DJ Rynk's Best Albums of 2025

The indie musicians of 2025 hear everything and will play anything. Their art helped make sense of a crazy year. Every weekend I was running through Humboldt Park to the soundtrack of another new release—prep work for my morning DJ shift and CHIRP's featured album rotation. Thank you, CHIRP Radio sustainers, for keeping me steeped in music. These albums I kept on replay.

1. Big Ugly by Fust (Dear Life): The Durham, North Carolina, country-folk band hit the road stocked with Southern Gothic ballads. Fuzz-guitar cries and fiddle flights lift the dark small-town vignettes of singer-songwriter Aaron Dowdy. Choice Cut: In the anthem "Spangled" the starry sky over Roanoke, Virginia’s razed Shenandoah Hospital site is a scene for self-medication. RIYL: Now Then by Robbie Fulks (Compass); Send a Prayer My Way by Julien Baker & Torres (Matador)



2. Boleros Psicodélicos II by Adrian Quesada (ATO): Boleros Psicodélicos Dos returns Austin, Texas guitarist Adrian Quesada (Black Pumas, Grupo Fantasma) to the thrilling days of the 1960s Mexican guitar-organ combos that backed torch singers with surf, art-rock and hippie flourishes. Quesada invites collaborators from his original lo-fi 2022 boléro project, plus Caroline Trowbridge on vibes for a fuller sound and co-producer Alex Goose to add dance-floor polish. Choice Cut: Mexican indie folk singer Ed Maverick's "Afuera" dives into a trip-hop undertow. RIYL: Lux by Rosalía (Columbia); Entre Tus Flores by Miramar (Ansonia)



3. Interior Live Oak by Cass McCombs (Domino): Singer-songwriter Cass McCombs returns to his San Fancisco Bay roots for his 11th album, a quietly impressive double LP featuring his original bandmates, guitarist Chris Cohen (Deerhoof) and drummer Jason Quever (Papercuts). They’re a reliable foil for McCombs’ wry character studies. Choice Cut: Despite its claims, “I Never Dream About Trains” lives in a Robyn Hitchcock reverie. RIYL: Noble and Godlike in Ruin by Deerhoof (Joyful Noise); Possession by Ty Segall (Drag City)



4. hooke's law by KeiyaA (XL): South Side Chicago multi-instrumentalist Chakeiya Richmond debuted as Keiya with a 2015 EP, then broke out in the Brooklyn scene as KeiyaA--featured in a 2020 solo LP and in Loraine James' electronica and Nick Hakim's psychedelica. Her concept album frames trauma in physics terms, as the propelling force of a loaded spring. KeiyaA employs tension and release as well, her dense, club-ready production moving beyond gauzy neo-soul. Choice Cut: The dark meditation "devotions" takes surprising turns in tempo. RIYL: The Prophet and The Madman, by Ami Taf Ra (Brainfeeder); Bad Dogs by 81355 (Joyful Noise)



5. Thick Rich and Delicious by Guided by Voices (GBV): The 42nd GBV studio offering is luscious, straight-to-tape guitar rock, dialed to 11. Singer-songwriter Robert Pollard of Dayton, Ohio, mostly lets the hooks do the talking in a Brooklyn studio, amps in overdrive--not that he doesn't get his lyrical licks in. Choice Cut: Pollard was a big baseball player back in Northridge High School, but makes nearby "Oxford Talawanda" his glory-days stand-in; since 2018, the Talawanda Braves call themselves the Talawanda Brave. RIYL: You're Weird Now by Guerilla Toss (Sub Pop); Oscar Bravo Juliett by wht.rbbt.obj (self-released)



6. necronym by Oux (self-released): The art rock duo of Indigo Finamore and Manae Solara Vaughn turn the screws in their album debut. The Chicago musical and life partners build a prog-funk-psych tension that echoes lyrical obsessions with things that dare not speak their name. Choice Cut: For the rocker “Two of Swords," the tarot card for indecision represents a mate’s contradictions. RIYL: Thee Black Boltz by Tunde Adebimpe (Sub Pop); Make 'Em Laugh by Benét (Bayonet)



7. Nested in Tangles by Hannah Frances (Fire Talk): Chicago folksinger-songwriter Hannah Frances takes on big feelings in an expansive prog style on her fourth studio album, recorded in southern Vermont with producer Kevin Copeland (bass, percussion, pedal steel) and Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen (percussion, piano, guitar, cello, vocals) Frances’ Chicago collaborators fill out Brooklyn trombonist Andy Clausen's intricate arrangements. Choice Cut: Rossen treats Frances’ wounds in “The Space Between," a gentle medication on forgiveness. RIYL: Humanhood by The Weather Station (Fat Possum); With Trampled by Turtles by Alan Sparhawk (Sub Pop)



8. Always Been by Craig Finn (Tamarac / Thirty Tigers): Craig Finn’s sixth solo album presents a lyrical deep dive from The Hold Steady frontman, produced by Adam Granduciel and backed by his band The War on Drugs as a looped and layered version of Finn’s rock and soul revue. It’s a concept album from Finn’s familiar place, among people living with bad choices. Most tracks revolve around a single character, Clayton, an itinerant preacher, teacher, waiter and soldier on the run from himself. Choice Cut: The fast rocker “Postcards," with a Sam Fender backing vocal, is a reverse Dr. Seuss fable for adults with few directions left to choose. Oh, the places you’ll never go! RIYL: when i paint my masterpiece by Ada Lea (Saddle Creek); Horror by The Mekons (Fire)



9. Aguas da Amazonia by Third Coast Percussion (Third Coast Percussion): It's a good day when I step outside the CHIRP Radio studio and hear marimba—not a ringtone but the resonant real thing—from Third Coast Percussion's practice space. Twyla Tharp's 2025 ballet Slacktide featured a live TCP performance at the Harris Theater of this Philip Glass score. The instrumentation alone is impressive: a glass marimba, another made from red oak planks, plus sun drum, djembe and tuned PVC pipes. Choice Cut: Connie Volk's flute improvisations flutter above the pulsing currents of "Japurá River." RIYL: A Garden Adorned by loadbang (New Focus); Cereus: Chamber Music by Kay Rhie (New Focus)



10. Yowzers by Ben LaMar Gay (International Anthem): Heard in the Stereolab horn section for 2025's Instant Holograms On Metal Film, Ben LaMar Gay leads his Chicago quartet in proclaiming an ambient/gospel jubilee, joyful even in somber moments. Pianist Matthew Davis, guitarist Will Faber and drummer Tommaso Moretti make deft contributions to Gay's math-jazz compositions and folkloric improvisations, joining in warm call-and-response vocals and employing live and looped bells, diddley bow, ngoni, synths and tuba. Choice Cut: "I am (bells)" glides from soul chant to ringing morning meditation to cheeky strut. RIYL: About Ghosts by Mary Halvorson (Nonesuch); Honey From a Winter Stone by Ambrose Akinmusire (Nonesuch)

This feature was first published on the CHIRP radio blog, as was a much briefer Best Albums of 2024 list.