How I won over AI and the 30 best albums of the year
It is impossible to start resuming this year without mentioning Liz Pelly’s „Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. She has defined the way we talk about streaming and AI this year: sometimes using algorithms to suggest music programmed by corporations, sometimes created by ghost artists, and sometimes generated by artificial intelligence.
AI dominated the second half of the year. If you can create a song in a few minutes on Suno, why do we need artists? However, I am calm – AI is a valuable tool, but it cannot replace art. Weston Olencki tells me wonderful things about it. However, many people fall for it. I will write more about this in Pismo Magazine in February.
I finally managed to talk to Liz Pelly at the beginning of December (results coming soon), and over the past twelve months, I have not lost faith in the human factor. I am thinking of situations in which machines cannot replace us: Misha Panfilov recommended the brilliant Estonian band Collage to me, Przemo from Sonar Records Store in Gdańsk recommended the vinyl of the trio Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes, and the owner of the Wave store in Budapest told me the story of the painter and musician Wahorn András, founder of the Hungarian band A. E. Bizottság, whom I met thanks to Feliks Kubin.
At the Materia Prima shop in Porto, I bought the 1974 album Chitarre Folk by Bruno Battisti D’Amario simply because a member of the shop staff wrote a two-sentence description of the music. I took my two loved ones to big concerts in two other cities, and a few weeks later, within 24 hours, they both recommended Daniel Herskedal to me. Shortly after Christmas, many people mentioned Hans Falb, who founded the Konfrontationen festival in Nickelsdorf in 1980 (I was there in 2016 and 2017) – he was an invaluable figure for the improvised and jazz scene, who initiated a multitude of events and projects.
I could barely make it to all the concerts at Rewire – I can’t make it to some of them (I regret Heinali & Andrian-Yaroslav Saienko, I will make up for it!). I watched one of the most extraordinary ones, Lukas Clerk, from a distance of a metre, because Raphael Rogiński recommended him to me. At the end of the year, Programme 2 of Polish Radio, we spoke about how many great bands Rogiński recommends – I learned about Milkweed, which appears in many summaries this year, from him, as well as about Merope (whose vocalist, Indra Jurgelevičūtė, we invited for the next season of concerts at Samo Południe in Palma) and Širom. I also have my own small success when I persuaded one editor that it is worth writing about one of this year’s albums. Because I really cared. He finally agrees.
In the first half of the year, I spoke with Móglaí Bap from Kneecap, whom Ian Lynch from Lankum first introduced me to at the Supersonic festival in Birmingham. I went there again – alone, but I feel at home there. There are many bands I wanted to see. Still, I am most impressed by Funeral Folk – a group I probably wouldn’t have come across if it weren’t for the event’s curators, just as I wouldn’t have listened to Petar Petkov’s resonating guitar bass on the wooden floor at the Luksfery festival or, a few hours earlier, Federik Schwarz’s extraordinary performance. At Unsound, a very strange playlist was played before the concerts – odd because not obvious. As it turns out, it was created by Grzegorz Kwiecień, the main character of my piece about Końskie – a genius, better than all the algorithms in the world. You can listen to it here. Speaking of cities, this time I travelled far beyond the ‘centre’ to Wołów, where I listened to the incredible stories of the people from there.
I wouldn’t be so excited about the return of the band Ścianka in an orchestral version if Arek Stolarski hadn’t invited them to Inside Seaside. And the aforementioned Indre Jurgelevičūtė – if Natalia and Marta from Palma hadn’t seen her at Le Guess Who?
A few days before the end of the year, at the Czudner club in Dolne Miasto, I talked to Zofia from Alfah Femmes about the music community in the Tri-City. About the fact that people go to each other’s concerts, that they support each other, and that, despite often discontented comments, a lot is happening. That we are in this together. “We are together,” Marta Forsberg also told me when we talked before her concert at the Palma Foundation. Let this be a summary of the past months.
TOP 30 – 2025
SAM AMIDON – Salt River (River Lea)
Sam Amidon looks to folk, this time with Sam Gendel and Philippe Melanson. From acoustic ballads to subtle electronica, the Appalachians meet Lou Reed and Ornette Coleman – a lyrical album that is beautiful and surprisingly broad in sound.
CAROLINE – caroline 2 (Rough Trade) review
caroline 2 shows what post-rock can be today: emotional mini-symphonies in which song and improvisation mix, vocals use glitch/autotune, and walls of sound are layered with brass and cello drones. Spontaneous but mature playing that refreshes the guitar ethos.
BRÌGHDE CHAIMBEUL – Sunwise (Glitterbeat) review
Chaimbeul transports Scottish bagpipes into the darkness of minimalism and drone trance. Sunwise is heavy, hypnotic, full of tension: micro-shifts carry great drama, and traditional motifs take on a noise, almost doom-like seriousness – folk as incantation and experiment.
