A Closer Listen
Happy New Year! A new year brings new hopes, new dreams, and new music. Hundreds of winter albums are already on the slate, and we can’t wait to share them with you! At such a musical banquet, there’s almost too much to choose from. The old year’s slate is wiped clean; the new notebooks are cracked open. On January 1, we’re already speculating about which albums might make it to December!
Sometimes music offers a temporary escape from our problems and the problems of the planet; sometimes music addresses the world’s problems in poignant and pointed fashion. Our listeners will find plenty of both here. Whatever one’s musical taste, new music offers us a constant supply of something to look forward to; and isn’t that what the new year is all about?
We begin with one of the aforementioned year-end contenders. Julianna Barwick scored our top album of 2020; Mary Lattimore has appeared in our Top 20 many times. So what might happen if the two were ever to record together? We’re about to find out. Their message could not be more welcome: “while everything may not be okay, beauty persists.” Tragic Magic looks and sounds like a fairy tale come true, and we’re happy to become lost in this imagined, yet possible world (InFiné Éditions, January 16).
The cavernous sound of Trio Ramberget‘s self-titled release is a byproduct of its genesis; the album was recorded live in a large oil cistern on the island of Svanö. Trombone, double bass and bass clarinet intertwine, their notes decaying slowly against the steel. Released today, the album is the perfect score to a soft beginning after a long, loud night. Today is also the release date for the Basinski-esque Cantus for Winter in Six Parts, a stunning work from zakè that may be the artist’s finest work to date (Past Inside the Present). Also out today is Wil Bolton‘s Concrete Botany, inspired by walks around the artist’s East London neighborhood. The local field recordings are invitations to record, or at least to notice, one’s own natural soundscapes (Home Normal).
Miska Lambert‘s Evening, window is a soft, forlorn album, well-suited for “the stark melancholy of Nordic winters.” As strings and field recordings struggle to surface, one can feel the loneliness of a heart fighting to beat (Dragon’s Eye Recordings, January 23). Paperbark‘s Light Behind Me looks and sounds like winter, offered on lovely glacial pool vinyl. The album is part of laaps’ winter slate, continuing the imprint’s intentional matching of music and season (January 5). Markus Guenter explores the relationship between adversity and hope on On Brutal Soil, We Grow, landing on the side of encouragement. Described as “a timely statement on resilience, transformation, and the quiet miracle of continuing on,” the music is just what we need right now (Affin, January 30).
The title says it all: Richard Pike‘s Redemption Suite I-IX: For Piano and Textures is a loop-based work that thrives in repetition and subtle shifts. The frosted transparent vinyl seems a perfect match for the season (Salmon Universe, February 6). Slow Dancing Society returns to the well for The Disappearing Collective Vol. II, the follow-up to the 2020 predecessor. Patient tones seem to stretch until oblivion (Past Inside the Present, January 16). Daniel O’Sullivan & Richard Youngs contribute piano and zither to Persian Carpets, a minimalistic set containing two side-long pieces (VHF, January 23). Juha-Matti Rauhainen‘s Anemoia refers to “nostalgia for a time never lived,” merging soft piano with wordless vocals to personify its theme (January 2).
ato.archives will be releasing three interrelated tapes this season under the unified banner Contemporary Environmental Music. Maps and Diagrams offers Music for Trees, a peaceful, piano-led suite; Akhiro Sano incorporates the spatial sounds of the artist’s grandparents’ house just before demolition; and harikuyamaku contributes light electronics and field recordings to AMBIENTAL -Music For Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa-. All are released February 6 and those who would like to save a little money may purchase them as a bundle.
