hit his teens, inspired in part by his “super-hip-hop-head” parents. By high school, he was rapping and singing on his tracks, tracks that often sounded like direct tributes to his idols — Kanye, Madlib, MF DOOM, et al.

Living in LA in 2020, Zay experienced a mental health episode that forced him to move back home to Sacramento for a year. When he returned to LA and started making music again, “it felt like starting from scratch,” he says over video call, two days before the July 24 release of his fourth album, My Father Told Me Some Real Ass Sh*t on the Phone Yesterday.

The project that launched his comeback was a three-track 2021 EP called I’M SLOWLY GETTING BETTER. It’s by no means his finest work, but putting it on the internet and leaving it there gave him the confidence he needed to lock in again. Along with the clever sampling and funny lyrics he’d always brought to the table, he’d laid the foundations for a singular zayALLCAPS sound.

Over the next five years, Zay’s personal and musical recovery would accelerate: 2023’s BALLING OUT OF SPITE!!, 2024’s iMessage Platinum: Hosted by autotuneKaraoke, and last year’s art Pop * pop Art each felt more adventure and more cohesive than the last.

For Uncle, he pushed himself even further, determined to create a full-length LP of sonically and thematically coherent songs while avoiding the pitfalls of uniformity. Bringing in outside producers to collaborate on several tracks helped him infuse the project with distinct styles. But, as its captain, Zay always steered the album into the path of his vision.

Uncle also marks the first time Zay has spoken on his 2020 breakdown directly, in an apparently unedited monologue delivered in the album’s closing moments. “I still carry myself with this expectation that I’ma just look like I’m doing my best, even if I’m not,” he says. “I know a lot of people deal with that, but it’s something I’ve dealt with in a very specific way in the last few years. I’m still really sensitive, and it kind of feels like there’s a before and after.”

He ends on a lighter note: “Fuck it, this is my album. I can say whatever I want at this point and you’ll listen, so thanks. Let me know which one is your favorite. If you play it backward you might hear something.1”

Apollo Frequencies: It’s release week. How are you feeling?

zayALLCAPS: The nerves are fucked. I try to always manage my expectations and stay grounded, remember that I’m not owed any of this shit. But because last year’s album went so crazy, I know it can happen, and it fucks with my head. I’ve just been trying to stay busy with album shit so I don’t think too hard about it. My friends have all been really cool about it, so there’s worse things, but there’ve definitely been butterflies in my stomach. I’m grateful for that feeling, though.

Take me about all the way back to growing up in Sacramento, growing up in a mixed Black and Filipino family. Is there a big Filipino community there?

Absolutely. South Sacramento, where I was born, is super racially diverse and integrated. You’ll have neighbors of a bunch of different ethnicities: hella Filipinos, other South Asians, Southeast Asians, Hmong people, Sikh people, Black people, white people, Arabs…

It’s funny because you get the impression from the media that it’s basically a big white suburb.

We got Even Stevens, Ladybird. The 2000 Sacramento Kings were mostly white dudes.

Tell me more about your family. Do you have siblings?

I have a lot of siblings. I’m not gonna get specific, but I’m the oldest of a whole handful of siblings, and I take it seriously. I can’t imagine not being a big brother. I’m really involved in their lives. I’m really close with a lot of my extended family members, too. The house we moved into when I was in high school was the house for all of our family gatherings. My dad’s the kind of dad to find an excuse to barbecue no matter what: watching boxing, NBA playoffs, Halloween, anything.

Were any of your older relatives musicians? You’ve said your parents are hip-hop heads.

Super-hip-hop heads. My dad recently picked up the bass as a hobby. I love that for him. And there was the time my mom, on a whim, 20 years ago, bought a drum set. She never ended up using it, but she bought a fucking drum set for our our apartment. I thought it was really cool. In the same way they say that if you just have a bookshelf in the house, your kids will pick up on that, the fact that she had a drum set in the crib made me like, “Oh, cool. You can just do whatever.”

Three of my brothers also make music. I remember a specific night when I was a senior in high school when I taught them all how to use FL Studio, and they all still make music. One of them makes beats, one raps, and one raps and makes beats. They’re all teenagers.

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The music you make — hip-hop, soul, R&B — is all rooted in Black tradition. Do you feel like your Filipino side influences your sound, too?

Not directly, because my mom is first-gen, so she’s super into American shit. She grew up around Black people, so she was into hip-hop and R&B herself. But I’ve been told, and I do feel it, that there’s some type of Filipino quirky swag element to my music. I don’t know how to describe it because it’s hard to draw the line, especially because they’re super influenced by American culture over there because of the occupation. It’s hard to differentiate exactly where the line is between being in an immigrant culture that’s trying to assimilate versus just being a Black person in America.

The earliest music on your Soundcloud is from around 2015, when you were in high school. Back then, was music something you did collaboratively with friends, or was it more of a solo thing?

More of a solo thing. I started off making beats like five years before then, and it was all solo, or sometimes I’d have random internet collabs because I was on forums and shit. I did have a homie named Daniel, and he had a friend who was a singer-songwriter, and that friend’s parents were super-chill white liberals, so they were like, “Come record your rap! It sounds great up there!” They had a loft in their crib, and dude had a whole studio, so it was collaborative in that sense. Matter of fact, I’m capping: Me and my homie Jonah had a rap group in like 2014. We’d get high as fuck and make songs over whatever instrumental. We had a freestyle to Flatbush Zombies’ “Palm Trees,” random Soulection beats, shit like that.

It was fun to listen all the way back to those beats because it’s so clear who you were and how your taste was developing. There’s even a song where you’re rapping over “Raid” by Madvillain and you say something like, “I was into Madvaillain before I got laid / I’m still listening to Madvillain after I got laid / I’ll still be into to Madvillain when I get paid.”

I forgot about that one.2 That week was crazy. We couldn’t stop doing the Michigan flow, the YN Jay flow, around the house with each other, and it leaked into some random freestyles. There’s this one song that no one’s ever gonna hear where I’m just straight-up doing a Rmc Mike flow. It’s really hard.

I hope you drop it some day. Obviously a lot of other influences came in later, but tell me more about your relationship with Madvillain. Were they one of your first big inspirations?

I got put onto DOOM as a kid. My pops is a huge DOOM head. What clicked for me first was the beats cuz, like, “I don’t know the fuck he’s talking about. I’m 12!” Special Herbs is really my shit. Sometimes I forget how influential that was to my ear as a producer, and it was my first exposure to Doobie Bros and Anita Baker and Boz Scaggs. I wasn’t hip to none of that shit, and now I listen to it all the time.

And “Next levels,” the King Geedorah song where he sampled the BET Jazz segment… Bro, on some sidebar shit, the whole rap never knew what the sample was from, and I remember having a dream where I went to heaven and God showed me what the sample was, and it wasn’t not until 2021 when someone unearthed the sample by digging and interviewing people and asking for archival footage. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I think what I appreciate about DOOM is that at that point I didn’t know music could sound like that. Even the other underground rap I had heard wasn’t as left field as that. I liked Mos Def and Little Brother, but they were way more grounded. DOOM was on some other strewn-out shit. After Madvillainy, I got into Madlib and Quasimoto heavy, so DOOM and Madlib were my gateway into what rap could sound like, what music could sound like.

I read that you started singing on your tracks after a girl replied to a Snapchat of you fucking around and said you sounded good. Did that just flip a switch for you where you were confident in your singing voice all of a sudden?

It definitely took time. But yeah, I’m a reserved person, so sometimes I really do need that external [validation]. She was like, “Ay bro, you know you could do that,” and I’m like, “Oh shit, word?” Her saying that just made me think, “OK, obviously I’m not great yet, but this is worth pursuing. Someone thought it was pleasant. I could do this around the house and no one’ll shoot me.”

Did you go to college for music?

No, I went to college because my parents wanted me to go to college. I was majoring in communications for a year, and then I dropped out.

You taught yourself theory then?

Yeah, on YouTube. It helps a lot. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And I’m learning piano now. I had my homie give me one lesson a few months ago, and I went really hard with practicing for a month, but I fell off. I gotta get back on that.

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So you were out in LA after that year of college, and then you had a mental health emergency where you had to move back to Sacramento with your folks. Did you have a good support network to help you through that?

Absolutely. LA exposed just how bad my mental health issues were. Leading up to the move, everything was so fast-paced. I was trying to do so much different shit from what I was doing when I was at home. I was left to my own devices, and shit got fucked. But yeah, I the only difference between me and anyone on the street is having my family to house me and give a fuck and get me on meds and get me in therapy. It got really bad, bro. I’m just glad I didn’t hurt myself or anyone in that time period. My family was super instrumental in me getting back to a baseline.

I feel the same way. I’ve never been hospitalized, but I’ve got bipolar, and I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have people who cared about me. Can you tell me what the episode felt like?

Before the episode, I was kind of a vegetable. It got really bad. My mom was paying my rent at that point. She didn’t know what was going on or why I dropped out, but she understood that I didn’t wanna go back yet, so she was trying her best to help me do what I wanted to do. God bless her. But I was just in bed most of the time. I wasn’t eating like I should’ve been eating. I wasn’t being social. I wasn’t taking care of myself. It was really crippling, and I remember feeling so fucking ashamed,, like, “Damn, bro, what am I doing with my life? Why am I even out here? What’s going on?” I was so frustrated that it had been five years of me experiencing the lows of depression on a clinical level, and I was like, “Bro, I’m too old. I’m tired of this shit.” And then my brain broke in half.

When did you move back to LA after that?

The episode lasted almost six months, and then I stayed for almost six months at my parents’ house, and then that pandemic unemployment hit, and I was back on my feet like magic. I was up like 30 bands, so I was like, “OK, I’m moving back to LA.”

Tell me about the process of starting to make music again, starting with that first tape you put out in 2021, I’m Slowly Getting Better.

To make a long story short, I had gotten back into producing, and it felt like starting from scratch. I was making some bullshit-ass beats, and I was like, “Dude, what’s going on? But I was producing for a few people, and then some personal disagreements led me to being like, “You know what? Maybe I have nothing to lose and should try this artist project thing one more time.” I hadn’t released any vocal shit for real since I was a teen. I was depressed, but not like how I was. I was just sad because I had to start my life over, so I was like, “Fuck it. I’ll be ALLCAPS. I don’t know where it’s gonna go, but let’s see what happens. If I give it one really honest try, what could happen?” That’s how we got that first EP.

I don’t know how, but I hadn’t realized till right now that zayALLCAPS is a DOOM reference.

Definitely a DOOM nod. I wanted to just be Zay, but then I was like, “Wait, that’s not searchable. I’m not gonna play that game.” Being a naturally shy person, I felt like it would be cool for my rap name to be some big bigger shit than me. I had to say that shit and really stand on the fact that I’m Zay.

So it was an SEO play.

That shit worked. I can search my shit on Twitter hella easily.

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Back to I’m Slowly Getting Better, did you feel like it showed you something about where you could go next, even though it was just three tracks?

When you say that project title, it sounds like, “I promise I will not stop going in ever again,” or something, or like the Young Thug I Came From Nothing series, but a bipolar version. But yeah, that shit definitely opened my eyes. Like, “OK, this is not the scariest thing in the world. I can be vulnerable in these songs and, once again, nobody gonna shoot me. Nothing bad’s gonna happen. No one’s laughing, at least in my face. This shit sounds good. People fuck with it. I felt good making it. I learned a lot. I’m not gonna take it down this time. I’m just gonna see what the fuck happens.”

I shot a video for it and paid like 300 bucks for some cool-ass artwork that I did not have 300 bucks for at the time. It felt good to be like, “I’m all in. I just put hundreds of dollars into this shit that doesn’t make me money.”

It also marked my boy Conner, conworld, coming down from up north to live in LA. When he got here, we immediately got to work on the EP. He was learning how to be an engineer and an artist, so he’s playing some synth on there. He’s arranging the shit. He’s still the closest person to my process of. He’ll add shit on beats. He’ll exec produce with me. I can bounce ideas off of him. He grew into an amazing engineer. He works for major studios now. He’s on Grammy projects. He got stupid nice with it. And he can play the shit out of the keys. I could show him anything production wise, and he’ll be like, “I can do that,” and he’ll just do it. He’s like a Swiss Army Knife.

BALLING OUT OF SPITE!! was your first major project. In the interview you did with Finals back in 2023, Andrew called it something like “the student becoming the master.”

Far from it, but he was very uplifting with that shit. I definitely think it was the beginning of a shift, though, because I knew what I was doing on that project. wasn’t testing the waters anymore.

I like that record a lot, but I’m an even bigger fan of your next project, iMessage Platinum: Hosted by autotuneKaraoke. What did you learn from BALLING that helped you make the next one?

I think just learning the craft, getting better at recording vocals, better at making beats. A lot of those beats were really fun for me to make, and I felt like I finally got back to where I wanted to be in my production. The beats on that first EP felt like flukes to me. They’re just the best beats from a batch of me getting back into making beats. But with iMessage Platinum and then art Pop and the one I’m about to put out… I felt like there were two paths I could take after after BALLING, and I took both: “BALLING’s all sing-rappy, but what if I just rapped, and then what if I just sang?”

Making iMessage and art Pop helped me more with that song-making craft, how to get to a finished song: “I’ma get this verse from somebody; I’ma bring the hook back in; I’ma do the little things that push a song from 80% to that extra 20% and see how big of a difference it is.”

One thing we haven’t touched on is your album titles, which are always creative and often very long. Where do they come from?

A lot of times, I’ll open up a blank iPhone note and just tell myself, “Alright, bro. Three minutes. Write whatever the fuck you can and don’t think too hard about it.” BALLING OUT OF SPITE!! came from a tweet. iMessage Platinum is just [about] the era when those songs got made. A lot of what I was doing was sending my homies unreleased demos, and they’d be like, “Damn, this shit hard!” We’d be sending it around and listening to it, and I felt like we were going platinum on iMessage.

art Pop * pop Art also reflected the music. It was tongue and cheek because I think [art pop] is a silly genre name, and if pop is art or not is a silly-ass [question]. But it’s also specific enough that you know what it is, even if not purely for musical reasons. It could be for the aesthetic or marketing, too. I thought that was funny to play with.

A big part of why art Pop did so well is because of that lead single, “MTV’s Pimp My Ride.” Did you know that was the one while you were making it?

Absolutely. I felt special about it. I was living with my homie Ocho Worldwide at the time, and I played it for him, and he was like, “This is the ALLCAPS track,” and I was like, “Yeah, can’t argue with that.” That’s why, a year after I made the song, I went back and added that intro which ties the whole thing together. I can’t imagine the song without that fucking intro. It’s a ridiculous-ass intro, but [the song] needs it. Once we laid that down, I’m like, “OK, if I play this the right way, I could make this my signature song. I think people will really fuck with this one. It’s easy to get into, but it’s not cheap at the same time.” So, I pushed it hard as fuck. I was on TikTok and shit, trying to market the fuck out of it.

And it worked.

It absolutely did. It worked so well.

All of your albums play with nostalgia, but I think art Pop is where you do it master it. How do you go about using nostalgia, specifically early-2000s nostalgia, in a way that’s not cliche or pandering?

Yeah, a lot of people use it as a crutch, so I’m equally inspired by my need to to not do that. I just try to keep it like, “What did I genuinely like at the time, and what did I not stop liking?” It’s the shit that’s always stayed with me, so feel personal versus something I only go to for nostalgia or comfort.

I always liked Pretty Ricky, so “Pimp My Ride” is gonna sound like Pretty Ricky, but as an adult I got put on Static Major, who was writing all those Pretty Ricky songs. So now I can go to the source while also having the inspiration of enjoying it at a young age. I try to keep it practical; I don’t think nostalgia has to be this ephemeral feeling. It can also just be, “I like this, and it makes sense for what I’m doing right now.”

Both art Pop and My Uncle Told Me Some Real Ass Sh*t on the Phone Yesterday have a lot of outside production, but it all fits smoothly into your aesthetic, which is pretty specific. What’s your process like when you’re working with other producers on your own tracks?

I’m a little narcissistic, so whenever I get other beats for albums, they end up sounding like if my homie made a beat that I’m like, “Fuck, I could’ve made that. Yeah, I’ma use that. It fits my vision.” But they definitely expand the palette of the album, which is a priority for me. I don’t want any of my albums to sound too same-y across the whole thing, especially this album, which is like 40 minutes long. I don’t want that shit to be a chore. I want it to be like a really good movie; you don’t want that shit to be stuck in one location the whole time, unless the writing is top notch.

I wanna flex a little. I want shit to be pretty and catch your ear every song. The lovers rock song [(“Only 1ne”)] that Josh Forehead produced, that shit’s a high point on the album, and it was a good experience making that song at his house, too. Or that underwater-ass plugg beat that DREE made, “4skore.” That shit’s super crucial, and it feels nice to not do it all by myself. That’s something I’ve gotta work on, but I’m a control freak; I need it a certain way.

What about when you collaborate on beats?

With the lovers rock one, for example, I was with [Josh], and I was like, “OK, let’s make this verse part chipmunky as fuck and not as harmonious as the hook, just to throw it off a little bit,.” With “SWOOP,” me and Keem the Cipher passed that beat back and forth. The homie was actually asking me last night who did what on that beat, and I was like, “Bro, I don’t even remember.” We just had both our laptops out. He’d be making a skeleton, and I’d be on my laptop playing some chords to go with what he was doing and AirDropping my shit to him. He’d be doing some processing, some resampling, and he’d AirDrop it back to me, and I’d add some more swag to it.

It’s fun for me to make the songs fit together after they’re made. I never go into it thinking, “This is the album.” I just let myself create and then have fun with the curation process later so it can be its own thing.

How the loose concept of this album came together. Did your uncle really tell you some real-ass shit on the phone yesterday?

He really did. Maybe it’s cuz it’s longer, but this album feels like less of a snapshot and more of a larger window into my life. The title feels more personal because it’s not just a glimpse of “Here’s this dude. He’s going through a thing, but he’s chilling now making these songs.” This one feels more like you can live in it, so I think the more personal title helps. The other albums feel more like eras in my life, [whereas] this feels like a thing that I went through over the course of some years. It feels more like a film title too, like an artsy-ass film.

So this one was less of a free association than the others.

Absolutely. I was thinking of other titles, like Blu & Exile, Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them — kinda emo, kinda mysterious. It’s like, “What did [your uncle] tell you?!” And I love my uncle. My dad’s on the art Pop cover, and the uncle I’m referring to is my dad’s best friend since kindergarten, so I thought it’d be cool to keep the family thing going.

Tell me more about the Uncle cover.

It’s an art piece by David Hammons, this Black artist who was part of the LA Rebellion [collective]. This piece is called “Pissed Off.” It’s him pissing on this brutalist art piece commissioned by New York City. What’s interesting about it to me is that like you don’t why: Is he pissing on it because he’s making a statement on the city commissioning public artworks but not public bathrooms? Is he just saying, “This shit’s ass, I’ma piss on it, fuck you, you suck?” This art blog also brought up the point that the other pictures in the series include the police talking to him, so maybe it’s implied that he got stopped, but we don’t know for a fact because it’s just performance art. A lot of his art deals with perception, and that’s how I feel dropping albums: This is no longer my shit anymore. Anyone could think anything of this.

He also just looks real avuncular in that picture. He’s kind of scraggly. He reminds me a lot of my OG at the last spot I lived who would kick it outside, ask me for alcohol and cigarettes and shit. We’d chop it up and he’d call me his nephew. With [Hammons] being an elder in the art scene, it’s also a spiritual thing, like, “You led the way. I’m looking back at what you did.”

“remember,” the intro to Uncle, reminds me of the Eternal Sunshine soundtrack.

Woah. It absolutely does. That’s why I fucked with that shit. I love that movie and the Jay Electronica song, too. I view this album like Eternal Sunshine or Punch Drunk Love: surreal but grounded in very real emotions.

The key the album is “Satelite,” which gets a stripped-down reprise at the end with an emotional goodbye speech. Why was that the one you chose for the reprise and the monologue?

That song was important to me, and I brought it back because it feels like me from a third-person view. Even though I’m talking about things I’m going through, my perspective broadens, and it feels like bird’s eye view/God mode in a video game. It was kind of freaky to put it at the end as a motif. I talk about listening to Troop on the album, and I like how on that Troop album [Attitude] they bring back the single as a reprise at the end with no drums. I thought that shit was cool.

The speech on the reprise gets intense. Was it hard to be that vulnerable on the track?

Absolutely. I had the idea towards the end of making [the album] that I wanted to do that, but damn… Sometimes I have to brace myself when I hear it, but I’ve gotta remember other people aren’t thinking that because they’re not me. They’re not embarrassed. They’re just like, “Oh, cool. This is part of the album. Whatever.”

What was it like writing it?

I was by myself, and I just set up my digicam and started talking. I like that with the quality of the audio it sounds like I ripped some movie dialogue. I don’t know if people are gonna hear it, but likethere’s other dialogue going on the whole time. There’s other clips from my digicam of people in my life going on underneath the [speech]. It’s spooky but also heartfelt. It puts you in a weird space.

There’s a part of the monologue where you talk about a “before” and an “after,” and I’m assuming that you’re talking about the mental health episode. Is it something you see as a part of you that you left in the past, or is it more of an appreciation for what you have now?

Definitely the latter. I had no idea how it would affect me moving forward. When I came back to LA, I was thinking, “One day you’re gonna be five years removed from this, and it’s probably gonna feel better.” And it does. I don’t know how long it’s gonna feel this way, but damn near everything before it feels like an origin story. It’s really hard to come to terms with sometimes.

I thought talking about it on the album would tie it all together. There’s not a lot of individual songs that are about that, but I wouldn’t even want that. That’s the liberty you’re afforded when you make a longer album: You can do little things that give the album a broader theme and put the tracks into context. People only need so much to grab onto to start to see an album the way the guy who made it sees it. I don’t gotta spell it out every single song with obvious-ass interludes as long as people get a general vibe and they’re directed a little bit. Or maybe they get something else from it.

You also ask us as listeners in that speech to tell you our favorite songs on the album. Mine are probably “CHANGEZ,” “B3lieve dat,” “BESTIE (TOKYO),” “4skore,” and “Satellite.” What are your favorites?

Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you commented on that because I was thinking a lot about the end of that Mac DeMarco album [Another One], where he’s like, “Hey, come to my house. Here’s my address. Have a cup of coffee.”

But my favorites for a little while have been “Ms. Tiery S-Curl” and “B3lieve dat.” "Ms. Tiery S-Curl ” is an art-pop track as fuck. It kinda sounds like P.M. Dawn, that song “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” where they sampled “True” by Spandau Ballet. They got the “Eric B. Is President” drum break on it, and the dude is singing and rapping. It’s a crazy-ass ’90s song and it’s hella abstract. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, but it’s nuts.

There’s this amazing ’70s-sounding Brazilian soul sample that takes us from “Digital Jungle” to “BESTIE.” Tell me a bit about it. It comes out of nowhere, but it also fits so perfectly in that spot on the album.

I went to see Marcos Valle—it’s not a Marcos Valet sample—in concert and that shit was like fucking amazing. Uh, he’s a legendary Brazilian composer, artist, but he had an opener who was sick as fuck. He’s a sweet old man and he played his album from the ’70s. He said he had never gotten to tour it, but it was gas. I was listening to the project, and [I realized] it was in the same key as “BESTIE.” The lyrics are really heartfelt. I’ll look it up real quick. OK, the translation is saying, “It will happen. One day, you come to me once and for all. It will appear. The moon and stars decorating the sky. And I will have reason to be happy because I love you and I want to give you peace, make you smile and sing without disappointments, without suffering.”

The sample on “CHANGEZ” is also great. It sounds a little bit like “Daddy” by Nourished By Time, but I’m assuming it’s an older R&B track.

It’s “Love Changes” by The Sequence. RIP Angie Stone. I didn’t know they were a rap group until she died because I’d only heard that song off the record, and it’s the one soul song like a proto-rap album. But I’ve loved that song since I was a kid because it’s one of the first songs I found through sampling records. My parents didn’t put me on that. So that’s a song I always wanted to sample. I might have sampled it at 12, but I don’t have that beat anymore. It was one of those things where I’m like, “This song is so good. I don’t know if I can sample it,” but I started talking to a woman, and I told her the story, she was like, “Just sample it,” And I was like, “OK!” But it was like, “What the fuck? Why didn’t I think of that?”

You’ve sampled a lot of R&B records, and it sounds like you’ve been listening to them since you were a kid. How has your relationship with soul and R&B changed over time?

I listen to more and more R&B every year. It’s probably 80% of what I listen to, R&B and soul shit. It’s so nice to catch up on classic shit while also diving deeper and deeper into… Like, I’ll listen to something and then watch an interview with the producers and writers where they name drop a bunch of shit, and now I’m listening to what they just name dropped. It’s so rewarding to start seeing connections and techniques. I think it makes my music better, or at least more informed. It’s not shot in the dark anymore.

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You talked before about getting better as a producer, and I think it’s really noticeable over the last few projects, especially in the way you sample yourself and layer those samples with other samples in this weird way that shouldn’t work but does. Are there any specific things you do differently now than, say, five years ago?

Honestly, I’ve been sampling for so long, I had to start making it fun for myself in different ways, like, “Alright, whenever I sample, let me use at least two samples and figure out how to put them together,” or, “Let me play shit over it or use it sparingly to set up some context and then do some other shit with instruments.

I have a lot of fun mixing multiple samples together. On “Ms. Tiery S-Curl,” there are two wildly different samples on there, and I did some freaky shit to make them work, and then I played some ambient chords underneath it through the drum break, and it just don’t sound like anything. On some fucked up producer shit, I like when people can’t tell the individual elements apart. They just hear noise, but it works.

I still dig for samples sometimes, but because I listen to so much music with instruments and singing and shit, I can just sample songs I like now. If there’s a song I’ve been listening to for a year and and it’s always in my head, I can say, “I know where I could sample that,” which is the case for most of the samples on this album. They’re already on my playlist.

There’s an undercurrent of personal growth through your past few albums, and it’s spelled out pretty clearly in your monologue at the end of this one. How do you think that growth has paralleled your growth as an artist?

I want to say it’s been one to one, but that just can’t be true. They definitely inform each other, though. Having personal successes in the thing you spend the most time doing for sure affects your confidence in a positive way. It definitely leaves me more vulnerable in certain aspects, though, because it’s creative work, so it’s hard not to make it feel like it’s intrinsically linked to my personality. I try to remind myself it’s a craft. It’s my professional work. It’s different than me as a person. I really don’t think of myself as being zayALLCAPS. I’m Zay, and I’m the captain and the lead singer of zayALLCAPS, and the producer, and one of the managers…

Anyway, I try to have that separation so I can flesh out my personal life because that was something that was lacking when I was younger. I felt like all I was was a musician, and I don’t feel that way anymore. But I do think, in a funny way, music has allowed me to feel that way. I committed so hard to this music shit that I can make it feel like it’s one part of my life, my profession and my passion, and it’s so clearly defined that I can try to do other shit now.

Even aside from the external validation and being forced to be outside, making music that I’m super proud of has given me a lot of self-esteem. It feels really good to participate in something I love so much. I’ve definitely had to grow up a lot from doing this shit because there’s so many decisions to be made, and it’s really fast-paced. There’s so many people you’re meeting and falling out with and it’s stressful as fuck. It forces you to reflect, or else you’re gonna get your head fucked up.

This album is about some real shit your uncle told you. You’ve always been a big brother, but do you feel at all like you’re becoming Unc at the ripe old age of 27?

1,000%. It’s funny because I always got called an old soul growing up, and l was like, “What are y’all talking about? Just cuz I’m into some old shit?” But nah, I know what they mean now because I think my personality suits a 27-year-old way better than it suited a 12-year-old or a 17-year-old. It just makes more sense. I take pride in it, to be honest. I really just be on my chill shit. I listen to fucking jazz and R&B all day. Even when I play basketball, I’m doing post-ups and turnaround jumpers. It gets deep. I try not to let it make me a snob about shit, but that’s inevitable sometimes. It’s who I am.

Still, though, my own siblings and my little cousin started calling me Unc, and I’m like, “Fuck y’all. What? Fuck you. You’re a 13-year-old, but fuck you.”

Hello to you all.

And welcome back to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company (now a registered S-Corp).

Today I present you with the second edition of the monthly column/list where I look through as many upcoming NYC shows as I reasonably can and give you my picks for the new month.

Those of you with a keen eye for calendar dates may notice that this list was not published on the first of the month but was instead published on the 12th of the month. This is because I took the LSAT last week, and, needless to say, I had my head in the books.

Is this list too weird for you? Can you not comprehend my perverse taste in music and shows? Not to worry! The honorable mentions list at the end offers many milder options.

Enjoy!

NOTE: This month’s list is the final one that’s free for everyone. Come July, only paid subs will get this top-tier, one-of-a-kind content. My financial advisor says it’s good to get in on the ground floor in these situations, and he has five degrees from Harvard and two from MIT, so I’d take his word for it if I were you.

June 12: Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13: (Hallucination City) for 100 Guitars @ Lincoln Center

There are a lot of great shows going on tonight. You’ve got an extravaganza at Music Hall of Williamsburg feat. Whitmer Thomas, Matthew Danger Lipman, Nikita Lev, and a very silly group of wrestlers from South Brooklyn. You’ve got a lovely ambient artist called Inchworm Race At Sunrise at the Stone Circle, splitting the bill with tam tam, Mila Culpa and Fear of Flying. You’ve got one of my favorite performers, Chuck Roth, playing music from his incredible watergh0st project with Shande (שאַנדע) opening at the Windjammer. You’ve even got the Either/Or ensemble playing the music of the legendary Morton Feldman, as well as pieces from the also-great Victoria Chea and Christian Wolff at the Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew.

However, if you go out looking for me tonight, you’ll find me at Lincoln Center’s Wu Tsai Theater in David Geffen Hall for a performance of Glenn Branca’s 13th symphony, written for no less (or more) than 100 guitars. The 70-minute piece builds to an intensity that makes it difficult to listen to in your room while making a list of the best shows in New York City this month, but I believe in my heart of hearts that experiencing it live will be a transcendent experience.

Tickets are currently sold out, but they keep releasing more in batches. I, for instance, just got mine earlier this week, so keep checking back at this link.

June 13: Montez Press Radio Presents: Dreamcrusher, Klein, Alva, La Timpa, Samba Jean-Baptiste & Ben Cohen @ American Academy of Arts and Letters (afternoon)

This was a REALLY tough one. The show to see tomorrow night is undoubtedly Prostitute and DJ Haram at Night Club 101. However, I assume everyone reading this is a Knicks fan, and that show directly conflicts with the Knicks game. Also, the show is sold out.

My solutions: Attend the FREE mini-festival at the Academy of Arts and Letters in Washington Heights. It may be a bit of a haul for some of you, but name me a better way to spend your Saturday afternoon than seeing noise legend Dreamcrusher and all-around legend Klein, along with several more exciting acts. And it ends at 5, so you’ll have plenty of time to crawl back to whatever hole you came from to watch the game. RSVP here.

OR, go to this great-looking FREE punk festival at Rippers in the Rockaways, and then go watch our boys take it in five somewhere in the neighborhood (perhaps here?).

Another option if you don’t care about basketball or the city where you live is to go see ambient god Laraaji with Arji OceAnanda for an Ambient Church event at the Co-Cathedral of Saint Joseph. Or you could check out the most popping hyperpop artist in the world (underscores) and the persistently popping Bushwick DJ umru. It’s at Terminal 5, though. Finally, if you’re in the mood for something that’s out there in a totally different way, go watch Japanese artist and composer Shuta Hasunuma, whose music combines city-pop guitars and vocals with unwieldy electronics, as well as some great proggy stuff, at Public Records.

There’s also night one of New York Unblocked at Pacha, featuring DJ sets from Rampa, Joe Claussell b2b Francois K, and more. It seems to be sold out, but I know many of my readers are resourceful.

June 14: Anh Vo: ‘Resurrection #6: another death divination’ (w/ Jessica Pavone, Marija Kovačević, gabby fluke-mogul) @ Participant Inc

Vietnamese dancer, choreographer, and performance artist Anh Vo’s seven-week residency at Participant Inc is titled Song and Sex: Before the Revolution and, according to the venue, “[e]ach performance is a distinctive attempt at resurection, invoked by an ever-evolving cast of artists, dancers.” This one will feature the truly freaky violin trio of Jessica Pavone, Marija Kovačević, and gabby fluke-mogul. It seems like it’s free, but I am not entirely sure.

If you want to be bulldozed by emotional metal, check out the final night of Endless Fest at TV EYE, where Uniform will almost definitely play their 20-minute song about bulimia. Every minute you sit through that song is another dollar that goes to ABC No Rio. That’s how the benefit works.

Or you could hit night two of Unblocked, featuring the legendary Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, plus a bunch of great DJs.

June 15: Abasement 87: WRENS, Embryoroom, Jeff Fuccillo, Shelley Hirsch, DJ Perna, Visuals by Vampÿrates @ Artists Space (basement)

For those of you who haven’t seen John Zorn’s New Masada Quartet, catching them at Roulette would be a very good way to spend your Monday night. There’s also a great FREE show on the [untitled] rooftop (address emailed after RSVP) featuring @, the best bedroom pop band in the world right now for my money, with support from Allegra Krieger and Fernette. Plus harp goddess Brandee Younger is playing two sets at the Blue Note! If you’re in the mood for something more scene-y, Venetian Blinds at Night Club 101 will provide you that very thing, plus some good music. Very strong Monday night.

The coolest place to be Monday, however, will be at Artists Space for the 87th edition of Abasement, featuring free jazz/rap trio WRENS as well as genre-warping DJ Perna and a bunch of really wild artists I’d never checked out before. It’s FREE, and you don’t even have to RSVP!

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June 17–21: Jazztopad Festival: Hamid Drake & River Sisters, DeYeon Kim Quartet, et al. @ Various Locations

For their 10th annual edition in New York, the organizers of Poland’s Jazztopad festival have brought some pretty big guns. My personal pick is all-time great experimental percussionist alongside the strings-playing River Sisters (that’s on Sunday the 21st at Rizzoli Books), but there’s great stuff every night. I might just be dumb, but it seems like you might need to buy tickets to every show in the festival separately and on a different platform.

June 17: Swamp Dogg, Eli “Paperboy” Reed @ Mercury Lounge

Swamp Dogg is an icon, dosing blues and soul songs with psychedelia for half a century. Go see him at the Mercury Lounge.

June 18: FUJI|||||||||||TA, Lea Bertucci @ Public Records

If you’ve never seen FUJI|||||||||||TA, rundontwalk to Public Records for this show. The Japanese inventor, pipe organist, body percussionist, and throat singer will split the bill with Lea Bertucci, who has also been known to do some pretty wild stuff with her voice. Tickets here.

If you hustle, you could probably spirit yourself to the Juneteenth eve party at Pianos featuring footwork patriarch DJ Clent and local tastemaker Kush Jones, plus AG and BASSBEAR.

Other good options include Low’s Alan Sparhawk with Circuit des Yeux, a singer and composer with a flair for the operatic, plus a great Minnesotan band called Poliça at the Ruins at Knockdown Center. With Sparhawk hailing from Minnesota as well, and Circuit des Yeux based in Chicago, it’ll be a taste of the midwest’s best. Yep.

June 19: 15 Years of TEKLIFE: TRAXMAN, DJ Manny, DJ Chad @ Trans-Pecos

A lot of clubs have great Juneteenth bills, but you will most likely find me (a white man) at Trans-Pecos checking out seminal Chicago footwork label Teklife’s 15th anniversary party, which features some of the living legends of the genre: TRAXMAN, DJ Manny, and DJ Chad, the son of DJ Rashad himself.

Paragon’s got a stacked night, too, with Jersey club queen UNIIQU3 plus local scene leader DJ Swisha and major techno talents KYRUH and shekdash.

June 20: Underground Soccer Stadium Show: Matt Proxy, Khadija Al Hanafi, Planta Industrial, Lightris, J Cush @ Soccerroof Wall Street

To me it sounds pretty awesome to watch the amazing Tunisian footwork artist Kadija Al Hanafi perform at an underground soccer pitch on Wall St. (The rest of the lineup is good too, but she is definitely the main draw.) Unfortunately, my roommate Sean is moving out of our apartment and throwing a party that night, which I couldn’t get out of even if I wanted to. Sean is an awesome guy, though. If you like a great cocktail, go visit him at El Camino in the East Village. I forget which nights he works, but if you go every night of the week you’ll definitely catch him there. Just ask for Sean.

For those of you not coming to Sean’s party, you can buy tickets here.

There’s lots of other great stuff that day too. The Future Roots Festival in Staten Island’s Maker Park looks so aesome. ESG is headlining(!), Burnt Sugar Arkestra is playing, Sunny War is playing, and the ultra-talented Nabihah Iqbal is DJing. This one’s FREE, but it seems to have sold out/reached capacity. I dunno, though. If I were the gatekeeper of this festival and you told me you’d come all the way over on the ferry, I’d let you pass. Why not give it a shot?

There’s another, much scene-ier festival happening at Sunset Park Rooftop, which is Brooklyn’s largest rooftop, according to their website. Sponsored by Red Bull, it features the incredible Toronto producer/DJ Bambii with JT of City Girls, the aforementioned techno talent shekdash back to back with the aforementioned Jersey Club queen UNIIQU3, plus the genre-bending trio Black Rave Culture, and lots more. It starts at 10am and goes till 1am, and the prices for full-day and part-day passes are quite reasonable.

If you’re looking to see some timeless but pricy rock and roll, head to Forest Hills for Wilco and Yo La Tengo or all the way up to Storm King in the Hudson Valley for Kim Gordon with The Fiery Furnaces. You could also check out the premiere cyberpunk group L.O.T.I.O.N. Multinational Corporation at TV EYE,

This is arguably the best music night of the month and I have to miss all of it because of my roommate Sean. What a shame…

June 21: Dripping: Bendik Giske, Pavel Milyakov, MOTHERBOARD, Relaxer b2b Baby Leo @ Pioneer Works

Norwegian avant-garde sax whisperer, Berlin-based producer Pavel Milyakov (aka Buttechno), and hyper-talented emerging vocalist Kyle Kidd (aka MOTHERBOARD), as well as DJs Relaxer and Baby Leo, will converge on Red Hook’s big room, Pioneer Works, to give our city a taste of the previous weekend’s Dripping Festival in Sparta, NJ, so we can be sad we missed it. Tickets here.

Other good stuff on to take your cool Gen X dad to (it’s Fathers Day): The Breeders at the Count Basie Center for the Arts (as long as he’s not a misogynist). Kurt Vile (& The Violators) at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, the home of Bruce Springsteen, as I’m sure he knows. Another edition of Anh Vo’s Song and Sex: Before the Revolution, featuring the aforementioned truly freaky violin trio of Jessica Pavone, Marija Kovačević, and gabby fluke-mogul, plus dancers Kristel Baldoz and Justin Cabrillos. Only take your dad to this one if he’s got a little of that dog in him. Unfortunately my dad is a boomer with stodgy music taste, but I’ll save that for therapy.

Oh, and there’s a great Generator show feat. Mano (Sundaresan of Pitchfork fame) b2b Finals (Andrew Matson of Finals blog fame) and stalwart local producer/DJ Laron, plus Austin, Texas DJ Kimdollars and four Detroit DJs, including the great Swoozydolphin. It’s FREE!

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June 23: whait (more eaze & Wendy Eisenberg), Bow and Arrow (Lea Bertucci & Michael Beharie), K8A (Kaeithe Hostetter) @ Cassette

As I’m always saying, ambient sorceress/violist/pedal steel player more eaze and master guitarist and singer-songwriter Wendy Eisenberg are the power couple of New York experimental music, and their duo whait captures a side of them that feels both soft and sinister. Their bill companion Lea Bertucci (also aforementioned) is a vocalist and saxophonist who molds her instruments into unruly weapons via analog synthesis. She’ll duet with Mechael Beharie, who generally works in a more pulse-based idiom, as Bow and Arrow (which one’s which?!). Left-field violinist Kaethe Hostetter (K8A) will join them on the bill at Cassette. Tickets here.

