Jennifer Reid sang workers’ songs, Malmin plumbed gnarly Norwegian hinterlands and Quinie rode across Argyll on a horse
The 50 best albums of 2025
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Inspired by Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden and the quivering soundscapes of early Bon Iver, Tomorrow Held is the beautiful second album by fiddler Owen Spafford and guitarist Louis Campbell, their first on Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records. Mingling traditional tunes with influences from minimalism, post-rock and jazz, they shift moods exquisitely: from the reflectiveness of 26, a track in which drumbeats echo in the distance like heartbeats, to the trip-hop-like grooves of All Your Tiny Bones and the feverish panic of the full-throttle final track, Four.
Maurseth wasn’t the only musician inspired by the reindeer-hunting peoples of Scandinavia this year: Sara Ajnnak and the Ciderhouse Rebellion’s Landscape of the Spirits also plumbed this icy soil well. Here, hardanger fiddle player Maurseth sets out to translate the theory of ecosophy, a philosophy of ecological harmony, into sound. She does so in fascinating ways, blending her instrument’s drones and plucked notes with field recordings of the calls and movements of animals and birds, and their resonant approximations on her band’s bass guitar, electronics and piano. Particularly powerful are Kalven Reiser Seg (The Calf Rises), about a newborn deer, and Jaktmarsj (Hunting March). Read the full review