Guitar and charango are the primary instruments on Chambers, a colorful set from Aukai on which the artist also plays reed organ, bell plates, piano, celeste and synth. The tone is warm and encouraging throughout (March 1). Midori Hirano returns with OTONOMA, an expressive synth set whose melodies flow and sparkle, balanced by piano and organ tones. The title means “the space between sounds” (Thrill Jockey, February 20).
a nothing / a void has an intimate, personal feel, likely connected to locale; St. Catherine’s recorded tracks at the Delaware River, on a porch in Saugerties, New York and at home in Brooklyn. Blue Lake is an obvious reference; light post-rock tones are apparent (Protomaterial, January 16). Mast Years offers the peaceful electronic EP Equipment for Living, which also borrows from post-rock and namechecks The Appleseed Cast. The EP is a companion piece to Mast Year, released this past August (January 9). Shoegaze timbres inform Falter, an introspective and hazy set from Stray Theories. The music whirls slowly like dust in winter sunlight (n5MD, February 6).
Nick Schofield makes a shift to ambient jazz on Blue Hour, whose very title is a jazz reference. Aided by the trumpet of Scott Bevins, Schofield hits the mark. This is languid music for a rainy evening (Backward Music, February 6). While flying over the Great White North, Tim Handels was inspired to dedicate Liminal Spaces to the vast vistas of the Inuktitut landscape. While the trumpet pushes the album toward jazz, the guitar toward rock, the overall feeling is ambient (January 9). Similarly inspired by a plane ride over the Greenland ice sheet, Remember Glaciers‘ 2025-12-18 Ice Core (Sermersuaq 2019) was recorded live only two weeks ago, and is available today.
Giants of Discovery have completed a new dark ambient electronic score for Fritz Lang’s Der Müde Tod. The album is performed live, adding to the spontaneity. At the time of release, fans will be able to screen the film on YouTube along with the music (Moolakii Club Audio Interface, just out today!). Following their incredible Asheville fundraiser Of Landfall and Wildfires, Ceremony of Seasons resumes its refreshment-and-music based series with Rodent‘s Night of Return. This pairing of modular synthesis and “a non-alcoholic seltzer using un-fermented Zinfandel juice” is different from what has come before, yet even more effervescent (February 6).
Katia Krow splits time between Dubai and New Jersey, making Moss Eats (the Silence She Left for Me) a uniquely international album. Synthesizer, field recordings and tape manipulation are the basis of a brokenhearted suite whose closing title has to be read to be believed: “Federation and Exhaustion in the Age of Manufacture, Foreignness in the Palace of Belonging, Why Would You Do That? She Glimmered Under Its Gleam and I Crave to Be Refracted off Her Skin. Trucks from Pennsylvania Keep Missing Me and I Feel Very, Very Sick.” The album reworks material originally released under the name Odi (Kay Krow, January 15). A second moss album, There are Moss Balls in Paradise, comes from Many Hands and was inspired by the loss of a beloved betta fish and the difficulty of explaining death to a child (Variable Recordings, January 9).
Today is a good name for a single to play on New Year’s Day, taken from Rebelski’s Algorithms, a piano-based album and the third in a trilogy (March 13). Pianist BK Pepper adds light, subtle electronics to the album Pagan, which makes it eligible for at least three categories on our site; we’re putting it here for now, as the lead single So You Know is relaxing and calm (Bigo & Twigetti, February 27). Developments is an inspired collaboration between Six Missing & Patrick Berg Almkvisth, the latter having appearanced on our list of The Year’s Best Winter Music. More ambient than modern composition, the album is graced with gentle piano and vintage tapes, allowing the mind to drift (Nettwerk, January 30). Electronic artist Kasper Bjørke teams up with pianist Henrik Lindstrand to produce Canopy, a friendly EP whose standout cut, “Lanterns,” contains samples of a children’s choir (Lime Tree Beach Recordings, January 3).
Improvisational and experimental, Greg Stasiw‘s stays accessible and calm; the title Guesswork becomes unintentionally valid as we debate on where to place it! (Hidden Harmony Recordings, February 2). Machinefabriek returns with the “hardware jam” album Spelonk, which sees the artist experimenting with quiet, reflective textures (Crónica, January 20). Fresh from Thoughts on the Future, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith returns to her own imprint to release Touchtheplants: Love Letters, a Valentine’s Day release featuring romantic music from Sontag Shogun, Heinali, Dylan Henner and more. May the new year bring love to all of our readers!
Richard Allen
Thu Jan 01 00:01:13 GMT 2026