If you ever were/are/will be a big Delta 72 or Alan Vega fan, though, I’d strongly suggest checking out a joint memorial for Greg Foreman (Delta 72’s late leader) and birthday party for Vega. Performers will include members of Delta 72 and the one and only Cat Power, along with about two dozen others. It’s at Bowery Palace, which is the new Bowery Electric (don’t let the name fool ya), so it’ll be quite intimate.

June 24: 22nd annual NYC In C: David Grubbs, Greg McMurray, Lester St. Lous, Matana Roberts, et al. @ (Le) Poisson Rouge

If you’ve never seen a performance of Terry Riley’s minimalist masterwork In C, now’s your chance. The piece can be performed by a small ensemble or a huge orchestra (it’ll be interesting to see how many musicians they can fit into LPR), and the idea, boiled down to its basics, is pretty simple: Each performer repeats improvised fragments in the same key, switching from one of 53 “modules” or “figures” at will (it’s more complicated than that, of course, but mostly in ways that are over my head). It starts off slow, but the accumulating harmonies and textures that result from the intersection of these fragments is astounding. Tickets here.

You could also see the always-awesome Breeders (if you and your dad couldn’t make it the first time) and David Grohl’s daughter Violet Grohl (shockingly her music is not great) at Pier 17. And there’s a pretty good indie rock bill at SummerStage. I am pro Horsegirls and even more pro-Sharp Pins, but Black Country, New Road have lost me at this point, unfortunately. Without Isaac, they’re too well-adjusted!

June 25: Tortoise, L’Rain @ Knockdown Center

Pioneering post-rockers Tortoise have been blending krautrock, dub, jungle, and more since the ’90s, and their influence is everywhere. At the Ruins at Knockdown Center, they’ll share the bill with the always-incredible L’Rain, who just announced her fourth album, fata morgana, with an excellent lead single. Tickets here.

It’s another big night of music here in the Big Apple, though. You could, for instance, be mesmerized by Laurel Halo’s deep-see ambient tracks at Pioneer Works, rock out with Suicide’s Martin Rev at TV EYE, or, if you’re an emo fan, cry in the crowd to Oso Oso at Crossroads in Garwood, NJ.

June 26: Anysia Kym, duendita, yesterdayneverhappened, Rosalié @ Market Hotel

Anysia Kym dropped one of last year’s best albums, and duendita has been ultra-prolific of late, releasing weird and vulnerable records with a renewed fervor (read my interview with her from back in 2024). Both of them come at R&B from odd, totally distinct angles, and they’re two of the best doing it right now. They’ll be joined at Market by STEMLINES and Rosalíe, who share separate aesthetic sensibilities with both of them (the former a bit more with Kym and the latter a bit more with duendita), and frenetic beatmaker yesterdayneverhappened. Tickets here.

There’s a dumb amount of other great shows on this Friday night: veteran multi-disciplinary shapeshifting legend Laurie Anderson at SummerStage with Sexmob in support, justifiably buzzy and infectiously fun DJ/producer Avalon Emerson joined by the DJ duo of Elissa Suckdog and The Knife’s Olof Dreijer at Nowadays, self-styled “neo-classical post-punk anti-pop” duo Katzpascale (it’s good pop music, why deny it?) in the round at LPR, and some really huge artists playing huge venues, which I’ll list in a new paragraph:

Patti LaBelle! with Lady Wray and Morenbplease at Celebrate Brooklyn!_,the Moldy Peaches acoustic (are they ever not acoustic?) at Carnegie Hall, and, in two separate World Cup events, PinkPantheress + Larry June in Brooklyn Bridge Park (FREE tickets coming today, no guaranteed entry) and Crystal Waters (of “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)” fame) at the Billy Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows.

Gosh, this is such a good music day. Almost makes me regret planning a trip to New England with my sweet and beautiful girlfriend Fiona, realistically the only one reading this. Shoutout Fiona.

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June 27: Punk Island: Ache, Period Bomb, et al. @ Randall’s Island

I’m embarrassed to say I know not one of these bands, but I’d like to go back to Randall’s Island for the first time since Gov Ball 2015, and this seems like a great excuse to do it. The folks behind the FREE, all ages, DIY Punk Island seem very cool and passionate, and while I was tempted to call it LadyLand for straight guys looking for a safe space during Pride weekend, I don’t think that would be correct at all. More accurately, it seems to subvert the corporate parts of Pride and create something cool and inclusive instead.

June 28: Labiahead @ (Le) Poisson Rouge

Tribute bands are fascinating to me, and Labiahead might be the best-named tribute band out there. This video reminds me of the video I watched with my sweet and beautiful girlfriend Fiona the other day where Patrice O’Neal breaks down why white people like “Creep” so much. Go to this show to hear your favorite Radiohead tracks without Jonny Greenwood’s zionism and Thom Yorke’s general bad vibes Tickets here.

June 30: John Zorn’s Simulacrum @ Roulette

I’m personally more of a New Masada guy than I am of this proggier stuff, but it still rips, and in more of rock ‘n’ roll sort of way, which is not always what you get from John Zorn. It’s got a classic cast of organ king John Medeski, drum king Kenny Grohowski, and guitar king Matt Hollenberg—awesome guys, each and every one. Might as well go see them at Roulette.

For less wild and crazy (but still kinda freaky) vibes, moseying to Central Park for a SummerStage featuring wind instrument wunderkind Shabaka, old-school Afrobeats septet Kokoroko, U.K. soul vet Omar MBE, and spiritual jazz-spinning DJ Lovie might be a good idea (weather permitting).

Well folks, that’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post. I know I’ve enjoyed writing it. Below are some honorable mentions—shows I think would be very good to go to but could not write about for reasons—religious, political, socioeconomic—only known to me in the end. The one’s I mentioned in the blurbs are bolded and italicized. Take that as you will.

June 12: tam tam, Inchworm Race at Sunrise, Mila Culpa, Fear of Flying @ Stone Circle

June 12: Whitmer Thomas, Matthew Danger Lipman, Nikita Lev, SBCW Wrestring @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

June 12: was, Chuck Roth plays watergh0st, Shande (שאַנדע) @ the Windjammer

June 12: Either/Or: Music by Feldman, Victoria Cheah, Wolff @ Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew

June 12: Dada-Dub: Gershy Sloosh, 973 Future Yook, Subatamic Sound System & Screechy Dan, Jessica Higgins performing Secret Fluxus Event @ Manhattan (DM @clrajoy on Instagram for address)

June 12: Anthony Coleman: Chamber Music feat. the Studio 265 Ensemble @ the Stone

June 12: AVTT/PTTN (The Avett Brothers + Mike Patton) @ Kings Theatre’

June 12: Nas, Erick The Architect, Aria Vega, Juls M.anifest, Miyachi @ Billie Jean King Center (World Cup event)

June 12: Telescreens @ Mercury Lounge

June 12: SHOUSE! @ Carriage House

June 12: Start Making Sense: Talking Heads Tribute @ Xanadu

June 12: Phantasma: Akua, Regal86, MoMA Ready + Josh Steers b2b Special Guest @ Paragon

June 12–14: Endless Fest (ABC No Rio benefit): Uniform, Saetia, The Saddest Landscape, et al. @ TV EYE

June 13: Prostitute, DJ Haram @ Night Club 101

June 13: Tea Eater, Nite Music, Debbie Dopamine, Wetsuit, DJ Maya Luz (early evening) @ Rippers

June 13: Ambient Church: Laraaji, Arji OceAnanda @ Co-Cathedral of Saint Joseph

June 13: Shuta Hasunuma @ Public Records

June 13: underscores, umru @ Terminal 5

June 13: Telescreens, Pinc Louds, Nautics, Abbie Roper @ Tompkins Square Park (afternoon)

June 13: maassai: ‘OPEN,’ a2z (DJ) @ abrons arts center

June 13: Anthony Coleman: Music From the Sounding Board

June 13: WifiGawd, KEY!@ Night Club 101

June 13: Skrilla @ Warsaw

June 13: Muelas, Duel, Aux Blood, Avatereden @ Purgatory

June 13: Xanadu Turns 2: Anniversary Celebration (skate) @ Xanadu

June 13–14: New York Unblocked: Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Rampa,Francois, JADALAREIGN, Jubilee, et al. @ Pacha

June 13–14: Perreo Intenso: Latin Rave Culture, La Cura, Nina Vicious, et al. @ Elsewhere

June 14: Mister Sunday: Justin Carter, Eamon Harkin @ Nowadays

June 14: The Martinez Brothers, Luna Mar @ Central Park SummerStage

June 14: The Art Blakey Jazz Messengers Trumpet Tradition, Bruce Harris @ Lincoln Center

June 14: Outlier presents: Steve Swell Quartet, Michael Foster & Chuck Roth @ P.I.T.

June 14: Stereo Mandrax: Dominatrix, Bill Converse, Parlor Walls, Carlos Souffront @ pianos

June 14: Pincushion Puppet Club Presents: Puppet Slam @ Cassette

June 14: Puerto Rican Day Afterparty: DJ Guari, Cali.0pe, DJ Raqx, Curly Nez, Y2K obsession, Payola, Louis y2k, Logo, inner mirror @ Paragon

June 14: Puerto Rican Day: Sonic Messengers all night @ Bossa Nova Civic Club

June 14: Barbara Tucker (live), Nita Aviance, DJ Miss Parker, Peter Napoli, donofrio @ Signal

June 14: Mansions 4th Birthday: Secret Grapes, CAMILLA, et al. @ Mansions

June 15: John Zorn: New Masada Quartet @ Roulette

June 15: @, Allegra Krieger, Fernette @ [untitled] Rooftop (Brooklyn, Address TBA) (early evening)

June 15; Brandee Younger @ Blue Note (two sets)

June 15: Venetian Blinds, Paper Lady, Sara Sloan @ Night Club 101

June 15: Community Hole: Brutal Twink Death @ Bossa Nova Civic Club

June 16: Lambrini Girls, Big Special @ Warsaw

June 16: Wild Nothing, Deakin @ (Le) Poisson Rouge

June 16: Widowspeak, Thomas Dollbaum @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

June 16: Isaiah Collier plays Coltrane @ Blue Note (two sets both nights)

June 16: Hot Mulligan, Joyce Manor, saturdays at your place, Koyo @ Stone Pony (Asbury Park, NJ)

June 17: Lambkin @ Roulette

June 17: Veronica, Private Browsing, Mach Static @ Night Club 101

June 17: Action Bronson, Dr. Baklava and Human Growth Hormone @ (Le) Poisson Rouge

June 17: Renny Conty @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

June 17–18: Rosalía @ Madison Square Gardens

June 17–18: Resonance @ Reforesters Laboratory

June 17–20, 24–27: Simon Hanes Residency @ the Stone

June 18: Juneteenth Eve: DJ Clent, Kush Jones, AG, BASSBEAR @ Pianos

June 18: Alan Sparhawk, Circuit des Yeux, POLIÇA @ Knockdown Center (The Ruins)

June 18: Samora Pinderhughes @ Judson Memorial Church

June 18: Joan As Police Woman, Britton and The Sting @ Bryant Park

June 18: Rostam, Zsela, Henry Solomon @ Webster Hall

June 18: Touchdown Jesus, People in the Daytime, my body with blood, On A Limb @ Pianos (showroom)

June 18: Angelito Collective: TYGAPAW, Daniro, Demiigoddess, Divine, Ramie_is_ramie @ Signal

June 19: UNIIQU3, DJ SWISHA, shekdash + KYRUH @ Paragon

June 19: Lil’ Louis, JADALAREIGN @ Nowadays (early)

June 19: Daniro, DJ Slugo b2b DJ THADZ, MORENXXX & SLICK DOWN @ Nowadays (late)

June 19: Body Hack X SSS: Jasmine Infinity, DJ Sega, LITA DA DOLL, B2B Doula, Madre Guía, Tah @ Signal

June 19: BASIC, Victor Vieira-Branco’s Bark Culture, Loren Connors @ Union Pool

June 19: Ryley Walker, Gían Pérez, Sandy Ewen, et al. @ Brothers Wash & Dry

June 19: Simon Hanes’ Tsons of Tsunami @ Barbès

June 19: The Bad Plus, Frances Chang @ Sony Hall

June 19: villagerrr @ Night Club 101

June 19: VASIC, Victor Veria-Branco, Loren Connors @ Union Pool

June 19: Vundabar, Slow Fiction

June 19: Porches @ The Hancock

June 19: Worm @ The Meadows

June 20: Future Roots Festival: ESG, Burnt Sugar Arkestra, Vernon Reed, Sunny War, Nabihah Iqbal (DJ) @ Maker Park (Staten Island) (early evening)

June 20: Kim Gordon @ Storm King (Hudson Valley)

June 20: Wilco, Yo La Tengo @ Forest Hills Stadium

June 20: L.O.T.I.O.N. Multinational Corporation (Record Release), Ces Cadaveres, ph0, Infernal Spawn @ TV EYE

Records Red Bull Midsummer NYC: Bambii & JT, shekdash b2b UNiiQU3, Black Rave Culture, et al. @ Sunset Park Rooftop

June 20: Hook, Sleez!, Diani, Kitty York @ Trans-Pecos

June 20: Frank & Tony, Kareem Ali (live) & Genehunt, JADALAREIGN & Mesmé @ Public Records

June 20: BLK ODYSSY, Bren Joym Lala @ Sony Hall

June 20: ABC No Rio benefit: One Hour Photo, At Night, Shining See, A Total Wreck @ P.I.T.

June 20: MATES NYC Festival: Vacations, Horse Jumper of Love, et al. @ Knockdown Center

June 20: Altimetry, FEET, Max Kutner & Ben Stapp @ Brothers Wash & Dry

June 20: KXPLOSION: yesterdayneverhappened, kfc murder chicks, chainwallet, xxhardbit3s, deathrayz, vxmitspit @ Trans-Pecos (late)

June 20: Dorian Electra, Veronica Everheart @ Baby’s All Right

June 20: ReSolute presents: Theo Parrish (extended set) @ Bushwick (TBA)

June 20: ÂTΞMPORAL: Paul Rich, Umfang, Oliver Mendez, et al. @ TBA

June 20: Felix Da Housecat, Shaun J. Wright, Cosmo + Preacher’s Daughter, Nymph @ Paragon

June 20: Nonstop: Underground Resistance, Shyboi, Shinedoe, Mike Dearborn, Gladstone Deluxe, DAY/DEM @ Nowadays

June 20: Hieroglyhic Being, Swami Sound BEIGE, Devoye @ Signal

June 20: Hi Cotton Club: Blu Bone, Fatima Jamal, Demi Vee, Mattew Jamal @ Sugar Hill Disco

June 20–21: Joan As Police Woman @ Joe’s Pub (two sets both nights)

June 21: The Breeders @ Count Basie Center for the Arts

June 21: Kurt Vile (& The Violators), The Sadies @ Stone Pony (Asbury Park, NJ)

June 21: Anh Vo: ‘Resurrection #7: sex on sundays’ (w/ Kristel Baldoz, Justin Cabrillos, Jessica Pavone, Marija Kovačević, gabby fluke-mogul) @ Participant Inc

June 21: Generator: Mano b2b Finals, Kimdollars, Laron, Bonnie Hook, Coffee Black, Swoozydolphin, Nova Blu @ 1134 President St

June 21: Mister Sunday: Soul Summit Takeover @ Nowadays

June 21: Jeff Tobias, Amanda & Chris, Names Divine @ Mama Tried (late afternoon)

June 21: Soul Summit @ Nowadays (afternoon)

June 21: Jay Electronica @ Town Hall

June 21: Black Country New Road, Horsegirl @ Storm King (Hudson Valley)

June 21: Dave Matthews Band @ Jones Beach (Free Palestine!)

June 21: Disco Tehran: MIRZA, Bergonist, et al. @ Elsewhere (rooftop)
June 22: Dogs of Chernobyl (Adam Turay, Jon Starks, Simon Hanes) @ Lava Club (RSVP for address) (late)

June 22: Foxix, Avishag Cohen Rodriguez, Lou Salome @ Night Club 101

June 22: Lily Finnegan, rocío sánchez, et al. @ Brothers Wash & Dry

June 22–23: Ozomatl @ Blue Note (two sets both nights)

June 22: Max Richter @ New Jersey Performing Arts Center

June 23: Greg Foreman Memorial/Alan Vega’s Birthday: Delta 72 (members of), Cat Power, et al. @ Bowery Palace

June 23: Amiture Music, Ben Scott, Ryley Walker, Epoxy, Different Plants, Torture Methods @ TV EYE

June 23: Secret Guest, Croker, Venetian Blinds, Public Circuit (DJ) @ The Sultan Room (rooftop)

June 23: Of Montreal,, Cormae, La Banda Chuska @ Webster Hall

June 23: Wale, Smino @ Brooklyn Paramount

June 23: Bleachers @ Madison Square Gardens

June 24: The Breeders, Violet Grohl @ The Rooftop @ Pier 17

June 24: Black Country New Road, Horsegirl, Sharp Pins @ Central Park SummerStage

June 24: Kou Records: David Torn, Aliya Ultan and the Boreas Quintet @ Roulette

June 24: Evanescence, Spiritbox, Nova Twins @ Jones Beach

June 24: The Animeros @ Public Records

June 24: Big Freedia @ Sony Hall

June 24: Mark Ronson & Cosmo @ Signal

June 25: Laurel Halo, Ash Fure @ Pioneer Works

June 25: Oso Oso, Last Minet, Roe Knows Best @ Crossroads (Garwood, NJ)

June 25: Martin Rev, Body Stuff, Rare Form @ TV EYE

June 25: Kou Records: Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe // Eyvind Kang & Jessika Kenney @ Roulette

June 25: Frog (and piano) @ (Le) Poisson Rouge

June 25: The Bouncing Souls, Less Than Jake, The Lawrence Arms, Bane, School Drugs, Twenty Two @ Stone Pony (Asbury Park, NJ)

June 25: LUAR presents: Vessels w/ Juliana Huxtable, Sterling Juan Diaz, MORENX, and ALEXIS DE LA ROSA @ Signal

June 26: Laurie Anderson, Republic of Love, Sexmob @ Central Park SummerStage

June 26: Avalon Emerson, Elissa Suckdog & Olof Dreijer

June 26: Katzpascale @ (Le) Poisson Rouge

June 26: Patti LaBelle @ Lena Horne Bandshell (Celebrate Brooklyn!)

June 26: PinkPantheress, Larry June @ Brooklyn Bridge Park (World Cup event)

June 26: The Moldy Peaches (acoustic), Paleface @ Carnegie Hall

June 26: Crystal Waters @ USTA Billie Jean King Center (World Cup event)

June 26: Thrash On The Hudson: Blood Feast, ASSAULT, Deadline, FaFo, Dacarthus @ Yonkers Brewing Company

June 26: Car Culture, Ryley Walker @ Public Records

June 26: Taja, Seven Crimson Suns, Crike, Myelins Sheath, Coming Up Roses @ Trans-Pecos

June 26: Mesh Kimono, Tall Juan, Caito Sanchez, Simon Doom @ Union Pool

June 26: The Human League, Soft Cell, Allison Moyet @ Radio City

June 26: ABC No Rio presents P.I.T. Benefit: Shellshag, Teeming Shore, Substitute, Party Owl @ P.I.T.

June 26: Jill Burton, David First, Jane Rigler @ Soup & Sound

June 26: MGMT (DJ Set), Fundido, Martha Pinel, Ivan Berko @ Knockdown Center (The Ruins)

June 26: Dirt Buyer, iluvboband, Carmenesperanza

June 26: Thunderpuss, Mike Servito, DJ Miss Parker + Loka, VILE @ Paragon

June 26: Horsemeat Disco, Kim Anh, Sejicci, Sterling Juan Dias, x3butterfly @ Knockdown Center

June 27: LadyLand: Kim Petras, Romy, CupcakKe, et al. @ Under the K Bridge Park

June 27: Elsewhere Pride: Isabella Lovestory, Lil Mariko, et al. @ Elsewhere

June 27: New York Music Month: Magix City X Bodega Jams: Jubilee, Ultraviolet, Quiana Parks, DAD COZMIC @ Herbert Von King Park

June 27: La Banda Chuska, La Zorra Zapata @ Public Records

June 27: rocío sánchez: ‘Monarch Butterfly’ (ft. Melissa Almaguer & Kenneth Jiménez) @ ISSUE Project Room

June 27: Closerbye, Otracami @ ALPHAVILLE

June 27: Lowertown, Holidays in United States

June 27: Busta Rhymes @ USTA Billie Jean King Center (World Cup event)

June 27: DJ Sliink presents United States of Jersey @ Allure Lounge (Newark, NJ)
June 27: VUI VẺ FEST & ANGEL X ANGEL: ANGELS CALL @ Mood Ring

June 27: Boris, Byrell The Great b2b Leonce, KNDYFRK + JOSELO, Linapary @ Paragon

June 27: House of Diggs Pride: DJ Holographic, YSHESO__, Dee Diggs & Bearcat, DJ DEADNAME @ Public Records

June 27: Kim Ann Foxman, Mike Servito b2b Shaun J. Wright, Karim Olen Ash, maenad @ Signal

June 27–28: Galactic, Anjelika Jelly Joseph @ Brooklyn Bowl

June 28: Nona Hendryx, Eddie Martinez, Carmine Rojas, Jose Rossy @ Lincoln Center

June 28: Lew Tabackin’s D

June 28: Sunday Skate Club feat. YSESHO__

June 29: Julian Lage @ National Sawdust

June 29: Ibrahim Maalouf @ Sony Hall

June 29: Spike Polite, Sewage, Oedipus Triple Rex, The Thirsty Pirates, Sherry Loewis @ Washington Square Park

June 30: Shabaka, Kokroko, Omar Lovie @ Central Park SummerStage

June 29: Greg Mendez, Scarlet Rae @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

June 30: Makeout Reef, Bleary Eyed @ TV EYE

June 30: Torture and the Desert Spiders @ Baker Falls

June 30: Durational Performance by Wura-Natasha Ogunji @ Fridman Gallery

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Matteo Liberatore (aka Molto Ohm)

Hello to all of you,

And welcome back to Apollo Frequencies, a property of the registered S-Corp Raphael Media Group©.

Today I have for you a new and exclusive interview with the prolific experimental jazz and electronic musician Matteo Liberatore, also known as Molto Ohm.

Liberatore, who emigrated from Abruzzo, Italy to New York in his early 20s to study jazz at NYU, has, under his own name, released several solo albums and several more collaborative LPs with the likes of Ava Mendoza, Amirtha Kidambi, Catherine Sikora, and Elliot Sharp.

Last May, he dropped FEED, his first album as Molto Ohm, a conceptual synth project characterized by caustic capitalist critique. This February’s Reality Pills extends this hyperreal, ultra-dystopian, future-present world into new territory. Neither pop nor noise nor ambient, the new record flirts with these idioms to simultaneously comfort and unsettle, to make us aware of the invisible hand strangling us even as we sink into its cozy creases.

Below is a very long transcript of my even longer conversation with Liberatore. Believe it or not, it’s been edited for length, clarity, and flow.

Tell me about moving from Abruzzo to New York.

When I finished my classical music degree, I was about 23, and my teacher offhandedly suggested, “Why don’t you go to the United States?” It was an idea I’d never really considered before, and it stuck with me, so I made the plan to move. I didn’t have money to move here, and I didn’t know any English, so it was a three-year project. I started saving more. I was teaching a lot. I moved into my parents’ basement. In the meantime, I was going to a night school for English and I buying English magazines. I had to learn English in a year and a half, so I was studying full time while I was teaching and playing a lot of shows.

I was actually playing a lot of bluegrass shows. I had no idea about it before, but my friend had a band. He was a really good blues musician—blues is big in Italy—and he started listening to bluegrass. He bought a banjo but couldn’t figure out how to play it, so he gave it to me because I was studying classical guitar and my fingers moved pretty fast. I was able to pick it up, and I got really into it, so we started playing bluegrass shows—me on banjo and him on guitar and voice—and I fucking loved it.

Where I grew up in central Italy, there’s a lot of land, a lot of people with horses, and we realized that there are actually festivals for country music. We went and played a bunch of festivals in Rome and all of central Italy. I was playing one or two bluegrass shows a week, making $100, $200 a gig for a year or two. At one point, we had line dancers. It was a weird-ass window into this part of American culture that’s obviously not mainstream in Italy at all.

That was a funny parenthesis of my music life while I was studying classical music and jazz. Then I applied to NYU and got into the jazz Master’s program.

You went on Brad Rose’s Songs of Our Lives podcast and talked about loving all kinds of American music when you were young and didn’t speak any English. Were lyrics in general important to you back then?

They were important when I listened to Italian music, for sure. There’s a pop tradition in Italy of the auteur, the songwriter who writes lyrics almost like a poet, so I was very into listening to lyrics for folk and pop music. But when it came to American music, [lyrics were] the last thing I would listen to because I didn’t understand anything. The funny thing is, even now that I speak fluent English, lyrics are not the first thing I focus on when I listen to American music because I grew up not caring about them. When I want to listen to American lyrics, I have to make a conscious decision to do it.

What were you most drawn to back then? Italian pop? American pop? Instrumental music?

Italian music was always around in the background. My mom loved a lot of Italian pop, those singer-songwriters who made poetry-like music, and that was always playing in the house. Now that it’s been 20, 30 years, I can definitely see how that influenced me.

I had the teenage metal, hard-rock face for sure, from Metallica to Iron Maiden, and then the classic rock face. Things always get to Italy a few years late, culturally. Then there was the prog phase—Dream Theater and all those bands that heavily feature guitars—which was the phase when I was trying to get really good at guitar. I did that for a second and abandoned it.

Then I started listening to a lot of jazz and classical. Classical guitar was always something I was listening to because I was playing classical music in school, and then once I started playing jazz I was listening to a ton of that.

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What made you pick up the guitar initially?

I wasn’t very young. I mean, my parents always played music in the house. My dad is an audiophile and has these amazing ’70s speakers that he got on loan when he was a student, and stacks of this magazine called Hi-Fi. He just loved the idea of good sound, and he had a ton of records as well, but by the time I was a teenager he wasn’t really listening to them that much anymore. They were just sort of there. None of my immediate family members are musicians.

But at some point, when I was 13 or 14, I was out with my friends drinking at a bar, and we were jokingly thinking of making a band. Nobody played anything, so we just randomly picked instruments. I wanted to be a drummer, but my friend was like, “No I wanna be the drummer,” so we had a bit of a fight, and eventually I was like, ”OK, whatever. I pick guitar.” So at first it was a completely random thing I was gonna do, but immediately after I started playing I realized, “This is amazing. I could spend my whole life playing music that sounds awesome.” After that, it started snowballing. I wanted to catch up. I was like, “I’m 14 and I’m not good at all yet. I need to get really good by the time I’m 18 so I want to go to a conservatory.”

How did you break into the jazz and experimental scenes once you got to New York?

For some reason, I didn’t really have a cultural shock because I felt like I knew American culture indirectly from movies and cultural colonization. A lot of Europeans complain to me about Americans. I didn’t really have that. I really enjoy being around Americans. I did have a bit of a musical shock because a lot of people in jazz were really good, and I’d only studied jazz for two or three years coming in. So again, I felt like I had to catch up. I was practicing so much the first year and a half just to keep up. I took in so much information from different teachers, different ideas of what jazz is, from straight-ahead bop to experimental, free stuff. The first two or three years, I was just trying to absorb as much as possible and put it in my fingers. But I was like, “Holy shit. Where am I gonna go with this?”

Luckily, the answer came to me at a show. My friend brought me to the Stone to see Marc Ribot, and it blew my mind. I was like, “That’s where I want to go with music.” I was already more interested in the experimental side of jazz in school, but that was the first big revelation. It moved me in ways that I didn’t know jazz could. I’d always liked jazz, but I didn’t feel it in my heart yet. I was waiting for something to speak to me deeply. And while I was extremely appreciative of more traditional jazz—I found the artistry unbelievable—the experimental stuff I heard that night spoke to me more. I didn’t decide; I was just like, “This is it. This is what I should do.”

I was in a post-college band at the time—this weird jazz-punk/improvised noise band—and then in 2016, after two or three years, that band ended. I’d spent a lot of energy on it, and now I didn’t know what to do again, but I suddenly had time to explore my language of guitar on my own. That’s when I started really honing in on my own techniques and my own ways of approaching improvisation. I started listening to almost exclusively improvised music, and I started going to shows and meeting a lot of musicians in the experimental community, and everything started making sense. I started playing shows with everybody and making albums, and one thing led to another, and here we are.

I really like the albums you made pre-Molto Ohm, especially the one with gabby fluke-mogel, Joanna Mattrey, and Ava Mendoza. Do you have any plans to make more of those free jazz records?

I don’t have plans at the moment, but life can bring you in different directions, so you never know. After the one with Amirtha [Kidambi] in 2021, it’s been Molto Ohm all the way. Because this project is music and video, and more conceptual, recording takes longer. With experimental music, you can go to a studio, make an incredible record, mix it, master it in a month or two, and put it out, whereas the production for this stuff might take a year, so I’ve heavily focused on that for the last three years, and I plan to, moving on. I see it as a lifelong project, honestly, but we’ll see. Maybe three years from now, I’ll be making another experimental album. I deeply love experimental guitar music, so obviously it’ll happen again. I just don’t know when.

Did something specific spark your transition to the type of hybrid electronic music you make as Molto Ohm, in the way the Marc Ribot show made you realize experimental jazz was what you wanted to do?

After the record with Amirtha, I made a synthesizer record—a noise record, really—under my own name called Lacquer, on Tripticks Tapes. That was the first record I made without guitar, and I loved it. I took a synthesizer and recorded every possible sound I was able to make with it. Then I chopped samples, and then I started constructing pieces with those samples. The process was very different from the way I approached guitar, and it opened new possibilities for how to record music. With guitar, I usually went to the studio with other musicians or by myself and improvised, and then maybe I’d chop it, and then I’d put it out. There wasn’t much overdubbing or layering, which is something I’d done in the past with my band.

So Lacquer was a way back to more produced work, and I really enjoyed it. I wanted to add more elements to my music. I wanted to add beats and layers and synthesizer. I was also trying to find a way to explore aesthetic and cultural ideas that I was interested in, and I felt like guitar music had a more limited scope that I couldn’t throw everything into. So Molto Ohm is a serendipitous way of adding other elements of my life into a music project. Molto Ohm is a reflection of my existence in America, filtered through my Italian lens. That’s why I’m investing a lot of energy into it: because it feels everything I do in my life can coalesce into it.

The way it was born was I was recording audio for a video shoot, which I sometimes do for money a few days a month. It was a bank commercial, and this guy kept repeating the same line over and over. He couldn’t get it right and I was like, “Man, it would be funny to put that over a beat.” I went home and put that little line about selling some bullshit over a beat, and I thought it was absurd. I sent it to some friends, and they were like, “This is insane. I don’t know what this is, but it sounds funny.”

I started pulling all of these old interviews with people from all walks of life and putting beats and synthesizer sounds under them, and it started me creating this mythology of experimental electronic music with a tinge of capitalist critique. I was like, “Maybe this is a way I can explore my experience of the last 15 years of being in America.”

Sometimes you can start new projects out of thin air. If you ask a lot of people, “How did you start this?,” most people will probably say it was a random thought they had one day, and then all of a sudden it sparked a whole new thing. That’s what happened to me.

You were studying philosophy in Italy at the same time you were intensively studying guitar. You deal with a lot of cultural theory on both FEED and Reality Pills, specifically the work of Jean Baudrillard and Mark Fisher. What from their writing, and the writing of other cultural thinkers, did you try to channel here?

The main thing I got from Fisher is the idea that capitalism is so good at hijacking temporality, how we feel about time, that it feels like there’s no future, no possibility other than capitalism. At the time I was reading it, I was like, “That’s true. I can’t think of something beyond capitalism.” It’s so all-encompassing. It encompasses your day life, your thoughts, your dreams, everything. I mean, the end of his life speaks to how Mark Fisher deeply believed in the idea that there was no way out of it.

After that, I started reading more about degrowth movements, and that gave me more hope about the possibility of alternative futures. IThe degrowth movement is very deep; there’s a lot to learn there. It takes old Marxist ideas about small communities and puts them under an environmental lens. It’s a great way to understand how the world works. The word degrowth is about the idea that we’re growing society in the wrong ways, growing the production of highly polluting things like SUVs or luxury industries instead of growing culture or healthcare. It goes against the idea that growth is always good. I wish it was more mainstream as a political strain of philosophy. It’s amazing stuff.

Baudrillard’s hyperreality was another concept that resonated with me deeply, and it translates so well into 2026, thinking about how images are so powerful and so detailed and so encompassing now that we we start thinking of reality through images, and the actual world doesn’t look as detailed and sharp as them. If you put a kid in front of a phone, the kid gets totally mesmerized. At any age, we’re mesmerized by those images. There’s something about them that goes so deep into your psyche, and if you grow up with that your whole life then those images are slowly sapping the reality out of reality. The world around you becomes devoid of the spark that these images have. Baudrillard was already talking about this stuff in the ’80s, which is crazy.

It’s the same with advertising. It’s showing you an ideal world that is not the real world, but it’s so effective and so persuasive that you start thinking of the real world as a lesser version of that dream, and that dream gets layered on top of your reality and takes precedence. The Hollywood industry did the same thing with the American Dream. I think of my parents; they’ll walk through Manhattan and not really talk about Manhattan, but then when they’re driving on the BQE and see Manhattan, they’re like, “Wow, Manhattan is so cool.” It’s almost like the idea of the city through the movies is more powerful than actually walking in the city. When you go over a bridge into Manhattan, you see the skyline and it feels magical, but the reality is a lot of those buildings are empty and owned by billionaires. Who knows how many people suffered to build those things? It’s a symbol of capitalism. It’s not that good or interesting, but when you see it coming in at night, it feels magical. Even if it’s a bank, it feels magical because it makes you think of this alternative reality of the movies you watched growing up in which New York is this magical place. It’s really hard to disentangle reality from the images of reality. I think that concept is brilliant.

I was fascinated by the world you created on FEED. It feels like both a sci-fi dystopia and a direct reflection of our modern society. Was your goal to make its atmosphere futuristic, or is it set like in the exact present?

I mean, we live in the future, quote-unquote. We live in a sci-fi world, if you think of how far technology has come in the last 50 years. We live in the most absurd sci-fi future that 50 years ago people would never have thought of, and now we're at the dawn of this terrifying AI era. If you walk through Midtown, the sci-fi-ness of the screens that wrap around the buildings… It looks like Blade Runner. I think we don't realize how much we are living in a weird sci-fi era already.

It's super dystopian. Corporations own everything. Technology is advancing at an insane speed. It’s like Johnny Mnemonic. The album to me just sounded like being here, now. If you listen to it and think it's dystopian and sci-fi, it's because you don't realize how much of that reality you're actually living every single day.

The bio for Reality Pills calls it a “numbed exhale” in the aftermath of FEED. Going back to FEED, there’s a quote from Fisher in one of the songs about how a “calm joy” would feel “shattering” in our “hyper-stressed, constantly disappointing and overstimulated lives.” On this album, even though what you’re presenting is chemically or capitalistically induced and not organic, there are songs—like the opening track, “Vantorinex”—that feel genuinely peaceful. Do you feel at all positive about this unnatural calm?

The idea is that, because most of the tracks are dark and ominous with all the ads and the messaging, some other tracks feel more hopeful. If you isolate them, they might feel good in the moment. But if you look at them together, there’s the sense that this calm is temporary, is artificial, is mediated by some corporation. Nobody can deny that sometimes you’re just on your couch, scrolling through some feed, and you’re looking inward and trying to peace out from the external world and just be by yourself. But the paradox is that we do those things through these devices that are also making us anxious. So there’s this weird dichotomy, where if you’re stressed out you might reach for your phone to isolate yourself from what’s outside, but the same device is also giving you a lot of stress.

It’s also showing you content. It’s upsetting you. It’s this constant back and forth of, “Ooh, this is soothing, but it’s also alienating. It’s making me stressed. It’s making me compare myself to other people.” I wanted to show that musically; there are moments where you feel relaxed, and then there are moments where the same sounds are making you feel stressed out. It’s almost like when you go out and drink. You feel great at the time, but in the morning you have a hangover.

There’s always a payoff to feeling more calm and more present in our current society because those things are not meant to feel organic. If you meditate or take some spiritual practices that aren’t meant to suck money out of you, maybe those experiences will feel wholesome and organic, but these devices are not meant for relief. They’re meant to suck your attention, so at times they may give you relief as a byproduct of trying to keep you on the device.

I read this amazing book about slot machine addiction. People who go to Vegas [to play] slot machines aren’t looking for money; they’re looking for zoning out from the world and being in this artificial flow that at the time feels really good. But the problem is that the machine is not there to help you. The machine is there to suck your money. So once they’re done, they feel extremely depressed, and the only way to feel better is to go back to those machines. It’s the same kind of unequal relationship I was trying to channel on this album.

On “Zorvatol,” you list Dove products over a really ominous beat. Why Dove?

Every time I go to the grocery store, I see a wall of Dove products. One of the funny cultural differences that I noticed in America is the amount of choices of the same product. It’s so funny to look at. You have to pick between 15 kinds of soap, 15 kinds of toothbrushes. It’s such a waste, but it’s a colorful waste. That’s the thing about capitalism: It’s colorful. It’s entertaining. So you always need to have an extra thought about things because it’s really easy to eat it up. It’s so creepy because it’s so benign in the front.

I think about this a lot when I go to the bodega. I can’t understand how it makes financial sense to keep releasing all of these crazy new Cheetos flavors and then phasing them out.

It’s probably not that dissimilar from creating content on social media. You have to constantly create new flavors because the attention span is so short that nobody’s gonna buy the Cheetos from two years ago. Capitalism is all about attention—how much attention they can take from you. That’s the only way to grow and diversify: create attention all the time.

Besides the opener with Jachary, the two other tracks with guest vocalists—“Clovarid” (feat. Puck) and “Nezovyl” (feat. Aditya Chatterjee & Tanners)—are almost pop songs, but the beat never quite hits. I think it’s fair to say that this whole album flirts with pop but keeps getting pulled down into a darker register. Is that the comedown from these made-up drugs in the track titles, drugs that are supposed to protect you but in the end can only offer a temporary reprieve from your suffering?

Yes, that’s absolutely awesome. On a musical level, I love songs. I love pop. Pop music can have the power of reflecting a lot of societal issues to a much larger number of people, so it can have the power to bring change on a scale that maybe other music can’t. I wanted to use that idiom, but I wanted to use it lightly. I didn’t want to overuse it. I wanted to hint at an idea of something that can be subversive, although often it’s not. Aesthetically, because the whole album didn’t have any beats, I wanted to give you a little dessert but then take it away, again reflecting on how these devices are never fully satisfying. In fact, they’re designed to always be unsatisfying. They give you some satisfaction, but the notification you click on is not satisfying, so you go back over and over. Studies done on rats show that this shit works.

I wanted to channel that, “Ooh this is soothing.” It’s a nice track, but it’s not fully realized as a pop song, and it’s on an album that is not fully realized as an ambient album either because there’s a lot of cultural noise. There are ads, like in the Dove track, and all of these motivational speeches, so it’s like ambient music, but it’s never ambient music. I want to remind you that it’s hard to think of a non-commodified piece in this world.

In a way, I’m shooting myself in the foot because I don’t want to make a pleasant album; I want to make an album that feels pleasant but also doesn’t, so I’m using some of the idioms of ambient music and pop music, but I’m using them against you. You think you’re in for a nice ride, but then it’s tricky. This guy wrote this little blurb review [of the album] that was awesome. He said, “It’s kind of weird in a disturbing way. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know if you should listen to it. Depends on your mental state.” Which is an amazing little phrase. It’s like, “Yeah, I love it, but it may be too disturbing if you’re not at peace with our society. Maybe this will make you think too hard about it.

Tell me about the fake drug names you used for the track titles and how you came up with them.

I was just riffing, going on Google and finding names of drugs. At one point, I put them into ChatGPT, and it came up with some variations. I’ve only used it for mundane stuff like that. I don’t remember if I used any of the things it suggested, but it was funny to see these random names coming up.

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Have any experience with mental health medication?

