Media highlights 2025 (Jul to Dec)

Books and music I enjoyed from the second half of 2025. Ordering remains arbitrary. Let me know if you find something from this list that you end up liking!

Books

(Or skip to music →)

• Watership Down — Richard Adams(sidenote: )
• Metamagical Themas — Douglas R. Hofstadter
• The Rest Is Noise — Alex Ross (review)
• Law’s Order — David D. Friedman (review)
• The Thinking Machine — Stephen Witt (review)
• Master of the Senate and The Passage of Power — Robert Caro
• John and Paul — Ian Leslie (review)

I also have a Goodreads (and written reviews live here).

Music

Electronic —

• Headache - The Head Hurts but the Heart Knows the Truth (2023)(sidenote: Hard to describe — roughly trip hop with a spoken word monologue in (as far as I can tell) an AI voice. Surreally profound.)
• Villalobos - Alcachofa (2003)
• Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer (2025)(sidenote: Silly, relentless, EDM. Listen to ‘infohazard’.)
• Oklou - Choke Enough (2025)

Rock —

• Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (1993)
• Built to Spill - Perfect From Now On (1997)
• Paul and Linda McCartney - Ram (1971)
• Geese - Getting Killed (2025) and 3D Country (2023) and Cameron Winter - Heavy Metal (2024)(sidenote: The question is how Cameron Winter lives up to the absurd levels of hype. 3D Country is the most immediately enjoyable.)

Ambient —

• Four Tet - There Is Love in You (2010)(sidenote: His best? Incidentally I really enjoyed this interview with Kieran / Four Tet.)
• CEP - Drawing the Target Around the Arrow (2017)
• Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures (2025)
• James Blake Radio 1 Essential Mix
• Midland Radio 1 Essential Mix(sidenote: I love this YouTube channel, which is instrumental mixtapes plus dash cam footage of driving.)

Jazz —

• Dhafer Youssef - Shiraz (2025)
• Yazz Ahmed - A Paradise in the Hold (2025)
• Marley Del Prete - Sacred Heart / Sama (2025)
• Dorothy Ashby With Frank Wess - Hip Harp (1958)
• Joe Henderson - Page One (1963)
• SML - How You Been (2025)(sidenote: Less good than their first one but still I think SML is super exciting. Got to see them live where they are more in their element.)
• Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson & Sam Wilkes - Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes (2025)
• Booker Ervin - The Trance (1967)
• Oscar Peterson - Oscar Peterson Plays the Jerome Kern Song Book (1959)
• Gil Evans - The Individualism of Gil Evans (1964)(sidenote: And listen to Sketches of Spain if you haven’t already, which Evans arranged.)
• Shakti With John McLaughlin - Natural Elements (1977)(sidenote: They (Shakti) are a jazz fusion band, taking from Indian classical music.)
• McCoy Tyner - Fly With the Wind (1976)

Soul adjacent —

• Bill Withers — Just as I Am (1971) and Still Bill (1972)(sidenote: They’re classics. But maybe Bill Withers is overshadowed by the huge hits (Ain’t No Sunshine, Lovely Day, Just The Two Of Us) and under appreciated for the rest of his music? Listen to ‘Harlem’, ‘Everybody’s Talkin’, ‘Use Me’, and judge for yourself.)
• D’Angelo - Live at the Jazz Cafe, London (1996), Voodoo (2000), Black Messiah (2014)
• Erykah Badu - Mama’s Gun (2000)
• Massive Attack - Blue Lines (1991)

Singer-songwriter type things —

• Annahstasia - Tether (2025)(sidenote: It’s fantastic; Annahstasia’s amazing voice is very striking. Listen to ‘Villain’.)
• Olivia Dean - The Art of Loving (2025)
• Rosalía - Lux (2025)
• Billy Strings’ Tiny Desk Concert

Folk adjacent —

• Kíla & OKI - Kíla & Oki (2006)(sidenote: Irish folk music (Kíla) plus Ainu music, from roughly Hokkaido (OKI). It’s really fun.)
• Samba Mapangala - Feet on Fire (1991)
• Guy Klucevsek and the Bantam Orchestra - Citrus, My Love. (1995)
• Fotheringay - Fotheringay (1970)

Classical —

• Roomful of Teeth - Partita for 8 Voices (2013)(sidenote: Totally amazing. Someone described it as a “tech demo for the human voice”. Rewards loud speakers, I’d say.)
• Joe Hisaishi / Ella Taylor - Joe Hisaishi Conducts (2025)
• John Eliot Gardiner - J.S. Bach: Christmas Oratorio (2024)
• Günter Wand - Mozart Symphonies Nos. 39, 40, 41 (2005)
• Floating Points - Promises (Live in Los Angeles 9/20/2023)(sidenote: Just filmed from someone’s phone, but obviously very special.)

I log most things on rateyourmusic.com. I also have a Spotify with some playlists.

Films and videos

Film and TV —

• One Battle After Another
• La Chimera
• Come and See(sidenote: The best film I saw this year.)
• A House of Dynamite
• The Pitt (TV show)

Videos —

• Tyler Cowen interview with Rick Rubin on choral music
• The last five minutes or so of South Africa vs Japan from the Rugby World Cup 2015(sidenote: You can totally watch it even if you don’t know rugby or watch sports.)
• A London Accent from the 14th to the 21st Centuries

Blogs and essays

• On Limited Government and AI (1A30RN)
• Thoughts by a non-economist on AI and economics (Boaz Barak)
• Dating: A mysterious constellation of facts (Dynomight)
• The internet wants to be fragmented (Noah Smith)
• 64 Reasons To Celebrate Paul McCartney (Ian Leslie)

Previous lists

• 2025 (first half)
• 2024 (second half)
• 2024 (first half)
• 2023 (second half)
• 2023 (first half)
• 2022 (second half)
• 2022 (first half)
• 2021 (full year)

Again, please let me know if you find something from this list which you end up enjoying. And please do send me recs of your own!