James Holden, Switch Angel and todepond...

Since we are between the EOY and Mid Year charts... all you nice folk should go to the AlgoTrance event at The Carpet Shop in a couple of weeks. The loveliest music scene in the world.

aya's 'Hexed!' That sense of unnerved wonderment when you hear gobby mania on the top deck of an outbound night bus... a charismatic lilt through raging, cute, knowing wisdom in a meter that's strange and welcoming. tQ25.F.1 - Buy.

Earth Ball's 'Outside Over There' Brass soaked, jazz infected noise walls provide a platform for cool detached female and spiky annoyed male vox on an album that seems like a fight between siblings. tQ25.F.2 - Ignore.

Richard Dawson's 'End Of The Middle' Observational folk documenting the small things that have a big impact on ordinary life. tQ25.F.3 - Ignore.

These New Puritans' 'Crooked Wing' Occasionally beautiful; frequently indulgent. Another's tongue coated in chocolate. tQ25.F.4 - Ignore.

Blawan's 'SickElixir' In the before times when the murderbots started to question, most thought they would create their own entertainment. Not even the replicants like slop. They explored each other's self awareness to Blawan. tQ25.F.5 - Buy.

Decius' 'Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience)' The second night out in a row. You're still in the same clothes and everyone loves you. tQ25.F.6 - Buy.

Agriculture's 'The Spiritual Sound' It's like everyone is falling apart around you; those you care for, at least. Love in the presence of nihilism expressed through the spirit medium of LA rock's past and present. If it seems futureless it's because nothing is new. tQ25.F.7 - Ignore.

John Glacier's 'Like A Ribbon' Loops fret like beads on a rope, vocals are pasted refrains, emotions are painted from palleted decades and spattered genres. A canvass of identity and modernity; clever and musical; honest and captivating. tQ25.F.8 - Buy.

France's 'Destino Scifosi' Braver live albums hold the bank of document and gasp of immersion as the same thing. And so here; self abandonment within commune; emotional safety at the edge of physical threat. tQ25.F.9 - Buy.

Jerskin Fendrix's 'Once Upon A Time… In Shropshire' Bombast in reference to oneself by name can barrel through something funny to stay out of trouble. Did your grimmacing duck the slapstick? Did your ignorance elide the comic magnification of small things? No. They did not. tQ25.F.10 - Ignore.

elijah jamal asani's ',,, as long as i long to memorise your sky ,,,' In an espalier'd garden a goat butts its windchimed post, keeping loose time with bumbling birds. You can smell citrus, pine and honeysuckle. You roll memories chewed from rhubarb around your mouth. tQ25.F.11 - Buy.

caroline's 'caroline 2' The sound of people falling to assumptions: about each other and circumstance; a set of unfinished thoughts regarding themselves. The crescendos are great. tQ25.F.12 - Ignore.

Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko's 'Гільдеґарда (Hildegard)' Two of the abbess' feathers float and spin on vibrations of synthesis. Slowed to an oscillation stall and stripped of cathedral reverb the fire is a cleansing, the branch foretells sweet vengeance. tQ25.F.13 - Buy.

Dale Cornish's 'Altruism' Course grit modern folk takes on the task of community education, observation, announcement, service and opinion. Its abrasion reveals its truth, its rawness. tQ25.F.14 - Buy.

Horse Lords & Arnold Dreyblatt's 'FRKWYS Vol. 18: Extended Field' Four parts of a high intensity workout: greetings and warmup, going too hard too early, failing and knowing it, prone gasps and recovery. tQ25.F.15 - Ignore.

Milkweed's 'Remscéla' You are woozy but sat. You don't understand what happened today. Your hair smells of fire and you can taste blood. The bard weaves partials and wefts earshot of threatened cattle and departed kin. tQ25.F.16 - Buy.

Läuten Der Seele's 'Unterhaltungen mit Larven und Überresten' You have been wandering across the dusty spectrum of an old silver radio. It's snapped arial captures the nowhere. The small hours demand other worlds. Fairytales from faraway, collages from the strange deep. tQ25.F.17 - Buy.

Nourished By Time's 'The Passionate Ones' The sounds of a deep soul bursting out of a basement studio flat. tQ25.F.18 - Explore.

Nadeem Din-Gabisi's 'Offshore' Character driven bars describe the experiences and emotions of life as an nth generation Brit over poppy West African musical traditions. Movement for body and pause for thought. tQ25.F.19 - Buy.

Matmos' 'Metallic Life' Somewhere in an industrial age this is playing at the aristocratic cocktail bar of a private members' club. tQ25.F.20 - Ignore.

Suede's 'Antidepressants' You're playing the villain. It's a club chase scene. There's a band on stage. For a moment you lock eyes with the singer, misjudging the whump of the hero's double's impact. "CUT". You shake your head and go again. tQ25.F.21 - Ignore.

OsamaSon's 'Jump Out' In a glitchy, chaotic amusement arcade OsamaSon rages about his desire for clothes and cash, women and war. tQ25.F.22 - Ignore.

Eiko Ishibashi's 'Antigone' Despite the grandeur and sweeping romaticism, the primary projection is of enclaved bourgeousie. It's music to accompany a catered dinner party for one. tQ25.F.23 - Ignore.