No, but plenty of people in my life have. I’ve been close to getting some lately because I have OCD, and it got out of control in the past few months. I was trying to figure out how to deal with it, and a friend gave me the name of a place to, so I decided to try to do therapy before medication. But my girlfriend takes medication. One of my best friends takes it. So I know secondhand how it works. I’ve never tried it, but if this therapy doesn’t click, I might have to.

It’s a tricky conversation because I do think that some people can function much better with medication. I know tons of people in my life that function a lot better because of it. At the same time, we’re in a very medicated society, and there is a medication or supplement for seemingly anything. The wellness industry is insane. Anything can be commodified: pain, trauma, anxiety, well-being. Any human emotion they can make money off, there will be something there for you to take.

“Trivaxon” is the only noisy track on the album, and it’s directly in the middle. What’s your relationship with noise music?

I’m very interested in noise. I just read this amazing book called Noise Music: A History by Paul Hegarty which goes really deep into the philosophy behind noise and all the noise scenes of the last few decades. I found a lot of cool ideas in there.

I love noise music. My music has never fully gone that way because I also love melody. I love voice. I love beats. So I try to use noise in selective ways instead of fully diving into it.

On that Songs of Our Lives episode, you mentioned Éliane Radigue and Morton Feldman as two composers who changed the way you thought about music and brought you into the world of experimental composition. Were there other artists who opened your eyes to the noisier side of experimental music?

Feldman gave me the philosophical understanding of how I wanted to approach my guitar playing in terms of structure and development. There was something about his writing and his music that resonated deeply. His music is somewhat “delicate.” There’s not really noise in there. It was revolutionary, but it’s not right in your face.

I don’t know where the noise part of my music comes from, honestly. Something about noise I love is that you take away elements of music. You take away the melody, the rhythm, the lyrics, the song structure, the chords. What’s left is the dark matter that’s supporting the actual matter. If you think of music as matter, then there’s the dark matter we can’t see, but it’s there. It exists.

Noise shows you what’s underneath music, these pure waves. The way you can organize these noises is something I’ve always found extremely satisfying. To quote the book I just read, “It’s almost like noise music is constantly failing at being music.”

The best noise music is always fighting against being music because music is organized sound, the status quo. There’s something very countercultural about it, something abrasive that I love very, very, very much.

There’s a voiceover on “Heltrazide” that lists the things “you deserve”—fulfillment, peace, joy, tranquility, etc. And then, at the end, the voice says, “But most of all, you deserve to have some fucking fun.” I read that as a very American sense of entitlement, the hedonistic pleasure we feel we deserve along with more traditional forms of fulfillment. Is that the critique you're making, or does it have more to do, again, with what's promised to us by capitalism? Or do the two go hand in hand?

They definitely go hand in hand. We consume because the advertising industry is so good at making us believe that consuming will bring us happiness. Hedonism is at the base of this society because the only way you’ll buy shit is if you think it’s gonna make you happier and give you a better life. But, at the same time, you can make the argument that the pursuit of happiness should be a thing you do in life; you should try to be happy or at least bring happiness to the world.

[Capitalism] is hijacking our universal values by telling us that in order to be happy, we need to buy these products: “You’re not gonna be happy if you don’t do this.” And you can rationalize, “OK, maybe that’s not true,” but the message is so overwhelming and so constant, 24/7. When you’re on your phone, when you go out, it’s always there, so it’s really easy to translate those messages into things you buy. Everybody’s a victim. We’re all buying shit we don’t need. Sometimes I get really into it, like, “Should I buy this other synthesizer? If I buy this synthesizer I’ll sound better.” We all fall into this, so we always have to take a step back. There’s always that extra effort to be like, “Hold on. Do I really need this? Is this really gonna make me a better musician?” It’s a constant fight against this wave that’s pushing you to to be broke, to contribute to the society that’s just trying to take all your resources away from you.

Reality Pills’ closing track, “Velmirine,” has an expansive, zen synth playing below an evil fast-cash ad. The voiceover starts out promising you a no-strings-attached loan that’s obviously a scam, but then it ends with a much more positive message. It complicates the song because the voice is saying things near the end that are true, like, “Be good to other people and you’ll have a better life.”

The first part of the message was a real voicemail I got, and then I added the last part with one of those text-to-speech programs, which with the technology we have now doesn’t really sound like a robot anymore; it sounds like a real person. We haven’t really talked about AI, and I don’t want to, but I’ll admit that I used AI a couple of times, for the track titles and for the text-to-speech stuff. During shows, I’ve used it two or three times to make endless, boring lists of products. I’ve used AI in those very limited ways, but I feel extremely conflicted about it, so I tend to avoid it. It’s a technology we have, and I wanted to use it in very limited and upsetting ways for this album. I was thinking of bringing it into the conversation, but I decided not to. AI is too new and too destructive and too dangerous, and I don’t want to talk about it yet. It’s too easy to talk shit about it. I don’t know what I would bring to the conversation that you don’t know about already.

But it’s exactly what you said: To me, those messages at the end are right. They’re nice and hopeful messages, but in a society where everything is commodified, it’s really hard to distinguish what’s genuine and what’s just there to make a profit off of you. Guy Debord, the French situationist philosopher who wrote The Society of Spectacle, has a beautiful paragraph where he says, “In a society that is completely overwhelmed by consumerism, can you tell if any desire you have, any hope you have, is legitimate or genuine?” How can you even know?

I think about this a lot. On the days off when you’re not working hard, you’re kind of upset because you’re like, “I should be working hard.” But then, it’s like, “Why do I have to work hard today?” The consumer is pushed, not just to buy but to be better, to be successful. There’s so much push that we don’t even realize it. It’s so hard to know what’s genuine and what’s been implanted in you by someone else. It’s tricky to not know what’s good for you and what’s actually hurting you. I came here from a small town, so I’m like, “I’m in New York. I need to work hard to “make it.” But is that really what I want? Can’t I chill for a day?

Hey guys!

And welcome back to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group© (henceforth RMG©), the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company (now a registered S-Corp). It’s been far too long, and for this I apologize.

Today I present you with the first edition of my new monthly column/list, where I look through as many upcoming NYC shows as I reasonably can and give you my picks for the new month.

I tried to avoid making this post absurdly long by instituting a policy where I can only write about one show per night. Needless to say I found away around this policy because I have very little self-control.

Is this list too weird for you? Can your pea brain not comprehend my brilliantly perverse taste in music and shows? Not to worry! The honorable mentions list at the end offers many milder options.

Enjoy!

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NOTE: This month’s and next month’s lists are free for everyone, but come July only paid subs will get this top-tier, one-of-a-kind content. My financial advisor says it’s good to get in on the ground floor in these situations, and he has five degrees from Harvard and two from MIT.

May 1–3: Long Play Festival

Every year, Bang on a Can invites some of the world’s greatest experimental musicians and composers to venues, stoops, and parks in Fort Greene, Downtown Brooklyn, and Gowanus. The only thing I don’t like about this festival is that they list composers who are extremely dead as if they were going to be there in the flesh, which could easily trip up some sad, unwitting fool. For instance, if I thought Morton Feldman, Éliane Radigue, and Thelonious Monk would all be going to the show, I would instantly empty my bank account to buy the highest-tier tickets available. Luckily I’m incredibly smart.

To write about every artist I’d like to see at Long Play would take more time than I’m willing to devote to it, so here’s who I’d check out if I were you (must-sees bolded and italicized). I left no true conflicts, even in cases in which I was really conflicted. Feeling good about that.

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May 1 (Friday Night):

Kali Malone ‘Spring Does Not Hide Its Joy ft. Lucy Railton & Stephen O’Malley @ Pioneer Works (8pm)

Mike Parker, Xenia Reaper (live), and more @ Public Records (11pm)

May 2 (Saturday):

David Longstreth @ Roulette (12pm)

Amina Claudine Myers @ Theatre for a New Audience (2pm)

Brookyn Youth Chorus sings Caroline Shaw, Alev Lenz, Aleksandra Vrebalov @ BRIC Stoop (4:30pm) [Free to all]

Lucy Railton @ BRIC Ballroom (5:30)

Félicia Atkinson & Christina Vantzou @ PR Sound Room (6:30pm)

broom @ Betty Carter Park (7pm) [Free to all]

Sarah Hennies & Tristan Kasten-Kraus @ Brooklyn Music School (7:30pm)

Morton Feldman ‘String Quartet 1’ performed by Quatuor Bozzini @ Theatre for a New Audience (8:30pm)

Shoko Nagai &. Satoshi Takeishi @ Brooklyn Music School (9:30pm)

May 2: Contemporaneous plays Gavin Byars ‘Jesus’ Blood’ and ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’ @ Roulette (10:30pm)

May 3 (Sunday)

John Luther Adams ‘Crossing Open Ground @ Fort Greene Park (12pm) [Free to all]

Music of Éliane Radigue w/ Quatuor Bozzini @ Brooklyn Music School (12:30pm)

Steve Reich 90th birthday marathon w/ So Percussion, Dither, etc. @ BAM Fisher (2–4pm)

Morton Feldman’s Three Voices w/ Charlotte Mundy @ Roulette (2:30pm)

Elori Saxl & Henry Solomon @ PR Sound Room (4pm)

Mile Okazaki plays Thelonious Monk @ BRIC Stoop (4:30pm) [Free to all]

Sam Prekop @ PR Atrium (5pm)

Sarah Davachi ‘Long Gradus’ w/ Quatuor Bozzini @ Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew (5:30pm)

Steve Reich 90th birthday marathon (continued) @ BAM Fisher (6–8pm)

May 3: KatzPascale @ PR Atrium (7pm)

May 3: Philip Glass’ Glassworks’ (arr. Michael Riesman) w/ BOAC Allstars @ Roulette (7:30pm)

May 3: Sylvie Courvoisier & Wadada Leo Smith @ Theatre for a New Audience (9pm)

May 3: Secret Chiefs 3 @ Roulette (10pm)

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For those of us who aren’t going to Long Play, let’s get into some other shows that we, the masses, can enjoy this month.

May 1: Nikki Nair, Foodman, Arielle Lana, and more @ H0l0 (late)

Foodman is one of the realest ever. He’s got some of the freakiest rhythms coming out of Japan, and that is saying something. Nikki Nair is also fun and freaky and makes great music to dance to. And shoutout Arielle Lana, my friend and former co-worker who will be spinning tonight but will not be spinning co-worker music.

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I refuse to break my self-imposed rules right off the bat, so I’ll just say that it would be very easy—almost too easy—to go to the Gelli Haha show at Bowery Ballroom and still make it to the Ridgewood/Bushwick border before much happens at H0l0.

May 2–3: Oklou, Ninajarachi, Vickie Cherie @ Terminal 5

It’s really unfortunate that this show, featuring two of the most exciting experimental pop artists in the world, is at one of the worst places in our great city. It is not easy for me to advise anyone to brave the lifeless streets of Hell’s Kitchen and enter the far more hellish confines of Terminal 5. Still, it’s possible that European artists will no longer be able to tour in the states soon, so if you’re willing to shell out $100+ on resale tickets, you might see something very rare and beautiful enough to transcend its trappings.

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Or, if you’d rather not go through all of this pain and suffering, you could head to Warsaw, a much better-located, more pleasant venue, to see Ducks, Ltd., a great band. Or, if you’re in the mood for something slightly weirder, finesse your way into the sold-out Black Eyes, LEYA, and Nu Jazz show at Trans-Pecos. I believe in you.

May 2: Mechatok (live), Kumo99, Toxe (DJ)

Cheating a little here to offer you an alternative night of fun and dancing, where you head to Knockdown Center for next-level German DJ/producer/frequent Drain Gang collaborator Mechatok…

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Then take the late-night train to New York City’s #1 subway stop Myrtle/Broadway—right by RMG HQ!—and walk to Paragon for a freaky-looking bill featuring stalwart NYC DJ AceMo back to back with Quebecois provocateur Martyn Bootyspoon.

May 3: Barry Weisblat w/ Talice Lee & Che Chen, Wet Tuna, KS Rootless @ Cassete

Barry Weisblat blew my mind at the noise-nerd camping festival Woodstockhausen last year, and I expect he’ll blow yours too. He uses all these crazy pre-industrial electric instruments that might make you fear for his safety were you not so captivated by the dulcet tones of his harsh noise. He’ll be playing with 75 Dollar Bill’s Che Chen and 75 Dollar Bill Big Band member Talice Lee, a Baton Rouge-born violinist.

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May 5–6: Lucy Bedroque, glives, kuru @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Lucy Bedroque makes post-hyperpop hip-hop that shows us what a less heat-seeking Carti might sound like if he worked a bit harder on his melodies (this sounds like Carti shade but it’s really—just a nod to Bedroque’s limitless potential. A good show to turn up at on a Monday or Tuesday night.

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May 5–6: 75 Dollar Bill @ Union Pool

Che Chen and Rick Brown’s joint project 75 Dollar Bill has become a New York institution since its founding in 2012. Per usual, they’re bringing a small army of collaborators to their two-night residency at Union Pool.

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May 6: C. Spencer Yeh, Samantha Simmons, Jessica Romoff, Secret Boyfriend, TTTTT @ Light & Sound Design

If you’ve never been to LSD, it’s a trip (sorry). Truly, though, you’d be hard pressed to find a cozier, friendlier place to ascend to the astral plane. C. Spencer Yeh is a brilliant composer/improviser. And while I don’t know a ton about the rest of the bill, the ~headliner~ and the ~location~ conspired to make me recommend this ~experience~.

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There’s also a surprising line-up of low-key legends—Loren Conors, Marcia Bassett, et al.—at Gold Sounds the same night.

May 7: Evanora Unlimited/Marjorie W.C Sinclair, Kreayshawn, and more @ Xanadu

Orion Sage Ohana makes blown-out rave music as Evanora Unlimited and a warped strain of west-coast hip-hop as Marjorie W.C Sinclair. Either of these projects would be worth coming out for on their own, but throw in Bay Area hero Kreayshawn and you’ve got a bill made in freak heaven.

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Or, if you’re looking for something lower key, outdoors, and free, check out David Ruder and Wendy Eisenberg at Mama Tried. Also, I forgot Bill Callahan is playing Knockdown that night. How about that? Almost makes me want to delete everything and start over…

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May 8: C2C Festival @ Knockdown Center

The show of the month.

Too much talent on this bill to list, but my top billing goes to the brain-melting duos Los Thuthanaka and Titanic, the latter of whom made the best album of 2025. Other elite acts include Nourished By Time, Arca, and Elias from Iceage.

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There’s currently a waiting list for tickets, so if you can’t get in, Ana Roxanne and Purelink at National Sawdust is another solid option.

May 9: Editrix, Mari Bruno & Jessica Pavone, Dan Friel @ Mama Tried

Too many good shows tonight, so I’ll start with the free, outdoors one. It’s the great Wendy Eisenberg, except this time they’re fronting the technical jazz-prog-metal band Editrix. Do they like this label? No. And yet it applies.

For those who’d rather pay to see a show, may I recommend Australian dream-popper sadie and New York’s best ethereal singer-songwriter Eliana Glass at Night Club 101? (Ascendant Austin twinkly glitch-pop star Quiet Light’s Public Records album release show is all sold out, but the sadie show will be very scene-y too if that is what you crave.) Or you could go to Kings Theatre to see the similarly Australian rock icon Courtney Barnett. Or why not travel across the Hudson to catch one of the 20 or so best living songwriters—disregard this silly list—at White Eagle Hall, a lovely venue right off the PATH train?

Regardless, you can always take the late-night train to New York City’s #1 subway stop Myrtle/Broadway—right by RMG HQ!—and walk to Paragon for a freaky-looking bill featuring inventive British ambient techno/house artist Actress, kinetic Brooklyn-via-Jamaica techno DJ-producer TYGAPAW, and others.

May 10: The Issa Iyer Gibbs Coalition, Fatboi Sharif @ Market Hotel

Melvin Gibbs has been a New York avant-garde titan since the ’80s and founded the legendary doom-jazz outfit Harriet Tubman in the late ’90s. Vijay Iyer’s compositions span contemporary classical and intricately arranged jazz and have made him one of the most renowned musical artists in the world. And Kokayi Issa is the only MC to have received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition. To top things off, opener Fatboi Sharif is an insanely prolific Jersey rapper who’s more outside in NYC than 99% of locals.

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May 12: Zosha Warpeha, Tongue Depressor, Ka Baird w/ Reona and chuckbettis @ Light and Sound Design

Zosha Warpeha makes mesmeric ambient folk using her voice and a sympathetic stringed instrument caleld the Hardanger d’amore, and LSD would be an ideal setting to see her play her new album live. Tongue Depressor make some of the eeriest ambient music this side of the Mississippi. And Ka Baird makes wild noises with inventive contact-mic techniques and unorthodox noisemakers. Whatever they do in this trio, it should get weird.

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May 13: james K, Oli XL, Lolina, Deer Park, Ivy Knight @ Webster Hall

james K made a killer album last year and has been a staple of New York’s music underground for quite some time. And while she still plays plenty of shows here, Oli XL—a soft-spoken singer producer whose dazzling, intricate beats made his sophomore project Lick the Lens Pt. 1 a standout from last year (and its james K collab “Drift Regalia” was its standout track)—lives across the pond. That sentence might be convoluted, but my message is clear: Go to the show!

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Or, check out trumpeter/MC Ryan Easter and his Trap Music Orchestra at the Jazz Gallery.

Or, if you’d like to listen, learn, and do a bit of meditating too, sprint as fast as you can to Public Records, where roving house producer-DJ lovie and New Orleans harp laureate Cassie Watson Francillon are putting on a deep listening clinic.

May 14: Wire Festival: Alva Noto, Arushi Jain, Dopplereffekt, Lydo, Voices From The Lake @ Knockdown Center

The first night of the annual techno gathering Wire Festival (Thursday–Sunday, May 14–17) features electronic music overlord Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), synth sorceress Arushi Jain, and many more. If you are a lover of techno, you’ll be a lover of this show.

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Or, for a more intimate experience, check out Wendy Eisenberg and Grumpy—with DJ sets from Beach Fossils and Winter at Cassette. It’s a fundraiser for Democratic Socialist State Assembly candidate Samantha Kattan, so you’ll be supporting a good cause, too!

OR, for a true punk experience, check out my friend and former co-worker Cady’s band—a different friend and co-worker from the one I mentioned earlier—Jeerleader at The Windjammer. They’ve got some great songs, both about Keanu Reeves and not about Keanu Reeves.

And as a late-night alternative (or pregame or afters or whatever) to Knockdown, one would not be unwise to head over to The Deep End in Ridgewood to celebrate the three-year anniversary of my other friend/former co-worker Arielle’s party/platform Heads Know, where she’ll be spinning along with Daedalus, Izzy Holmes, Nick Boyd, and Twaankalu.

May 15–16: Slide Away: Hum, Nothing, Chapterhouse, loveliecrushing, Bleary Eyed, Manslaughter @ Brooklyn Paramount

A bit too much going on tonight for my taste. The top spot goes to Nothing’s Slide Away shoegaze festival. In a world burdened by the proliferation of mediocre Gen-Z shoegaze bands, I deeply respect Philly shoegaze vets Nothing for continuing to champion the good stuff. I’m not familiar with everyone on the bill, but Hum are legends, and Nothing always put on a riveting show.

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After writing this, I see that Slide Away has sold out. So if you don’t want to splurge on resale, I recommend heading to either Roulette for hyper-talented percussionist Matt Evans’ album release show, Trans-Pecos for frenetic beats from the likes of username and Dazegxd, Night Club 101 for left-field rapper-producer duos H31R and Nappy Nina X Swarvy, or—if you’re into extremely New York hip-hop enough to head to a miserable stretch of Scott Avenue—SILO for Heems and Wiki.

Dang, just seeing that vinyl shapeshifter Djrum—creator of my 21st favorite album of last year—is playing at Nowadays. Also a great option. And while you’re there, it could also be a good idea to swing by H0l0 for red hot DJ-producer Nick León. And by swing by, I mean buy a ticket well in advance and go to that instead if you so desire because those will sell out real quick.

May 16: mark william lewis, Oxis, Ovrkast @ 99 Scott

Another case of great bill, bad venue, but it’s worth the pain to check out mark william lewis, who dropped a fantastic debut record last year with genre-shifting, beautifully arranged instrumentals and genuinely poetic lyrics.

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Alternatively, head to the still-cursed but much-more-bearable Public Records for multinational electro-acoustic trio Asa Tone and visionary cellist MIZU.

May 19: By Storm, Lerado Khalil @ Elsewhere (Zone One)

RiTchie and Parker Corey formed By Storm in the ashes of Injury Reserve, in the wake of the passing of the group’s third member, Stepa J. Groggs. As a duo, they’re glitchier, more beat-forward, and less aggressive, breaking new ground.

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May 20–23: Mata Festival—Interval: In Between Silence & Stasis

Lots of great stuff hear, all worth prioritizing. I’m not gonna get into writing about all of it, but just trust me, OK?

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Wednesday, May 20: MIZU, Yaz Lancaster, and more @ Trans-Pecos

Thursday, May 21: Performances of pieces by Morton Feldman, Steve Reich, and more @ The Dimenna Center for Classical Music

Friday, May 22: Zosha Warpeha, Tristen Kasten-Krausse, Unnameable Strings Ensemble @ The Dimenna Center for Classical Music

Saturday, May 23: BlackBox Ensemble perform pieces by Morton Feldman and more @ The Dimenna Center for Classical Music

May 20: Discovery Zone @ Stone Circle Theatre

There’s an uncanny quality to Discovery Zone’s retro pop songs that will be magnified tenfold in the chapel of the historic Ridgewood Presbyterian Church. The singer, producer, and multimedia artist makes glistening yet opaque instrumentals and lilting melodies that linger in your head long after the listening’s done.

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May 21: NEW EAR: Leila Bordreuil & Lee Ranaldo, medium. @ Fridman Gallery

A truly rare collision of elite talent: Sonic Youth guitarist/prolific experimentalist Lee Ranaldo and Leila Bordreuil, one of the worlds best and most adventurous cellists. They’ll be joined by “death ambient” duo medium. (scene vets Yaz Lancaster and gg200bpm).

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Other great shows on this Thursday night include junglist turned pop star Nia Archives at Bowery Ballroom and the triumvirate of British pan-genre rockers caroline, emo ambient pioneer claire rousay, and early vaporwave champion giant claw at Knockdown Center.

May 22: Mint Field @ Night Club 101

Tijuana trio Mint Field mine post-punk, dream pop, and shoegaze for nervy rhythms, lush harmonies, and slow-rolling crescendoes. The result is urgent, tragic, and refreshingly unpretentious.

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Otherwise, you can try to find your way into Bowery Ballroom Frankie Cosmos’s sold-out 10-year anniversary show for her iconic breakout album Next Thing (still the best bedroom pop record out there, for my money); head to Public Records for a night with expert English rock technicians Moin; or tap in at Elsewhere for increasingly interesting meme rapper bleood. And later, top-tier British DJ/producer Blawan will be spinning at Good Room.

May 23–24: Cosmic Sonic Rondezvous @ The Meadows, The Woodshop, Brooklyn Monarch

This looks like a very good festival for any heavy music lovers who may be reading this. When you’ve got bands like EYEHATEGOD, Pentagram, and Dead Meadow, you can’t lose!

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May 24: Glenn Jones, Loren Connors, Liam Grant, Henry Birdsey & Sam Boson @ The Broadway

Loren Conors is a guitar god, and it’ll be a joy to watch him—along with the rest of these seasoned experimentalists—in the tiny room above The Broadway.

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Separately, I physically cannot recommend that anyone go to Terminal 5 twice in one month, but if it were anywhere else, I’d say a Skillibeng NYC show would be a must-hit, so do with that information what you will.

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May 28: Smerz @ Webster Hall

When you make a monthly show list at the beginning of the month, the options generally start to thin out near the end, as many shows get announced less than a month in advance. This Thursday night, however, is oddly stacked. I’ve been lucky enough to catch Smerz twice in the past six months—first at UNSOUND and then at Rewire—and they really don’t disappoint; they radiate an even more powerful cool in person than they do on wax. I recommend getting up close for the full effect.

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If I were a betting man, though, I’d say you’ll find me at the Tempers/Anastasia Coope show at TV EYE on this Thursday night just shy of four weeks from today. I’m neither here nor there on Tempers, but Anastasia Coope is a generational talent, and I haven’t seen her since she dropped her debut album in 2024. Also, there’s somehow nothing else I want to see this month at TV EYE, which might be my favorite venue in the city.

I’m also intrigued by the noisy, sloppy intermedia Prague punk project Střešovická Kramle, whose venue for this FREE SHOW has yet to be announced. Maybe I will have the show in my apartment if no one else can.

If you catch me in an especially introspective, esoteric, and abstracted mood, however, I’ll probably take you to Roulette to see the cutting edge piano/percussion quartet Yarn/Wire perform works by John Haven and Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir.

May 29: Wolf Eyes, Cholla @ Public Records

This night is even more stacked than the last, and I was genuinely torn over what to pick here. If Lucinda Williams’s Beacon Theatre show hadn’t been cancelled, I may have started tearing out my hair.

But in the end, when Wolf Eyes visits town, you heed nature’s call. Self-styled psychojazers Nate Young and John Olson (aka Inzane Johnny) have been making hellacious harsh noise for 30 years, and they I’m inclined to believe they’ll be doing it for at least 30 more.

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If you’re in search of some less tongue-in-cheek, more literal psychojazz, though, check out John Zorn’s New Masada Quartet at Roulette. And if you’re looking for the opposite—a band who make the line between irony and sincerity even blurrier than Wolf Eyes do—look no further than meme rockers Callahan and Witscher, who’ll be playing Night Club 101 on this very selfsame night.

If you’re still feeling frisky after whichever of these you choose, take the late-night train to New York City’s #1 subway stop Myrtle/Broadway—right by RMG HQ!—and walk to Paragon to celebrate the venue’s fourth (4th) anniversary with the likes of Joey Beltram and WTCHCRFT.

May 30–31: Total Bummer Fest @ Knockdown Center

This festival has something for rockers of all ages: Dinosaur Jr. and The Jesus and Mary Chain for the Gen Xers, Blonde Redhead for the elder millennials, julie and TAGABOW for the youth. Plus Flipper, Meat Puppets, and about a dozen others.

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If you happen to go to night one and are blessed with an abundance of energy, walk about 15 steps and slither down to BASEMENT to check out masked Detroit techno vigilante DJ Stingray 313 and others.

OR—and this is a big change of direction—you could go to DROM in Alphabet City and see Los Corners, the only local band I know of dedicated exclusively to celebrating the music of Charlie Garcia. For those who don’t know, Charlie García is widely considered the father of rock argentino and once jumped from the ninth floor balcony of a hotel into the pool, landing totally unharmed and inspiring Billy Crudup’s pool jump in Almost Famous.

May 31: Dove Ellis, mary in the junkyard @ Bowery Ballroom

British trio mary in the junkyard are relatively new and have just one EP and some scattered singles to their name. Still, they’ve been picking up steam with infectious songs that stick in your head like sweet nightmares, and I’m stoked for their debut album Role Model Hermit to drop in July. Dove Ellis is not my cup of tea, but I will still be checking this show out if I am willing and able.

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Well, it looks like it’s sold out already, but where there’s a will there’s a way.

Thanks for reading, everyone! If you’ve made it this far, you now have the pleasure of perusing my honorable mentions, all shows I could see myself potentially having a pretty good time at—or, at least, an impactful experience. I’ve bolded and italicized my most honorable mentions, shows I'd love to go to were it not for the shows above.

Thank you all, and I hope to see you at the show 😃

May 1: Gelli Haha @ Bowery Ballroom

May 1: FEDRA, Matük, Prince of Queens @ Light and Sound Design

May 1: Teksupport: Nina Kraviz @ BK Backyward

May 1–2: Jen Shyu @ Jazz Gallery

May 1–2: Connie Cruthers tributes (Michael Wimberly, Kazzrie Jaxen) @ The Stone

May 2: Yuma Zouma, Ducks Ltd. @ Warsaw

May 2: Black Eyes, LEYA, Nu Jazz @ Trans-Pecos

May 2: AceMo b2b Martyn Bootyspoon, Baltra, and more @ Paragon

May 2: Josh da Costa, Ryley Walker, Moth Eggs, Drugdealer DJs @ Night Club 101

May 2: Jubilee @ Gabriela

May 2: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, Fanclubwallet @ TV EYE

May 3: Lip Critic, yion, Chain Lightning

May 3: Amarie, Riley McBride, Alice Does Computer Music @ Hart BarMay 5: Open Mike Eagle @ Sultan Room

May 5: Good Flying Birds, Dangerboss, Debris Bardot @ Night Club 101

May 5–6: Lucy Bedroque @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

May 5–6: 75 Dollar Bill @ Union Pool

May 5: Village Fête: Sun Ra Arkestra, Yasmin Williams, and more @ Pioneers Works1

May 6: Sleeping Giant Glossolalia presents: Marcia Bassett & Samara Lubelski, Loren Connors & Bob Bellerue, Opening Bell, Millions @ Gold Sounds

May 6: The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis, Trinary System, Brandon Seabrook @ LPR

May 6: The Pharcyde, Rob Swift (DJ), Mista Sinista (DJ) @ Brooklyn Bowl

May 6: Snõõper (DJ Set) @ Rocks Off Concert Cruises

May 6: Eris Drew b2b Mike Servito, S4M23 @ Green Room NYC

May 7: Dave Ruder w/ Wendy Eisenberg, Alfredo Colón, and Jeff Tobias; Ian Andrew Askew, Out of Sight of Land @ Mama Tried [FREE]

May 7: Bill Callahan, Otto Benson, Noveller @ Knockdown Center

May 7: Alarm Will Sound 25th Anniversary @ Roulette

May 7: Dry Cleaning, Snõõper @ Brooklyn Steel

May 7: Water Pocket, Cholla, Mímí @ Light and Sound Design

May 7: PinkPantheress @ Brooklyn Storehouse

May 7: Sam Ospovat’s Blight Music, Sinister Intentions (Lydia Lunch & Kevin Shea) @ Nublu 151

May 7: Desert Daze presents: Evolfo, Psymon Spine, gushes, DJ Joel Stones @ TV EYE

May 8: Ana Roxanne, Purelink @ National Sawdust

May 8: Bush Tetras, Dead Tooth, DJ Sydney Salk @ LPR

May 8: Objekt @ Nowadays

May 8–9: Sleaford Mods @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

May 9: sadie, Eliana Glass @ Night Club 101

May 9: Quiet Light @ Public Recods

May 9: Cass McCombs (w/ band) @ White Eagle Hall

May 9: Courtney Barnett, Momma, Truman Sinclair @ Kings Theatre

May 9: Quiet Light @ Public Recods

May 9: Phantasma: Actress, TYGAPAW, and more @ Paragon

May 9: Ravi Coltrane @ Kupferberg Center for the Arts

May 9: Broken Social Scene @ Rough Trade NYC

May 9: ABC NO RIO Benefit: Choked Up, Joe Jack Talcum, Cupid’s Nemesis, Hasty @ P.I.T.

May 9: ABC NO RIO Benefit: Regula Unintentional, Isolation Exercise, Z.Z.Z.Z., Surf Hair @ Fringe Records

May 9: Sub*T, Panik Flower, Trinket @ Elsewhere (Zone 1)

May 9: Ross From Friends @ Elsewhere (Rooftop)

May 9: Peggy Gou, Mall Grab, Elkka @ Under the K Bridge Park

Mat 9: Electric Prom: Egyptian Lover (live), Deo Jorge b2b Anna Collecta, Get Free! (live) @ Xanadu

May 10: Stereo Mandrax: Lea Bertucci, Cleek Schrey, Bentley Anderson, Lampshade @ Pianos (FREE)

May 10: Mister Sunday Season Opener: Justin Carter, Eamon Harkin @ Nowadays

May 10: Jodeci @ Kings Theatre

May 10: The Lemon Twigs, The Josephine Network, Fine Mess @ Tompkins Square Park (FREE)

May 10–11: Andy Stott @ Public Records

May 11, 14, 16: Bruce Springsteen @ Madison Square Garden

May 12: Danger Room (Student Night) @ The Stone

May 13: Ryan Easter’s Trap Music Orchestra @ The Jazz Gallery (7pm & 9pm)

May 13: session [7]: deep listening with Lovie and Cassie Watson Francillon @ Public Records

May 13–16: May 13–16: Matt Hollenberg Residency @ The Stone

May 14: Wendy Eisenberg, Grumpy, Beach Fossils (DJ), Winter (DJ) @ Cassette

May 14: Jeerleader, Canine Wedding, Costuems @ The Windjammer

May 14: Heads Know 3-Year Anniversary Fundraiser @ The Deep End

May 14: Morricone Youth (Live Score: The Adventures of Prince Achmed) @ Nitehawk

May 14: Mike Ness (of Social Distortion) @ Rough Trade NYC

May 15: Nappy Nina & Swarvy, H31R @ Night Club 101

May 15: Matt Evans’ Aquatic House, Chris Ryan Williams @ Roulette

May 15: yesterdayneverhappened, Dazegxd, Username, DJ Wasia @ Trans-Pecos

May 15: Heems, Wiki @ SILO Brooklyn

May 15: Swami Sound, Marvelito, Millz @ Bossa Nova Civic Club

May 15: Ashnikko @ Hammerstein Ballroom

May 15: Will Calhoun Mali Project @ The Sultan Room

May 15: Madeleine Peyroux @ Sony Hall

May 16: Nonstop: Battygyal b2b Swaya, DjRUM, and more @ Nowadays

May 16: Asa Tone, MIZU @ Public Records

May 16: Nick León, Fakethias, L0KA @ H0l0

May 16: Keyon Harrold @ Carnegie Hall

May 16: Nara’s Room, Wulfer, Raavi

May 16: Cut Worms, Tchotchke @ Warsaw

May 16: TSHA, Ky Williams, and more @ 99 Scott

May 16–19: MUNA @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

May 17: Wire Festival: Aurora Halal, Avalon Emerson, BASHKKA, and more @ Knockdown Center2

May 20: Aja Monet @ Carnegie Hall

May 20: Dear Nora, Tara Jane O’Neil @ Cassette

May 21: caroline, claire rousay, giant claw @ Knockdown Center

May 21: Nia Archives @ Bowery Ballroom

May 21: Cash Only Tony’s, Liturgy, and more @ LPR

May 21: Ivy, Sex Week, Dominique Da Silva @ Sony Hall

May 21: Toadies, Local H, Vandoliers @ Webster Hall

May 22: Frankie Cosmos, Gabby’s World

May 22: Blawan, Emsho @ Good Room

May 22: Teen Suicide, Cloud Nothings, University @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

May 22: Carrier, upsammy, and more @ Public Records

May 23: DJ Plead, HiTech, DJ Voices @ Signal3

May 23: Diamond CLUB: La Goony (live), INVT, Coyado & Bearcat, SEXINCHURCH @ Pragon

May 23: username, MKYFM, Ear Training @ Cassette

May 23: Nonstop: adobeprincess, Ben UFO, and more @ Nowadays

May 24: Skillibeng, Molly @ Terminal 54

May 24: Lea Jaffe, Slake, Bridge Gamble @ Night Club 101

May 24: The QUAD V Invitational: WTCHCRFT, VELODROME, and more @ Jupiter Disco

May 27: Ari Lennox @ Brooklyn Paramount

May 27–30: Sara Serpa Residency @ The Stone

May 28: Saint Vitus Presents: Tempers, Anastasia Coope @ TV EYE

May 28: Střešovická Kramle, Simon Deschamps, Club Ecology @ TBA [FREE]

May 28: Yarn/Wire perform works by John Haven and Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir @ Roulette

May 28: NEW EAR: Antiphon Trio w/ Levy Lorenzo @ Fridman Gallery

May 28: Soup & Sound Presents: The Hemphill Stringtet @ Loove Annex

May 28: Shordie Shordie @ Market Hotel

May 28: Postergirl, Big Dumb Baby, DIAMANTA @ The Sultan Room

May 28–29: They Might Be Giants @ Brooklyn Steel

May 28: My New Band Believe, Wendy Eisenberg @ Elsewhere5

May 29: John Zorn (New Masada Quartet)

May 29: Callahan & Witscher, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, The Conformists, Pregnancy @ Night Club 101

May 29: 4 Years of Paragon: Joey Beltram, WTCHCRFT, and more @ Paragon

May 29: Postergirl, No Soap Radio, Franny Menace, Good News @ Arlene’s Grocery

May 29–30: James Blake @ Brooklyn Paramount

May 30: DJ Stingray 313, Elle Dee, and more @ BASEMENT

May 30: Kid Cudi, M.I.A., Big Boi, A-Trak @ Madison Square Garden

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Ragger: Marc Riordan (left) and Jonathan Leland. Photo by Max Allison.

Hello Freqs!

And welcome back to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company (and now, for the first time, a registered S-Corp). I’m Raphael.

I’m back with the second of many artist interviews I’ll be running right here, for free, once a month. Paid subscribers—there is more coming just for you, including monthly playlists and other bonus content to be named later. I’ve got a bonus playlist related to my end-of-year lists coming ASAP.

Until then, please enjoy my interview with Marc Riordan and Jonathan Leland, whose debut album as Ragger is out today via Hausu Mountain.

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Ragger’s tagline is simple and its appeal obvious: What would ragtime sound like in Super Mario World? The group was born in 2017, when multi-instrumentalist and ragtime enthusiast Marc Riordan met drummer and video game developer Jonathan Leland in Los Angeles, playing in Cameron Stallones’s long-running psychedelic band Sun Araw.

Primarily a live act, Ragger took a long hiatus when COVID hit and Leland moved to the Bay Area. But tomorrow (February 10), via Hausu Mountain, they’ll drop their debut album Euphonic Sounds, a collection of eight electronic rags that bring the late-19th century form into a cheeky late-20th century context.

Ragger’s premise might sound goofy, but their music is far more than a party trick. Leland and Riordan have found, at the intersection of two forms often identified with kitsch and nostalgia, dense harmonies, striking dissonances, and unruly rhythms—and, in their absence, invented them. By avoiding strict ragtime or 8-bit revivalism, they discovered a new, elevated middle ground and created something special.

In advance of Euphonic Sounds’ release, I spoke to Ragger about Scott Joplin, Wendy Carlos, counterpoint, voice stealing, and Super Smash Bros technique. The transcript has been edited, but only very lightly, for flow.

Apollo Frequencies: You’ve both played in lots of projects before this one. Can you each tell me about some of your favorite things you’ve worked on in the past?

Marc Riordan: My favorite things I’ve done wouldn’t necessarily be on my resume. I was the drummer in a prog-punk band in Chicago for eight years called Wishgift, and it was one of those projects where we spent so many years in it that as our interests changed we started incorporating that into writing our music, and we were going in sort of a metal direction toward the end. That pulled me into the Chicago underground DIY scene that Doug and Max [from Hausu Mountain] are rooted in.

Along the way, I would occasionally get hired be the touring drummer for bands. I did a European tour with Xiu Xiu in 2012, and I was the drummer for Tim Kinsella’s project Owls for a little while, which had a lot of overlap with Cap’n Jazz. I’ve been a longtime collaborator with Emmett Kelly, who’s out here in L.A. I was in his band The Cairo Gang for several years, starting in Chicago and overlapping into when I was in L.A.

Jonathan Leland: Some of my favorite stuff was free-improv collaboration. Some of it was just whoever wanted to play, but there were a couple of groups in college [at Oberlin] that were really fun. That was one called Information Night that I don’t really know how to describe. It was free improv, but it was some people from the jazz program, some people from the classical program, a couple composers—a collision of a lot of different perspectives, but all interested in this idea of, like, “What if we just jam?” One of the members was a singer, and she would start singing pop songs, and we just wouldn’t play along really, just keep doing what we were doing but kind of react to it. It was one of the only free-improv groups where we gave ourselves a name and had a bit more of a consistent approach.

Then I was in a band called Skeletons for a long time. I met them at Oberlin, too, and then played with them in New York. That was a really important group for me with some of my best friends, a lot of my first touring experiences. It was kind of prog rock with a bit of a jazz influence. A few of us played with this guy Janka Nabay from Sierra Leone who was a big star there and came to America as a refugee but wasn’t playing music. Somebody knew about his music and helped him start performing again, and then we became his backing band, and I was playing these really fast drum machine dance beats but with little [African] percussion parts, all on drum pads—a combination of agogô bells and djembes and stuff with like a four-on-the-floor kick at super fast tempos. That was really fun because it was super kinetic but super repetitive, and you’d get in these weird trances.