CHICAGO UNDERGROUND DUO – Hyperglyph (International Anthem) review
Mazurek and Taylor remind us that a duo can sound like a whole band. Hyperglyph oscillates between post-jazz, electronica and pulsations inspired by Nigeria, Mali and Ghana. At times, a lyrical dialogue between trumpet and kalimba, at others, a rush of energy. A fresh, creative expansion of “jazz”.
THE DWARFS OF EAST AGUOZA – Sasquatch Landslide (Constellation) review
A trio born in Cairo (Louca/Bishop/Shalabi) condenses improvisation into tighter, shorter forms without losing openness. Loops, unexpected turns and trance-like grooves meet broken-tape textures, guitars and sax—the playful name clashes with serious experimentation: psychedelic, place-linked yet unplaceable.
MARTA FORSBERG – Archaeology of Intimacy (Warm Winters) review
Forsberg writes music about memory and endurance that requires careful listening. Minimalist suites and electronic ‘canvases’ lead to a more ‘song-like’ reveal: repeated chords, whispered/sung phrases and delicate electronics build the titular intimacy.
ALEX FREIHEIT & ALEKSANDRA SŁYŻ – GHSTING (Mapple Death) review
A seemingly unlikely duo: Freiheit (Siksa) and Słyż (drones, synthesisers) create a thriller-like story. Electronic structures with brass and percussion instruments build an atmosphere reminiscent of The Shining. The narrative about a hotel and voyeurism builds slowly, without fireworks, with darkness and tension until the very end.
GEESE – Getting Killed (PIAS) review
Geese have their own language: art rock and post-punk are only points of reference here. Provocative bravado, guitar frivolity and compositional ‘winking’ go hand in hand with lyrics about the absurdities of everyday life. ‘100 horses’ is a prime example of their breaking away from patterns.
GINGER WIZZARD – Curious Flora & Fauna of the Ancient World (Crypt of the Wizard/Tharn)
Is this music taken straight from Middle-earth or from prophetic burrows? With their latest album, Ginger Wizzard prove once again their knack for fairy-tale compositions combining art and prog rock, lush drama and a mystical atmosphere – all served with lightness, virtuosity and freshness.
GREGORY UHLMANN, JOSH JOHNSON, SAM WILKES – Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes (International Anthem)
The result of a spontaneous session and proof that delicacy can have weight. The music trembles beneath the surface: minimalist, post-jazz, with ambient patches, a light bass line and occasional changes in the tone of the saxophone or guitar. Instead of ecstasy – alert listening and a lyrical story.
GYM WISDOM – Gym Wisdom (Sonar) review
What Geese is across the Atlantic, Gym Wisdom is on the Vistula. Nervous solos, broken percussion, rhythms like gym exercises: regular and focused. Add to that a training entourage that brings together this ethereal music at the intersection of Slint/Helmet in an original setting.
CERYS HAFANA – Angel (Glitterbeat) review
Hafana reanimates Welsh triple-harp tradition with a broader palette: band arrangements, piano motifs, sax, bass and percussion. The album unfolds like a modern folk tale – ancient melodies reframed as trancey, minimalist scenes, balancing ritual intimacy and ensemble lift – past echoes in the present, but with new magic and momentum.
HEINALI & ANDRIANA-YAROSLAVA SAIENKO – Гільдеґарда (Unsound) review
A bold reimagining of Hildegard of Bingen: modular synth drones meet Saienko’s Ukrainian vocal tradition. Two long pieces unfold slowly, fuelled by spiritual tension and a sense of memory/resistance shaped by today’s Ukraine. Recorded in a reverberant abbey, it’s less contemplation than a wake-up call – ancient forms, urgent now.
HINODE TAPES & HIROKI CHIBA – ITA (Instant Classic) review
Hinode Tapes can easily be pigeonholed as ambient jazz. Still, on ITA, they are on the edge of genres: dreamy landscapes, sparse saxophone, cymbals and quasi-marimba percussion, guitar in the background. Hiroki Chiba’s double bass adds colour and subtle ‘support’. Not much seems to be happening, but it draws you in layer by layer.
RICHARD HRONSKY – Pohreb (Mappa) review
Ambient, field recordings, loops and jagged fujara horn feel like time-worn relics. Pohreb (‘Funeral’) isn’t conventional mourning but a private rite: village sounds, whispered prayers, drones, and scattered guitar rebuild a bond with the world after loss. Echoes return like mountain reflections – layered, shifting, slipping away.
DOMINIK KISIEL QUARTET – Pulse of Awareness (Vibrant)
I saw this band at Lawendowa, and from the very first notes I was drawn in by how this unusual combination of instruments – piano, saxophone, double bass, flute – plays with silence and duration, building tension. The result is a unique, impressionistic and fleeting mood, at the intersection of meditation, jazz, chamber music and folk.
ELISABETH KLINCK – Chronotopia (Hollow Ground) review
A masterclass in quiet intensity: minimalist violin pieces unfold slowly, often hovering at the edge of silence. Song-like forms appear, sometimes with abstract vocal traces, but everything stays fragile and restrained. Hearing it live highlights her refusal of easy crescendos – music that breathes with the room, where emotion is suggested, not declared.