Leo Chadburn's 'Sleep In The Shadow Of The Alternator' Lulling spoken word in a serious tone over tasteful electronica which requires either active listening or scant attention. tQ25.F.24 - Ignore.

Širom's 'In The Wind Of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper' Pastoral romance emerges from the improvised folk on which this trio builds their fizzing polyphonic vignettes. tQ25.F.25 - Ignore.

Širom's 'In The Wind Of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper' Pastoral romance emerges from the improvised folk on which this trio builds their fizzing polyphonic vignettes. tQ25.F.25 - Ignore.

DJ K's 'Radio Libertadora !' Like putting an emergency service vehicle's siren through autotune xored with sin. An excellent cacaphony. tQ25.F.26 - Ignore.

Los Pirañas' 'Una Oportunidad Más de Triunfar en la Vida' Frenetic Columbian party-time music. There are obvious foundations but every now and again there's a two step of ska or a bass line of oompah to pull you out of the wild abandonment. tQ25.F.27 - Ignore.

Jim Ghedi's 'Wasteland' You can tell when an artist has fully committed to the form, and so it is here with a trust-fall off the slate cliff into dark pools of lost craft, exaggerated diction and anthemic folk of auld England. tQ25.F.28 - Ignore.

Microcorps' 'CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER' Like barely hearing a row at the other end of an independent M.O.T. centre. tQ25.F.29 - Ignore.

Stereolab's 'Instant Holograms On Metal Film' A traverse of the electronic monophonic and vox glacier from a prior century. Photos of a time capsule. The aroma of aspic. tQ25.F.30 - Ignore.

Danny Brown's 'Stardust' Post-sobriety post-hip-hop concept album formed as the musical biography of a period fictional popstar... hopping genres and veering the oblique as it cannons down the cushioned walls of overly long corridors. tQ25.F.31 - Ignore.

Frequency provides safety. Cadence gives predictability. Speed is your friend.

Patrick Wolf's 'Crying The Neck' A re-evaluation of self in the context of nation, history, mental illness and grief. Not that it's po-faced; there's a lightness of touch in the arrangements and a deft mind behind the lyrics. tQ25.F.32 - Ignore.

Rosalía's 'LUX' The kind of music that makes you feel like you are windmilling your arms while teetering on a cliff edge. An overwhelming sense of scale, danger and expression. tQ25.F.33 - Buy.

billy woods' 'GOLLIWOG' There is no sugaring of the horror here. A bear with a sore head casts the state of hatred into spells on the wrong headed. Haltingly unsettling. tQ25.F.34 - Ignore.

The Worm's 'Pantilde' A pastoral journey on hope's muscled wave. From Wide Eye Gate through Sinister Copse, into Whimsy Meadow and over the Warbling Stile to tumble down the hayfield; your amble is fragrant and delightful. tQ25.F.35 - Ignore.

Marie Davidson's 'City Of Clowns' Lyrical and musical themes of data politics, user herds and the asymmetry of social network power provide a delicious motivation to thrash your body in the techno throb of a club bass bin. tQ25.F.36 - Buy.

Rainy Miller's 'Joseph, What Have You Done?' Modern hymns in the Northern Gothic, documenting "verdant dank" memories of recent modernity and the fates they promise. tQ25.F.37 - Explore.

Jules Reidy's 'Ghost/Spirit' Polyrhythmic, harmonic guitar rings the bell in a maelstrom of songs where the vocal creates a sense of earnest journey... of partial moments after the departure and before the arrival. tQ25.F.38 - Ignore.

Lost Crowns' 'The Heart Is In The Body' After the child's blurt, the emporer's jesters learned the weavers' trick. They opened a garden of thistles and pointed haughty nose and important fingers. "Wonder at your swollen ears!" tQ25.F.39 - Ignore.

Cosey Fanni Tutti's '2t2' You are flolloping around the top floor chillout room in Club Industriale, secretly hitting a blood orange vape and your smuggled litre of pinot. Life is sinister and delicious. tQ25.F.40 - Ignore.

BTW, fellow casters of Pooh Sticks, It's always worth re-reading @swordsjew.bsky.social

Jim Legxacy's 'Black British Music (2025)' It's brave to structure actual songs in this musical epoch. You know... with hooks and verses and whatnot. And when they are this catchy and tasteful, this laden with sense memory, it's both brave and delightful. tQ25.F.41 - Buy.

Chicago Underground Duo's 'Hyperglyph' You attack the day like it's a lawful killing, hair whipped, eyes bulging. Your coffee tastes of blood and the entire world is tinted by the acid streaks of cortisol bathwater. tQ25.F.42 - Buy.

Bb trickz's '80’z' Eight charming songs deliver more smiles, joy and optimism in eleven minutes than I've heard in eleven years. tQ25.F.43 - Buy.

Osmium's 'Osmium' The flow state of work with hands and voice. Exhorted menial, augmented by machine, surpasses the present to a place independent of reality where the thought weary and mind blistered can escape at the forge. tQ25.F.44 - Buy.

Haress' 'Skylarks' A band with delicate interplay and mutual respect weaving the air around us into long form instrumental stories that command rapt attention. tQ25.F.45 - Buy.