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What led to you two collaborating on your own and like noticing there was something there you wanted to explore outside of the Sun Araw context?

MR: Back in Chicago, I’d had this quartet called The Great Crush, which was dedicated to performing the Scott Joplin repertoire. I had started teaching myself all this stuff on piano a couple years after I moved there, and it was the kind of thing where I just found myself practicing it more and more, and it was taking up more and more of my time, and then I was like, “Well, if I’m gonna do that, I might as well start performing it, and if I’m going to perform it, I might as well put a band together.”

When I came here I was still practicing a lot of rags, and I must have mentioned it to Jon, and… I don’t know! Our first gig was at Resident with Bitchin Bajas. I think we must have just casually gotten together one day to play some rags and thought it really clicked.

JL: We were just hanging out at rehearsal or a show or something, and you said, “Would you be interested in playing some ragtime together?” And I said yes. I was in this Dixieland jazz group in high school. I had a friend who was like, “For college applications, you gotta do community service,” so my scheme was to start a Dixieland band and play at retirement homes. Anyway, that was the only reference point I had for Ragtime, so thought it would be cool. And then I just came over to your house, Marc.

MR: We set up in my little bedroom, if I recall. Jon was working at Zebulon as a bartender at that time, so we floated the idea of doing it there and did a cafe show, and before too long we were playing there every other week. That was in mid-to-late 2017. It’s one of those projects that’s been going on way longer than it feels like because of the pandemic in the dead center of it.

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What other contexts have you played this music in over the past eight-odd years?

JL: Well we haven’t played at all, really. We’re getting ready to play our first shows since before the pandemic. But we played at Zebulon, which didn’t even really have bands in the front room back then. They probably had a couple live musicians, but it was mostly DJs that would come and set up in the cafe.

MR: We were definitely in one of the pioneering bands in the front room. Occasionally someone at Zebulon in the audience would approach us to do a gig somewhere else, so we played a gig at this really cool bar called Blipsy bar, which is a barcade, and we ended up playing a Christmas party one year, which was pretty wild. We did some spontaneous ragtime versions of “Jingle Bells” and stuff.

JL: The vibe was a house party with pretty young people, younger than us at least, and a kitchen table with a bunch of different liquor. They probably had a keg or something.

Scott Joplin is obviously the guy when it comes to ragtime, but are there any other ragtime composers who are really canonized? Or is it like baroque music where it’s Bach up here and everyone else down there?

MR: There’s another composer, James Scott, who wrote incredible rags, and Ragger has played a few. There’s another one named Joseph Lamb who did the “Top Liner Rag.” Those were kind of the “big three,” them and Joplin. There was also Arthur Marshall, who was a protege of Joplin. Joplin had various other composers in his orbit, and if you go through his books, he has several rags that are co-composed with other composers, like James Scott and Arthur Marshall and Louis Chauvin.

When I was in Chicago, I was friendly with this jazz critic named Larry Kart, who used to write for the Tribune, and he one time showed up with a tape of this Chicago pianist named Bob Wright, who was pretty much completely unknown but a brilliant ragtime pianist. Someone had gone to his house and made these home recordings of him playing through all these rags. So I had a tape of like 25, 30 rags, and I would listen to those a lot. I got introduced to a lot of composers and novelty rags—poppier rags, if Joplin was the high-art Ragtime composer—through that. That was the beginning of me understanding how massive ragtime was. It was a huge period in American music that yielded a lot of music of varying levels of complexity.

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I’m assuming you’re both old-school video game nerds given Ragger’s aesthetic, and Jon, I know you’re a video game developer. What kind of games do you make, and what kind of games do you like to play?

JL: The studio I work for right now is known for making family-friendly 3D platformers. They made the first mainline Crash Bandicoot game, Crash Bandicoot 4. Crash Bandicoot was the PlayStation mascot way back in the day, but that was before I started working there. The first project I worked on with them was Crash Team Rumble, which was an online competitive multiplayer Crash Bandicoot game.

It’s pretty hard to describe, but I do a lot of the character design stuff—not the art side, but how the character moves and what kind of abilities they have. It’s very rhythmic: When you press this button, what happens? There’s a lot of phrasing and rhythm to the abilities, especially when there’s combat.

As far as what I like to play… Kind of everything. Especially now that I work in the field, I feel justified checking out basically any game that looks interesting. A lot of stuff I don’t finish, obviously. I’ve always had a soft spot for JRPGs like Final Fantasy and platformers and racing games. I like it all, honestly.

Your album bio mentions Koji Kondo (Super Mario World) and Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) as two of your favorite video game composers. What do you appreciate about their music as art, independent of the games?

JL: A couple of things: The range of styles those guys have is so impressive, all the different genres and stylistic things they can do because they fit different parts of the story. Just today, I was reminded of a rag composition from Final Fantasy 6 called “Spinach Rag.” It’s such a sweet, weird, synthesized player piano sound with this crazy-fast vibrato on it.

The other thing I appreciate, especially about the older-style games on the Super Nintendo is that they’re composing for a sound chip, and the older you go, they’re literally composing through programming. Later, there was more software they could use to do MIDI arrangements and trigger things, but just being able to craft those sonic vibes with really low-fi technology at the time… It’s similar to how graphics worked back in the day, where you look at it now, and it’s like, “This looks terrible. How could any kid be immersed in this?” But there’s so much love put into it that it comes across. Obviously I have a lot of nostalgia for that because I grew up with it. I’m sure lots of kids today would not be that interested in sitting through those older games.

MR: I don’t know. I’ve got some music students who are into that stuff, young kids.

Marc, are you a gamer?

MR: I’m not. I put most of that energy into being a film buff, but I did have a few growing up. I had a Sega Genesis, and I had Road Rash and Sonic the Hedgehog. I used to rent a couple games frequently, like the X-Men game and ToeJam & Earl. That had a great soundtrack. Streets of Rage 2 had an amazing dance soundtrack to it. And Mickey Mouse’s World of Illusion. But I mostly rely on Jon for most of the game cred. The furthest I go, really, is I find a sound that sounds like 8-bit or something and then play a rag on it, and I’m like, “That sounds cool.”

JL: In a similar way, I’m sort of a ragtime luddite, but that brings spontaneity to how I approach it.

MR: I never really thought about it. We’re kind of balancing the scale that way.

JL: We were careful not to be a strict ragtime revivalist project. And to some extent we’re not strictly trying to use video game sounds either, in the sense of getting exact samples or certain synthesizers.

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Is the process just you two sending stems back and forth, or are you ever in the same room when you’re working on the tracks?

MR: The very last track on the album, “Wiggle Rag” by George Botsford, we recorded live together in the same room. But everything else we did during the pandemic, so we were just sending files back and forth. I would record the rag, and the way I did it for most of these songs was to slow the tempo down and record each hand separately so that I could do a lot of careful improvising on the harmonic structures and really embellish a lot.

At the time, I was learning a lot of Bach, so I was newly armed with the ability to play arpeggios around the keyboard and think contrapuntally. So I was trying to apply that to these recordings, and then I would speed it back up and send the file to Jon, and Jon would record his take live at that tempo. And whatever Jon’s take was, that’s where it was locked.

We started doing that like six years ago, and we didn’t meet up to finally mix everything till last January, so a lot of this stuff was sitting on a hard drive for a few years. We did tracks one through seven through in the span of a few months.

What was the first track you made?

MR: I don’t even remember. “Weeping Willow Rag” would be my guess.

Would that have been the first one you ever played together, or just on this album?

MR: I mean, there was one gig at Zebulon where we actually played through the entire Joplin songbook. So we did everything—all the Joplin rags and then a handful of other composers also.

So there was no one rag that you could point to as the genesis of Ragger.

MR: No. From the very beginning, we were always amassing a huge repertoire.

You cite Wendy Carlos as an inspiration, and that certainly comes across in the music. How did each of you come upon Wendy’s music?

MR: For me it was The Shining, so it wasn’t one of the Switched-On classical things, although I guess that first theme is a Berliosz theme. I definitely saw A Clockwork Orange at a pretty young age, but I was probably too young to know who Wendy Carlos was. But during the pandemic I spent most of my time practicing Bach and absorbing recordings of Bach, and I came upon some records of Wendy’s—the famous Switched-On one but then also these double albums with a lot of other pieces that are really good, like one of the Brandenburg Concertos. So I got into Wendy Carlos through my interest in Bach.

JL: It was the Switched-On Bach record. I can’t remember if somebody played it on the college radio station or if someone just told me about it. I was also a big fan of Bach, although not to the extent that Marc is. I took some pipe organ lessons and got to play on some really nice organs, but it was never something I pursued super deeply.

MR: Wow, I didn’t know that.

Are there any other non-video game, non-ragtime composers whose work informs what you’re doing here?

MR: Hiroshi Yoshimora definitely, and Haruomi Hosono’s Watering a Flower. We were on tour with Sun Araw once, and Cameron put one of those tracks on, and I had an experience I hadn’t had since I was a teenager. You know when your brain is developing and you hear something that blows your mind, and it just locks in with the space and the time in your life? It was like that.

Jon, I meant to ask earlier, but what do you think makes a great video game soundtrack—not as a standalone piece of art but in terms of how it integrates into the game?

JL: A huge inspiration for my approach to Ragger is not just video game music but the combination of video game sound effects with the music, which are for the most part not meant to link up; they’re just kind of happening at the same time, the sound design and the score. But in video games, especially the older ones where they’re all using the same sound card and they might even do some voice stealing if there’s a very small number of voices—like if Mario breaks a block and it’ll go 🎵🎶(not accurate notation), and the sound has to steal a melodic voice from the background, and so they interact in ways that are not necessarily intentional but are really provocative for me. Things like getting points and collecting coins and dying, all those fun video game sounds combined with music, is something I really enjoy.

Right around the time we were recording this album, I had another pandemic project where I hooked up a video game controller to be a MIDI device, and I would play video games and have the controller control synthesizers and try to coax out the rhythm of the data of playing a video game and translating that into music. Some of it was very cool and some of it was very experimental.

At this point, we restarted the Zoom, and, like a true professional, I forgot to hit record again. Luckily, Marc and Jon graciously attempted to recreate the rest of the conversation with me over email. Fans of this blog will be pleased to hear that I have upgraded my conferencing capabilities to avoid this issue in the future.

Marc, you mentioned you’ve been studying counterpoint lately. Walk me through how you created the contrapuntal harmonies for these arrangements.

MR: I was learning and memorizing as much Bach as I could throughout the pandemic. It was like a crash course in counterpoint, harmony, and technical fundamentals like scales and arpeggios. When recording the rags for Euphonic Sounds, I would slow the tempo way down and record one hand at a time, improvising variations on the themes based on the harmony that I had internalized over the years. So there wasn’t much premeditation to the arrangements, just taking advantage of the technology to be able to get more complex musical thoughts down in real time.

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Jon, how did you approach programming the percussion around these very dense, busy arrangements, considering the original tracks were drumless?

JL: For drum sounds I targeted early trap kit sounds like wood block, cow bell, chinese toms and crash cymbals, as well as typical snare and bass drums, and a few electronic SFX-like sounds. I don’t do much processing of samples, but sometimes I’ll pitch them down or mess with the envelope so they reveal their true nature a bit. This is very similar to how I picked sounds for Sun Araw, so I was already comfortable with that kind of palette.

For the rhythms, I’m just riffing on Dixieland drum patterns and the ragtime syncopation of the keyboard parts. I learn the overall structure of the composition but don’t quite memorize all the specific keyboard voice lines. I don’t write out parts, though I do pick a sound palette for each track and stick with it from performance to performance, for the most part. My approach is very improvisational from there, with a lot of riffing on what the keyboard is doing in real time. The kick mostly follows the bass line, though, and there’s often some sound emphasizing the backbeat, but I’m a bit stingy with that since a lot of ragtime syncopation feels more interesting to me when it’s untethered from the backbeat a bit.

Conceptually, it’s sort of like I’m playing a video game where the composition is a level and the drums are the character. Each time I might go through the level differently, but I know it well enough to traverse smoothly and confidently with some stylish interaction and embellishment. Often I’m collecting stuff and playing around with features that I already know are there, but sometimes I’ll go searching for secrets, or get surprised by a hazard. This isn’t explicit role-playing I’m doing during performance, more of a connection I’ve made over the years between playing music and playing video games, and how it maps specifically to this project.

At some points, everything fits together very neatly. But at others, there’s a muddiness that I love. Were those clunkier passages intentional?

MR: I would say they were not intentional, but we were certainly intentional about not editing or correcting them. That was something we discussed while mixing: don’t touch the mistakes and don’t make revisions to passages that landed a little clunkier because of the spontaneities in the performances.

JL: Rhythmic inconsistencies are natural when I improvise, especially when using sounds that have attack/decay that vary from sound to sound but are also static for each sound (i.e. not something I can control like an acoustic kit with stick control). We’re careful not to “fix mistakes” that lend the music organic character, though we made some small surgical edits where the rhythm gets too muddy. Definitely intentional not to quantize things. And in terms of the raw performance, allowing ourselves to phrase things somewhat stiffly, as opposed to making every voice feel continuous and nuanced, can lead to some clunky moments. But if anything, that just reinforces the connection to the old video game music aesthetic. Electronic sounds are great for leaning into that, especially with static attack/decay limiting expression somewhat.

As far as voice stealing, that’s not something we did intentionally, but we allowed it to happen, kinda like rhythmic inconsistencies. There’s a few ways that something like that can happen in the electronic drums: re-triggering a sample before it ends, the hi-hat pad alternating sounds depending on whether the connected pedal is up or down [so] the “open” and “closed” sounds can cut each other off. There’s also something similar that can happen on synths if you reach the polyphonic voice limit, where a newly played note can end an older, concurrent one. On another level, thinking of voice stealing as a kind of aesthetic is also a way to approach mixing, though we never actually discussed this explicitly—just not worrying too much about moments where one sound really dominates the mix briefly, especially if it’s one of the SFX-like drum sounds. It makes those moments sort of break the fourth wall in an “extramusical” way, like a sound effect stealing attention from the music.

Most of this album is just synth keyboard and percussion, but there are a couple of other instruments that subtly pop up here and there. What did you feel those added to the album?

JL: My friend Phillip Hermans did some overdubs with pedal steel on a few tracks and really nailed it. But those arrangements kinda pushed those tracks (and thus the album as a whole) in a different direction from the raw, simple counterpoint of just keys and drums. I think in the future if we try stuff like that we’ll incorporate it earlier so there’s more natural interaction between all the instruments.

That wasn’t an issue as much with the vibraphone, synth bass, and bass clarinet, which were essentially just supporting existing voices. Even with those we were pretty careful to make them sound like a single voice all together (kinda like Brian Wilson/Phil Spector-style arrangements, come to think of it, though not nearly as adventurous).

MR: “Paragon Rag” has my dad Rob Riordan on vibraphone. He recorded the take on his iPhone and sent it to me. Him and I had been playing that one together for years. “Weeping Willow” has Jeff Kimmel (from The Great Crush) on bass clarinet, but I put an octave pedal on it and a little distortion or bit crusher or something. I think they add a nice dimensionality to the timbre. We scrapped the pedal steel and the quartet of Jeff Kimmels because it felt like it was transforming the record into something other than a duo record, which felt wrong. But there was some really nice stuff happening in those takes.

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Let’s talk about track selection. Given that you guys played through the lion’s share of Scott Joplin’s catalog at your Zebulon residency, how did you choose these seven tracks?

MR: These were really just the first eight of the rags we recorded that we thought came out well. We were thinking about recording a few more to be a bit more intentional about the programming, but decided this worked well enough. “Swipesy Cakewalk,” “Sunflower Slow Drag,” “Paragon Rag,” “Original Rags,” and “Weeping Willow” were some of the earliest rags I learned, so that probably had to do with why I gravitated to them; I just know them all very well.

Tell me about George Botsford’s “Wiggle Rag.” Why was that your only non-Joplin pick for this record?

MR: I love “Wiggle Rag,” and it’s the one tune on the record that was tracked together, totally live. It’s what we sounded like at Zebulon. I think I had always wanted to play it because of the Bob Wright recording, so I tracked down the score and learned it. As for why it’s on the record, it was just the standout performance from that session as I recall, and it felt like a cool idea to end the record with a “live” recording of the duo.

This might be a silly question, but what are your all-time favorite rags?

JL: Mine is “Euphonic Sounds,” because it goes to some places that feel (to me) kinda like European symphonic music. It’s a fun challenge to figure out how to make drum parts flow naturally in and out of those moments, and an interesting view into the European influence on ragtime.

MR: I love Joseph Lamb’s “Top Liner Rag.” It’s elegant and romantic. For Joplin, I love “Gladiolus Rag” and “Rose Leaf Rag,” among many others. I also love James Scott’s “Don’t Jazz Me (I’m Music)” and “Efficiency Rag.” And for more modern stuff, William Bolcom’s “Graceful Ghost Rag.”

Jon, who do you play as in Smash?

JL: I don’t have a main, and I admittedly don’t play Smash all that much. But when I do play, I usually choose the randomized character option because it fits well with my tendency toward improvisation. With a regularly used character, I’d be trying to perfect combos and strat[egie]s with some improvisation, but with a random character I pretty much have to experiment and improvise in every match. Smash is a really great game in that context, because with so many characters I will always be on my toes.

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Jochen Rueckert aka Wolff Parkinson White. Photo by Alexei Kaleina.

Hello Freqs!

And welcome back to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company (and now, for the first time, a registered S-Corp). I’m Raphael.

I’ve been away too long, but now I’m back with the first of many artist interviews I’ll be running right here, for free, once a month. Paid subscribers—there is more coming just for you, including monthly playlists and other bonus content to be named later.

For now, please enjoy my interview of Jochen Rueckert, aka Wolff Parkinson White.

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Every few months growing up, Jochen Rueckert thought he was having a heart attack. It was only later, when he was 18, that doctors diagnosed the issue as Wolff Parkinson-White Syndrome, a condition that causes an acute acceleration of the heartbeat, producing symptoms similar to that of a myocardial infarction.

“They basically zapped it,” he says 32 years later, referring to an ablation, in which abnormal tissue is burned or frozen off. He hasn’t had an episode since, but the experience stuck with him, and when he started making electronic music in the mid 2000s after a lifetime of jazz drumming, he named his project after the syndrome.

“The whole idea is it’s just like, Aaaaaah! What the fuck?!’” he says, the day after performing a set at the Loove (pronounced Leuvre) Annex, a new Williamsburg venue/storefront/café founded by trombonist Josh Roseman and catering to the avant garde. “It’s scary and arrhythmic and way too fast and intense.”

The thing that caught my eye about Rueckert’s bio was the description of his work as “hard-to-listen-to electronic music.” I was curious about what an artist who described himself as difficult would sound like, so I decided not to listen to any of his albums in advance of the show and go in blank.

His set was indeed fast and intense, but it was never abrasive for abrasion’s sake. It was full of knotty percussion framed in meters too jagged to pin down. But where one might expect to find ear-shredding feedback, towering walls of drone, or phone-in-a-blender harsh noise antics, there were chords and melodies—irregular ones, to be sure, but tonal nonetheless. “It’s not noise,” Rueckert says. “I want you to think, ‘Oh, I know what’s happening,’” but then be like, “Oh, I don’t.”

Below is a lightly edited conversation, which touches on Rueckert’s formative years in Cologne and New York City, his love of Miles Davis and Venetian Snares, his collaboration with Norah Jones, and my dad’s friend Bruce.

APOLLO FREQUENCIES: Tell me a bit about yourself.

JOCHEN RUECKERT / WOLF PARKINSON WHITE: I was born in Germany. I moved to the states when I was like 19, and I’m a jazz musician by trade. I play jazz drums. I write jazz music, fairly traditional. I’ve been doing Wolff Parkinson White for the last 15 years, or closer to 20 maybe… Fuck. It’s more or less a side project, although I do spend a lot of time programming music. I felt like in jazz I already make too much money, so I was just looking for a way to make even less money.

When you said “See you at Smalls” at the end of your set, I was wondering…

I make most of my money playing jazz, so I do play at Smalls, the Vanguard, those kinds of places, and I tour in Europe a lot. I have my own band and all that stuff. It’s my normal day job—night job. I’m active as Wolff Parkinson White, and I program a lot. But it is, as you know, a very time-consuming thing to do. I’d like to play more shows, but It’s not easy to play shows.

Tell me more about your jazz background. When did you start playing the drums?

I started when I was six. I dropped out of high school and went to study music in Cologne, which is where I’m from. I didn’t quite finish, and I moved to the states in 1995—I’m 50 now, can you believe that?—and immersed myself in the jazz scene here. It’s kind of the only interesting place for jazz. A lot of people go to Berklee in Boston, but New York’s where it’s at.

I went to the Cologne Music Conservatory and studied jazz drums. But back then, you could be enrolled and just not show up for several years. That used to be fine because in Europe it cost about €110 to go to school for the year. I literally stayed a student just to get cheaper airfare. So I was technically a student at that school, but I was living here. But then the lawyer I was using to get a green card was concerned that my case didn’t look great because I didn’t have a high school degree, so I went back to Germany for one month and did my final exams and got a degree, and then I came back to the States with the degree, and that made me eligible to go through with the green card application.

I’ve basically just been playing gigs since I moved here. In the beginning, I was just a sideman, chipping away. I started my own band in the early 2000s, started writing music for myself. That led me to do more of the electronic stuff, although I’d been messing around with electronics before I started writing jazz stuff too.

What sort of jazz were you playing back then? Was it similar to what you play now?

I’ve been playing what’s generally considered modern acoustic jazz for 30 years. I play with a lot of piano players. My claim to fame is I used to play in [esteemed composer and guitarist] Kurt Rosenwinkle’s quartet. That’s probably the most well-known person I’ve played with. Right now, I play with Fred Hirsh, who’s an older piano player. It’s not straight-ahead, but it’s not super experimental or anything.

Ever play with a pianist named Bruce Barth?

Yeah. Not much, but here and now. How do you know him?

He’s my dad’s best friend from high school, and I’ve seen him play a bunch. He rules. Shoutout Bruce, shoutout my dad.

Wow.

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So you started writing your own music in the mid aughts.

Yeah. I knew these guys who run a record label [(Pirouet Records)] back in Europe. They encouraged me to write something and put it out, so I put out an album in 2009, and I’ve put out another five original jazz albums.

Do you have any personal inspirations in terms of jazz drummers, or jazz musicians in general?

All the ’60s guys—Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter. All the drummers from that time too: Tony Williams, Elvin Jones. Those are my heroes.

Who were you listening to in the electronic music world when you started the Wolff Parkinson White project?

I’m from Cologne, which has a big experimental electronic music scene. There were a lot of small concerts of fairly far-out electronic music all the time, and I had a lot of friends in that sort of “out” [electronic] scene that intersects with the improvised jazz scene. There are a lot of techno clubs where I grew up, too, and jungle was the thing when I was a teenager, and then it became drum ‘n’ bass when I was in my 20s.

So I was interested in that, and then my friend played me some Venetian Snares in the early 2000s, and I was really into him for a long time. Venetian Snares programs a lot in odd meters; most of his music is in 7/4, and it used to be in even more complex time signatures. That’s what drew me to it. I got a little annoyed, though, because there’s not a lot of context with harmony. I always thought that maybe I could add that component to it, which is not easy.

So that was when I started out, and things have evolved from there: The sonic palette has expanded over the last 10, 15 years. I’ve changed a lot just by exploring other stuff. Back then, it was a very sample-tracker, single-line kind of thing. I’m taking in other influences these days. Venetian Snares has been a little quiet too. He hasn’t put out much recently.

You’re not a Venetian snares tribute band.

No.

I was skimming through your albums, and there’s quite a variety of sounds. I was really enjoying your second-to-last one, Off World, with Hayden Chisholm on vocals.

I always wanted to do that, because I also write song songs, with pitches and that kind of thing. Hayden is originally a jazz saxophone player, and he also deals a lot with microtonal music, which is heavily featured on that album.

The idea behind Off World, and Favours, which is with a lot of different singers, was something I always wanted to do: pop songs with crazy electronic production, kind of where Björk left off a few years ago. Because I can write a song with chords and stuff. Most electronic guys can’t do that.

Favours is my most pop-oriented album. It’s called Favours because I’m friends with all these singers, and I asked them each a favor to contribute one song, and some of them I wrote myself.

I was surprised when I saw Norah Jones on that tracklist.

She was very cool about it. I’ve known her for a long time.

The Caroline Davis track is great too.

I love Caroline Davis. She’s a motherfucker of a singer.

Where did you learn to write pop songs? It’s a different skill from writing jazz arrangements.

I mean, I went to music school, but everyone is self-taught in a way, especially when it comes to composition. You transcribe a lot of music and get a feel for what you like about things, and then you figure out how that works.

It’s kind of the same with electronic music: Nobody studies it—I guess some people do now—but you just listen and figure out how to make it. You can just talk to people. Sometimes I’ll just write to somebody and be like, “What is this thing you’re doing here?” And they’ll tell me.

With traditional music with pitches and stuff, it’s much more obvious. You just sit down and figure out what it is, and then you figure why you like it. And then, basically, you come up with your own version of it. It’s good to know some harmonic [theory]. I studied jazz music and classical functional harmony back in music college. I used to analyze Bach as a teenager in piano lessons and that kind of stuff. What I didn’t know much of was the more recent stuff.

Let’s get more into the evolution of Wolff Parkinson White. Your first album on Bandcamp is rest from what. Is that the first electronic record you made?

There’s actually an album before that first one that I pulled because it’s badly mastered. In the beginning, I was just trying to figure out how to make the sounds I was hearing. There was a lot of trial and error, and I was only [working] on a laptop, in Ableton Live, like everybody. Some people ask me if I use any kind of input, drum pads or any of that stuff. I don’t. I just program it all. It’s all MIDI, and there’s a lot of manipulation, obviously. In the beginning, I was taking actual drum samples more often and alienating those. I’ve kind of gone away from that. Now I just generate.

Back in the day, the modus I was working on was coming from Venetian Snares, trying to add some harmony to that stuff. I was always working in a lot of odd meters, and I was always trying to have some sort of… not metric modulation, but something you can’t quite figure out what what the fuck is going on, and you get turned around a lot—rhythms you could hear several ways.

Hard to tap them out.

Yeah. Something that maybe sounds like one rhythm, but then it reveals itself to be in a different tempo, that kind of thing. I guess you could call that polyrhythm. It draws somewhat from jazz too.

I really dug the more melodic parts of your show last night.

Thank you. I think that’s what you don’t hear when you listen to any of those guys playing these days. They don’t really go into any harmonic territory, or if they do it just stays in the same place.

How much of what we were hearing were you manipulating live?

The live stuff I have is very different from my records. I don’t like it when people just kind of play their tracks and maybe loop some section and have one element that they change. For me, as a jazz musician, it’s very boring.

In Ableton, there’s something called Max For Live, where you can basically write these Max [MSP] scripts that’ll do certain things. So I’ve written all these patches in Max that run in Ableton. For example, when you hear any chordal material, I’ve written this thing that generates chords with certain rules, and I keep expanding on them. I’ll have like 10, and one, for example, will create a chord based on a chord system by Olivier Messiaen’s modes of limited transposition. It’s a certain scale that you can generate chords within, and it has a certain sound, and then I’ll feed it common chord progressions, like a cadence of two or three chords, and it shuffles it around.

A lot of the stuff I use is basically a random generator where I set the range. With this core generator, for example, I’ll tell it how fast it can move, how far away it can stray from the tonic or something, and that’s how all the harmonic and melodic information is made. There’ll be one thing that plays chords, another thing that just plays a melody, basically picking notes out of the chord, and a thing that plays the bass, the roots of those chords.

It works similarly with the rhythm: I’ll have a skeleton of a pattern, and then I’ll have more fleshed-out notes, and I can control how many—think of it like a pattern of very dense rhythms. That’s the maximum setting, and if I lower it, it’ll play only the skeleton of the pattern. Again, there’s a random element there it can stray from the pattern or stray from the instrumentation, and I set those parameters. So when you see me just sit there and it’s doing something [on its own] and you’re not quite sure what’s happening, that’s when I’ve set a certain percentage of randomness and it’s just playing the pattern. There are many times when it just automates something: It’ll do a [low-frequency oscillator], for instance, that’ll increase the randomness.

I have a setting where I can just hit play and it’ll just generate something that doesn’t repeat, and that’s where I find those little pockets where it’ll sound cool for two or three minutes playing by itself. That’s most of the work I do, trying to find these patterns and setting a random function of them to a point where it’s still recognizable as a certain rhythm or pattern but varied enough that it doesn’t sound like I’m just playing a loop.

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A lot of people, myself included to an extent, don’t fully understand what’s happening when an electronic artist is playing live. How much are you programming in advance, and how much are you manipulating in real time?

It’s all programmed, as in the media information is set. There is a MIDI loop, but I set the random function to interpret it, so [while I’m performing] I program how much the thing is sticking to that pattern, how much it’s constrained, or how many notes of the pattern it’ll play. But most of it has to be very carefully pre-programmed to not be repetitive.

Have you ever messed around in a SuperCollider? A lot of the cool kids seem to be doing that nowadays.

No, but it’s very similar. When I look at the superscripts, they start from a very simple place, and when you see those people do live coding, they’re making it more complex. For me, it’s the other way. I already have a complex [algorithm], and then I simplify.

In the end, all those tools come out the same. I have a lot of friends who are using Reaper, which is popular these days because you can easily implement all kinds of things. There are new tools that come out all the time that are just generating algorithmic stuff.

I’m trying to avoid the word AI here, but it’s basically all algorithms. You set certain rules for what can happen, and then you adjust them. That’s basically what’s happening.

I’m using Ableton and the scripts I wrote, the little patches I wrote in Max, and then 10,000 different sound generation [virtual studio technologies]. I use a lot of samples, some granular things that come with Ableton, and then all kinds of VST synthesizers.

I imagine it would easy to stagnate creatively between performances and projects with a process that’s so based in algorithms. How do you keep it fresh?

I’ve just been learning more stuff, exploring other sound generation techniques. I didn’t really fuck around much with granular synthesis [in the past], but I’ve learned a few things over the last few years, and you can hear that in the last album. It’s broadened the sort of ~beats-y~ thing. I listen to a lot of electronic music now, and that’s definitely expanding the sounds I hear. I do a lot of studying and analyze other people’s tracks to try to figure out how they’re doing that stuff.

Who have you been studying?

There’s a friend of mine called William Fields who does a lot of interesting algorithmic stuff. I’ve been listening to Qebrus, who passed away recently. I’m going to play a festival in San Francisco called the Algorithmic Art Assembly, and most of the artists on [the lineup] are interesting to me. There’s a guy called Kindohm who only programs a synth that takes all the overtones and [allows you to] shift [their ratio], and it makes this certain sound. I finally figured out what the fuck he’s doing, so you’ll hear you hear some of that in my own music. It’s mostly about additive synthesis.

How did you come to perform as Wolff Parkinson-White? It’s a condition that causes tachycardia, right?

I have Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome. I had an ablation, which is when they go in and find the spot, and back then they burned it out. I was about 18, so I don’t know, I just thought [the name] was ~super cool, man~.

I’d get these attacks where your heart goes really fucking fast and you don’t know why. You’re born with it, so all through my childhood, I had these attacks, and my parents couldn’t figure out what was happening. And then finally I got diagnosed, and they basically just zapped it. I haven’t had any [episodes] since, but it was definitely traumatic, and I wanted to pay tribute to that.

Would you say you’re trying to emulate that sensation in your music?

Yeah. The whole idea is it’s just like, “Aaaaaah! What the fuck?!” It’s scary and arrhythmic and way too fast and intense.

Does the condition cause arrhythmia, too, or is your heart just beating really fast?

You can think of it as the impulse for your heartbeat going in a short circuit around your heart, so it beats way faster than it’s supposed to, and it happens very weirdly for like two minutes every two months, super random. It’s typically not very frequent, and it’s pretty short, but it’s an insane rush of adrenaline because your natural response is like, “I am dying right now of a heart attack!” Especially if you don’t know what it is.

I found your music while I was scrolling through a list of shows in NYC this month, and what caught my eye was you calling your work “hard to listen to.” What part of your music do you think is hard to listen to?

I think it’s the odd-meter thing. I strive for nothing to repeat, and repetition is something people like. I think it makes it hard for most people to deal with, and it’s obviously a very niche thing. When people are like, “Oh, I like electronic,” what they really mean is they like loopy dance music, or maybe if it’s slightly more advanced, it has a couple of cool elements. But in the end, it’s dance music, right? This is as far away from dance music as it can possibly be.

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Do you consider it noise?

No. I mean, the live show, I’m not quite sure what to call that, but the music I put out that’s programmed I think is closest to what you would consider back in the day classical music. It’s really deliberately through-composed. There’s no fun element to it. There’s no interaction. It’s not like jazz music, where you can go see it live and interact with it and have a good time. It has none of those things. It’s really just to sit and listen to. When I listen to that kind of music, I can listen to a few songs, but—

You’re saying you have a hard time sitting and listen to the kind of music you make.

I can do a subway ride from Harlem to Brooklyn. I can listen to like 50 minutes of this type of music, but that’s it. It’s not fun music to hang out to. That’s why I always feel bad when I play shows every now and then with two sets. I just play for 30 minutes or 40 minutes, but it’s a lot to take in. Live, it has a bit more of a repetitive thing. It’s less of an onslaught of shit, but my goal on a record is to have as much shit coming at you as possible, with just a few things you can grasp onto.

But it’s not noise. I want you to think, “Oh, I know what’s happening,” but then be like, “Oh I don’t.” You’re guessing: The harmony is there but not there. You realize there’s a rhythm, but it’s too complicated. I would have to listen to most of my songs like four times in a row to figure out what the meter is. I have a lot of stuff that’s in 17/8, or 31, or some other weird compound thing. It just rolls, and you realize there’s some sort of pattern there that’s fleshed out, but it’s really hard to figure out what the fuck it is. That’s the goal: to have a structure without it being obvious. But there is a structure there.

Jochen Rueckert is currently working on another hard-to-listen-to electronic project and a “fucked-up dubstep” album as Wolff Parkinson White, as well as a jazz record from his New Quartet with ”a bunch of 26 year olds” (Kevin Sun on tenor sax, Alexandra Ridout on trumpet, and Hamish Smith on bass). Before touring Europe in March, they’ll play two more NYC shows: Smalls on February 2 and Close Up on February 18. See Rueckert’s website to check out more of his work, his full schedule of gigs, his newsletter, and more, including a Q&A I wish I’d read before our interview because he asks himself a lot of the basic questions I ended up asking him. Next time!

Happy New Year!

And welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I pledged to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025 by the last night of Hanukkah. My timeline was delayed, but I soldiered on. I completed my task on Christmas Day, my top 25 songs and albums lists appearing in your inboxes just as Christ appeared in the manger in the year 0 BC. (I’m operating on the assumption that 1 AD began a week later on New Year’s Day, after Joseph and Mary had hashed out the paternity situation over a few wines and decided they wanted to do a dry January before making any hasty decisions. (Like Mary and Joseph, I am also doing a dry January starting tomorrow, so if you were thinking about giving me any drugs or alcohol, you’d better do it tonight or flush it down the toilet.))

Today is neither December 25, 0 BC nor January 1, 1 AD; it is December 31, 2025 AD, or, as my people like to say, CE. But if you’re an Apollo Frequencies subscriber, I’m giving you one more gift because you deserve it.

As many of you probably imagined, I listened to not only 100 albums and songs this year but millions, perhaps even billions. From these, I am bringing you only the most honorable of my unseeded mentions—200 albums (I made this arbitrary cutoff early on, which was a stupid decision because it meant I had to make many difficult choices and cut an album from the list every time I thought of a new one that should be added) and several hundred songs. These albums and songs are listed in no particular order below. Enjoy, and, once again, I wish you all a very happy new year. Go with God.

Albums

Annahstasia: Tether

Nourished By Time: The Passionate Ones

Yaz Lancaster: After

Cosey Fanni Tutti: 2t2

Chicago Underground Duo: Hieroglyph

FearDorian: Leaving Home

quinn: lowlife

quinn: of the world

quinn: stars fell on trench

YHWH Nailgun: 45 Pounds

Anastasia Coope: DOT

The Residents: Doctor Dark

BAKUDI SCREAM & Alarm Will Sound: Prey

Panda Bear: Sinister Grift

swelle: Gift Horse

Full of Hell: Broken Sword, Rotten Shield

Tristan Perich & James McVinnie: Infinity Gradient

Hotline TNT: Raspberry Moon

Anna von Hausswolff: Iconoclasts

Gelli Haha: Switcheroo

Total Nada: Aquí Ahora

Giulio Erasmus & The End of the Worm: Hard Sell

James Krivchenia: Performing Belief

dagmar zuniga: in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music

Rat Heart: Dancin’ In The Streets

Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek: Greyhound Days

Patrick Watson: Uh Oh

Laura Cocks: FATHM

KP SKYWALKA: I Tried To Tell You

They Are Gutting a Body of Water: LOTTO

Slikback: Attrition

Effie: pullup to busan 4 morE hypEr summEr it’s gonna bE a fuckin moviE

Devin Shaffer: Patience

Tdf: CULTURE

Treety: Trick or Treat

Matthew Ryals feat. Effe Effe: Exalge EP

The Armed: THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED

archie: world in delay

Shallowater: God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars

Patrick Shiroishi: Hidemi

This Is Lorelei: Holo Boy

username: epiphanies

Dimples’: Obscure Residue

MIKE & Tony Seltzer: Pinball 2

dexter in the newsagent: Time Flies

Maria Somerville: Luster

Weirs: Diamond Grove

Daniel Bachman: Moving Through Light

Voice Actor, Squu: Lust (1)

Pelados: Contato

1Alkebulan: La Femme Du Village

Tortoise: Touch

ear: The Most Dear and The Future

the <3: the <3

Lucy Railton: Blue Veil

Shinichi Atobe: Discipline

Anika: Abyss

Traxman: Da Mind of Traxman Vol.3

Lea Bertucci: The Oracle

Whatever The Weather: Whatever The Weather II

Yaya Bey: do it afraid

Cosmic Ear: TRACES

Carrier: Rhythm Immortal

Old Saw: The Wringing Cloth

Matmos: Metallic Life Review

Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werlin: Ghosted III

Oren Ambarchi & Fredrik Rasten: Dragon’s Return

No Joy: Bugland

Amaarae: BLACK STAR

Safe Mind: Cutting the Stone

Kali Malone & Drew McDowall: Magnetism

Rwake: The Return Of Magik

Preservation & Gabe ’Nandez: Sortilège

Jacob Wick feat. Federico Sanches Flores & Alonso Lopez Valdes: a vases me veo en el espejo y pienso en ti

Father: Patricide

Valentina Magaletti & YPY: Kansai Bruises

Multau Astatke: Mulatu Plays Mulatu

Nick León: A Tropical Entropy

Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, and Sam Wilkes: Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes

2slimey: High Anxiety

Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force: Khadim

Lina Tullgren: Decide Which Way The Eyes Are Looking

Florry: Sounds Like..

