Today marks the fifteenth Bagging Area end of year list- let's get the album above out of the way first. Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2, put together by myself, Martin, Dan, Baz and Mark with sleeve art by Rusty and released on Golden Lion Sounds, came out in the summer. It opens with a previously unreleased Sabres Of Paradise track, the full length, thirteen minute techno skank of Lik Wid Nit Wit, and then goes on to showcase brand new tracks by Dickie Continental, Unit 14, Richard Fearless, A Certain Ratio and Number, Red Snapper, Richard Norris, David Harrow, Bedford Falls Players and a cover of Two Lone Swordsmen's Sick When We Kiss by Sleaford Mods.
Piccadilly Records put it at number 12 in their Top 30 Collections in their end of year booklet (sandwiched between Pink Floyd and The Fall). If you take out the re- issues and just include the compilations, we came in third. Phonica, a very fine record shop in Soho, put it at number five in their compilations chart. It still makes me shake my head in disbelief sometimes that we have accomplished it- the quality of the music is so high, everyone involved is at their very best.
The entire enterprise is a tribute to Andrew Weatherall, his music, life and work, and given that Andrew's standards were so high, it's no surprise that the people he worked with and who are inspired by him- like the artists on Volume 2 (and Volume 1)- are all also people who produce and create such good music. There are a handful of copies in some record shops- Piccadilly, Stranger Than Paradise, Phonica- and there might still be a few at Golden Lion Sounds but it's close to selling out its entire run of 1500 copies and once they're gone, they're gone.
Another compilation album I've enjoyed this year is Sean Johnston's A Love From Outer Space, a celebration of the travelling cosmic disco started by Sean and Andrew Weatherall in 2010 and still going boldly to this day. The album starts with a Neville Watson dub of The Blow Monkeys and takes in Phil Kieran (remixed by Andrew), Laars, Secret Circuit, Duncan Gray, Das Komplex, Brioski and many more. Cosmic chug, never knowingly exceeding 113 bpm.
The third compilation album that has rocked 2025 is Ein Null: 10 Years Of Sprechen, a ten track round up of the Manchester label's artists with new tracks from A Certain Ratio, Psychederek, The Thief Of Time, The Utopia Strong and more.
The best new old music of 2025 includes Husker Du's The Miracle Year: 1985, a huge live album showing Husker Du at their mid- 80s peak, on fire. I loved R.E.M.'s re- released Radio Free Europe EP which included the semi- legendary Mitch Easter Dub Mix. The Richard Sen remixes of John Grant, sitting unreleased since 2017, finally saw the light of day. My year started with Bob Dylan and the film A Complete Unknown and I've been dipping in and out of Dylan all year as a result. I haven't committed to the latest edition of The Bootleg Series, Volume 18, but have played his 1962 song Rocks And Gravel repeatedly (unreleased in 1962 and part of this year's Bootleg Series Through The Open Window, 1953- 1962). The Return Of The Durutti Column, a comprehensive and remastered re- issue of the 1980 Durutti Column debut is stunning too. Aphex Twin's continued visits into his vaults saw him put Zahl am1 live track 1 up on Soundcloud, a typically brilliant AFX track. Volcanic Tongue, a compilation of obscure, outsider bands from David Keenan's label of the same name was a winner too, with 20 slices of eclectic, underground music dating from 1968 to 2013.
Albums of 2025
All of these abums have been somewhere near my various listening devices this year and all are albums I'll come back to again- Reverb Delay's The Ghosts Of Dawn, David Harrow's Accelerated Life, a pair of albums from 100 Poems, Rodeo Disco and Let The Horse Run Free, Evan Dando's Love Chant, Sonar// Radar's Weak Sun, Sonnenspot's Sonnenspot, SubDan's Innerleben, Anywhere by Causeway, Red Snapper's Barb And Feather, Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience), Daniel Avery's Tremor, Five Green Moons' very recently released and probably should be in my top ten Moon 2, Rose City Band's Sol y Sombra, Dub Syndicate's Obscured By Version, The Orb's Buddhist Hipsters, Faded by The Liminanas, the vinyl releases of Thought Leadership's Ill Of Pentacles and Ace Of Swords albums, Coyote's Wailing To The Yellow Dawn, Half Man Half Biscuit's All Asimov And No Fresh Air, Jezebell's Jezebellearic Beats Volume 2, KiF's Still Out, Warrington- Runcorn New Town Development Plan's Public Works And Utilities, Tortoise's Touch, Pye Corner Audio's Where Things Are Hollow and Stereolab's marvelous comeback Instant Holograms On Metal Film.
10 Death In Vegas: Death Mask
Four sides of emotional and purist machine techno from Richard Fearless- side four in particular with Your Love and the title track is an immersive, psychedelic techno trip.
9 Dean Wareham: That's The Price Of Loving Me
On the former Galaxie 500 songwriter, singer and guitarist's fourth solo album, he got back with producer Kramer and they caught Dean at his best- reverb drenched guitars, a dreamy production and a set of reflective, witty and wise songs. Understated but I kept coming back to it.
8 Mogwai: The Bad Fire
Released at the start of the year, Mogwai are always an essential listen and this album is as good as any they've made- walls of guitars, huge melodies, songs that scrape away and soar. Some members of the band were going through tough times when it was recorded and you can hear the catharsis in the grooves of the album. Fanzine Made Of Flesh may be song title of the year too (although Half Man Half Biscuit's Horror Clowns Are Dickheads runs it close).
7 Syd Minsky Sargeant: Lunga
Syd's solo album, a switch from the tough, electronic beats and rhythms of Working Men's Club, is a folky, downbeat treasure trove of song, with Nick Drake and Syd Barrett both sounding like they're there inside the songs. Try Long Roads for a taster of Lunga's delights...