OLGA ANNA MARKOWSKA – ISKRA (Miasmah) review
Her weapons are the cello, zither and synthesiser, and among these instruments we feel darkness, a funeral mood and a tendency towards self-reflection. Olga Markowska builds her own world, and her debut on Miasmah reminds us that music of reflection and solemnity flows from the Baltic Sea.
MARCIN MASECKI – Boleros Y Masecki (Toinen) interview
Masecki is, as usual, boundless: classical, jazz, experimental and song, this time heavily influenced by Latin American idioms. After Boleros y Más comes the next instalment – a more conscious combination of bolero, waltzes, choro and tango, with increasingly bold vocals and the arranger’s characteristic nerve.
MILKWEED – Remscéla (Broadside Hacks) review
Milkweed offer lo-fi ‘finds’ from Irish mythology: short, fragmented forms, banjo, primitive beats, noise and crackles like a cassette tape being pulled out. A voice like a spell, lyrics cut and processed. Remscéla is compact, dense and imperfect – like a contemporary folk spirit heard on a distorted radio.
ABDULLAH MINIAWY – Peacock Dreams (PPL Songs / Aghani El Khalq) review
Miniawy in an intimate yet radical formula: voice + two trombones (Khoury/Boittin). Prayerful recitation, Sufi spirituality and memory meet ceremonial harmonies, urban clashes and repetitions that build tension – listening like a ritual; maximum intensity achieved with minimal means.
OMASTA – Jazz Report From the Hood (Astigmatic) review
The jazz album of the autumn: neighbourhood cool, catchy groove and superb arrangements. Omasta confidently mixes influences and plays “as partners” – urban, from the clothesline, but with ambition. Hip-hop energy, brilliant solos (the flute in ‘Burner’!) and collective harmony make this street jazz, not mentor jazz.
MISHA PANFILOV – To Blue From Grey in May (Ultraääni)
In addition to his acclaimed solo work, he is known for projects such as the Estrada Orchestra, Centre El Muusa, and the Misha Panfilov Sound Combo. At the end of 2021, he formed his new group – a septet of close friends and collaborators with whom he has since recorded several albums and translated his repertoire into a live experience.
JULEK PLOSKI – Give-up channel (Mappa) review
Ploski builds music for the world of FOMO: he mixes baroque with gaming, field recordings, club and post-classical music. It is a conglomerate of chaos viewed in slow motion – full of details, strange combinations and theatrical drama. It can be overwhelming, but it rewards you with a colourful, emotional picture of reality.
HANIA RANI – Non-Fiction. Piano Concerto In Four Movements (Universal) review
Rani writes her most ambitious work: a 45-piece orchestra with improvisers (Jacek Wyłowiec and Valentina Magaletti). Her inspiration includes Joasim Feldush from the Warsaw ghetto and her observations of contemporary conflicts – the result: a dark, multi-layered suite; from overwhelming strings to smouldering timpani and saxophone ribbons.
RATTLE – Encircle (Upset the Rhythm)
Rattle is a unique band because it’s a percussion duo. Because it sings, because it sings polyphonically, because it creates song forms that are not songs at the same time. Once again, I am impressed by how they create hypnotic, trance-like songs, combining minimalist rhythms with repetitive phrases that sound like spells, concise short stories.
ROSALÍA – LUX (Sony Music) review
Rosalia thumbs her nose at the contemporary pop scene, showing that it is possible to create a monumental work in the mainstream, stylistically complex and genre-spanning, deeply rooted in traditions and textual histories, and above all functioning as a complete concept album, which is of colossal importance in the age of playlists.
SOPRATERRA – Seven Dances To Embrace The Hollow (Präsens Editionen)
The duo of Magda Drozd and Nicola Genovese creates a ‘ritual-artefact’: Stetson-style saxophone pulsations, afterimages of electronics, echoes of Korzyński and cinematic horror. There is ambient delicacy and drone darkness here, and the compositions function like a paratheatrical radio play – with details, shouts and loops building a strange drama.
SYNDROM SAMAZVANCA – Mahajba (self-released) review
The band shifts from psych-garage towards krautrock: long, driving tracks with Can-like constants, catchy riffs and spacey stretches. What stands out is the link to Belarusian heritage. After revisiting 90s rock on Radyjo Niamiha (2023), they now draw from folk songs, turning fieldwork, ballads, and history through a psychedelic, contemporary lens.
MAREK STYCZYŃSKI & ANNA MACHER – Barycz (Infinite Expanse) review
Nacher and Styczyński (The Magic Carpathians Project) combine jazz innovations with ethnic inspirations, ambient and environmental recordings. Set in the Barycz Valley, the album features recordings of 35 animal species and acoustic instruments. These are dreamy, slightly ambient images of nature with a hint of the region’s ecological history.