Mob Deep: Infinite

Jenny Hval: Iris Silver Mist

Oli XL: Lick The Lens / Pt. 1

Pino Palladino & Blake Mills: That Wasn’t a Dream

Grant Chapman: ANGEL SMILE

PinkPantheress: Fancy

Deafheaven: Lonely People With Power

Ovrkast.: While The Iron Is Hot

d.silvestre: Oque as Mulheres Querem

Thor & Friends: Heathen Spirituals

Jeremy Hyman: Low Air

Maiya Blaney: A Room With A Door That Closes

gyrofield : Suspension of Belief

Valee & Surf Gang: Grey Sky in London

Wombo: Danger In Fives

Pink Must: Pink Must

DJ Haram: Beside Myself

Cass McCombs: Interior Live Oak

Hayden Pedigo: I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away

Ellen Fullman & the Living Earth Show: Elemental View

more eaze & claire rousay: No Floor

Dustin Wong: Gloria

OsamaSon: Jump Out

Silvia Tarozzi: Lucciole

Lindstrøm: Sirius Syntoms

The Convenience: Like Cartoon Vampires

M(h)aol: Something Soft

Charles Hayward & dälek: HAYWARDxDÄLEK

Milkweed: Remscéla

Blawan: SickElixir

Ben LaMar Gay: Yowzers

Armand Hammer: Mercy

Queralt Lahoz: 9: 30 OM

Youth Lagoon: Rarely Do I Dream

Greg Freeman: Burnover

DJ K: Radio Libertadora

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma: September

caroline: caroline 2

Sword II: Electric Hour

Blood Orange: Essex Honey

Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts

Quadeca: Vanisher, Horizon Scraper

Jeune Morty: Eponyme

Algernon Cadwallader: Trying Not to Have a Thought

Jackzebra: Above & Beyond

Deradoorian: Ready For Heaven

Elazy: Elazy Does It

Niontay: Fada<3of$

Stereolab: Instant Holograms on Metal Film

Lucy Bedroque: Unmusique

K-LONE: sorry i thought you were someone else

Sir Chloe: Swallow the Knife

Cyrus Pireh: Thank You, Guitar

Loe Shimmy: Rockstar Junkie

Snõõper: Worldwide

William Tyler: Time Indefinite

Natural Information Society: Perseverance Flow

Emily Yacina: Veilfall

Zach Phillips: True Music

Dijon: Baby

Justin Bieber: SWAG

Ambrose Akinmusire: honey from a winter stone

Taxidermists: 20247

Machine Girl: PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X

Lonnie Holley: Tonky

Cate Le Bon: Michelangelo Dying

Masma Dream World: PLEASE COME TO ME

Lyra Pramuk: Hymnal

CRRDR: LATINCORE LEGEND

The Necks: Disquiet

Eli Keszler: Eli Keszler

Talulah Bankheist: REALM

Laurie Torres: Après coup

WNC WhopBezzy & 70th Street Carlos: Out the Blue

SPELLLING: Portrait of My Heart

Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On

Širom: In The Wind Of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper

SML: How You Been

The Beths: Straight Line Was a Lie

Asher White: 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living

Alex G: Headlights

Japanese Breakfast: For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)

MAVI: The Pilot

ZelooperZ: Dali Ain’t Dead

Purelink: Faith

Papo2oo4 & Subjxct 5: Papaholic, Vol. 1

AriiArii: Ho Ho Summer

mark william lewis: mark william lewis

Isabella Lovestory: Vanity

Rosalía: LUX

Erika de Casier: Lifetime

Emma Goldman: all you are is we

Los x Nutty: Los x Nutty, Vol. 2

Laraaji, Silvia Tarozzi, Lamin Fofana, and Megabasse: Latency Alla Villa Medici III

Clipse: Let God Sort Em Out

Mdou Moctar: Tears of Injustice

Big Thief: Double Infinity

Model/Actriz: Pirouette

Håvard Volden: Oryzae

pain: bleood

Marie Davidson: City of Clowns

Ruth Mascelli & Mary Hanson Scott: Esoteric Lounge Music Now

Jeff Tweedy: Twilight Override

DJ STEPDAD: mike

Haress: Skylarks

EarthBall: Outside Over There

Wode: Uncrossing the Keys

Mei Semones: Animaru

Kelly Moonstone: New Moon

Destroyer: Dan’s Boogie

Ninajirarchi: I Love My Computer

Lucrecia Dalt: A Danger to Ourselves

Jetski: The Radiant Radish

Cryogeyser: Cryogeyser

Ellen Arkbro: Nightclouds

Ethel Cain: Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You

Wednesday: Bleeds

Water From Your Eyes: It’s a Beautiful Place

Worldpeace DMT: The Velvet Underground & Rowan

Weed420: Salgo Pa la Calle

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Songs

Sunik Kim: Fast Money Blues

Dean Blunt & Elias Rønnenfelt: tears on his rings and chains

demencia infantil: monigote

Oneohtrix Point Never: Lifeworld

Hatis Noit: A Caso (Jlin Remix)

ine: I could

Sebastián Rojas: Marea

Joanne Robertson feat. Oliver Coates: Gown

Feng: Princess

Stereolab: Melodie Is A Wound

debbiesthuglife: MEDUSA PHASE

WNC WhopBezzy & 7th Street Carlos: Gz & Souljas

Dustin Wong: Memories of Cordelia

John Cale feat. Tony Allen: Long Way out of Pain

Matmos: Metallic Life Review

Grant Chapman: Angel Smile

Tortoise: Oganesson

Fine: I could

Zach Phillips: True Music

Black Moth Super Rainbow: Unknown Potion

Brìghde Chaimbeul: Sguabag/The Sweeper

Water From Your Eyes: Playing Classics

Babyfxce E feat. Monaleo: PTP (Remix)

Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo: Demon Time/Never Say Die!

09 BMG: “Special Request to All Nice and Decent Real N****z (Stop Hatin)”

Asian Glow: The Worst Way to Start an End

Cyrus Pireh: We Can’t All Be Alive At The Same Time

DJ Travella: TRUST

bar italia: Cowbella

BXKS: Flashing Lights

EsDeeKid & Fimiguerrerro: 5am

Elkotsh: 150 Leila

Rolf Lislevand: Passacaglia al modo mio

Adrian Quesada & Mireya Ramos: Cuatro Vidas

N3WYKLA: BAD LUCK

tdf feat. widkarduno & Smokingskul: Used To Be

Rwake: The Return of Magik

Maiya Blaney: Carmen Electra

Niontay: Top da top

mark william lewis: Tomorrow is Perfect

Prostitute: Harem Induction Hour

Danny L Harle: PinkPantheress

Mereba: Phone Me

Kelly Moonsone: Day 1’s

Mei Semones: Animaru

Standing On The Corner: Baby

Deerhoof: Sparrow Sparrow

EL CHITO: AINT MY FAULT

Shlohmo feat. SALEM: Chore Boy

feeo: Requiem

Rat Heart: Don’t Say My Name

AJ Tracey feat. Jorja Smith: Crush

M(h)aol: Vin Diesel

Perfume Genius: It’s a Mirror

Kieran Hebden & William Tyler: Secret City

Chanel Beads: The Coward Forgets His Nightmare

Wednesday: Wound Up Here (By Holdin On)

Aesop Rock: 1010WINS feat. Armand Hammer

Frost Children: Sister

Asher White: Beers with my name on them

Gwenifer Raymond: Champion Ivy

MEXICODRO: No Date

Purelink: Rookie (feat. Lorraine James)

Beatrice Dillon: Basho

Street Sects: Spitting Images

Jay Som & Mini Trees: Cards on the Table

Miimii KDS feat. DJ Dkycee: Sé Miimii

Veeze: L.O.A.T

Ambrose Akinmusire: s-/Kinfolks

Sarz feat. Asake, Wizkid, and Skillibeng: Getting Paid

Powerplant: Leaving the Dream

P4kr: no time no mercy

BNYX® & Clara La San: TELEPATHY LOVE

ShadStackzz feat. ferbucketss & Natesosa: Walking

Sir Chloe: Passenger

cóclea: pol pot

Ben LaMar Gay: John, John Henry

Weed420: MALUCA

Thundercat & Remi Wolf: Children of the Baked Potato

Rylo Rodriguez feat. Rio Da Yung OG: “Bring Bac Act”

Harlan Steed: Meet Me in the Graveyard

Chuck Roth: Twister

tana: New Cash

Caroline Polachek: On The Beach

postgrad: stop talking to AI talk to God

Safe Mind: What’s Left

OsamaSon: Southside

archie: windsong

Freddie Gibbs feat. Anderson .Paak: Ensalada

caroline feat. Caroline Polachek: Tell me I never knew that

dagmar zuniga: In Filth Your Mystery Is Kingdom

Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, and Andreas Werlin: Chahar

Pearly Drops & Cub Sport: Mermaid

Blood Orange: Vivid Light

Big Thief: Double Infinity

Queralt Lahoz: 19/17

Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek: Shadows

Yaz Lancaster feat. Vines & gg200bpm: Sillage

Armand Hammer: Super Nintendo

Isabella Lovestory: Vanity

Lucy Bedroque feat. prettifun: Ultraviolet

The New Eves: Cow Song

Jetski: Bucking Broadway

Mourning [A] BLKstar feat. Fatboy Sharif: Let Em Eat

Grumpy, claire rousay, and Pink Must: Harmony

Gilberto Gil & Ana Frango Eléctrico: EXTRA II (rock do segurança) [Reloaded]

Los x Nutty: Point Shavin

Mereba: Phone Me

Clarice Jensen: 1,2

The Vernon Spring: Under A Familiar Sun

Bucle Lunar: Subió El Maldito Dolar

Yetsuby: SOUNDCLOUD

DJ Python & Isabella Lovestory: Besos Robados

Worldpeace DMT & Rowan Please: Love Yourself

KAROL G: LATINA FOREVA

Total Nada: Lambetotas

Laurie Torres: Intérieurs

Valee & Surf Gang: Hi Hater Maino

No Joy: Bugland

Ami Taf Ra feat. Kamasi Washington: Gnawa

Jacob Wick feat. Federico Sanches Flores & Alonso Lopez Valdes: Lit

Wombo: Skyhopping

Hekla: Vitrun

Ratboys: Light Night Mountains All That

Hurricane Wisdom: Rich Dropout

Monaeleo: Bigger Than Big

Preservation & Gabe ’Nandez feat. billy woods: War

Elazy: Creepy Friends

Ashnikko: Liquid

Magdalena Bay: Second Sleep

Anne Gillis: Isccahya

Wet Leg: catch these fists

Daniel Bachman: God is change

Model/Actriz: Doves

Disinblud feat. Willy Siegel, Katie Dey, and Juliana Barwick: It’s Change

Amina Claudine Myers: Song for Mother E

Lucrecia Dalt: Divina

Andrew Boay: One & One

Syd: Die For This

Anton Anischanka: Sproba

Klein: role of fear

Phoenix James: Nothing Matters

DJ Haram feat. bbymutha, sha ray, and August Fanon: Fishnets

Makaya McCraven: Los Gatos

Molly Gordon & Blake Mills: Islands In The Stream

HappyDranker: Mafia1of1

Machine Girl: Rabbit Season

Primitive Man: Natural Law

Helena Deland: Silver and Red

Ayra Starr: Hot Body

SoFTT: Cerca Al Cielo

Luhh Dyl: Child Lock

Djrum: Three Foxes Chasing Each Other

pain: i kno wat u did

Shallowater feat. Hayden Pedigo: All My Love

Brandee Younger: Gadabout Season

Royel Otis: moody

Agriculture: Bodhidharma

tdf feat. widkarduno & Smokingskul: Used To Be

Dry Cleaning: Secret Love

Piotr Kurek: It Used To Be a Song

Sametou Sawtan: Harik

Tracey: Sleazy

Läuten der Seele: Wir Zwei Allein

Lana Del Rey: Henry, come on

Nuvolascura: polar destinies

Mula B: Ik Kijk Soms Naar Jou (Young Marco Remix)

Horsegirl: Julie

OHYUNG: no good

Anna Högberg Attack: Attack

Slikback: Taped

múm: Miss You Dance

1Alkebulan: Shahrazad

Old Saw: Long Distance Engraving

ear: The Most Dear and The Future/CMYK

Greentea Peng: TARDIS (hardest)

d.silvestre feat. MD Du Red & Gabi Nunes: Vem por Cima

Yaeji & E Wata:Pondeggi

ODOMOUDBLVCK feat. Wizkid: BIG TIME

more eaze & Wendy Eisenberg: bad friend

El Cousteau feat. Niontay: Rose Ave

Marie Davidson: Demolition

Håvard Volden: Oryzae

Lord Spikeheart feat. Brodinski & Vina Konda: ANVNNAKI

Wode: Saturn Sahadow

Ledbyher: DAYDREAMING MADE ME BLUE

Alpha Maid feat. Valentina Magaletti: Why We Have To Move

Fuerza Regida: Marlboro Rojo

Morwan: Без обличчя

Thor & Friends: Anne Sexon’s Monocle

Sword II: Even if it’s Just a Dream

Lil Yachty feat. Veeze: Can’t Be Crete Boy

Cass McCombs: Peace

Full of Hell: Corpselight

Florry: First it was a movie, then it was a book

Feeble little horse: This Is Real

Kilbourne: Bald Boys

Snõõper: Worldwide

Chappell Roan: The Subway

Marshall Allen ‘s Ghost Horizons feat. Wolf Eyes: Back to You (Live)

Melvin Gibbs: Gullah Jack Style

Destroyer: Bologna

JT: Ran Out

Alice Longyu Gao: LET THE MUSIC TALK

Sharp Pins: Sycophant

Iglooghost: Metal Newt

Rochelle Jordan: The Boy

Upchuck: Forgotten Token

Navy Blue: Orchards

Ms* Gloom: Jinx!

MAVI feat. Earl Sweatshirt: Landgrab

Skiifall feat. Jorja Smith: Her World

Fat Randy: Ugolino

Ruth Mascelli & Mary Hanson Scott: A Lover’s Theory of Value

M Row: Country

Mari B feat. 13 & LG: My Way

Easykid: Shiny

Pulciperla: Tabogo

Mavis Staples: Sad and Beautiful World

Hedvig Mollestad Trio: Golden Griffin

Nadah El Shazly: Ghorzetein

Cosmic Ear: TRACES of Brown Rice

Blawan: NOS

Skino feat. 1audii: Shrek

Pluto K & YK Niece: WHIM WHAMMIEE

MOLIY feat. Silent Addy, Skillibeng, and Shenseea: Shake It to the Max (Fly) (Remix)

Zoh Amba: Seaside

4TheWinn: Cheddar Difference

Jeune Morty: Couture

BunnaB: Move to the Left

DJ Koze: Buschtaxi

Rusowsky: SOPHIA

Summer Walker feat. Latto and Doja Cat: Go Girl

TiaCorine: Wiz Khalifa

Anycia: No Scrub

Earth Ball: Helsinki

Mobb Deep: Pour the Henny

Raisa K feat. Coby Sey: Stay

Širom: Curls Upon the Neck, Ribs Upon the Mountain

Los Pirañas: El aguazo de Javier Felipe

Whatever The Weather: 12°C

Sherrelle & George Riley: Freaky (Just My Type)

Saint Levant: WAZIRA

Paul Wall & DJ Fresh: What Chu Really Kno (ChopNotSlop Remix)

ZelooperZ: Mona Lisa’s Left Eye

The Convenience: I Got Exactly What I Wanted

Raq Baby: Goodbyerz

Deradoorian: No No Yes Yes

Lucy Park: Bemused

Paris Texas: Superstar

Sublux: Who’s Lying Now

De La Soul: The Package

Hotline TNT: Julia’s War

Lawn: Pressure

Dazy: Pay No Mind (To The Signs)

KenTheMan: Parties & Beaches

Yeyo: Puterodrukas

This Is Lorelei: Holo Boy

Call Super: Motherline

Lil Tony feat. Nino Paid: Another Day, Another Dolla

Ahaan Panday, Aneet Pada, Tanishk Bagchi, Faheem A, Arslan N, and Irshad Kamil: Saiyaara

Big Sad 1900: Midnight in Hawaii

Father: Silly rabbit, when you met me I was slime

Voice Actor & Squu: dYn

skaiwater: pop

dexter in the news agent: special`

Charles Hayward & dälek: Re-Evolution

Orcutt Shelley Miller: Unsafe At Any Speed

Mount Kimbie feat. King Krule: Boxing (DJ Python Remix)

Anischtanka: Krope

Beverly Glenn-Copeland: Save The Children

xaviersobased feat. OsamaSon: uncomfy

Greet Death: Country Girl

Yaya Bey feat. Father Philis: merlot and grigio

d0llywood1: Be there

swelle: Valley Girl

luisentme: on edge

JADE: Angel of My Dreamz

Gyrofield: Vegetation Grows Thick

DJ Stepdad: paul

Pink Must: Karaoke Of The Bends

They Are Gutting a Body of Water: trainers

kwes e: fela kuti

Sol ChYld: fake the funk

Florence Sinclair

Deftones: ~metal dream

Avalon Emerson: Treat Mode

RADA: magic

Dimples’: Blame the Wind

Valentina Magaletti & YPY: Her Own Reflection

Japanese Breakfast: Orlando in Love

Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, and Sam Wilkes: Frica

Lindstrøm: Sharing An Orange (With Omar S On The Train From Minehead To London)

2hollis: flash

J Hus & Asake: Gold

SAILORR: ITADAKIMASU

Hyldon & Adrian Younge: O Caçador de Estrelas

Cardi B: Bodega Baddie

Militairie Gun: B A D I D E A

SIMONA: SIGILOSA

zuro: Hey

MSPAINT: Angel

Double Virgo: Due Dilettante

Machel Montano: PARDY

Mama: Rodeo

Lolao: Zoua

Kacy Hill: Please Don’t Cry

Neggy Gemmy: Neggy Gemmy

diamond*: Use Me

Florist: Have Heaven

Maria Somerville: Garden

Suede: Dancing With The Europeans

Shallipopi & Burna Boy: Laho II

underscores: music

Open Mike Eagle: my coworker clark kent’s secret black box

Venna feat. MIKE & Marco Bernardis: Day x2

Sexyy Red: Hoochie Coochie

James Krivchenia feat. Sam Wilkes & Joshua Abrams: Bracelets For Unicorns

Monte booker & Nami: Defense

Dutch Interior: Play the Song

Jerskin Fendrix: Jerskin Fendrix Fendrix Freestyle

Tenkay: Palms Over My Face

Guerilla Toss: Red Flag to Angry Bull

Nilüfer Yanya: Cold Heart

Lily Seabird: Trash Mountain

Mary Halvorson: Full of Neon

These New Puritans feat. Caroline Polachek: Industrial Love Song

Pulp: Spike Island

SASAMI feat. Clairo: In Love With a Memory

Ethel Cain: Nettles

Ariana Grande: dandelion

Mystery Time: Everything

CRRDR: TRI-TEK

Gelli Haha: Funny Music

Little Simz feat. Obongjayar & Moonchild Sanelly: Flood

Lifeguard: It Will Get Worse

Pulgas: The Sea

Ganser: Black Sand

Fez The Kid: Body Mover

Panchiko: Mac’s Omelette

Babyfather: ƐƐƐƐƐ

Snuggle: Marigold

Lade: Different Shit

RIP Swirl & Ydegirl: Spirals On My Tongue

Major League DJ feat. Jorja Smith: Come With Me

Oklou feat. Bladee: take me by the hand

Lily Allen: P***y Palace

Sextile feat. Izzy Gaudini

mary in the junkyard: drains

FRANKIE & Kellman Duran: Grayt

Obongjayar: Not In Surrender

Enji: Ulbar

Real Lies feat. Jessica Barden: Finding Money

SPELLLING: Portrait of My Heart

Tom Skinner & Meshell Ndegeocello: The Maxim

Racing Mount Pleasant: Racing Mount Pleasant

Candelabro: Domingo de ramos

HEALTH: VIBE COP

Eli Keszler feat. Eli Keszler: Low Love

Joy Orbison, Overmono, and Skiifall: Lippy

Justin Bieber: YUKON

Nemzzz feat. Chy Cartier: CHANT

Pig the Gemini: Window Pane

Carolina Oliveras: Asfixia

Ilham: Roster

Lonnie Holley feat. Mary Lattimore: Life

AriiArii feat. NazzP: Not a fairy (Remix)

Lyra Prymuk: Oracle

Moin: X.U.Y.

Hataali: She Ain’t Coming Back

Sex Week: Coat

more eaze & claire rousay: The Applebees Outside Kalamazoo, Michigan

Clipse: So Be It

bdrmm: Snares

Yves: Do you feel it like i touch

Ouri & Charlotte Day Wilson: Behave !

Thredd: Party

Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon

Kronos Quartet & The Hard Rain Collective: Hard Rain

Terry Riley & Sara Yamamoto: Komal Reshab Asavari

Lambrini Girls: Company Culture

Seventhirtyatmorning: what for

Monaleo: We on Dat

Fib: PS

Summundi & Sasco feat. shemar: Clout Spells

Elita: Planet Paparazzi

Anika: Hearsay

A.I on Cocaine: Beguiling Junior

fakemink: Fidelio

SARAFINA THE GREAT: DJ SARA FREESTYLE (DÉCALÉ YOROBO)

Noname feat. Devin Morrison: Hundred Acres

Flying Lotus: OXYGENE

Quadeca: GODSTAINED

Mallrat: Pavement

Nathy Peluso: A CABALLO

Gabriel Jacoby: baby

Rocket: Take Your Name

Ovrkast: MAVKAST

Carli & Seinabo Sey: The Runner

FKA twigs: Eusexua

*

Here’s the playlist I made of my top-top-top songs of 2025 (not including these honorable mentions. Someday, I may make a playlist that does include these mentions, but this playlist will only be for paid subscribers, and that day is not today.

Please note that even this playlist (the playlist you see below) will be paywalled very soon—maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but very soon indeed. What I’m really saying is that it’s time to take out that wallet.

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NOTE: I am an Apple Music user but Substack apparently doesn’t let you embed Apple Music links. Let me know if you, too, are an Apple Music user, and I’ll send you a link to the playlist.

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Merry Christmas!

And welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I pledged to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025 by the last night of Hanukkah. My timeline was delayed, but I soldiered on. Today is Christmas Day, a heathen holiday but one I hope to have a nice time celebrating alongside my parents, my best friend Abe, my best friend Abe’s parents, and quite possibly my best friend Abe’s girlfriend.

NOTE: Abe’s girlfriend did not come.

NOTE: I wanted so badly to deliver these lists to you early this morning like little presents under your Christmas trees, but alas Father Time struck again.

Now that I have published these lists that have ruined my life in so many ways you can’t even begin to imagine, I have one more thing to celebrate.

The best way to support me on this journey is, of course, to subscribe. I appreciate y’all very much.

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Here’s my little spiel about lists:

The lists of most major publications tend to be repetitive and predictable, the same names shuffled around. Everyone races to go first, which means discounting releases from the last two months of every year. And it’s usually stressful for everyone involved, so it’s often treated it like a chore.

Which is too bad because lists rule. What excites me about personal lists is that they’re un-triangulated; they’re a reflection of one’s own taste and no one else’s, though this platonic ideal is often complicated by a perceived pressure to look as if your taste is pristine and your musical knowledge infinite. I poached a fair amount from the lists of Alphonse Pierre, Eli Schoop, and Evan Welsh—from a Topsters screenshot so ask him.

My two favorite things about list season are learning about a million new artists and seeing what my friends are listening to without having to see what Spotify thinks their musical age is. Music discovery is the best thing ever, and we rob ourselves of that joy when we let algorithms do it for us.

I’ve now shared all of my other lists:

Albums 100–76

Songs 100–76

Albums 75–51

Songs 75–51

Albums 50–26

Songs 50–26

Albums 25–1

And, today, my top 25 in both categories. Check out my absolute favorite albums of 2025 here.

NOTE: You may notice that many of my favorite songs appear on many of my favorite albums, and many of said songs and albums appear in very similar positions on these two lists. I wish I could’ve made it more interesting, but, as I’ve already explained, this list was delivered to me by God Himself, so send your complaints to Him.

This is it, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Like. Subscribe. Comment. Tell your parents. Tell your crazy aunt. Tell your pen pal from when you were in sixth grade and just starting to discover your sexuality. Just tell everyone, OK?

NOTE: I tried different tactic while writing today’s blurbs. Instead of going from the top down, one list at a time, I went from the bottom up to ensure the blurbs I wrote about my favorite songs of the year weren’t written in a state of pure delirium. Just a little insight into how this sausage got made.

25. Effie: CAN I SIP 담배

pullup to busan 4 morE hypEr summEr it’s gonna bE a fuckin moviE was one of this years most electric releases, and I’m not sure why it’s not on my albums list, to be quite frank. Scientifically speaking, it’s bonkers all the way through, the South Korean hyperpop phenom going feral on beats that could cut glass and kill rodents. Case in point: “CAN I SIP 담배.” in which our hero starts off sing-song before hitting a Chicago-type flow circa 2017, some Auto-Tuned draining, and some chest-beating bars. And then, at the apex of her powers, as the beat denatures into a brown note below her, she starts doing monkey noises. Never have monkey noises sounded so cool, and, as this is the last blurb I’m writing this year (see my note about going backwards this time around), I think it’s time for me to go practice my monkey noises.

SIDE NOTE: “담배” means “cigarette,” so “Can I sip this 담배” means “Can I sip this cigarette.” FYI.

24. heavensouls: PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT

heavensouls’s May album new york fall, 1977—my 59th favorite album of the year, for those of you keeping track—was a digitally-generated free-jazz hurricane. September’s PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT PRODUCT (that’s 24 products) takes a similarly chaos-first approach to dance music. Its title track (the last of four half-hour cuts) is its most deranged and also its most engaging—it’s uncatchable, mechanical rhythms so fast and intricate they spin themselves into a soothing whirr.

Can’t wait to see what this kooky Texan cooks up next.

23. Kelela: Furry Sings the Blues (unplugged)

Joni Mitchell made some questionable decisions, but she also made some of the best music ever. Kelela acknowledged this duality when she covered “Furry Sings the Blues,” from Mitchell’s mid-career masterpiece Hejira, at Blue Note in the spring of 2024. I’m not sure I was there the night this was recorded—she played six shows across three nights, as is customary for a Blue Note residency—but it was one of the most enthralling performances I’ve seen in recent memory, and much of that magic is translated here. I won’t say it’s better than the original, but I’m not sure anyone else could cover this song this well. Not much is changed, but new life is breathed into a timeless classic, and Kelela reminds us she’s one of the world’s best singers.

22. Amaarae feat. Bree Runway & Starkillers: Starkilla

Ghanaian multi-talent Amaarae’s superstar coming-out party Black Star is stacked with hit after hit, but this is the one. You’ve got a wall-busting techno instrumental. You’ve got Bree Runway’s iconic CzechSlovakAtlanta bar—and her whole refrain really, complete with lyrics in Russian and Akan. And, most importantly, you’ve got the hook of the year: “Ketamine, Coke, and Molly / I’m bout to serve somebody.” Count me in!

21. Jawnino: LivFlare (broadway market)

Tony Seltzer has been an institution on lists of Raphael’s favorite albums and songs of 2025, and this instrumental for Jawnino—one of London’s most exciting MCs—might be his best of the year. It’s a co-production with fellow Brooklyn beatmaking veteran Laron, and their dual dynamism creates the perfect spinning floor for Jawnino to dance across. He’s having a good night out with the crew here, loose and a little reckless, enough that he lets himself slip and sends a “wish you was here” text. Rappers… They’re just like us.

20. billy woods feat. Kenny Segal: Misery

billy woods seems able to lock in with any producer, but there’s a special chemistry between woods and Kenny Segal—rivaled only, perhaps, by his relationships with Alchemist, Preservation, and E L U C I D, his Armand Hammer co-captain.

“Misery” is the catchiest and most concise track on woods’s sprawling masterpiece GOLLIWOG. In the wake of a nine-word hook—“Re-up on bad dreams, bag up screams in 50s”—poached from MF DOOM’s “Gas Drawls,” woods launches into a rabid rant about his obsession with a married woman. He dreams of her coming to him under a full moon, “already wet with sex.” He loses sleep and passes out at his desk the next day (“It’s pass-fail on the test, it’s bite marks on the breasts”). Unfortunately, the best he gets is a “platonic hug and kiss to burn my cheek / All eight stops on the ACE.”

It’s woods at his best, dense and intense but hiding a wry smile behind the hand that covers the face.

19. Eiko Ishibashi: Mona Lisa

“Caviar, champagne, cocaine,” Eiko Ishibashi sings in heavily accented English. “Charity, oh charity,” she sings later. On “Mona Lisa,” she dissects the hypocrisy of a philanthropic philosophy based around throwing and attending fancy parties and living lavishly while white-washing this lifestyle with a few donations here and there.

I know this stuff because I read the lyric sheet, but minus the words, this is a delectably sad song, Ishibashi’s voice dappled with synth keys and bass from Jim O’Rourke (🐐 of all 🐐s) and underscored by drums from Tatsuhisa Yamamoto.

I wrote about the full album (Antigone) over in my album’s list, and I also wrote a full review of the record back in March.

I also interviewed Eiko a couple of years back, so you’re probly gonna wanna go head and read that too.

18. Vayda: ruth

Vayda needs to be 10x more famous than she is right now. 100x. Screw it, 1000000x.

This song is a perfect example of what she does so well. It’s tactical—two-and-a-half minutes that move much faster in real time but also contain more bars than should be alllowed to fit in that amount of spacetime. The self-produced beat is a work of genius is an of itself: springy, liquid, complex synth chords over drums that blur the lines between jazz and trap. And the bars are unbeatable. Check out the rhyme scheme on the hook:

At the end of the day I'ma need some respect
I put on that show and they give me that check
I want what I want and I want nothing less
They telling me secrets, they wanna confess
I'm already knowing that I am the best
Be careful with me like you got on a vest
If you gonna call me, then call me that bitch

All delivered fast and hard, with just the right mix of aloofness and intensity. This whole album, VAYTRIX RELOADED, could easily have made my top 100 in a less stacked year, and she dropped another great record, Get in the Car, in June. Vayda’s only been doing this a few years; imagine what she’ll sound like in 2026.

17. Lucy Liyou: Arrested

At the center of Lucy Liyou’s Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name is “Arrested,” a pop melodrama of stadium proportions. The record’s ambient baseline is a state of extreme longing. And it’s here, in this track’s tearful finale, that this aching tide breaches the sea wall and floods the city of the mind, where all of us live if you really think about it.

“Please learn to love what I am now,” Liyou belts as xenomorphic synths emerge from their slimy pods to tower over the track. I’m out of gas, but give this one a listen, and read my review of Every Video, Every Face.

16. Bad Bunny: NUEVAYoL

“NUEVAYoL” kicks DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS with the bang it deserves. We open on a ’70s salsa sample that serves as the hook, but the whole song is basically one big hook. Absurdly catchy, unfurling quickly into a whirlwind dembow banger that Bad Bunny commands with the confidence of a ringmaster. In the video there’s a pretty good bit where he has a Trump impersonator publicly apologize for calling BB’s selection as the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime performer ridiculous. There’s a too-soon one-liner about Juan Soto being going to the Mets (this album came out when the wound was still fresh), but I’ll give him a pass this time.

15. Geese: Trinidad

There are three or four tracks on this album that could’ve landed on this list, which is so annoying because I really don’t want to hear about Geese anymore. Thank the Lord for excluding December 2024 albums from these lists because otherwise I’d have to talk about Cameron Winter’s annoyingly good solo album too.

Anywho, good band, bad fans, great song. “THERE’S A BOMB IN MY CAR!!!”

14. Earl Sweatshirt: Live/Static/CRISCO/TOURMALINE

I couldn’t pick one song out of this absurd four-track run, so here’s a full-album playlist starting on “Live.”

“Live” and “Static,” both produced by Black Noi$e, share a jangliness and a vaguely celebratory vibe. But where the first finds Earl in the characteristic slouch fans know and love, he’s in attack mode when the beat picks up on “Static”:

“Easy target, three-ball, game blouses / Let the purple rain douse ‘em / I thought it was a drought.”

Earl’s above it all on the hazy, cocky“CRISCO” (prod. Navy Blue).

And the Theravada-produced “TOURMALINE,” which seems to be the popular favorite for album standout, sees him turning back to fatherhood, the issue at the album’s core. “Pitch-black tourmaline tower / She found me on the streets, she vowin’ to keep my feet grounded / For my sweet child,” he raps, injecting a bit of melody into his generally stone-faced flow. We all need someone watching over us.

13. 454: Category 6

Florida rapper 454 is one of the flexible artists around in any genre—a true stylist, but one who never sacrifice content to form. “CAT 6” appears at first to be a classic 454 joint: sped-up nasal flow over mind-fuck beat. But then he runs it back, repeating the track from from top to bottom but slowed and pitched down, revealing a more soulful side of the song. It has its fair share of flexes, but 454 is too real to sit back and aura farm. “This life shit detrimental, every day a horror flick,” he raps. It sounds more serious the second time around.

12. Hayden Pedigo: Long Pond Lily

I’ll Be Walking As You Drive Away was not my favorite Hayden Pedigo record, but “Long Pond Lily” is right up there with my favorite Hayden Pedigo songs. And there are a lot!

Even if you’re a disgusting freak surviving on Cheeto dust as you agitate yourself in a goon cave in North Williamsburg, you must admit this song is beautiful.

And even if you’re a tone-deaf Wall St. stuffed shirt with a Bloomberg terminal right next to the bed where you impose yourself upon your wife as she fantasizes about making love to a man who’s not a tone-deaf Wall St. stuffed shirt with a Bloomberg terminal right next to his bed, you’ve still gotta give it to this one, if only as a feat of shear athleticism.

I’ve watched Pedigo play this song live, and he can actually do it. He can actually move his fingers that fast. Really love this one. Sorry I had to bring all these made up guys into it.

11. Annahstasia: Believer

I’ve listened to Annahstasia’s debut LP Tether several times since I started making these lists that I might die before I finish, and it’s a really special record, perhaps one I would have included in my albums list if God had not forbid me from doing so.

The clear standout is its tour de force closer “Believer.” It’s six minutes of stormy rock euphoria, and Annahstasia stands at the center of the tempost, hanging around in the husky low end of her vocal range until, late in the song, she explodes. “Can I be lonely with you?” she belts with the expressive power of Joan Armatrading. If more songs like this one are in the works, we’re witnessing the rise of a generational talent.

10. Corridos Ketamina: CEPILLÍN

“CEPILLÍN” isn’t even the best song on L.A. emo-trap-corrido duo Corridos Ketamina’s self-titled debut (I’d give that honor to “KETITZ,” but it came out last year). It still goes stupidly hard, though, from its perfectly reverbed guitars to its lowkey boom-bap drums to the stoned female vocals that open and punctuate the track. Best of all are the one-liners, like “Odio crashout güeyes como tú” and “Billetito Cepillín colorado,” which was inspired by a Young Thug bar. CK’s Nico Malvo explains:

It's from his verse on the scrapped version of [“Famous”] called “Nina Chop.” Thug says, “I just came from Europe, my money colored like a clown.” That’s why on “CEPILLÍN” I shout out the Mexican clown Cepillín: “Billetito Cepillín colorado.”

In case you were curious, that quote comes from Corridos Ketamina’s first-ever magazine interview, conducted in September by yours truly.

9. Shungu & Liv.e: Last Time

I was unaware of Shungu until I heard this song, but I’m tapping in now. The Brussels-based producer dropped a great record in November that featured heavy-hitting MCs like Maxo, Fly Anakin, and Pink Siifu.

It’s no surprise, though, that the standout is a collab with Liv.e. The top comment on the YouTube video sums it up: “liv.e litteraly a generational talent , yall ate this up.” (I know I just called someone a generational talent, but this is someone else calling someone a generational talent.)

This song is short and simple, and I know exactly why it makes me sad, but I don’t know why it hits so insanely hard. Over a cozy, jazzy beat, Liv.e lists things she’ll never do again with an ex, in conversation with a chorus of backing Liv.es:

(The last time I went to the movies)

I looked into your eyes, and I saw...

(The last time I went to the cafe)

You took me by surprise, I realized how I felt...it was

(The last time I went to the market)

You were on my mind and I noticed that feelin of nothing

Most of us have exes we crack the door for, hoping they’ll realize their mistakes and come back for good. There’s comes a moment of clarity, though—or, more likely, multiple moments of clarity followed by relapses followed by more moments of clarity—when we realize it’s really over, that the last moments we’ve shared with that person are just that.

This song captures the essence of that finality so well that it physically hurts to listen to it if you’re already feeling a certain type of way.

And yet you come back and listen again and again because, in addition to being as sad as all get-out, it’s a bop.

8: Nourished By Time: BABY BABY

I should have put Nourished By Time’s The Passionate Ones in my albums list. There are not 100 albums this year that I like more than Nourished By Time’s The Passionate Ones. I got lost in the sauced with my deep cuts. That being said, I was a little disappointed by The Passionate Ones. It’s not that it isn’t an excellent album and an exciting progression of Marcus Brown’s sound; it’s just that Erotic Probiotic 2 (his 2023 debut LP) was such a special record for me, and I wanted songs that sounded just like the ones on that project but even better. It’s the kind of unfair expectation that can ruin the integrity of an end-of-year list.

That said, I listen to “BABY BABY” at least once a week. It’s an an unimpeachable hit, like “Daddy” from EP2, gathering the best sounds from several R&B eras and smushing them together like Play-Doh. The bass, guitar, and synths are ridiculously lush. The drums, dictating everything, pull the track this way and that—slowing it down, speeding it up, spinning it around and morphing it something else entirely. But Brown bounces off the walls and avoids the falling debris without missing a beat.

I’m thinking now of the opening credits of a ’90s sitcom where a cool kid walks to school and climbs over benches and throws a dog a ball and avoids a skateboard, and maybe his clothes and backpack are magically landing on him as he goes, and he’s completely relaxed the whole time, not paying the least bit of attention. There’s probably more than one show like that. Probably even some where adults do a similar thing. Anyway, a show like that could totally have “BABY BABY” playing in its opening credits, and Brown could play the cool could in the show, hypothetically.

7. Panda Bear feat. Cindy Lee: Defense

I should have put Panda Bear’s Sinister Grift in my albums list. There are not 100 albums this year that I like more than Panda Bear’s Sinister Grift. I got lost in the sauced with my deep cuts. Well, guess what? Geologist (the cool member of AnCo, and I say that without scare quotes, you’ll notice) dropped an album all the way back in January that everyone says is awesome and abstract and abrasive and ambient, and I never even listened to it all the way through. I just put it on now and it rocks! Why isn’t that on my list?

What can I say? I guess your boy’s got a pop sensibility at heart. I’ll ask you this, though: Has Geologist ever made a Person Pitch? I think not.

There are lots of songs in my top 10 that I notice myself referring to as “perfect,” which is a piece of hyperbole that loses its impact with overuse. So I’ll just say this song is airtight. In the same vein, Panda Bear is not “one of the best songwriters alive”—an accolade I hand out at least once on this list—but few people know how to put together a killer pop song as well as Noah Lennox can. Noah Lennox is Panda Bear’s real name. Heads know.

Pat Flegel is also someone who knows how to put together a p*rf*ct pop song, in addition to someone who very well may be one of the best songwriters alive 🤷🏻‍♂️, in addition to one of the greatest guitarists of our time 🎸. Pat Flegel is the name of the person behind the drag act Cindy Lee. Heads know.

This song simply rocks. It’s PB stripped down to his bare essentials—steady bass and drums, vocals only double-tracked every so often. Add in CL’s godlike guitar playing—nothing crazy here, but listen to that tone!—and you’ve got the 7th best song of 2025.

6. Richard Dawson: Bullies

I wrote a few hundred words on this song alone earlier this year, and thy actually went through an editor, so I’m just gonna leave you with the link to my review of Richard Dawson’s astounding End of the Middle and advise you to give the song a close listen whether you read my review or not. (As I post these links and my readers click them by the thousands, I realize my former employers are still profiting off of my labor. Call me a martyr if you want. In many ways, I am.) The song’s narrative is straightforward, but it’s also heavy with plot, so pay attention. Mr. Dawson is one of the best songwriters alive.

5. Smerz: You got time and I got money

Smerz may be overhyped, but this song is correctly hyped, perhaps even underhyped, if that’s possible. I love how these crazy Norwegians waste no time here, jumping right into the hook. It’s the culmination of the aloof-but-yearning energy—at once magnetic and unsettling—coming out of the buzzy Scandinavian scene (mostly based in Copenhagen, which is where I thought Smerz were from for a very long time). It’s a weird love song—even the title is a bit off-putting—but it’s also very cute, especially the little duet in the middle. It’s an aspirational song, as its title implies, about being a hot rich person. But it’s also inspirational: “Put your hands around my body” is a command as convincing to the proletariate as it is to the bourgeoisie, and one we can—in most cases—follow through on free of charge.