6 Adrian Sherwood: The Collapse Of Everything
5 Escape- Ism: Charge Of The Love Brigade
Ian Svenonius and Sandi Denton's fourth album is short and sweet, just ten songs and just a little over thirty minutes long but it's been near my turntable since its release in March. Minimal sounds, fuzz guitar, vintage synth drones and hissy drum machine, lyrics pared back to key ideas and delivered with drop dead insouciance- on Last Of The Sellouts Ian is both tongue in cheek and deadly serious. One Of The Greats performs the same dead pan trick. On Fire In Malibu he sounds like he's been tipped over the edge. For a while I thought this might be my favourite album of 2025.
4 Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe: Liminal
The third of a trilogy recorded by Eno and Wolfe, Liminal is a joy, Liminal is an album that melds songs with ambience and comes up with something very beautiful- the soundtrack to a dream, a simple sounding but very deep record.
3 Sewell And The Gong: The Patron Saint Of Elsewhere
I've listened to Sewell And The Gong as much as any other artist this year and the album, Patron Saint Of Elsewhere, could easily have topped this list. Seven tracks with pastoral roots, folk melodies and motorik rhythms, bridging the space between the bucolic and the cosmic. Sumptuous and wondrous and a little frayed at the edges.
2 Kieran Hebden and William Tyler: 41 Longfield Street Late 80s
41 Longfield Street Late 80s is a wonderful record- William Tyler's guitar playing and Kieran Hebden's ambient laptop production complementing each other and bouncing off each other, from the extended free form cover version of Lyle Lovett's If I Had A Boat, to the more Four Tet sounds of Spider Ballad through to the album's closer, the intense distortion and acoustic guitars of Secret City, it never lets up and keeps giving.
1 Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
Andy Bell bounces around from Ride to GLOK to his solo records, finding time to record with a slew of other artists, and spent much of 2025 on the road with Oasis. In February he released Pinball Wanderer, the title a nod to his musical ricochets, an eight song album that he completed under the influence of extreme jet lag. Dot Allison and Michael Rother appear on his cover of The Passions' I'm In Love With A German Film Star. On Apple Green UFO he channels The Stone Roses, a song they should have written after they made Something's Burning and elsewhere he travels cosmische. His guitar playing is lighter than air, krauty and glistening, and on the title track he transports the spirit of Bert Jansch and Pentangle from the late 60s to 2025, folk melodies married with 21st century psychedelia and shuffly drums.
Singles/ Tracks/EPs of 2025
I've tried to not just repeat tracks from the albums in the list above in order to make this list a standalone one. All of these singles/ EPs/ one off releases were of note in 2025...
Hugo Nicolson's Black Stick, M- Paths' Emotivated, Matt Gunn's Nowhere, Dirt Bogarde's Pihkel, a clutch of Richard Norris releases including his remix of Pale Blue Eyes' How Long Is Now and his remix of Wildflower by Gulp, Puerto Montt City Orchestra's And We'd Be So Happy, Florecer's Breathy Drops, Statues' The Pilina Experiment, several Pye Corner Audio tracks including Galaxies and the Matrix EP and Saint Etienne's Glad.
And here's 25 for 25...
25 Factory Floor: Between You
24 The Moonlandingz ft. Iggy Pop: It's Where I'm From
23 Andy Bell ft. Dot Allison and Michael Rother: I'm In Love... (Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s Remix and Dub)
22 10:40: An Alternative History
21 Joao Leao: One Of These Things First
20 Raz and Alfa: Windowlicker
19 Rude Audio: Strange Phenomena EP
18 Factory Floor: Tell Me
17 Psychederek: Thinkin' Bout U
16 Pandit Pam Pam: The Senator
15 Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt
14 Saint Etienne: Alone Together Remix EP
13/ 12 Various remixes of The Cure's Songs For A Lost World but especially the Four Tet remix of Alone and the Orbital remix of Endsong
11 Daniel Avery ft. Cecile Believe: Rapture In Blue (Midnight Version)
10 Coyote: Battle Weary
9 Adrian Sherwood: The Grand Designer EP
8 Coyote and Peaking Lights: Love Letters/ So Far Away
7 Deeply Armed: The Healing (plus the remixes by Keith Tenniswood and Richard Fearless)
6 Sewell And The Gong: Quiet Storm Remixes (Ruf Dug, Chris Coco)
5 Alex Kassian x Spooky: Orange Coloured Liquid
4 Black Bones: Album Sampler (this release is some kind of blending of an EP, an album, a compilation of 12" singles- whatever it is it's fantastic)
3 Klangkollektor: Dubtapes Volume Two
2 The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Deck
1 Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)
Sheer joy from Four Tet, sampling/ reworking a Mazzy Star song. It was released in June and it lit up summer. It's still doing it in the depths of winter, Hope Sandoval's voice spinning against Kieran Hebden's skippy rhythms- emotive, trippy, endlessly rewarding. If you buy it on 12" there's a stripped down, subtler version of the B-side which hits a slightly different spot.
I've probably missed something and there will inevitably be a record, track or album I pick up on in early 2026 which should be part of one of these lists. The nature of lists is that they're incomplete. Hopefully 2026 will continue to throw up more great music and more pop culture for us to listen to, dance to, obsess over and dissect. And maybe there will be a Sounds From the Flightpath Estate Volume 3...
2 comments:
In which a rollicking read is contained, reminder to pull up some recent faves, and inspiration to purchase a few future faves.
Hat tip Adam.
Congratulations on your own chart placings.
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