4. Juana Molina: siestas ahí

Perfect pop song. A mix of made-up words and real ones. Beautiful, bubble-gum arrangement, like Molina is singing out of a cloud of cotton candy. Come to think of it, it sort of looks like she’s doing that in the single art.

Here’s what she said about the making of “siestas ahí” in our November interview.

The only thing that made me sad was that [co-producer Emelio Haro] really pushed me to write lyrics for it. I said, “I want this song with no lyrics, as it is right now. I think it's perfect.” And he said, “No, please, Juana. This song needs lyrics.” Finally I wrote some lyrics and it was fine, but I got depressed. I was missing all that ethereal, floating nonsense. So one day, when the song was finished, walking like a cow [to slaughter], I said, “No! Let’s keep the nonsense [along with the lyrics].” And he said, “Yes! This is a good idea.” So the first verse is the way I sang it for the first time, and the second verse has lyrics. Once it came back to its origins, starting with those nonsense words, I felt at peace with the song.

A view into the mind of a genius. The kind of content you could once find in a certain magazine but can now only get by subscribing to Apollo Frequencies, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premiere luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

3. Titanic: Gotera

Of all the untouchable tracks on Mabe Fratti and I. la Católica’s modern masterpiece HAGEN, it was between this and “Libra” for me. “Libra” is adsurdly addictive—beautiful, danceable, impeccably constructed, and delivered with maximum flare. I listened to it more than any other song this year.

But “Gotera” does things I’ve never heard a song do. It’s a three-and-a-half-minute horror movie about a leak that can’t be found, complete with jump-scare percussion—the first wave of which sounds like foot-long fingernails rapping on glass—and distorted howls hushed by warped walls of tremolo cello. “El mismo plan, la misma configuración,” Fratti sings again and again as the tension builds (“The same plan, the same configuration”).

There are patterns that repeat themselves no matter how hard we try to break them, the call is coming from inside the house, and the walls have ears.

2. Ichiko Aoba: Luciferine

The most beautiful song on the most beautiful album of the year. I’ve got much more to say about Luminescent Creatures in my AOTY list (sorry for being lazy)…

…and also in my profile of Aoba from earlier this year.

1. Chuquimamani-Condori: Breathe Kullawada Caporal E DJ Edit

Chuquimamani-Condori has surprised the listening public at every single turn of their career. Around 2010, they started putting out music—first as E+E, then as Elysia Crampton—that sounded unlike anything else, inducing combustible collisions of pop soundbites with ancient Aymara music and suffocatingly dense arrangements.

They surprised everyone again last year when, returning as Chuquimamani-Condori, they dropped DJ E, which pulled pre-Columbian music traditions to the front, smashing them into homespun video game samples and some of the wildest DJ drops you’ve ever heard. And this year, they put out YET ANOTHER album, this time with their brother Joshua Chuquimia-Crampton; together, they call themselves Los Thuthanaka. That record is dense and unrelenting and incredible, and against all odds it was Pitchfork’s Album of the Year.

I love Los Thuthanaka, but they’re less interested in the chaotically collagic quality that characterizes Ely’s solo records than they are in creating Gordian Knots of kevlar keyboards and braided-steel guitar. There’s more to their music than that, but after rinsing both Los Thuthanaka and DJ E (as well as the E+E and Elysia Crampton stuff), I’ve realized that the in-your-face culture clash of solo Ely puts it over the top for me.

Anyway this track is from Ely’s Edits album, which, as its title suggests, is partially composed of remixed tracks from DJ E. “Breathe Kullawada Caporal E DJ edit” is a mashup of “Breathing” (DJ E’s opner) and “Breathe” by Faith Hill. And the craziest thing about it—other than the fact that it works—is that it’s a relatively straightforward mashup. That means these two tracks, both soaring ballads in their own right but different in almost every other sense, seem to have undergone nuclear fusion almost of their own accord. I’m assuming there’s more to it than that—maybe Ely was inspired by “Breathe” to make “Breathing”—but I’d like to think it was a happy coincidence, that “Breathe” came on the radio one day, a beam of light shot down from the sky, and Ely knew right then and there that these two songs needed to be tied together until the end of time.

I’ve seen Ely DJ twice, and while they don’t seem to take themself to seriously behind the decks, these sets are among the best I’ve attended. (It doesn’t hurt that they played Los Kjarkas’ “Llorando se fue” both times, and anyone who knows me knows I go nuts for that song.) This tracks—Edits as a whole, really—feels like the bridge betwen this looser flow state and the hyper-intense music of Chuquimamani-Condori and Los Thuthanaka. More to the point, though, it’s the mashup to end all mashups and the best song of the year.

If you’ve reached this point, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’VE WON! YOU ARE THE THOUSANDTH CALLER, THE MILLIONTH VISITOR, THE BILLIONTH FINISHER!!!

Honestly, I feel like I owe you a beer for the emotional labor. Sadly, it is my mandate to request that you subscribe to my Substack and maybe throw me a bit of money too.

To that end, I’ve avoided dropping Spotify/Apple Music streaming links up to this point, but I’ve embedded my full songs list as a playlist—from 100–2 with a few skips where necessary (“Breathe Kullawada Caporal E DJ Edit” is only on Bandcamp, for instance)—on both services.

On January 1, however, I plan to pull the playlist from this post and put it behind a paywall. Moving forward, I’ll be making at least one playlist per month for paid subscribers.

Of course, there’ll still be plenty of content for the freeloaders too. More on that soon.

I love you all so much it’s crazy. Merry Christmas!

P.S. You may already know this (I did not until very recently), but “Christmas Time Is Here” originated in A Charlie Brown Christmas. As in, Vince Gueraldi wrote the song from scratch. I always thought it was and old standard that he’d just jazzed up. What a brilliant man.

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Merry Christmas!

And welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I pledged to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025 by the last night of Hanukkah. My timeline was delayed, but I soldiered on. Today is Christmas Day, a heathen holiday but one I hope to have a nice time celebrating alongside my parents, my best friend Abe, my best friend Abe’s parents, and quite possibly my best friend Abe’s girlfriend.

NOTE: Abe’s girlfriend did not come.

NOTE: I wanted so badly to deliver these lists to you early this morning like little presents under your Christmas trees, but alas Father Time struck again.

Now that I have published these lists that have ruined my life in so many ways you can’t even begin to imagine, I have one more thing to celebrate.

The best way to support me on this journey is, of course, to subscribe. I appreciate y’all very much.

Subscribe now

Here’s my little spiel about lists:

The lists of most major publications tend to be repetitive and predictable, the same names shuffled around. Everyone races to go first, which means discounting releases from the last two months of every year. And it’s usually stressful for everyone involved, so it’s often treated it like a chore.

Which is too bad because lists rule. What excites me about personal lists is that they’re un-triangulated; they’re a reflection of one’s own taste and no one else’s, though this platonic ideal is often complicated by a perceived pressure to look as if your taste is pristine and your musical knowledge infinite. I poached a fair amount from the lists of Alphonse Pierre, Eli Schoop, and Evan Welsh—from a Topsters screenshot so ask him.

My two favorite things about list season are learning about a million new artists and seeing what my friends are listening to without having to see what Spotify thinks their musical age is. Music discovery is the best thing ever, and we rob ourselves of that joy when we let algorithms do it for us.

I’ve now shared all of my other lists:

Albums 100–76

Songs 100–76

Albums 75–51

Songs 75–51

Albums 50–26

Songs 50–26

Songs 25–1

And, today, my top 25 in both categories. Check out my absolute favorite songs of 2025 here.

NOTE: You may notice that many of my favorite songs appear on many of my favorite albums, and many of said songs and albums appear in very similar positions on these two lists. I wish I could’ve made it more interesting, but, as I’ve already explained, this list was delivered to me by God Himself, so send your complaints to Him.

NOTE: I saw Marty Supreme last night. I’ll give the movie a 7.5 and Dan Lopatin’s score an 8. Would it have made it on the list had Marty Supreme been, say, a Halloween movie? No use thinking about it now.

This is it, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Like. Subscribe. Comment. Tell your parents. Tell your crazy aunt. Tell your pen pal from when you were in sixth grade and just starting to discover your sexuality. Just tell everyone, OK?

NOTE: I tried different tactic while writing today’s blurbs. Instead of going from the top down, one list at a time, I went from the bottom up to ensure the blurbs I wrote about my favorite songs of the year weren’t written in a state of pure delirium. Just a little insight into how this sausage got made.

25. Lucy Liyou: Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name

SPOILER ALERT: “Arrested,” the third song on this album, is my 17th favorite song of 2025. That’s the one to listen to if you want to test the waters, but why test the waters when you already know Lucy Liyou is sick as fuck and also dope as hell? This is one for the yearners, for the lovers, for those of us who get really sad. It’s lush and poppy and ambient and a real emotional tour de force.

Here, check out a review I wrote of this album when my head didn’t feel like a 14-pound bowling ball.

24. billy woods: GOLLIWOG

woods is so prolific you’d think there’d be a drop in quality at some point, but he seems to overflow with brilliant bars I couldn’t think up if you gave me a hundred years and a million typewriters. In the first third of his new 18-track effort, we seen woods the boogeyman (“Jumpscare”), woods the sex-starved adolescent (“Misery”), woods the witness to Christmas evictions and other horrors of extreme urban poverty, woods the scared kid in Zimbabwe, huddled in a boarded up room with his mother after his father’s death. If this album is a horror flick, “Waterproof Mascara” is its scariest scene, woods’ mother sobbing in time to Preservation’s moribund beat. “The king’s dead and your uncles are not our friends / How many times I gotta tell you kids / It’s us in this room, that’s it,” he raps, quoting his mom. “Don’t trust anyone,” he then repeats twice in quite a scary/creepy voice.

Again, that’s just the first third of the album, but I must move on now.

23. John Glacier: Like a Ribbon

John Glacier is really good at doing the thing London rappers do best, which is sounding really cool. She takes this assignment further than most, though, adopting an aesthetic of extreme apathy, even as she delivers emotionally charged bars. Over beats by the likes of Evilgiane and Flume (who I guess is still quite popular (who knew?)), she’s icy and unflappable but not anesthetized. Her strongest feelings seem to be inspired by the natural world, and these rub against her urban ennui, creating a dissonance that elevates the album above next week’s stylish release.

To be clear, though, most of the appeal of this album is still the fact that it’s really, really cool.

22. Oklou: choke enough

One important thing to know about choke enough is that its closing track is the 29th-best song of 2025. Another thing to know is that it’s a wonder all the way through, one of this year’s most fascinating pieces of pop experimentalism. Oklou’s music can feel like a wonderfully strange Baroque-ambient admixture, but if that’s not your thing, give a minute, and it’ll swim into focus—crystalline pop that anyone but the most depraved animal can get behind.

21. Djrum: Under Tangled Silence

I hadn’t listened to this record until early October, when I saw Djrum play in Poland, and wow! That’s one of the best DJs in the world. Pastoral scenes melt into twinkling, shape-shifting dance music. Braiding ambient-classical arrangements with intricate breakbeats like an an 11-year-old girl would braid her four-year-old sister’s hair, Mr. rum is a master indeed. It’s a good thing he chose music as a career instead of braiding little girls’ hair, don’t you think?

20. DJ Travella: Twende - Dance Classics

DJ Travella brought singeli to overly music-pilled westerners with his brain-busting Nyege Nyege debut, Mr. Mixondo. This one is a little less cuckoo crazy than that one, but the Dar Es Salaam DJ’s new record still moves at breakneck pace, now molding more recognizable earworms into his own frenetic image. This tape is so short I could really have put it on my songs list instead, but it makes more sense to listen to it front to back than to pick and choose tracks, so here we are.

19. Agriculture: The Spiritual Sound

You’ve heard of Christian black metal. You’ve even heard of transcendental black metal. You’ve heard of transcendental Christian black metal. You’ve even heard of ecstatic transcendental Christian black metal. But have you heard of ecstatic transcendental Buddhist black metal? Probably not.

When you think about it, it makes much more sense. Christianity isn’t transcendental; it’s lame and I wish we didn’t have to celebrate this dumb holiday. (Just kidding. I’m very excited to hang out with Abe and Abe’s family in a bit.)

NOTE: Abe and his family are here NOW and I’m still doing LISTS!

I doubt Los Angeles experimental metalists Agriculture would ever be so bold as to refer to their music as transcendental—there’s only one person who says stuff like that, really—but it is! Don’t take my word for it, though. At least don’t take my current word, running on two hours of sleep at 2 p.m. Take my previous, lightly edited word.

Or just crack this puppy open and press play.

Best song: “Bodhidharma,” a multi-movement saga about a guy who cuts his eyelids off and stares at a cave wall for nine years 🤘🏼.

18: MIKE: Showbiz!

2025 is the first year in a little while that MIKE did not make my favorite rap album of the year. Fortunately, he still made my second favorite rap album of the year.

No one is more consistent than this man. But though in some ways you know what you’re getting when you drop the needle on a MIKE record—and this new record is expressly about life as a consistently working musician, touring heavily and plugging away on new music on the road—every album brings with it new flows, sharper sample chopping, more evolved world building.

Protect MIKE at all costs, and check out my full review of the album.

17. Khadija al Hanafi: !OK!

I’ll say about this album what I said about my favorite track on this album.

“Tunisian footwork! Tunisian footwork!” you scream excitedly, gripping your mother’s finger with your chubby little baby hand. Once you’re over the fact that Kadijah Al-Hanafi is a Tunisian who makes footwork, consider the fact that she makes really great footwork, all the way from Tunisia. Then you’ll really be screaming.

Seriously, though, check this out. And then go back and listen to al Hanafi’s two Slime Patrol tapes. Inspiring stuff.

16. Rafael Torral: Traveling Light

Rafael Torral is an elite droner. If I was to assemble a Drone Gang—out of the young, hot droners, not the old ones dried up like husks—Torral would be at least a Thaiboy-level character.

Here, he follows his brilliant 2024 junglescape Spectral Evolution with an album based on jazz standards. These tracks still verge on abstraction, but one can hear the original songs buried beneath the layers and layers of guitar and synthesizers. It’s not an accomplishment on the same epic scale as his last record, but I find myself coming back to it more. There’s not much I enjoyed these past two months more than hearing Torral pry open the songs that form the fabric of the Great American Songbook and rearrange their contents into cosmic creations of his own.

Wrote a few more words I wrote about Rafael Torral here.

15. Eiko Ishibashi: Antigone

The 🐐 is back at it, returning with her first songs-based LP since 2018. It’s an album stricken with the tragedy its title employs. (For those of you who need to brush up on your Sophocles, Antigone was sentenced to be buried alive after attempting to give her brother a proper burial against the orders of the king.) Antigone is an album covered in ash—on the ground, in the air, wherever else ash goes. Hopefully not in your mouth.

Its also a beautifully composed record, filled out instrumentally with the aid of familiar faces like Eiko’s creative and life partner Jim O’Rourke (base, synths, production, 🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐), drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, et al. And even lyrically, it’s not a total downer. There’s a song about a San Francisco sportswear princess and a song where we get to here Eiko say “cocaine” (“Mona Lisa,” my 19th favorite song of the year). Eiko never misses.

I wrote much more intelligently on this album back when it came out.

I also interviewed Eiko one time, and Jim was there too. Great day in the life of Raphael, before all he knew how to do was make lists.

14. Earl Sweatshirt: Live, Laugh, Love

For some reason, I picked four tracks on this album for my songs list and wrote a bunch about them over there, so I’ll just say here that this album grew on me tenfold every time I listened to it, and I still marvel at it when I listen to it again. It’s noticeably lighter than his other records, but his bars are sharper than ever, and, more importantly, he balances the peace he seems to have reached—or at least come close to reaching—with the fact that there are real stakes now. Namely, Earl has a daughter.

Earl is almost exactly nine months older than me. I guess that technically means I could be his son, but I know that’s not the case because I have a dad, and I’m staying at his house right now.

Anyway. It’s good to see a 31-year-old winning, and it’s for this reason that Live, Laugh, Love is my favorite rap album of 2025.

13. Geese: Getting Killed

Everyone needs to shut the fuck up about Geese and shut the fuck up about Cameron Winter. It really sucks that they’re so talented and that this is such a good album. I don’t really wanna talk about it anymore.

Here’s a review of Getting Killed I did for a French streaming service.

12. Joanne Robertson: Blurr

Joanne Robertson is a mainstay of the Dean Blunt extended universe, but she creates a new dimension of her own with every album she releases. On 2023’s Blue Car (her latest solo record before this one), this world was raw but crisp, like the strings of her guitar were being plucked right into the mic with her mouth a few feet away. In fact, I bet that’s exactly what was going on. Here, it’s gas planet shrouded in smoke, her voice making rippling the plumes like a guy doing a really cool vape trick. It’s one of the vibiest records of the year, but it’s not just a vibe. Each of these songs has its own distinct character, despite the thick aura that surrounds them all. “Gown” with Oliver Coates is my personal favorite—I think I accidentally left it off the songs list—but I could listen to any or all of these tracks at any time or at all times of the day/night.

11. Bad Bunny: DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS

Bad Bunny just keeps getting better. Out of anyone as popular as he is, he might be the best guy. At least in terms of music guys. The Puerto Rican superstar’s music has always been fun without pandering, but this album is on a new level—a stylistic stew that blends traditional styles like salsa, bolero, and plena with música urbana, plus other Caribbean styles like Dominican dembow. It’s a remarkably smooth record, all things considered, but the flavors still pop.

10. Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka

I don’t think there’s much I can say about this album that hasn’t already been said by someone smarter. It’s wrecking. It’s relentless. It’s beautiful, but you need to work for it a little. It’s a culmination of everything Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton have been working on separately for years.

Based on personal taste alone, I’m more of a solo Ely guy, but this record is so dang good, as good as everyone says. I’m probably a fool to put it this low on my list. I’ll probably wake up on Boxing Day drenched in sweat and full of regret, and not only because I forgot to get my mom a real gift and had to sneak around while we were in Walgreens to buy her two silly cards and a slightly fancy chocolate bar (the best that Walgreens had to offer). No. This sweat will be because I didn’t put Los Thuthanaka’s Los Thuthanaka higher than #10 on my top 100 albums of 2025 list.

9. Vanessa Rossetto: Pictures Of The Warm South

I listened to this album for the first time just a couple of weeks ago after repeated suggestion from the aforementioned Evan. I don’t know much about it and I don’t know much about Vanessa Rossetto. I know she used to be a painter and now makes music that one could (if one wanted to) describe as painterly. I know she’s got 20 albums on Bandcamp dating back to 2008, not including this one.

Someday soon, when my eyes aren’t heavy with my sleep and my mind not full of ranked lists, I’ll learn more. But for now I’ll just let this uncanny record wash over me. These tracks are mostly layered and looped field recordings, but each feels like a secret window into a forbidden room. Some scenes warm you; others unsettle you. Imagine high-stakes TikTok scrolling in a pre-digital world.

Shoutout to Lucy Liyou, who plays piano on track one. I’m pretty sure the Rizzler is mentioned by an elderly woman on track two, so shoutout to him as well.

8. Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo: In the Earth Again

It’s an actual wonder of the world that fingerstyle guitarist Hayden Pedigo and experimental sludge band Chat Pile locked in so well—both acts contributing some of their best-ever stuff, neither upstaging or detracting from the other. In The Earth Again gets ambient (“Outside”). It gets menacing (“Demon Time”). It gets psycho (“Never Say Die!” and “Fission/Fusion”). It interpolates Timbaland (“I Got My Own Blunt to Smoke”). On closing track “Tear For Lucas” (SOTY #44), it gets heartbreaking, as Chat Pile frontman Raygun Bush stands alone and addresses a dead friend directly, expressing love without sanctifying their relationship.

I wrote a full review of this record (pushed for a higher score, but alas…), so I’ll leave it at that.

7. Corridos Ketamina: Corridos Ketamina

Nico Malvo and Henny Fay have created a brand new sound using elements that have been lying in plain sight for years, ripe for the taking. Corridos Ketamina is both the name of their duo and the name of their genre, which puts regional Mexican music with 2010s trap drums, grungy guitars, and emo-rap vocal effects in a blender and hits purée. They rolled this album out slowly, accumulating fans organically by dropping snippets on Instagram before dropping full tracks. By its August release, nearly every song on their self-titled debut tape was already out.

Several sounds appear on this project: “KETITZ” is the strongest iteration of CK’s core sound, with “ODIAME MÁS” and “TE URGE SABER” falling into the same corrido-first camp, while “V-NENO” and “MY SLUT” are more stoned and rock oriented. Closer “GALLO DROGADO” has a hybrid sound that’s harder to define, so it made sense when Nico and Henny told me that track is the best indication of where they’re going next.

Check out that interview here.

6. aya: hexed!

Some of you may remember that I chose the title track of hexed! as my 36th favorite track of 2025. I will now do the unthinkable and quote something I wrote like 24 hours ago:

It’s the sixth track out of 10, a breather of sorts, a quantum of solace (my dad Bert’s favorite Bond film) amid barrages of industrial noise, acid house, and threats of gabber. Here, the drums drop out and aya falls through the trap door, allowing a lone drone to fill the room with a black slime of distant plucks and chimes, fuzzy feedback, and muffled screams. It all happens quietly at the start, and when the sounds grow in intensity, they glom onto each other to create a single, monolithic sound, awesome in its glory. And then it all fades out, and it’s back to the truly freaky stuff.

Really can’t believe I just did that. That “freakier stuff” is what makes hexed! one of the very best albums of 2025, and it was probably stupid that I wrote about the interlude instead.

Part of why I did that, I think, is because all of these songs are batshit and each seems to out-batshit the last, so it’s an embarrassment of richers, the riches being bat shit aya was apparently sober when she made this record, looking back on a young adulthood consumed in hedonistic self-abuse. It sounds excruciating at times, but it’s not an entirely negative portrayal. In fact, it sounds really fun if you’re willing to embrace the fear, like biking downhill with your eyes closed or skydiving with a mildly moth-eaten chute.

5. Chuquimamani-Condori: Edits

Most of what I love about this album is encapsulated in its second track, “Breathe Kullawada Caporal E DJ edit,” which I wrote about extensively in my SOTY list. But I also love the tracks on this record that have nothing to do with the songs on DJ E. There’s garbled ’80s R&B, Black Lodge bro country, and a slew of other unhinged anthems that remind me why I love music.

4. Juana Molina: DOGA

Argentine drone-pop legend Juana Molina’s first album in eight years contains within it everything that makes her such a singular artist: heavenly drones (of course) and perfect pop (of course), but also daring expeditions to the border of language and nonsense.

I’m tired and have a lot more blurbs to do, so I’ll refer you to my interview with Molina, where we discussed megalomania, ego death, and the nature of language, which is different from Nation of Language, a band I don’t particularly care for.

3. Richard Dawson: End of the Middle

Who else but Richard Dawson could put a multi-generational tale of bullying to music in a way that’s deeply insightful and fully comprehensible but far from corny? Who else could make a lightning strike sound lovely? Who else could sing a ghost story in which the child protagonist stops seeing the ghost, grows up, gets a scholarship to Cambridge and then a job as a research analyst, and suddenly the ghost again? And it’s all done in the space of… Well, it’s an eight minute song. There are many more brilliant, banal stories told on this record, but special praise goes out to “Polytunnels,” a song where Dawson basically just lists all the chores he does in the garden, his “happy place.” Not sure what’s wrong with you if that doesn’t make you smile.

Anyway, I wrote a full review of this album when it came out, so press here if you want to read a version of this that was actually approved by an editor.

2. Ichiko Aoba: Luminescent Creatures

Simply one of the most gorgeous albums I’ve ever heard. Every song is pure magic, but the way they flow together makes them doubly effective. And this flow covers great distances, too, from the unbelievable lushness of “Luciferine” to the stark intimacy of “Flag.” This album was born of Aoba’s genuine love for every living creature, from humans to whales to jellyfish to plankton; of her free dives among the southern islands of the Ryūkyū Archipelago; of the duality of awe she feels—awe of the sublime beauty of the sea and stars, awe of the terrible pain humans inflict on each other and the world. I really can’t put into words how great this album is.

If you read one thing I’ve linked here in the hallowed halls of these lists, make it my Ichiko Aoba profile from February. It’s one of the best things I’ve written.

1. Titanic: HAGEN

Mabe Fratti is on a tear to end all tears. Watching the CDMX-via-Guatemala cellist, composer, and singer grow from fringe experimentalist to full-blown rockstar—I know she’s still got that dog in her, though; the experimental dog is the dog I mean—has been thrilling. Those of us who’ve tracked this transition from infancy (Titanic’s Vidrio) to adolescence (her most recent solo LP, Sentir que no sabes, which I interviewed her about last year) have seen her limitless potential. But HAGEN blows both of these efforts out of the water.

The other half of Titanic is Héctor Tosta (aka I la Católica), an otherworldly guitarist who hasn’t released much solo work. Tosta is listed as the lead producer of the album, the sole lyricist for most of the record, and the composer for all but two tracks. I knew he was brilliant, but I didn’t know he had it like that.

On to the album: Wow! It does more in the first song than most artists could achieve in two, three… heck, even six careers! “Lágrima del sol” is as good as it gets, a steady build from claps, to claps and singing, to claps and singing and guitar growls, to claps and singing and guitar growls and explosive drum fills from the one and only Eli Keszler, to a climactic burst of consummately arranged sounds that will blow your mind unless your a self-loathing nihilist willfully depriving yourself of joy. “Libra” does a similar thing later on in the album, but even better.

I could write like this about every song on this album but I’ll stop now. See my SOTY blurb on track two, “Gotera.”

One more, actually. “Alzando el trofeo” is one of the best closers I’ve ever heard and for some reason very much reminds me of this video.

It was a tight race this year, but I’ve gotta go with the album I listened to the most by a long shot. And so HAGEN takes home the gold, standing atop the most important podium in all of music journalism. To Mabe and Hector: Keep up the good work.

If you’ve reached this point, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’VE WON! YOU ARE THE THOUSANDTH CALLER, THE MILLIONTH VISITOR, THE BILLIONTH CUSTOMER!!!

Honestly, I feel like I owe you a beer for the emotional labor. Sadly, it is my mandate to request that you subscribe to my Substack and maybe throw me a bit of $ too.

To that end, I’ve avoided dropping Spotify/Apple Music streaming links up to this point, but I’ve embedded my full songs list as a playlist—from 100–2 with a few skips where necessary (my number one pick is only on Bandcamp, unfortunately)—on both services.

On January 1, however, I plan to pull the playlists from this post and put it behind a paywall. Moving forward, I’ll be making at least one playlist per month for paid subscribers.

Of course, there’ll still be plenty of content for the freeloaders too. More on that soon.

I love you all so much it’s crazy. Merry Christmas! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

P.S. You may already know this (I did not until very recently), but “Christmas Time Is Here” originated in A Charlie Brown Christmas. As in, Vince Gueraldi wrote the song from scratch. I always thought it was and old standard that he’d just jazzed up. What a brilliant man.

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Welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I pledged to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025 by the last night of Hanukkah. My timeline was delayed, but I’m soldiering on. I am now aiming to publish my final songs and albums lists on Christmas Day (tomorrow, if I recall correctly), a heathen holiday but one I hope to have a nice time celebrating alongside my parents, my best friend Abe, my best friend Abe’s parents, and quite possibly my best friend Abe’s girlfriend. If I can finish these lists that are ruining my life by then, I’ll have one more thing to celebrate.

The best way to support me on this journey is, of course, to subscribe. I appreciate y’all very much.

Subscribe now

Here’s my little spiel about lists:

The lists of most major publications tend to be repetitive and predictable, the same names shuffled around. Everyone races to go first, which means discounting releases from the last two months of every year. And it’s usually stressful for everyone involved, so it’s often treated it like a chore.

Which is too bad because lists rule. What excites me about personal lists is that they’re un-triangulated; they’re a reflection of one’s own taste and no one else’s, though this platonic ideal is often complicated by a perceived pressure to look as if your taste is pristine and your musical knowledge infinite. I poached a fair amount from the lists of Alphonse Pierre, Eli Schoop, and Evan Welsh (whose list was a Topsters grid, so ask him).

My two favorite things about list season are learning about a million new artists and seeing what my friends are listening to without having to see what Spotify thinks their musical age is. Music discovery is the best thing ever, and we rob ourselves of that joy when we let algorithms do it for us.

I shared my 76th–100th best albums and songs lists this past week, my 51st–75th-best albums and songs lists earlier this week, AND my 26th–50th best albums list just yesterday. Today, I consider my self the luckiest man on the face of the other because I ger to present to you the 26th–50th best songs of 2025.

Editor’s Note: In my last post I tried to write shorter blurbs and, for the most part, couldn’t physically bring myself to do it. Let’s see how I do this time.

50. Eliana Glass: Good Friends Call Me E

I didn’t write much about Eliana Glass’s amazing album E (my 27th favorite album of the year) because my brain was absolutely zonked from listmaking. Well, guess what? My brain is STILL zonked from listmaking because—to give you a little insight into how the sausage gets made—I’m writing these blurbs just an hour and change after I finished those blurbs.

However, I’ve still got E on the brain, so I’ll say a couple of nice things about this lovely song. This is one of the groovier tracks on E, and one of the wordier ones too—a lethal combo, imho. “Good friends call me E like my dad does” is a very strong start, and it only gets better from there. Glass definitely has a bit of Joni in her, and it really shows here.

49. Myaap: Fairy

Of all the nonsense that went viral this year, this was the best nonsense by far. Life would be a little better if we all released our inner fairies. And what an instrumental! A little off-beat, minor in a way that doesn’t fit the song’s celebratory vibe but somehow enhances it tenfold. Shoutout ChristianGetBizzy, of whom I was not previously aware.

48. Oneohtrix Point Never: Lifeworld

Tranquilizer might be OPN’s best album in 12 years. It still doesn’t touch the old stuff, but this song comes close, and it’s a beautiful thing. It’s all about texture again, with rhythm and harmony falling into place behind it.

I used to really like smoking weed and listening to this man’s amazing music. Maybe I’ll try it again sometime. Not an edible, though. Can’t do that again.

47. Bladee & Young Lean: INFERNO

“No face, no case. No face, no case.” We’ve all said it, but have any of us said it as definitively as our two favorite guys, Yung Lean and Bladee? Not that I’m aware of.

46. Jane Remover: JRJRJR

This video has a flash warning. The song should have one too 🙄. The beat cuts through you like a machine-gun rounds as Jane sings off key, conflicted about whether to suck the life out of a man or leave town and change her face and name (why not both?). This is what it might sound like if Bladee and Carti took off 10 years, fused brains, and learned how to produce. Absent a time machine and a brain-fusing machine, though, they might as well stay in their respective lanes and let Jane cook.

Side note: In verse, five, when Jane sings “bitches like me get to be happy,” does it not kind of sound like the Skyrizi jingle?

45. KeiyaA: k.i.s.s.

keiyaA is on top of the world in this one, coaxing a man with supreme confidence into “just one kiss (it's alright if you do more than this)” over a beat that’s Q-Tip meets Araabmuzik. Seems like she’s got this kiss locked down.

44: Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo: A Tear For Lucas

There were a few songs from this incredible album I thought about putting here. Other tracks demonstrate the shocking synergy between the OKC sludge band and the Texan fingerstyle guitarist in ways that will make you see stars like a cartoon character. But on this one, Chat Pile frontman Raygun Busch is alone, accompanying himself on loosely strummed acoustic guitar, singing about a friend who’s passed away. I wrote this in my review of the album:

He sounds naked, stripped of his jaded façade as he sings, “You once shared the saddest thing/To cheer me up/And it haunts me.” In 14 words, he sketches a loving but troubled relationship and describes the echoing trauma of a single interaction.

It’s an unbelievably sad song, and it rocks me a little every time I listen to it.

43. James Messiah: Peroxide

James Messiah is slick enough to transcend triteness, but Bounty Law has a slightly corny Hero’s Journey arc, and as it reaches his end, his outlaw character seems to have slowed down a bit, settling his scores in healthy ways. At the end, though, he’s back where he started, on the prowl and full of braggadocio. “I got tings everywhere,” he raps over a hazy beat, before going on to describe one girl who’s “gorgeous, long brown hair” and another whose “blonde, Peroxide.” He seems to like both of them enough, but he’s miles from commitment.

It sounds a little sad after all that emotional growth, but that’s not how Messiah sees it. Here’s what he said in my interview with him this past spring:

The track “Baby” is like, “We could take over the world, me and you, if only you'd let me know if you want this or not.” And “Peroxide” is letting go of that dream, like, “You know what? I can go anywhere in the world and find what I want. It's up to me to decide.” It’s the social contract moving from collective responsibility to individual responsibility, which you see in action films. The album could’ve been called The Bourne Identity.

Should I be a Libertarian? It sounds kind of nice to be a Libertarian. If I was a Libertarian, would I be as cool as James Messiah? Food for thought.

42. duendita: Die Not

a strong desire to survive is a rollercoaster of an album, and a fun one at that (my favorite roller is the Cyclone at Coney Island, if anyone was wondering). But it deals with serious subject matter, and nowhere is Candace Camacho more serious than on “die not,” a song in which she comes face to face with death and makes the choice to stay alive. Candace and I had an intense discussion about mental health last year, and it reminded me how important it is to check in on your friends and loved ones, to make sure they’re OK, to tell them not to die.

“die not” is a beautiful song, of course, perhaps the best on the album. But I like it best because of what it represents—the eternal struggle to get up every day and live, even when you don’t want to.

41. Che: DIOR LEOPARD

On a lighter note, how fun is this one?!

Che next up.

40. MIKE: Artist of the Century

In general, I think of MIKE more as an album guy than a song guy because I like the way he develops both lyrical themes and musical motifs over the course of a record. But what is a record without its songs?!?!?!?! “man in the mirror” is a terrific track, and I won’t argue with any who says it’s the best song on Showbiz!—a project where MIKE documents his life as a working artist. But it’s “Artist of the Century,” with his tongue-in-cheek throwback beat and jaunty flow, where he sums up the record in a single bar: “The prize isn’t much but the price is abundant.” It’s sarcastic, but it’s delivered without bitterness. Obviously, MIKE would be doing something different if he wasn’t ready to put up with the baggage that comes with being a musician.

Check out my review of Showbiz!

39. Mc Yallah & Debmaster: Higher

The time has come in these lists where I’m writing about songs from albums that are on my album’s list—often close to the same positions too—and vice versa. Unfortunately, I don’t make the rules. God makes the rules. I make plans and God laughs. The order of these lists was set in stone at the dawn of time, and there’s no changing it now.

Anyway, take everything I said about Kenyan/Ugandan rapper Mc Yallah and Berlin-based French producer Demaste’s ridiculously good collab record Gaudencia (my 42nd favorite album of the year) and multiply it 10x for “Higher,” which is my favorite song on the album, which is why I put it here.

Anyway, I like the absurd choral intro that warps like molten tape and becomes a sub-bass synth that underlies a London dubstep-indebted instrumental and Yallah’s vicious flow. Now I’ve said something specific about the song. Happy?

38. John Glacier: Emotions

SPOILER ALERT: John Glacier’s Like a Ribbon is in my Top 25 Albums of the Year™, so I won’t spend too much time talking about this track.

But I love how cold Glacier is, and how she boils that ice down to its essence (steam, I guess) here: “Now they’re callin’ me a bitch / You best believe it.” She then says “I’m as cold as a ice,” which I don’t like on one level because I already did that little pun about her name, but then again I do like “a ice” quite a bit.

The track takes a while to build, as if she’s pumping herself up for a big fight, but when the beat drops she comes in almost monotone, infifferent as ever.

I’ve said too much, and now I’ll have to think about something else to say about the album.

37. Universal Space Jam: BLAOW

BLAOW!

Universal Space Jam is Griff Spex (vox, synths) and Isaiah Barr (sax, synths). They’ve only dropped a couple of songs as yet, but they seem ready to explode, and “BLAOW” is the one that best presents their potent chemistry. Spex hits you hard right off the bat with poetic lyrics and an in-your-face flow. The beat is militant, with Barr’s droning sax simmering beneath pattered snares. As the song goes on, Spex repeats his verse and slowly fades, the beat begins to blur, and Barr arrives in earnest, his sax a siren song soaring above the haze.

36. aya: hexed!

hexed!

aya put out one of the year’s best albums, and this is far from its most exciting cut. It’s the sixth track out of 10, a breather of sorts, a quantum of solace (my dad Bert’s favorite Bond film) amid barrages of industrial noise, acid house, and threats of gabber. Here, the drums drop out and aya falls through the trap door, allowing a lone drone to fill the room with a black slime of distant plucks and chimes, fuzzy feedback, and muffled screams. It all happens quietly at the start, and when the sounds grow in intensity, they glom onto each other to create a single, monolithic sound, awesome in its glory. And then it all fades out, and it’s back to the truly freaky stuff.

35. Editrix: The Big E

E!

The opener and title track of Editrix’s third album would be the opener and title track of my third album if I did music, I’d like to think. Editrix are a mathy, jazzy, proggy metal band, and am pretty sure they don’t like any of those descriptors. You’ve got Wendy, singing at odd angles, sliding right through the instrumentals like they were meant to be slid through at those exact angles. Then there’s Steve, wailing on the bass like my man Les, but I’m not gonna say what Les and what band I meant. It was Primus’ Les Claypool. Then there’s Josh, pounding those drums so hard they’re bound to break soon. (Cool it, Josh!) Then there’s Wendy again, absolutely shredding that guitar as only Wendy can.

Editrix are rock ‘n’ roll.

NOTE: I hope none of that sounds ridicule because I really like this band.

34. Kadijah Al-Hanafi: Bad Bitch On Your Side

“Tunisian footwork! Tunisian footwork!” you scream excitedly, gripping your mother’s finger with your chubby little baby hand. Once you’re over the fact that Kadijah Al-Hanafi is a Tunisian who makes footwork, consider the fact that she makes really great footwork, all the way from Tunisia. Then you’ll really be screaming.

In all seriousness, though, this is an addictive song from an album full of them. Pure ear candy, dance-floor bliss. It’ll make you dance at your computer. I’m doing it now. When al-Hanafi says “Trust me, you want this bad bitch on your side,” I trust her completely.

33. zayALLCAPS: MTV’s Pimp My Ride

Yup, this is the one right here. The sumptuous beat. The silly sex puns. The overall vibe that everyone involved in this song (zay and his co-producer KEEM THE CIPHER) is having fun. All songs should be about having fun. Not all songs, but some songs should be about having fun, and the ones that are about having fun should only be made by people who are having fun.

For instance, I’m not always having fun. I’m certainly not having fun right now, writing these lists that are keeping me in a mental prison. People are doing wellness checks on me. I’m smiling through the tears.

Anyway, why I said all that is because you know what I don’t do when I’m not having fun? Write a fun song.

Thank you zay and KEEM for having fun while making a fun song (unless you weren’t having fun… what a nightmare that would be for me), and sorry I’ve turned your blurb into a big crashout.

32. Jenny Hval: To Be a Rose

Is performatively crashing out offensive to people who are actually crashing out? Is this performative? Maybe I’m too deep in my web of lies to know what’s true anymore.

“To Be a Rose” is one of those Jenny Hval tracks you just can’t stop listening to. The way it builds, slowly. Not quickly. We wouldn’t like that.

The way the chorus takes off and flies like a big giant bird. But not Big Bird. A bird who can actually fly.

“A rose is a rose is a rose is a cigarette,” Hval sings. GOATed line by any stretch of the imagination.

Read my quick little q&a with JH from this year and listen to my big podcast interview with JH (that’s Jenny Hval) from 2022, when she put out one of my favorite albums of the 2020s.

31. FearDorian & quinn: Las Vegas

FearDorian and quinn are a legendary duo, and they’re putting out a ridiculous amount of music (some of it better than… other of it), together and separately. We are truly blessed.

Maybe I’m a nostalgia simp, but did you ever think you’d actually hear someone pull off a “Heaven or Las Vegas” flip without sounding like an idiot? I, for one, did not.

“My story is a sad one / Had a bitch, was a bad one / Glad that I got that done / If he wanna play games, line his ass up, play him like an album.” Did you ever think you’d hear that over Robin Guthrie’s lush guitar stylings? Me neither.

30. Anysia Kym & Tony Seltzer: Speedrun

Purity is my 32nd-favorite album of 2025, and “Speedrun” is my 30th-favorite song of the year. What does that say about the music? More importantly, what does it say about me?

When this track begins, it sounds like Guru might go in on the beat. But no., it’s Anysia Kim. Totally different.

The beat builds casually. Stops. Starts again. Bass pops in and out. A+

Anysia practically swims through it. “We can normalize my attention, baby / Let it go and another cycle begins,” she sings at the end. “Settle on the only risk worth taking / It’s for the taking.”

Clocking in at one minute, thirty-eight seconds long, this song is short and sweet, and I’m guessing that’s why the title of the song is “Speedrun,” which means when you play a video game really fast.

29. oklou: blade bird

Amazing song. Fantastic song. The best song of 2025? No way, José. But super-super good. oklou strikes a fine balance—here and elsewhere but especially here—between playfulness and melodrama, which is why the lyrics of “blade bird”—reimagining an old Basque poem about love and possession and pain and birds—pack such a heavy an emotional punch, especially when set against the song’s lovely instrumentation.

My only qualm with this song is that it’s called “blade bird,” and oklou had Bladee (yes, the Bladee) right there in the room singing “Take Me By the Hand” (another killer song on her debut LP choke enough) and didn’t say, “Hey, wanna sing on this one too? It’s got your name in it (minus the final ‘e’.” L.

28. jackzebra: Leon

The standout from jackzebra’s most recent mammoth mixtape is called “Leon.” You’ve probably got an Uncle Leon. I don’t, but you probably do. Why the song is called “Leon” is anyone’s guess, because jackzebra raps in a slurred Mandarin that even fluent Mandarin speakers have a difficult time understanding, apparently. Anyway, it’s got production from Glasear and James Ferraro, and though I can’t exactly tell what Ferraro’s contribution is, I still think that’s pretty cool. The flows jackzebra hits on this one are nutso, in my opinion.

To read more of my opinions on “Leon” and the rest of Hunched Jack Mixtape, check out my review.

27. james K: Doom Bikini

A near-perfect pop song. james K’s lead melody, her backing vox, the drum hits, the Robin Guthrie-indebted guitar, the squeaky synths. They’re all right where they’re supposed to be. Thank you, Ms. K.

26. Alex G: Louisiana

OK, I’ll say it: Headlights wasn’t all that good. Within the Alex G canon, it’s dwarfed by almost everything else, and especially by his last record, God Save the Animals, which was his best in quite some time.

“Louisiana,” though, is a masterpiece. It’s slow. It’s murky. It’s repetitive in a way that lulls you to rocks you to sleep but gives you ambient nightmares. Alex G does a voice. We love when Alex G does a voice. And it’s about “Louisiana.”

Did you know I lived in Louisiana for six years? It’s where I went to college. It didn’t take me six years to do college; I just stayed there for two years after I graduated. I minored in Spanish and ate so many po’ boys my stomach hurt every day. I was always in the nurse’s office. The nurse said, “Raphael, why are you eating so many po’ boys?” I said, “You’re not my mom!” She said, “I am your mom!” My mom was the nurse at my college, true story.

How am I doing, guys? Throw me a lifeline. Put a W in the comments or something. Back tomorrow with the two lists to rule them all.

Welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I pledged to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025 by the last night of Hanukkah. My timeline was delayed, but I’m soldiering on. I am now aiming to publish my final songs and albums lists on Christmas Day, a heathen holiday but one I hope to have a nice time celebrating alongside my parents, my best friend Abe, my best friend Abe’s parents, and quite possibly my best friend Abe’s girlfriend. If I can finish these lists that are ruining my life by then, I’ll have one more thing to celebrate.

The best way to support me on this journey is, of course, to subscribe. I appreciate y’all very much.

Subscribe now

Here’s my little spiel about lists, truncated a bit but still too long:

The lists of most major publications tend to be repetitive and predictable, the same names shuffled around. Everyone races to go first, which means discounting releases from the last two months of every year. And it’s usually stressful for everyone involved, so it’s often treated it like a chore.

Which is too bad because lists rule. What excites me about personal lists is that they’re un-triangulated; they’re a reflection of one’s own taste and no one else’s, though this platonic ideal is often complicated by a perceived pressure to look as if your taste is pristine and your musical knowledge infinite. I poached a fair amount from the lists of Alphonse Pierre, Eli Schoop, and Evan Welsh—from a Topsters screenshot so ask him.

My two favorite things about list season are learning about a million new artists and seeing what my friends are listening to without having to see what Spotify thinks their musical age is. Music discovery is the best thing ever, and we rob ourselves of that joy when we let algorithms do it for us.

I shared my 76th–100th best albums and songs lists this past week, and my 51st–75th-best albums and songs lists earlier this week. And today, with Hanukkah behind us and Christmas around the corner, I’m pleased to present to you the 26th–50th best albums of 2025.

Editor’s Note: I intend to keep the blurbs short and sweet this time, for everyone’s sake but especially mine. Let’s see if I can pull it off.

50. Paul Wall & DJ.Fresh: The Tonite Show (ChopNotSlop Remix)

The people’s champ is back, chopped and screwed as God intended. That’s right, I’m putting the “o” back in God because we’re praying to the Christian God now.

49. Sametou Sawtan: SANAM

Lebanese band Sametou Sawan translates to “I heard a voice” in English, and this album starts out with a stifled scream, or a gasp of horror, or something more sinister. What follows is a whirlwind of freewheeling rock and jazz, careening off the rails but never falling off a cliff.

This blurb was too long.

48. Orcutt Shelley Miller: Orcutt Shelley Miller

Guitar: Bill Orcutt 🐐. Drum: Steve Shelley 🐐. Bass: Ethan Miller 🐐. Nuff said.

This is more of the blurb length I am going for.

47. feeo: Goodness

Based on the literature surrounding this album, the members of feeo are quite possibly very pretentious people (or said literature could be unconnected to them, as is often the case). The fact that they’re Londoners does little to disprove my suspicions. Sometimes, though, pretentious music (e.g. that of Still House Plants, also from the Motherland) is also great music, and if the pretension yields very good results, who is really the one pretending? Maybe me. Anyway, I liked this album.

46. Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier: Angel Falls

When I start using the 🐐 emoji, it’s difficult for me to stop. But it really applies for Wadada Leo Smith, an 84-year-old free jazz legend whose brilliance as a composer is rivaled only by his brilliance on the trumpet. This is not to take away from pianist/composer Sylvie Courvoisier, whose playing is often at the helm of these songs, interposing passages of atonality with lovely (although by and large still quite dissonant) chords that hit extra hard amid the thorny tangles.

45. keiyaA: hooke’s law

The world has been waiting five years for keiyaA’s full-length follow-up to Forever, Ya Girl, and hooke’s law does not disappoint. Those who’ve had the pleasure of seeing the Brooklyn-via-Chiago DIY mainstay perform in the past few years have heard some of these songs—far more upbeat than those on her last LP—but they really pop on wax, produced to perfection in a way that’s hard to recreate live. There’s jazz. There’s neo-soul. There’s hip-hop. But everything’s approached slantwise, nothing canned or borrowed wholesale from keiyaA’s peers or predecessors.

Shorter blurbs from now on.

44: Jim O’Rourke & Eiko Ishisbashi: Pareidolia

Beautiful ambient music, complexity simplified. 🐐 🐐

A little flex: I interviewed Eiko last year with Jim translating, and it was one of my favorite interviews ever.

Then I met them at UNSOUND and they signed my Pareidolia CD. Reader, I was in hog heaven.

43. 哈米德·德雷克 Hamid Drake & 帕特·托马斯 Pat Thomas: 这山望那山 A Mountain Sees a Mountain

Recorded at a jazz festival in Shenzhen, China, A Mountain Sees a Mountain is aptly named. On account of these guys are mountains of being good at jazz(?). Really, though. If you’re at all into free jazz or looking to get into it, this is the album for you. It’s got passages of pure abstractions. Passages of locked-in grooving. Passages when you wonder “how will they pull this thing off?” and then BANG! they do. When Drake bangs hard on the drums, Thomas bangs harder on the piano. When one goes quiet, the other goes quieter, as if they’re playing a game of tag. There’s plenty of extended technique too. Is Thomas bowing the piano strings? I think so. Is Drake doing other stuff on the drums beside just hitting them? Sure sounds like it. 🐐 🐐, dare I say it.

42. Mc Yallah & Debmaste: Gaudencia

That last one was super long, huh? Well, how about this:

Kenyan/Ugandan rapper Mc Yallah and Berlin-based French producer Demaste are totally synchronized here as Yallah blasts through his idiosyncratic trap beats with her characteristic combination of dexterity overpowering strength. Whether in English, Luganda, Luo, or Kiswahili, she can’t be caught.

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41. toso toso: toso toso

To borrow from my blurb about opening track “cLAcLAcLA”:

It seems like there’s nothing toso toso can’t do well: jazz, ambient, noise, experimental pop… Their stupidly good debut LP gets gradually more subdued as it slowly settles into itself, which is why its opener is (even more so than usual) the best place to start.

Yes, you should start on track one, but then you should try out track two and track three, all the way up to track seven, which is the closing track. Kabir Adhiya-Kumar’s drumming is at once explosive and precise. isabel crespo pardo’s voice is at once heavenly and gritty. Celia Hill’s guitar and electronics and Rahul Carlberg’s piano, keyboards, and synthesizers are at once cool and awesome, too, but I’m all out of adjectives.

Can’t wait to see what these folks do next.

40. James Messiah: Bounty Law

Brilliant debut album from poet, DJ, and longtime Dean Blunt collaborator James Messiah (aka DJ Escrow). He radiates a cool that would be impossible to fake. His songs are subdued but sneakily hard hitting. There’s sex. There’s love. There’s vaguely libertarian politics (but in a way that’s at once slick and well-intentioned). Even still, I highly recommend you check this album out ASAP…

And also that you read my interview with Mr. Messiah himself from June!

39: Joviale: Mount Crystal

Mount Crystal has a polished studio sound that’s due in part to her granite-smooth vocals and in part, perhaps, to co-production from Los Angeles yacht-rock revivalist John Carroll Kirby. Lyrically, though, she plumbs the wreckage of ruined relationships, emotionally honest without undue melodrama. “Never known fear / Until I got here… Wishing I could disappear,” she sings above a cleverly harmonized descending scale on the album’s penultimate track. The pain is sonically disguised but right out in the open if you’re listening closely.

38. Demencia infantil: Monigote cualquiera

When I first heard about Demencia Infantil, they only had a couple of songs out, punk rippers that sounded right on the money, given their provocative band name.

But while they’re debut album Monigote Cualquiera (“any puppet” or “whichever puppet”) has plenty of punk elements, it’s much more complicated than that. Every time I listen to it, I hear something different. Eerie drone (“aeiou,” "quién eres¿?”). Chopped-and-screwed krautrock (“barniz”). More traditional krautrock (“monosílabo”). Wistful hypnagogic pop (“,nosé, nomás”).

The album gets punker and skronkier on its back half before terminating unsettlingly on its minute-long outro, “tranquilo.” Still, it’s one of the least predictable albums I’ve heard this year. That’s five bags of popcorn from me.

37. Nazar: Demilitarize

For half a decade, Nazar has been developing a style all his own, blending dance music from his native Angola with chopped samples, field recordings, and other “rough textures.” Hence, “rough kuduro.”

His first album Guerrilla told the story of the civil war that exiled his family to England, where he now resides. On Demilitarize, the sound is still rough, but there’s a celestial dreaminess to these songs too. More importantly, they feature Nazar’s singing voice, an element that was absent from his (literally) militant debut. The narrative is still painful—Nazar was laid up for a year after he was struck with COVID while immunocompromised by tuberculosis he’d contracted in Angola—but rather than anger, he seems to have arrived at a sort of acceptance during his protracted illness. The world he builds here is totally different from the one he created with Guerrilla, but it’s just as rich.

Christ, I can’t help myself. Why do I have write a million words about everything?

36. Deerhoof: Noble and Godlike in Ruin

Deerhoof is one of the world’s best bands, and they’ve once again made an AOTY contender. It doesn’t quite outpace their last record—2023’s Japanese-language Miracle-Level—but it’s not a competition, is it? Well, in the case of my lists it is, but not in general. Please ignore.

Read my interview with Deerhoof from 2023

35. Ba Pace & Sniper Lew: MIDNIGHT MAROON

I’ve already written about MIDNIGHT MAROON here—most of you will recall my blurb about “MOTION SICKNESS,” my 83rd-favorite song of the year—but it’s a whole album of slow-played bangers, Ba Pace’s laid-back, subtly dangerous flow riding unhurriedly over Sniper Lew’s silky throwback beats. If “New York Hip-Hop” is a competitive genre, MIDNIGHT MAROON gets this year’s Grammy.

34. Anne Gillis: Eyry]

Once I heard the the three brief excerpts of Eyry] available to non-paying customers, I ponied up my hard-earned cash immediately. This was mostly due to the raw power of “Isccahya,” a hall of funhouse mirrors so haunted it’s hard to listen to with headphones in. The much crazier part is that almost all of the sounds on this record—from a rare snatch of operatic singing to a horrifyingly stretched whisper to the ubiquitous percussive whooshes and stringlike stabs—were created using only Gillis’s voice. Some songs contain sounds from “primitive electronics” (early analog synths?), and these provide some welcome relief from the rest of the album’s unsettling abstraction, but its most fascinating tracks are strictly vocal. It’s hard to think of a perfect setting for the record, but when you find one, you should. And even if you don’t, do it anyway.

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33. duendita: a strong desire to survive

Never before has New York singer-producer Candace Camacho’s voice sounded so shockingly good. This record represents a vast spectrum of emotions, from blissful infatuation to abject sorrow. And while her production plays certainly plays a role in her ability to express these feelings, she’d be almost as effective a cappella. Camacho has always had a preternaturally expressive voice, but she’s outdone herself here, her natural alto hitting soprano highs and baritone lows, as if she’s playing several characters. It’s just her, though, delivering doleful jazz piano ballads and lopsided pop tracks—messy but as real as they come.

Read my interview with duendita from last year.

32. Anysia Kym & Tony Seltzer: Purity

Getting in sync with MCs is Tony Seltzer’s superpower (his beats aren’t so bad either), but I think his best mind-meld yet is with Anysia Kym. The NYC duo are so slick on this album that, though the beats and vocals vary widely from track to track, it’s silky smooth from front to back. Whether you play it through or jump around, there are certainly no skips.

31. Various Artists: Disk Musik: A DD. Records Compilation

DD. Records was a cult tape label in Japan that allegedly put out 222 cassettes in the early–mid ’80s before shutting down. What we don’t get on this album is the subversive cover art and arcane literature housed in each release (according to this compilation’s bio). What we do get is a strange collection of dissimilar songs that open a window into a Japanese underground most Westerners (myself included) have never seen. A couple of tracks are strong but unexceptional for the time period. Most, though, sound like they’ve been rescued from a sunken ghost ship, or from an extra-dimensional no-wave scene.

There’s an American urge to exoticize lost-and-found albums from elsewhere in the world—and from Japan, in particular—but this record really does, in this writers opinion, contain elements of the unknown.

30. Klein: sleep with a cane

Klein has been cooking for the past 10-odd years. sleep with a cane is her second album of 2025. And while February’s thirteen sense fell into the abrasive purview she’s been operating in for the last couple of years, the new record exhibits a “softer,” more ambient side of her repertoire that we haven’t seen since touched by an angel, only two years old but several projects ago by now. But while records like thirteen sense batter your defenses till you submit, sleep with a cane sneaks through in a more insidious manner, seeping into your mind and planting soft screams and whispered threats under cover of candy-coated drones.

29. james K: Friend

When experimental artists like james K—a staple in both New York’s club and experimental scenes—go pop, it can go wonderfully right or horribly wrong (or somewhere in-between, idk, I’m just making stuff up at this point, I’m so blurbed out). Obviously I think Friend is an example of when it goes wonderfully right, or it wouldn’t be on this list. But don’t take my word for it! Listen for yourself!

26. Piotr Kurek: Songs and Bodies

Brilliant jazz—not sure if I’d call it fusion because that would imply it’s funky and it’s not funky. Piotr Kurek is a brilliant drummer and perhaps an even more brilliant sampler. Bloody brilliant. Poland FTW

27. Eliana Glass: E

Singer-songwriter jazz. Delicate. Simple? No. Complicated. Beautiful. Yup, I like it for sure.

26: Prostitute: Attempted Martyr

Maybe the best punk band alive? There are lots of other good ones, but if you asked me to name one right now I probably couldn’t. I’m absolutely fried.

God, I hope no one is actually reading all of this. Songs 26–50 tomorrow!

Welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I pledged to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025, each in four posts spaced strategically throughout last week in order to honor Hanukkah in my own special little way. My timeline has clearly been delayed, but I’m soldiering on. The best way to support me on this journey is, of course, to subscribe. I appreciate y’all very much.

Subscribe now

Here’s my little spiel about lists:

The lists of most major publications tend to be repetitive and predictable, the same names shuffled around. Everyone races to go first, which means discounting releases from the last two months of every year. And it’s usually stressful for everyone involved, so it’s often treated it like a chore.

Which is too bad because lists rule. What excites me about personal lists is that they’re un-triangulated; they’re a reflection of one’s own taste and no one else’s, though this platonic ideal is often complicated by a perceived pressure to look as if your taste is pristine and your musical knowledge infinite.

I’ll tell you a secret: The best way to do that is to post your list later than everyone else does so you can steal from your colleagues (read: competitors). This year, I poached most heavily from lists by Alphonse Pierre (the generational hip-hop tastemaker hated by Cole, Kendrick, and Clipse stans the world across) and Eli Schoop (a world-class hater who seems to actually love music a lot), Most of all, I poached from a screenshot of Evan Welsh’s personal top 100—yes, the Evan Welsh who will buy you a drink if you see him at seven shows (and if you go to seven cool shows in NYC he’ll likely be at all of them). Shoutout also to Philip Sherburne, who made a great list of electronic albums for Pitchfork as well as a genre-agnostic list for his own blog, and to Kieran Press-Reynolds, who made a video for his top seven that would kill a Victorian child. [EDIT: A friend recently pointed out that I didn’t poach from any female listmakers, and I absolutely agree that I didn’t steal from enough women this year. I will try harder next year, I promise.]

My favorite two things about list season are learning about a million new artists and seeing what my friends are listening to without having to see what Spotify thinks their musical age is. Music discovery is the best thing ever, and we rob ourselves of that joy when we let algorithms do it for us.

I shared my 76th–100th best albums and songs lists last week, and my 51st–75th best albums list yesterday. Today, on this 8th day of Hanukkah (not really a thing, I’ll admit), I’m pleased present to you the 51st–75th best songs of 2025. For some reason, this is by far and away the poppiest section of these lists on either side. I refuse to apologize. There was a lot of good pop music this year.

75. Youth Lagoon: Football

“Idaho Alien,” from Youth Lagoon’s comeback album Heaven Is a Junkyard, is one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard. Rarely Do I Dream, that album’s excellent follow-up, doesn’t have a track that hits quite that hard (very few albums do). But where “Idaho Alien” was an intense study of one person’s suicidal depression, “Football” paints—with far fewer details—the spiritual desolation of two individuals who seem to represent a whole town of spiritually desolated individuals: a man burying his mother, a sex worker shooting a preacher-turned-john. And yet, there’s something lovely about those light keys and that sing-song chorus: “Maybe you’re not the person who caught the football.”

Check out my interview with Youth Lagoon from earlier this year.

74. Nino Paid: Tomorrow Will Be Better

Nino Paid put out a strong contender for best DMV rap album of the year, but “Tomorrow Will Be Better” (a separate single) exceeds even the standards that record set. It’s a work of bluesy, unsparing introspection, giving us an intimate view of Nino wrestling with the troubles he’s had and is having right now. Rather than despair, he musters the resolve to walk on toward a new day he knows will be better than the last, ready to do whatever it takes to make that happen. As usual, he raps with a jaunty flow that bobs just ahead of the beat, eager for what the future holds.

73. Traxman: JAKME!!!!!!!!!

A relentless piece of brutalist footwork from one of the genres greatest practitioners. The track unfurls—and then refurls—with a slow intensity, unable to stop once the process begins. But even stripped to its essentials, “JAKME!!!!!!!!” is still great music to dance to.

72. Sudan Archives: DEAD

THE BPM sees Brittney Parks putting her considerable talent into making a perfect dance record. “DEAD” introduces the cyborg alter ego she’ll slip in and out of throughout the album, pairing her lush violin playing and vulnerable vocals with a pounding techno beat that soon overtakes the proceedings.

Listen to my podcast interview with Sudan Archives from way back in 2022 (or read the feature). My fellow ex-fader employee David also wrote a great review of The BPM.

71. username feat. Marsh crane: we like her

Flipping a recognizable sample is low-hanging fruit, but sometimes it’s hard to argue with the results. Here, username and Marsh crane turn Young Money’s “Every Girl in the World”—a song worth revisiting for its catchiness but more so as a reminder of what people could get away with saying back in the day—into a playground for their glitchy experiments in footwork and jungle.

70. PinkPantheress: Illegal

It’s not a calendar year if PinkPantheress hasn’t had a hit in it. One of the few pop artists who continues to engage critically with the material on which she builds her songs, she’s able to generate mass appeal without catering to the lowest common denominator.

69. MAVI & Niontay: Jammers Anonymous

MAVI and Niontay were made to rap together. While it’s true that opposites attract sometimes, it’s also nice when two flows can bleed into each other, especially when bars are being trading. Here, the Charlotte and NYC-via-Florida MCs are like a WWE tag team tapping in. “I’m totin’ a big ass Draco, I can’t even conceal it on my hip,” MAVI raps. “And MAVI ain’t even gotta use it, n***a look wrong and then he spilt,” Niontay responds. And so on.

68. Greg Freeman: Gallic Shrug

Slacker rock lives on! And apparently MJ Lenderman isn’t the only one keeping it alive. (Yes, I know there are plenty of other cool men and women carrying the flame (to borrow from “We Are Charlie Kirk”), but I’m not really an authority on the genre, so sue me.) “Gallic Shrug” is a lovely country-rock jammer about one of those breakups that just sort of happens. It’s not necessarily anyone’s fault, but both of you could’ve tried a bit harder. It’s tragic in an unassuming way, and I like that.

67: YHWH Nailgun: Castrato Raw (Fullback)

This song’s got everything I like about in it. It’s streamlined, hard-hitting, leaning into a powerful hook without overplaying its hand, then pivoting to a weird bridge before firing said hook off one last time. This is how art-punk should sound in the year 2025.

66. Anastasia Coope: Piano Stacks

Anastasia Coope is a true oddball. One could be forgiven for listening to her debut album Darning Woman and wondering whether she may have hocketed herself into a haunted house of her own making. But her October EP DOT sees her messing with a variety of other styles, albeit with mixed success. The tape’s most interesting experiment is “Piano Stack,” in which she pairs slightly off-key and out-of-sync vocals with eerie synth drones and un-quantized drums that fall off-rhythm at random moments. Coope is clearly playing with expectations here, keeping us waiting for a resolution that never comes.

Read my interview with Anastasia Coope from last year.

65. Erika de Casier: Delusional

Some songs are instantly iconic, and Erika de Casier has had a hand in making many of them (directly and indirectly) over the past decade. “Delusional” injects an opening verse that beats most hooks and a hook that’s hard to forget into the aesthetic she’s curated for so many European bands of the moment—placid but yearning and slippery as a dream—to create a near-perfect pop song.

64. Cate Le Bon: Is It Worth It (Happy Birthday)?

The standout track from Cate Le Bon’s lushly tragic Michelangelo Dying is a beautiful bummer, a tale of tainted love and toxic devotion, told over cinematic synths and guitar chords strummed dutifully in time. “I’m checking out / Even with my language in him,” she sings. “I’m checking out / It’s me still crying through his eyes.” As a relationship dies, we wonder if it can be salvaged, and, more importantly, if it’s worth salvaging.

63. Jim Legxacy: father

Everyone’s got daddy issues, though most of us—men especially—might not admit it. Jim Legxacy’s father was absent, and he still feels that void in his life in spite of himself. Beyond this difficult theme, the song is an unqualified banger. “On the block, I was listenin’ to Mitksi,” Legxacy sing-raps proudly, riding a wave of jerk drums, spammed sound effects, and a pitched-up vocal sample that croons “father” over and over again.

62. Joviale feat. Hook: Foul Play

Many artists incorporate skits into their albums, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard it done as effectively as Joviale does it here. “Foul Play” is the unsung centerpiece of an unforgivably slept-on album, the moment when the relationship the North London artist has been singing about crashes and burns. “Not today / I’m not trynna get down for foul play,” she sings as the song’s smooth neo-soul beat starts to collapse into a supermassive black whole and Hook begins listing all of her grievances with her partner, rapping just barely above the maelstrom.

For the track’s final minute and change, Joviale and her soon-to-be ex spar over petty points, talking over what now sounds like last call at a denaturing club. He flashes his teeth at her. He looks at her phone while she’s talking to him. She calls him every insult she knows as he argues back, his words unintelligible. “Fuck your family! FUCK YOU!” she shots as the track whooshes to a close.

It’s better than most plays I’ve seen, I tell you what.

61. 10.4 Rog: grownups

The start of this song sounds like it could’ve been made by most competent GarageBand users with an appreciation for high-bpm club music. The beat builds bit by bit, but 10.4 Rog takes his time. “Are we going anywhere with this?” your YouTube Shorts-addled brain begins to wonder. Then the 50-second mark hits and everything goes disco, the chords descending down the circle of fifths until they approach subsonics. The drum patterns are more complex now too, but in all honesty, it’s not like anything else has changed much when we come out on the other side of the drop—just our perception. Suddenly, we’re in a blissful world of breakbeats and filthy jazz chords brought to us by a crunchy house synth. I’d like apologize to 10.4 Rog for ever thinking he was anything less than brilliant. On the other hand, I still don’t know why I like this song so much.

60. Addison Rae: Diet Pepsi

I don’t think anyone’s still reading at this point, so I’ll admit that putting Addison at #100 on my AOTY list was a petulant dig at my former employer, who, immediately after letting go of its three longest-tenured employees and thus removing us from the voting pool, named a very good but largely vanilla pop record its favorite album of the year. Were I not a bit of a baby, I would not have put that album in my top 100, and I am starting to doubt that my jab has caused the distress I dreamed it would.

HOWEVER, it cannot be denied that “Diet Pepsi” is one of 2025’s catchiest songs. There’s not much more to it than that.

CORRECTION: It has come to my attention that this song came out in 2024. I guess the joke’s really on me this time.

59. Marjorie -WC Sinclair: Still Here

As Evanora:Unlimited, Orion Sage Ohana makes unsettling pop that generally defies categorization. As Marjorie -WC Sinclair, he’s got a chaotic take on hip-hop, his deep voice a jarring presence at the front of the mix with sped-up old-school samples. “Still Here” is a relatively subdued cut within Sinclair’s catalog, its beat slowed to 1x time. But what it sacrifices in unhingedness, it makes up for with cruise-ability (and I mean that in that driving sense, to be emphatically clear). It gives me hope that the young zoomers are still doing it like the young millennials did—windows up, blunt smoke billowing, 3 Stacks on the radio.

58. Burial: Comafields

The start of this 12-minute suite in miniature made me think we’d find Burial back in his relentlessly bleak bag. But while this soundscape is certainly baron in places, there’s also lushness to be found. To this point, the record’s first vocal sample begins with a vision of hope: “I saw something…flower, bloom from nothing.” “Comafields” has plenty of Burial’s signature sounds: vinyl crackling around samples that slide in and out of time. And he uses them here to create a claustrophobia familiar to his fans. As the piece moves on, I feel more and more trapped in a sort of Purgatory, somewhere between helplessness and hope.

57. Rooster: Nuketown Blues

Rooster is the rap alias of Gud, a go-to producer for Young Lean and Bladee who’s also collaborated heavily with tristate savants Rx Papi and RealYungPhil. “Nuketown Blues,” the standout track from his sophomore album Rooster Slipped, plays like a slacker film, centering a jaded drug dealer who messes around with rich girls for the perks. He hopes this one can’t see past his “inflated dick” to the bummy Chrysler van he’s got parked in the driveway. Suddenly, he starts to catch feelings (“I kinda like you…”) but slips quickly back into character. “I got work in the morning,” he says, cutting off any possibility of something real.

56. SahBabii: Viking

It would be reductive to say Sahbabii is doing future here, but if he was, he’d be doing Future better than Future has done Future in quite some time. It’s the track that kicks off his Saaheem (his best album in years) in earnest, showing he’s maintained the agility to switch flows on a dime, spotting new pockets in the same beat in milliseconds and diving in head first.

55. Dijon: Baby!

I’ve never been as enamored with Dijon’s work as some of my colleagues are, partly because I can’t stand his close friend and collaborator Bon Iver. But Baby (and, to a lesser degree, Justin Bieber’s SWAG) proves beyond a doubt that he of the most talented artists alive, and I feel kind of bad that (SPOILER ALERT) I didn’t put it on my albums list. I’m sure he’ll be gutted.

I’ll make it up to him by proclaiming that “Baby!” is one of the strongest album openers I’ve heard in recent memory, establishing the emotional intensity that carries the record. Dijon’s husky voice sound like it’s coming from behind happy tears as he charts the course of his relationship with his lover to the birth of their first child. “That’s a beautiful thing,” he sings. “How could you know, baby?” Then a baby (presumably his baby) starts talking baby talk on the track. What’s cuter than that?

54: Playboi Carti feat. Travis Scott: CRUSH

OK, “CRUSH” is not the best track on MUSIC, but talk about establishing a vibe! If I had to guess, I’d say Playboi Carti and Travis Scott are two guys who’ve had a good amount of sex. So it’s almost sweet to hear them jump for joy, unable to contain the information that a woman (or two women) has agreed to do that with one (or both) of them. Their excitement is so powerful it must be proclaimed Kanye-style, supported by a whole chorus. I hate to see Travis win, but this song really pumps me up. Sometimes you’ve just gotta throw up your hands and admit that sex is cool.

53. KP SKYWALKA: INDUSTRY

It was a great year for the DMV, with Nino Paid and KP SKYWALKA, among others, putting out phenomenal records. On “INDUSTRY,” KP’s flow unspools luxuriously over sumptuous R&B vocal sample, his lyrics casually cold-blood: “Shoot at my cousin, he not the kin to me / I’m still putting this fi on the enemies,” for instance. Here we have a hero I’d rather not meet.

52. Pino Palladino & Blake Mills: Somnambulista

That Wasn’t a Dream is a masterful follow-up to legendary session bassist Pino Palladino and guitar wizard Blake Mills’s Notes With Attachments. And it’s on “Somnambulista” that they best balance their competing impulses toward subtlety and gnarly riffage. Besides a jump-scare crash right at the start, the song kicks off smoothly. Palladio plays his bass in its highest register. Mills hums along. A typical chilled-out west-coast jam. Then the track’s four guests—among them sax whisperer Sam Gendel and drum god Chris Dave—descend on the music like ravenous beasts, maiming the light instrumental into a mathy snarl that’s dense enough to knock you back but groovy enough to keep you on your feet. Go ahead and tell me I’m mixing my metaphors. There are no editors here.

51. Rosalía feat. Björk & Yves Tumor: Berghain

As if flexing her breathtaking soprano over the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra and a German chorus weren’t enough, Rosalía brings in Björk and Yves Tumor to finish the job. Rosalía and Björk have proven several times that they’re an elite duo, the former’s operatic perfection set against the latter’s raw humanity, and this German/English duet is undoubtedly their best collaboration yet. Unfortunately, Tumor shouting “I’ll fuck you till you love me!” a dozen times at the end doesn’t really add much to the song, but cut that out and you’ve got one of my favorite two-and-a-half-minute tracks of the year.

That’s all for now. If you’re sitting here thinking, “Look at all this pop and mainstream hip-hop and other Pitchfork/Fader-type stuff. Is Raphael washed? Has he sold out to special interests?”

Well, think about it this way: There are still 50 tracks to go. If publications of the highest stature place these songs among their very favorite songs of the year, what other 50 songs could I possibly have up my sleeve to win definitively against the powers that be?

Find out this week!

Welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I pledged to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025, each in four posts spaced strategically throughout this week in order to honor Hanukkah in my own special little way. My timeline has been delayed, but I’m soldiering on. The best way to support me on this journey is, of course, to subscribe. I appreciate y’all very much.

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Here’s my little spiel about lists:

The lists of most major publications tend to be repetitive and predictable, the same names shuffled around. Everyone races to go first, which means discounting releases from the last two months of every year. And it’s usually stressful for everyone involved, so it’s often treated it like a chore.

Which is too bad because lists rule. What excites me about personal lists is that they’re un-triangulated; they’re a reflection of one’s own taste and no one else’s, though this platonic ideal is often complicated by a perceived pressure to look as if your taste is pristine and your musical knowledge infinite.

I’ll tell you a secret: The best way to do that is to post your list later than everyone else does so you can steal from your colleagues (read: competitors). This year, I poached most heavily from lists by Alphonse Pierre (the generational hip-hop tastemaker hated by Cole, Kendrick, and Clipse stans the world across) and Eli Schoop (a world-class hater who seems to actually love music a lot), Most of all, I poached from a screenshot of Evan Welsh’s personal top 100—yes, the Evan Welsh who will buy you a drink if you see him at seven shows (and if you go to seven cool shows in NYC he’ll likely be at all of them). Shoutout also to Philip Sherburne, who made a great list of electronic albums for Pitchfork as well as a genre-agnostic list for his own blog, and to Kieran Press-Reynolds, who made a video for his top seven that would kill a Victorian child.

My favorite two things about list season are learning about a million new artists and seeing what my friends are listening to without having to see what Spotify thinks their musical age is. Music discovery is the best thing ever, and we rob ourselves of that joy when we let algorithms do it for us.

I shared my 100–76th best albums and songs this past week. And today, on this 8th day of Hanukkah, I’m pleased present to you the 51st–75th best albums of 2025.

75. Sahbabii: Saaheem (A Lu Bit More)

Not much attention has been paid of late to the career of Saheem Valdery, who exploded onto the scene in 2016 with a WorldStar-ready track called “Pull Up wit ah Stick” before dropping his hit-heavy debut LP S.A.N.D.A.S. the following year. With bangers under his belt like “Purple Ape” and “Marsupial Superstars”—indisputably one of the top 10 tracks of all time—and an unreleased cover of Alkaline’s “Move Mountains” that rivals the original in sleazy glory, Sahbabii seemed set to rise from the ranks of Young Thug clones into the top tier of Atlanta trap’s incoming class.

His output over the next eight years was steady with a few tracks breaking critical containment, but Saaheem (A Lu Bit More) is easily his best work in half a decade. His lyrics are more reflective now, his free-wheeling, Auto-Tuned falsetto flow now tamped down to a less-flamboyant register. But the change of pace sounds less like an assimilation into rap’s rank and file than a confidence in his own craft in the absence of runaway stylistic novelty. Not all 20 songs on Saaheem are revelations, but it’s a smooth and engaging listen all the way through—52 minutes of surprisingly soulful bars and hard but understated beats.

74. Gwenifer Raymond: Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark

On her first studio LP in five years, the Queen of “Welsh Primitive”—a blend of American folk traditions like Delta blues and the later Americana stylings of John Fahey and Co. with traditions from Raymond’s native South Whales and a dash of Gothic horror—turns to sci-fi for inspiration. Her love of Vonnegut, Bradbury, Dick, and the British pulp authors she picked up in the Brighton market while thinking up this record might not be apparent while listening to the album, but the mesmeric vortex of sound she creates simply by fingerpicking the strings of a single acoustic guitar conjures an overwhelming sense of the surreal.

73. zayALLCAPS: art Pop * pop Art

“MTV’s Pimp My Ride” has justifiably been the focus of the praise heaped onto zayALLCAPS this year, but art Pop * pop Art is teriffic from top to bottom. These tracks are cut ingeniously, each delirious beat flowing naturally into the next, and zay’s bars float over them like words in a dream. Many of these lyrics are tongue-in-cheek innuendos, but in some of his relationship rhymes, it seems like he’s genuinely working through fights and heartbrakes in real time. All the while, he raps, sings, and produces like he’s been doing all three since the day he was born.

72. The Necks: Disquiet

A full review of the Necks’ newest mammoth masterpiece would actually be a review of four albums; its shortest track is 26 minutes long and its longest lasts well over an hour, but that’s simply how the Necks operate. Track 1, “Rapid Eye Movement,” finds the surprisingly normal sexagenarian Aussie trio (read my interview with the Necks) in the same contemplative trance under which they lived on their last album, Bleed. “Ghost Net” sees them marching along at a more intentional pace but stumbling over thickets of rhythm and knotted chords as if chained together at the feet. “Causeway” exists in a lighter, dreamier register, bluesy yet somehow transcendent of the blues. And “Warm Running Sunlight” brings the whole thing home with emphatic crashes of bass drum followed by dissonant fallout embodied by tangled bass, guitar, and organ. Light keys float over the top but can only sustain for so long, although they return at the end, closing the 189-minute opus on a note of somber hope. Listening to Disquiet in parts is more than reasonable, but if you can find the time in your day to sit through the whole thing, you’ll feel the same sort of satisfaction you get after pushing through a long, slow film whose meaning emerges only in its final stage.

71. Enji: Sonor

Mongolia-born, Munich-based singer-songwriter Enkhjargal Erkhembayar’s third album in as many years sees her working once again with guitarist Paul Bändle to craft a beautiful body of jazz that is in many ways conventional, but its laid-back nature gives Enji’s voice the leeway to roam from away from traditional melodies, weaving the uncanny melisma of Mongolian folk music into her sound, as clear as cut glass but as multidimensional as a hall of mirrors.

70. Melvin Gibbs: Amasia: Namibia Sessions 2

Melvin Gibbs has been on the avant garde of everything since the early ’80s. One of no wave’s most prolific participants, he’s produced collisions of punk, jazz, hip-hop, and drone, among many other styles, and he’s continued to innovate deep into his 60s. Amasia, the second edition of Gibbs’s Namibia Sessions series, is almost a full 180 from its predecessor. (2022’s The Wave, a gray mass of sub-bass feedback.) Here, Gibbs goes full-blown maximalist, adding guitar, electric piano, EWI, flute, alto sax, organ, Wurlitzer, bass clarinet, beatboxing, and a dozen-odd drums and synths to his virtuosic but unobtrusive bass. There are few living artists with Gibbs’s combined imagination and mastery of arranging across genres, and he shows it all off here.

69. Disinblud: Disinblud

Disinblud is the power duo of polymathic producer-guitarist Rachika Nayar and classical pianist Nina Keith. Their debut album together is understated, at times ambient, but full of glittering gears that grind together to create gorgeous mechanisms, creations that could only come from constantly curious minds. Nayar and Keith are joined here by similarly talented collaborators—Julianna Barwick, Cassandra Croft, June McDoom, Katie Dey, and more—who slide into the machine without friction, giving the record a sense of continuity, allowing it to maintain both the softness to lull the listener into a lovely trance but the complexity to keep us wide awake if that’s what we desire. It’s a perfect piece of soft noise, quietly busy, equally listenable and challenging.

68. El Café Autómico: Panamericana Babylon

“Pan-American Babylon…is a collection of things that happened, things that didn’t, delusions, atmospheres, and memories surrounding the Venezuelan highway,” Víctor Fernández Sellanes writes (in Spanish) in a description of his new album. That about sums up this meandering, three-and-a-half-hour document of life on the road. I’ve never been to Venezuela, but I’ve taken many interminable drives across the U.S. interstate system, and Panamericana Babylon perfectly captures that feeling of solitude, punctuated at times by strange and sometimes-dangerous events. The album plays out like a great road movie, reveling in its slow, open spaces.

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67. Natural Information Society & Bitchin Bajas: Totality

NIS and Bitchin Bajas are titans of drone exploration, the former through ambient jazz, the latter through trippy electronica + sax, so their meeting on Totality feels like not only a completion but an inevitability. Locked into mesmeric grooves and shrouded in clouds of overtones, it’s a record you might as well get lost in; there’s really no use resisting.

66. Brighde Chaimbeul: Sunwise

Something magical happens when Brighde Chaimbeul picks up the small pipes. I’ve seen her hold a room in perfect thrall, and Sunwise approximates that feeling as well as an album can. There are slow droners, fast stompers, and head-spinning would-be singalongs. The common thread seems to be a sense of pride in this ancient music that never gets in the way of Chaimbeul’s ability to innovate on it.

65. Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons: Live in Philadelphia

Marshall Allen is 101 years old, but the saxophonist, composer, and leader of Sun Ra Arkestra for 33 years plays with more passion than most college freshmen. Ghost Horizons—founded in 2022 by Allen and Arkestra guitarist DIMHOTEP, brings Allen’s own compositions to life with the aid of a rotating crew of longtime Arkestra collaborators—Immanuel Wilkins, James Brandon Lewis, Wolf Eyes, Yo La Tengo’s James McNew, The War On Drugs’ Charlie Hall, et al.—and Live In Philidelphia is the first public document of their astral collaborations. Recorded across nine shows, the album finds Allen exploring much quieter, spaced-out structures than he has with the Arkestra, where he’s always stuck to Ra’s compositions. Still, the emphasis on the alien sounds of the Electronic Wind Instrument here gives the impression that he’s somehow communicating with his mentor, reaching out from across the cosmos.

64. Lorien Testard: Expedition 33 (Original Soundtrack)

I must first admit that I have not listened to all eight hours and nine minutes of Lorien Testard’s soundtrack to Clair Obscur Expediion 33, a French RPG in which a party of heroes sets out to stop a scourge that’s taking over a fantastically reimagined Bell Époque Paris. Still, skimming through it with a close eye on the tracks featuring the voice of Alice Duport-Percier is enough to recognize it as a towering accomplishment. Symphonic but clearly meant to enhance gameplay rather than overtake it, it sees Testard stringing subtle motifs through background passages until they explode in all of their bucolic glory as they take center stage.

63. Jim Legxacy: black british music

I didn’t always get why everyone loved Jim Legxacy, but black british music made me come around; there’s no denying now that he’s meant for super-stardom, and deservedly so. Rather than polishing out the eccentricities that may have turned me off—for whatever reason—in the past, he’s leaned into and elevated his original aesthetic. black british music is highly produced but raw on an emotional level, a hit parade that never strays too far from the artist’s roots.

62. PulciPerla: Tatekieto

Any cultural divide between Toulousian jazz quartet Pulcinella and Bógota vocal trio La Perla get together on the bandstand. The music skews Latin—not only in La Perla’s lyrics but in the group’s rhythms as well—but Pulcinella’s bring their own swagger to the table too. There’s rapping. There are proggy bits. There’s a synth keyboard that conspires with acoustic instruments to play tricks on the mind. There are instantaneous breakdowns that and changes of direction that make sense only in context. There’s something for everyone here, and you’d have to be a real antisocial pervert not to like it.

61. OSMIUM: OSMIUM

This is the heaviest thing I heard all year, and I can’t imagine it was made by anyone other than an actual monster from Hell (although, as it turns out, it was made by Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, among others). I’m legitimately scared to listen to this album alone.

60. أحمد [Ahmed]: سماع [Sama’a] (Audition)

[Ahmed] rip harder than just about any other free jazz outfit in existence. It’s hard bop. It’s klezmer. It’s chaos. Hearing it on wax doesn’t quite do it justice, but just close your eyes and let yourself be spirited away to a loud, smoky club in a future that very much resembles the past. The people around you might be insufferable, but pay them no mind. Tonight is about the music, so lock in.

59. heavensouls: new york fall, 1977

Upload [Ahmed]’s energy to the internet and download it into the brain of a single zoomer, then download every other conceivable style of music, and you’ve got heavensouls. Any trace of the cloud rap he started out making has gone the way of the dinosaur. And on new york fall, 1977, he looks back to an imagined past where Miles Davis got hold of Ableton, recorded everyone he’d ever hired in a separate room, and stacked all the tracks on top of each other. It may have been made on a computer, but new york fall, 1977 has live energy coursing through it. It’s hard to imagine how heavensouls pulled it off.

58. Jane Remover: Revengeseekerz

Jane has done it again! The hyperpop iconoclast and digicore progenitor has finally gotten their flowers in the last few years, and Revengeseekerz sees them back in full, unfiltered form after two quieter albums that were innovative in their own ways but much less energized. This album is bigger and sharper than anything they’ve done but maintains the sense of anarchic exploration they’ve had since day one.

57. Alpha Maid: Is this a queue

I first learned about Alpha Maid when she teamed up with Mica Levi as Spreso in 2023, but British guitarist Leisha Thomas has been putting out music under the moniker since 2019. Is this a queue retains the sporadic bursts of energy that characterized her earlier work, but they feels more channeled now, her sparks of inspiration igniting an engine that takes this project far from from her scrappy beginnings, even if the spirit’s still there.

56. DJ Elmoe: Battle Zone

Left-field footwork is always welcome in this house. So when I saw Planet Mu was releasing a compilation by a producer I’d found (along with the rest of the uninitiated world) through his opening track on Bangs & Works, Vol. 1, I rubbed my hands together like Ebenezer Scrooge. Elmoe has always taken a less-traveled path in footwork, opting for a spaced-out, unhurried vibe while his colleague’s made tracks optimized for maximum danceability. That certainty isn’t to say one approach is better than the other; it’s just that I’m most drawn to Elmoe’s work while I’m writing, walking around, riding the bus. In recent years, he’s been applying something similar to a Houstonian chopped-and-screwed approach to Chicago footwork, a surprisingly successful formula I’m not sure anyone else could’ve thought up if not him. Battle Zone is a shining sample of that sound, showing off the remarkable range Elmoe achieves even within his ultra-specific style. “Bangin Vox” seems straightforward at first before a slick rewind effect hits, slurring the proceedings. The disjointed, galloping drums on “Come Back” make it a tough track to dance to but a heady one to hear sitting down. And Battle Zone’s closing, title track builds tension with a hollow synth flute that shifts between soaring promises and minor-key threats that sit behind the beat. “You will not survive,” a pitched-down voice repeats, ending the album with a sense of evil that comes out of nowhere. With DJ Elmoe in the booth, nothing is predictable.

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55. Sunik Kim: Formenverwandler

There are volumes of theory behind Sunik Kim’s music that can make pieces like Formenverwandler (German for shapeshifter) feel abstruse and inaccessible at times. Without too much research, though, one can start to visualize what she’s doing here. Picture a particle accelerator: Turning up the power will make the molecules vibrate faster and faster, bounding off of each other like a frantic horde and producing peak anxiety in the listener. Turning it down a bit allows the atoms to spiral out into space in a more visible pattern, and turning it waaay down makes their motion almost imperceptible, so gradual the changes can only be seen over time. That’s what happens over the course of this album’s first three “tracks”—37, 23, and 50 minutes long, respectively. Then, on closer “Amidst the Ruin,” Kim cranks the experiment up to 30x speed, bottling it in a three-minute vial for future use.

54. Zoh Amba: Sun

The sophomore solo album from Tennessean saxophonist, guitarist, and composer Zoh Amba, whose become a mainstay in New York’s experimental underground, was grown in a fertile and highly potent substrate. “Fruit Gathering,” which opens the record with a lovely interpolation of “Taps,” soon evaporates into a free-jazz melee on “Interbeing.” Later, on “Champa Flower,” Amba fingerpicks their guitar as if skipping through an overgrown field. There’s the ambient “At Noon” and the percussion-less 10-minute freakout “In Heart,” which closes the record. Taken together, all of this demonstrates both the 25-year-old Amba’s wide-eyed willingness to step into the unknown and their immediate mastery of every form they tackle.

53. Elkotsh: rhlt jdi

If “150 Leila” doesn’t make you want to dance, nothing will. Then again, that goes for every track on rhlt jdi, a masterful half-hour mix of shaabi (Egyptian wedding music), electrified and hybridized with such styles as grime and dembow by Cairo street DJ Elkotsh. A non-stop onslaught of this captivating sound would have done perfectly well, but Elkotsh thwarts such expectations by taking the tempo down considerably on the record’s chiller back half. On closing track “Zikr,” he takes a whole minute to build up to a slow and heavy but highly anticipated drop. As G-d is my witness, I will play this album at my eldest son’s Bar Mitzvah.

52. weed420: amor de encava

weed420 were initially a meme band—formed on a Discord server in 2021, not meeting in person till this year, making ultra-bit-crushed tracks more as inside jokes than works of art. Their all-Venezuelan lineup (though one of them now lives in Paraguay) consists of djALVARO, glich, djJuan, frowingato, samiipochii, and swan duhr, and they still like to mess around—especially with the expectations of their new, North American and European audience—but their music has become much more serious as the future of their country, and of their own lives, becomes more and more precarious.

Their sound is a collage of styles pulled from the wild street mixes played on local encavas (buses), psych-rock guitar, jumbled rapping, and more, mashed together in a style reminiscent of the incomparable Chuquimamani-Condori. They’ve put out plenty of music since amor de encava dropped, but this is their triumphant introduction to the world at large.

Read more on weed420 (as I did) in this great feature by Agustín Puszczyk.

51. Michael Hurley: Broken Homes and Gardens

I won’t wax for too long here as my blurbs have started rambling again—not me, just the blurbs—but Michael Hurley made better singer-songwriter folk music than anyone else alive or dead. No one else captured that lawless country wistfulness as simply, cleverly, and naturally as he did. No one else could write a track like “Sweedeedee” or “Slurf Song” or “Penguins,” the most beautiful piece of music ever set to mouth trumpet.

Broken Homes and Gardens was completed in March 2025, just a couple of weeks before Hurley died on tour. It is not, of course, his best album, but it’s an unthinkable feat for an 83-year-old man at death’s door. There are tenacious reworkings of his older tracks, and a few brand new ones too. I got to see him play a few of these songs at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville just days before his death, not quite understanding that a giant of his proportions could ever leave this Earth. Too frail to carry his guitar, he rambled often and his fingers sometimes slipped off the frets, but he looked totally comfortable with himself, doing exactly what he loved till the very end.

Read the essay I wrote on Hurley after his passing.

That’s it for now! Come back soon to see the 51st–75th best songs of the year, according to me, Raphael Helfand, CEO and founder of Raphael Media Group©.

Welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I’ve decided to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025, each in four posts spaced strategically throughout this week in order to honor Hanukkah in my own special little way.

You may have noticed that, in my initial Albums of the Year post, I promised to deliver a new portion of one of these lists “ever light [sic] that the oil still burns (G-d willing).” G-d was, unfortunately, not willing; I spent an absurd amount of time making this list of my 100 favorite songs of 2025, compiling a master list of roughly 500 songs and then painstakingly whittling it down to 100—well, 101, as you’ll see below. If you’d like to reward all of this self-imposed work by subscribing to this blog—which G-d has struck down from the 13th to 23rd most popular “rising music” blog on Substack, no doubt as punishment for breaking my promise re: timeliness—it would be much appreciated.

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Anyway, here’s my general spiel about why personal lists are much better and more fun than publications’ lists:

The lists of most major publications tend to be repetitive and predictable, the same names shuffled around. Everyone races to go first, which means discounting releases from the last two months of every year. And it’s usually stressful for everyone involved, so it’s often treated it like a chore.

Which is too bad because lists rule. What excites me about personal lists is that they’re un-triangulated; they’re a reflection of one’s own taste and no one else’s, though this platonic ideal is often complicated by a perceived pressure to look as if your taste is pristine and your musical knowledge infinite.

I’ll tell you a secret: The best way to do that is to post your list later than everyone else does so you can steal from your colleagues (read: competitors). This year, I poached most heavily from lists by Alphonse Pierre (the generational hip-hop tastemaker hated by Cole, Kendrick, and Clipse stans the world across), Eli Schoop (a world-class hater who seems to actually love music a lot), and, most of all, a screenshot of Evan Welsh’s personal top 100—yes, the Evan Welsh who will buy you a drink if you see him at seven shows (and if you go to seven cool shows in NYC he’ll likely be at all of them). Shoutout also to Philip Sherburne, who made a great list of electronic albums for Pitchfork as well as a genre-agnostic list for his own blog, and to Kieran Press-Reynolds, who made a video for his top seven that would kill a Victorian child.

My favorite two things about list season are learning about a million new artists and seeing what my friends are listening to without having to see what Spotify thinks their musical age is. Music discovery is the best thing ever, and we rob ourselves of that joy when we let algorithms do it for us.

Given my general decision paralysis when making these lists, I’ll be releasing honorable mentions lists (200 albums and hundreds upon hundreds of songs), at a later date. But today, I am pleased to present to you the 76th–99th best songs of 2025, plus one song from 2024 and one song that is quite honestly not very good.

Please enjoy, and—again—please subscribe and share if you can find it in your heart to do so.

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101. Ceechynaa: Peggy

I’m breaking my hard rule of only including music that came out in the year 2025 to write about a criminally slept on track from last December. It’s not like no one’s heard it—9.8 million views on the video is nothing to sneeze at—but I personally thought it had “Munch”-level potential.

Ceechynaa, an Essex MC with only a few tracks to her name, found a perfect match for her aggressive flow in a vicious beat that pairs a pounding Jersey club kick with a menacing opera sample. More importantly, this track has more platinum one-liners than most mainstream rappers can conjure in a full album:

There’s the iconic “Oi mate!” that kicks off the proceedings with British flare. (In the video above, she stands on a double-decker bus with a massive Union Jack hanging off the back.)

There’s the gender flip of a classic (albeit somewhat problematic) bar from “Half On a Sack”: “We gon’ fuck her in the back of the bus / And fill her nose up full of that dust” becomes “I’m pegging that man in the back of the bus / Feeling like Three 6 Mafia, I’m gonna fill up his nose with dust.”

There’s this lyric—“He said that he’s got a big dick, but he’s scoopin’ it up in his hands / I told him to put that shrimp back in his fucking pants.”

And there’s so much more where that came from. This song gets a 101/101 from me.

100. Charli XCX feat. John Cale: House

This one’s partially to see if you’re reading because it is not a very good song. However, the video rules and I could listen to John Cale talk for hours.

Those of you who have followed my previous lists may have picked up on the fact that I like to be a bit silly with my 100th spot. Is it ethical? No. Does it exclude a much better song from the list or—on the flip side—put an excellent album lower on the list than it’s meant to be simply because it gives me a little chuckle? Yes.

Guess what, though. It’s my list and I can do whatever I want.

99. BAKUDI SCREAM & Alarm Will Sound: HE WHO IS PUNISHED CAN DANCE IN HELL

OK, back to business. Bicoastal artist Rohan Chandler (BAKUDI SCREAM) has always made unruly music, but he takes it to another level here, pivoting to a hardcore aesthetic and screamed vocals on Prey, an unlikely collab with the experimental chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound. It’s better than anyone could have expected, and “HE WHO IS PUNISHED CAN DANCE IN HELL” is probably it’s most balls-to-the-wall cut.

98. Treety feat. Rob49: Ain’t No Fun

Treety’s sharp, wordy flow and Rob49’s frantic, super-charged energy are a match made in Louisiana heaven. The two New Orleans MCs get straight to the point on a track presents variations on the theme of a similarly themed Doggystyle cut. Treety and Rob just want to share the fun with the crew, a noble pursuit in most cases. The instrumental, while not a bounce beat strictly speaking, still captures the vibe of a Sunday second line in the best city on Earth.

97. Emma Goldman: at rock bottom I was a piss girl

It’s important to note that Emma Goldman is not a solo female artist or a 19th-century anarchist writer but a four-piece post-hardcore band from Vancouver. Their debut LP, all you are is we, is a white-knuckling ripper from top to bottom, but its greatest triumph comes right at the start, with the beautifully titled “at rock bottom I was a piss girl.” It’s so hard and fast that I have no idea what they’re talking about, but semantic meaning crumples in the face of all that noise.

96. Loe Shimmy feat. YTB Fatt: Two Faced

Loe Shimmy was always had the aura of a major-league rapper, and his new album Rockstar Junkie cements him as such. Here, his nasal, melodic flow sounds especially lyrical (in the traditional sense) in opposition to YTB Fatt’s deep, raspy bars.

95. canut de bon: tango

Both sides of Santiago, Chile screamo bands cóclea and canut de bon’s new split tape are excellent, but the hardest track on either side is “tango,” which starts with the sort of muffled tango track you might hear in an abandoned house in a Guillermo del Toro movie, then explodes into a dissonant snarl of detuned guitars, pummeling drums, and strained shouting.

95. 2slimey: Bring emOut

I don’t think any popular rage rapper—not OsamaSon or even Che—has come close to this level hellacious distortion, and frankly, I am rocking with it.

93. Jeff Tweedy: Parking Lot

I listened to lots of Jeff Tweedy’s triple album Twilight Override while working on my feature on the Wilco frontman this fall, but “Parking Lot” is the one song I’ve kept coming back to. It’s a perfect example of Tweedy’s brilliance as a songwriter—reflective, insightful, and wryly hilarious. “There’s a version of me that hangs out in parking lots… He has a car, the hood is popped / Talking to some other “me”s I don’t recognize,” Tweedy says in a rare spoken-word passage that rides a slow-swinging instrumental. “But this guy / This show-off showing off / Kinda rules / He obviously knows a lot about cars.”

92. Lelo: Forever In A Day

Lelo’s New Detroit may be the best album by any rapper from his hometown this year. His flow has the classic Detroit bounce, but it’s injected with a personal swagger that feels natural and innovative at once. On “Forever In A Day,” he’s submerged in the pocket and immersed in the ominous sounds of the city—noisy traffic, sirens, barking dogs, etc.

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91. Oli XL feat. Chanel Beads: LOVE & Pop

I hope “LOVE & POP” was inspired by Hideaki Anno’s wonderfully strange and slightly perverted 2001 movie of the same name, because it creates a vibe that feels like an updated version of that film’s aesthetic. Alongside Brooklyn underground star Chanel Beads, Stockholm artist Oli XL crafts a retrofuturist beat that provides a terrific backdrop for his reedy, spoken verses and ethereal, falsetto choruses.

90. Papo2oo4 & subjxct 5 feat. YL: Can You Hear Me Now

Back in April, long-term Jersey-based collaborators Papo2oo4 and subjxct 5 dropped what appears to be the start of an extremely promising mixtape series with Papaoholic, Vol. 1. On “Can You Hear Me Know,” Papo’s basso flow evokes Pop Smoke parallels as he oozes over subjxct’s retro tristate beat. And a silky guest verse from NYC rapper YL elevates the track as the record’s standout.

89. William Tyler: Star of Hope

William Tyler is a living ambient guitar legend, and his latest album Time Indefinite is one of his best. On “Star of Hope,” he conjures the sort of heartbreaking nostalgia one might feel watching a staticky tape of an old family reunion generations later. It doesn’t hurt that the song’s music video uses what looks like just that type of footage, but the song—which sets Tyler’s guitar against a warbly a capella hymn that’s deeply warped via tape looping—produces just as vivid an image without visual accompaniment.

88. Masma Dream World: PLEASE COME TO ME

Masma Dream World’s vantablack energy is difficult to experience for a full album at a time. (I struggled with her new record PLEASE COME TO ME and I’m the type of freak who generally enjoys stuff like that.) Concentrated in a single song, however, as it is most purely on the project’s title track, it’s potent. “PLEASE COME TO ME” is founded in a horrifyingly gorgeous vocal harmony—like a Gregorian chant from Hell—delivered in the extreme low register of the human voice, over which Masma’s sparse treble melodies echo out in the void. Almost calming but clearly haunted by a particularly ghastly strain of spirits, it’s a track to take in at your own risk.

87. Ninajarachi: Fuck My Computer

On an album about album (I Love My Computer) about our inextricable interoperability with our devices, “Fuck My Computer” says the already loud part even louder. “I wanna fuck my computer / ’Cause no one in the world knows me better,” Ninajarashi—or, perhaps, a speech-to-text proxy for the Aussie producer—states matter-of-factly over a sleazy big-room EDM beat tricked out for high-low society. Can you blame her?

86. Natalia Lafourcade feat. El David Aguilar: Como quisiera quererte

This stately Spanish-language ballad is a bit of an outlier on this list, but it was just too beautiful to leave out. The two Mexican singer-songwriters, who’ve both dabbled in pop, jazz, and regional folk music, turn back the clock here for a lilting waltz, their lovely voices interlacing above simply strummed guitar and a splash of piano every now and again. The track tells a tale of extreme desire; its title translates to “How I wish I could love you,” and most of the song is spent lamenting the suffering caused by this longing. Singing together, though, Lafourcade and Aguilar sound anything but lonely. Swaddled in each other’s arms, they sing like like old lovers dancing by themselves at midnight before drifting off in a bed they’ve shared for decades.

85. MIKE & Tony Seltzer: Prezzy

I’ve always maintained that MIKE sounds back over his own beats, but there’s no denying the unique synergy he has with his frequent collaborator Tony Seltzer. Pinball 2, their second album as a rapper-producer duo, is full of instrumentals outside MIKE’s usual range. With “Prezzy,” he proves he can flow as well over a bass-heavy trap beat as he can over his own soulful, sample-heavy fare.

84. The Armed feat. Prostitute: Broken Mirror

Prostitute put out a revelatory and (politically) revolutionary debut album this year, but they’re at their most locked in on this collab with mysterious cult superstars The Armed. It’s noisy but harmonically rich, its vocals urgent but often unintelligible, a perfectly pixelated punk song for a world descending into digital doom.

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83. BA PACE feat. Sniper Lew: MOTION SICKNESS

Bronx rapper BA PACE makes music that’s perfect for late-night rides through the city. Ironically, the best song on his new album MIDNIGHT MAROON is called “MOTION SICKNESS.” Fortunately for the passengers among us, though, the track is a perfect iteration of that slow-rolling vibe. Riding an old-school beat from Bay Area producer Sniper Lew, PACE is reflective, smoothly blending diaristic storytelling with the sort of illuminating insights that make a novel worth reading. “Half a chicken with fried rice out on Broadway / After dinner I drink some coffee,” he raps. “I know many living beyond they means and can’t afford / You put yourself in further danger tryna maintain the illusion of security.”

82. Silvia Tarozzi: Distratta

Primarily known as an experimental violinist, Silvia Tarozzi got in her chamber-pop bag on Lucciole, a brightly colored and perfectly paced new album that arrived just in time for RMG© list consideration. On “Distratta,” her striking voice and subtle violin are accompanied by whistling, Whurlitzer, a theremin, a small brass section, and more. These components swing like circus performers, linking arms and legs as they glide past.

81. Taxidermists: Shoot

On 20247, Cooper Handy (aka LUCY) and his best pal Sal McNamara tap into a more focused energy than they have in the past as Taxidermists. Take “Shoot,” which maintains their DIY slacker vibe while deftly switching modes from Wire-y verse to Clash-y chorus, combining what could easily have been the seeds of separate songs into one. Beyond that, it’s central hook —“Tired, exhausted / Tired, tired, exhausted”—is anthemic, especially for those of us who’ve been up all night making lists.

80. Matthew Ryals: Knots

This track is almost unbearable to listen to, which might be why it only has nine views on YouTube. Once it gets going, there’s a recurring noise that sounds like a dentist’s drill, and if you’re listening on headphones or loud enough speakers, it feels like it’s boring right through your incisors. Its pacing is understated, so it’s not an all-out assault on year ear drums. But at it’s most intense moments, it’s one of the harshest things I’ve heard all year. 🤘

79. DJ K feat. DJ Kadu: MEGA SUICIDIO AUDITIVO

This one, as its name implies, lives in the all-out ear-drum assault camp. The stylistic experimentation of his new album RADIO LIBERTADORA! didn’t quite hit as hard as the jump-scare mayhem of his debut LP Panico No Submundo. But “MEGA SUICIDIO AUDITIVO” gives you everything you want from bruxaria (the unhinged baile funk subgenre he invented in São Paulo): Shouting from every direction, red-lining bass that precludes traditional percussion, perfectly timed tuin drops, foul lyrics best left untranslated. Check out the interview I did with K this some if you feel so inclined.

I guess it’s a good place for me to spam the Subscribe button again too…

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78. Anna von Hausswolf feat. Iggy Pop: The Whole Woman

Anna von Hausswolf’s soprano soars over the alternately floating, droning, and forward-marching instrumentals on her excellent new album Iconoclasts. It’s always good to have a foil, tough, and Iggy Pop—the ancient punk legend whose voice just might deepen below humanity’s audible range before he departs this world—is perhaps the Swedish singer-songwriter’s ideal counterpoint. The music behind von Hausswolf and Pop is slow but celebratory, and they dutifully trade bars before launching into gorgeous duets that call to mind an unrealized Leonard Cohen/Dolores O’Riordan collab. On an album with many twists and turns, the steadiness of “The Whole Woman” is refreshing.

77. Emily Yacina feat. Trissss: Talk Me Down

On her new album Veilfall, Philly indie-rock veteran Emily Yacina generally sticks to what she knows best and does quite well: smart, lyrics-first songwriting that’s moved out of the bedroom but hasn’t quite left the house. On penultimate track “Talk Me Down,” though, she tries on a poppy synth instrumental that—unsurprisingly, given her sweet, slightly breathy voice and knack for deceptively simple lyrics—fits like a glove. Across three minutes, she strings together memorable motifs (sugar, bullets, imposter syndrome, the Freudian death drive) that leave lasting images seared into the brain like photo negatives. Starting roughly 90 seconds in, the song’s tempo slows—subtly at first, then all of a sudden—to nearly half-speed, creating ample space for new variations on the first act’s themes.

76. toso toso: cLAcLAcLA

It seems like there’s nothing toso toso can’t do well: jazz, ambient, noise, experimental pop… Their stupidly good debut LP gets gradually more subdued as it slowly settles into itself, which is why its opener is (even more so than usual) the best place to start. I may be mistaken—although I’m probably not because these songs are in Spanish and I was a SPANISH MINOR—but I understand “cLAcLAcLA” as onomatopoeia for the dizzying display of drumming (courtesy of Kabir Adhiya-Kumar) that puts a near-lethal charge through the track within its first millisecond. The drums soon settle down and a quizzical synth steps in to underscore Isabel Crepo Pardo’s rich alto. The song crescendos and crashes, punctuated by more ridiculously virtuosic drumming. There’s so much happening so fast that, by the time it’s over, you either can’t believe its only taken five minutes to unfold or can’t believe any time at all has passed.

Welcome new followers to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier luxury live-work music journalism company. I’m Raphael.

In my first act as chairman of Raphael Media Group© (soon to be a registered S-Corp), I’ve decided to list my 100 favorite albums and songs of 2025. It’s no coincidence that the timing of these lists’ publication coincides with that of Hanukkah, a holiday which I intend to celebrate to the fullest extent of my abilities. In fact, I was planning this all along: Each night that the oil still burns (G-d willing), I will release one quarter of each list… starting tonight with albums 100–76 and a whole bevy of honorable mentions.

The lists of most major publications tend to be repetitive and predictable, the same names shuffled around. Everyone races to go first, which means discounting releases from the last two months of the year, and it’s usually stressful for everyone involved, so it’s easy to treat it like a chore.

Which is too bad, because lists rule. What excites me about personal lists is that they’re un-triangulated; they’re a reflection of one’s own taste and no one else’s, though this platonic ideal is often complicated by a perceived pressure to look as if your taste is pristine and your musical knowledge infinite.

I’ll tell you a secret: The best way to do that is to post your list later than everyone else does so you can steal from your colleagues (read: competitors). This year, I poached most heavily from lists by Alphonse Pierre (the generational hip-hop tastemaker hated by Cole, Kendrick, and Clipse stans the world across), Eli Schoop (a world-class hater who seems to actually love music a lot), and most of all, a screenshot of Evan Welsh’s personal top 100—yes, the Evan Welsh who will buy you a drink if you see him at seven shows (and if you go to seven cool shows in NYC he’ll likely be at all of them). Shoutout also to Philip Sherburne, who made a great list of electronic albums for Pitchfork as well of a genre-agnostic list for his own blog, and to Kieran Press-Reynolds, who made a video for his top seven that would kill a Victorian child.

My two favorite things about list season are learning about a million new artists and seeing what my friends are listening to without having to see what Spotify thinks their musical age is. Music discovery is the best thing ever, and we rob ourselves of that joy when we let algorithms do it for us.

I may be running on a half hour of sleep after compiling not only a list of my 100 favorite albums of 2025 but also another list of 200 honorable mentions (those will come in a separate post). But I’m thrilled to begin my rollout with albums 100–76.

Please enjoy, and please subscribe and share if you can find it in your heart to do so.

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100. Addison Rae: Addison

An album that surprised me by being very good. For that reason and that reason alone, it is my 100th favorite album of the year.

99. Abhorrent Existence: Enter the Misanthropocene

This album is either amazing or terrible. The Wire named it the 16th best album of the year. AOTY (the website) reviewer Angry Metal Guy, on the other hand, gave it a 20/100, writing:

Abhorrent Expanse holds a mirror to art itself, making us question what is drivel and what is erudite—through the improvised off-key noodling of someone who has arguably never picked up a guitar before…

In the end, beauty is in the ear of the beholder. It’s ecstatic black metal by way of free jazz, so take it or leave it.

98. Shearling: Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” And “Hallelujah”

God-awful name for an album, but it’s quite a feat musically. Everyone in the band is absolutely wailing but 100% locked in the whole time. I’ll admit that the vocals don’t really do it for me, but everything else gets a 10/10.

97. Yeyo: latinpapichuggstar*

Armored by Auto- Tune and Mexican slang — enough so that even I, a former Spanish MINOR, can only decipher a small fraction of his lyrics, Yeyo blends drill, reggaeton, and Latin trap without breaking a sweat.

96. Smerz: Big city life

Great album by a group that’s been around for a bit and is finally getting its well-deserved flowers. I spent all 31 years of my silly little life thinking they were from Copenhagen—doesn’t it seem like they would be?—but I found out recently that they’re Norwegian. Go figure. This project has one of the best songs of the year on it, but I’ll save that for my other list.

95. Ø: Sysivalo

Since you’re already in Norway, get a running start and hop east over Sweden and the Gulf of Bothnia, and you’ll find the home of Ø (aka Mike Vainio). If dark and atmospheric is what you seek, then this is the record for you! Turn the lights off, get comfortable, and sink into the ectoplasm.

94. Amina Claudine Myers: Solace of the Mind

Here is an album simply rendered but deeply felt. The octogenarian pianist, organist, composer, and vocalist seems at peace with her purpose on Solace of the Mind, speaking to her ancestors with her eyes locked firmly on the path ahead, moving one foot in front of the other.

93. Yetsuby: 4EVA

4EVA finds Seoul artist Yetsuby (aka Manda from Salamanda) sounding as airtight and plucky in her production choices as she’s ever been. Not the best winter music, perhaps, but great for walking around on a very sunny day.

91. jackzebra: Hunched Jack Mixtape

A bit front-loaded but an excellent display of jackzebra’s endless talent nonetheless. You can read more of my thoughts on it here if you like, but I think he’s one of the most exciting rappers in the world, even if his work could use a bit editing sometimes.

92. Nina Garcia: Bye Bye Bird

An absolutely towering guitar record—a slow burn that pays off in dramatic fashion, with quiet drones giving way to hellacious shredding.

90. Nino Paid: Love Me As I Am

Nino Paid’s bars are far too reflective to spring from a 22-year-old mind. Disarmingly vulnerable in his lyrics but ice cold over the low-key “free car” beats that populate this record, the DMV native possesses more self-knowledge then most men twice his age.

89. Nuvolascura: How This All Ends

Post-screamo superfreaks Nuvolascura waste no time getting into their ultra-aggressive, hyper-technical bag and refuse to take their collective foot off the gas for a moment of the album’s first nine tracks. They slow down for all of a minute at the start of the closer, but then it’s off to the races again. Gotta love a the mentality.

88. Nadah El Shazly: Laini Tani

Nadah El Shazly’s work can be challenging and confrontational, but Laini Taini is quite fun. There’s something for everyone: sumptuous pentatonic pop; propulsive, skeletal dance music; and, of course, a few ear-bruisers for the heads. El Shazly’s stunning voice takes center stage, and, per usual, she’s unafraid to let it sound raw and ugly at times. Of course, this makes her virtuosic runs soar even higher in turn.

87. Evan Parker & Bill Nace: Branches

There are very few things that could have made this live collaboration between two absolute titans of experimental music anything but incredible. As one might imagine, what we have here is 40 minutes of sheer havoc, Parker’s caterwauling soprano sax tying itself in impossible knots around Nace’s two-stringed taishōgoto. Perhaps unsurprisingly for anyone familiar with Nace’s work, he runs the traditional Japanese instrument through heavy effects. My only note is that it might have been nice for said effects to be a bit less heavy so as to preserve some of said instrument’s unique qualities, but this decision does little to detract from a riveting dual improvisation.

86: Läuten der Seele: Unterhaltungen mit Larven und Überresten

A really bizarre record even by this list’s standards. Listening to Unterhaltungen… is like wandering through a haunted house designed by Buñuel, with disembodied narration from a severe German school teacher and a creepy headmaster as slimy, unrecognizable objects float up around you. (Maybe you’ve found yourself in knee-deep, murky water; I’m just kicking the tires here.)

85. Playboi Carti: MUSIC

Not Carti’s best and certainly bloated but still so good. There’s a 12–15-track AOTY contender, but it’s buried in 15–18 other tracks that, while fun, are mostly filler.

84. Primitive Man: Observance

Positively evil doom metal from Denver. Could be good to ski to if you are looking to ride off a cliff and die.

83. Territorial Gobbing: Hermit Card

A really fun thing about this one is that every track title is just a different-colored heart emoji, and do you know what? That puts a big goofy smile on my face. I can’t find evidence that there’s didgeridoo on this album, but if not, the Mr. Gobbing did a great job making whatever he was playing sound like a didgeridoo, and I imagine that’s not easy. At first, in fact, the sound is almost totally didgeridoo-adjacent, but the Leeds-based experimentalist does branch out to other sounds as the show goes on. Thankfully, the didgeridoo completely leaves the picture.

82. múm: History of Silence

múm’s sound has ballooned in recent years from subtly glitchy indietronica to full-on chamber rock. History of Silence, an album about distance, is full of slow builds and cathartic climaxes. It reminds me of the British band caroline but a bit less theatrical (no shade to caroline), and I think that’s nice.

81. Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslavsa Saienko: Гільдеґарда

The seeds of Гільдеґарда were planted when a Russian bomb landed in vocalist Andriana-Yarosalava Saienko’s backyard in Kyiv. In shock, she had a vision of angels telling her not to be afraid. She found a parallel story in the life of 12th-century composer-nun Hildegard von Bingen and proceeded to reinterpret von Bingen’s compositions for an LP with modular synth artist Heinali (also of Ukraine). Heinali’s minimal, droning accompaniment to Saienko’s breathtaking voice is brilliant—building in intensity for what feels like years before finally bursting open release a sound of biblical proportions.

80. Anna Högberg Attack: Ensamseglaren

Oh man, this one rules. Just looking at the credits gives you an idea of what’s in store: full brass section, guitar, two drummers, two bassists, a turntablist, and two saws. Högberg’s alto sax is, of course, the secret sauce, a known unknown—as in, you know you have no idea what type of stunning shenanigans she’ll get into next. It’s textural. It’s tactile. It makes you feel like you’re chewing 5 gum, basically.

79. Chuck Roth: watergh0st songs

The few times I’ve seen Chuck Roth (aka watergh0st) perform, I’ve been blown away. His songs are stripped all the way down and his playing and singing can both get muddy, but it’s crystal clear you’re in the presence of a serious talent. Here, both guitar and voice are close to pristine, lending a refreshing crispness that shows Roth’s writing is strong enough to stand alone in the cold light of day.

78. Che: REST IN BASS

In a big pond of would-be Carti successors, Che is the most promising heir to the throne. Already, though, he’s challenging that notion, looking outside of the rage world for collaborators and inspiration. The 18-year-old Atlanta MC started as a meme rapper (“Pizza Time” rules, to be clear) but developed quickly into a serious player in Atlanta, and REST IN BASS shows he can keep his redlining energy up across a full-length album. Che is clearly making moves, but he’s not interested in riding Carti’s coattails. In seemingly no time, he’s developed a lane of his own.

77. Los Pirañas: Una Oportunidad Más de Triunfar en la Vida

I don’t usually go for jam bands, but Los Pirañas are too fun to resist. The Bógota three-piece make nonstop groovers—equal parts psych, surf, jazz, and cumbia, with a couple freaky time signatures thrown in to boot. I guess they cracked my code.

76. Kasai: 〽

Japanese garbage disposal worker, composer, vocalist, hobbyist, and overall eccentric Kasai has his own musical language, and the album’s titular symbol (pronounced “iori-ten”) is a visual demonstration of that language’s written form. Accompanied by erratically syncopated, squishy synths, he performs his take on traditional minyo music—the sometimes-bluesy, sometimes-celebratory folk songs that have been sung and chanted by Japanese laborers for centuries. Naturally, there’s lots of clapping and call and response, culminating in a closer called“ゴモク積み唄” (“Piling-up Garbage Song”) that feels sounds like something you might recite while swabbing the deck of the Jolly Roger. Hearing Kasai stripped of his quirky synths and surrounded by the voices of his fellow trash collectors, I'm considering dropping the whole writing thing and becoming a binman too.

Hello and welcome to Apollo Frequencies™, a property of Raphael Media Group©, the world’s premier live-work music journalism company.

This blog began as a column I used to write at a publication that must not be named. I wrote about the cute and fun name of that column in its first edition:

In May 1969, two months before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, the Apollo 10 mission entered its orbit. As the ship’s path crossed the dark side of the moon—supposedly the only place in our solar system where the Earth’s radio waves can’t reach—its crew heard otherworldly sounds.

“You hear that? That whistling sound?” Eugene Cernan can be heard asking from the lunar module in footage released to the public by NASA in 2016. “Yes,” John Young responds from the command module. “Sounds like—you know, outer-space-type music.” Maybe, the astronauts considered, these were transmissions from an intelligent race somewhere in the cosmos.

Video of the Apollo 10 crew hearing this “alien music” went viral upon its release. In an episode of the Science Channel’s NASA’s Unexplained Files, Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden and planetary scientist Kevin Grazier emphasize the uncertainty of the noises’ origins. But the phenomenon had already been demystified by scientists. The sounds were not of this Earth, but their origins were mundane: They were simply beat frequencies, the result of two radio signals interfering with each other—in this case, that of the lunar module and that of the command module.

I prefer the mysterious version, the one that allows us to suspend our disbelief and marvel at things outside our realm of understanding. In “Apollo Frequencies” [a property of Raphael Media Group©, the premiere live-work music journalism company], I’ll explore extraordinary sounds, ambitious music that challenges what we previously thought possible.

In the months that followed, I used this prompt to write about a performance of a Gérard Grisey composition inspired by pulsars, Scott Walker’s late-career classic about a jester in the court of Attila the Hun who climbs so high up a flagpole he becomes a brown dwarf star, the strange scene at an analog synth camping festival in the Catskills, the commercial viability of Autechre in the town from Footloose, the potential power of music to save the world from nuclear apocalypse, and a surprisingly great first date I had at a drone bath in a funeral home. I also interviewed such legends as Mulatu Astatke (!), James Messiah (aka DJ Escrow), Kate NV (one of my all-time personal favorites), DJ K (progenitor of baile funk’s extreme bruxaria strain), and Blake Mills and Pino Palladino—household names to the jazz-pilled among us—for the column.

Starting next month, I’ll be continuing that sort of work here, with at least one post per month for all subscribers and some juicy extras for those who choose to put their money where their mouths are. Perks for paid subscribers include: comprehensive monthly round-ups of the best upcoming shows in New York City (another recurring column I had at [redacted publication]), curated playlists, and other bonus content to be named later.

BUT FIRST, starting Sunday night, I’ll begin rolling out the lists of my favorite albums and songs of the year. I’ll publish a quarter of each list every night of Hanukkah as a treat for my fellow anti-zionist Jews.

If any of this seems like it might be your vibe, or if you’ve ever given a crap about me, or even if you just want to hate-read my stinky writing and laugh at the plight of an underemployed music journalist…

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