Best Miscellanies I Listened To in 2025
- Movie Theater Manager (2025) by Advance Base
Crime, Christmas, melancholy, all his favorite things.
- Cloud Gardens, Vol. 2 (2021) by Amos Roddy
It’s rare for Roddy to feature guitar so prominently, and it’s lovely to hear what he can do with it, bring the same textured, expansive approach as he does to his more keys-driven work.
- “Clueless” (2024) by Beach Bunny
I did not like this album, but I did like this song. As long as I don’t think about it too hard.
- Two Fun Guys (2023) by Ben Levin
- “Starting to Come Back to Life” (2012) by The Birthday Kiss
- “Day One” (2025) by Bon Iver
Ultimately didn’t end up vibing with most of the fABLE part of SABLE, fABLE, but this one really hits.
- “staying up late” (2019) by cheerbleederz
“Staying up late / Watchin’ sitcoms, they make me feel safe / I’ll take what I can get / I feel nostalgic for a place I never left” and also “Days just come and go / Kinda weird that we’re all getting old.” Couldn’t be me, totally unrelatable.
- “Holiday From Your Life” (2012) by Colour Me Wednesday
- Call Me, Madame (2024) by Damien Jurado
Almost makes me want a cigarette.
- “Kola (Technicolor Version)” (2025) by Damien Jurado
A different vibe than the original, but I think it works.
- “The Last Great Washington State (’25)” (2025) by Damien Jurado
I wasn’t expecting synth pop but it works so well that you wouldn’t even think this wasn’t the original. And I love the additional vocals as well.
- Ohio (’24) (2024) by Damien Jurado
“Ohio” is one of my favorite Jurado songs, and while I think I still prefer the original I do like the kind of darker, sadder vibe to this one. “Little America” is a fun little jam session and I can’t quite hear most of the lyrics on “Always Memphis” but the lead vocal is good and “I miss the idea of us / never the real us” is a great line.
- Second Story Story (2025) by Damien Jurado
- Sheets (’24) / Des Moines (2024) by Damien Jurado
I love every version of “Sheets,” it’s just such a good song, and I love the horns on “Des Moines”
- “Hand in My Pocket (feat. Damien Jurado)” (2021) by Deep Sea Diver
It’s the year of Jurado, there’s no escaping him. But I mean come on how can you not like this?
- “Telling Lies” (2012) by Evans The Death
- “crybabydogear” (2025) by Frail Talk
- say what you like (2024) by fuvk
- what is the purpose of your visit (2025) by fuvk
I love the direction fuvk’s gone in in the last several years, expanding her sonic palette without losing any of the emotional compression that makes these little journalistic nuggets so affecting.
- split pea (2025) by fuvk, Jadot, harboursome
There were some interesting new sounds in the fuvk section—some harder percussion than usual, and I feel like her vocal had some extra complexity to it on “lingering”—but surprisingly the highlight for me was the Jadot section. I’d never listened to him before but I really liked his approach to this form of songwriting, and the production had all these neat little details. Plus he actually managed to make his 5 songs feel like their own little thing, with a bit of an emotional arc to it, a really strong build on the closer, and the recurring “water plop” motif.
The weakest section is definitely harboursome’s, her voice just isn’t super strong so on the more stripped down songs there’s just not enough there to support it. But she does make some interesting compositional choices, and “Is it like me if it happens when I’m alone?” is a killer line. I think if she figured out how to write/produce in a way that best served her voice (some vocal processing might also be good) it could really work.
- “Epicene” (2019) by Grawl!x
Wasn’t feeling it because I didn’t like the vocals, then I got really annoyed at the prosodic dissonance but at some point it got consistent enough that it felt like a deliberate stylistic choice and I kind of like this song now.
- “Just The Way You Are” (2025) by Heather Maloney
I’ll probably always be a Billy Joel apologist, but I have to admit Maloney’s grounded earnestness serves the song better than Joel’s swaggering crooner-esque charm. And I mean if you want maximum swagger you should go for Barry White’s version anyway.
- “Moon on a Stick” (2019) by Jacqui and Geoff
Come for “You won’t get the moon on a stick for 4 pound 97,” stay for “Sooner or later E. coli is gonna come calling.”
- “Halflight” (2023) by Juliana Finch
There were a couple good songs on this album, but this is the one that I heard on Welcome to Night Vale and got me to get the album in the first place. Other standout, and a completely different vibe, is her cover of “The Parting Glass.”
- “Yr Beast” (2019) by Kermes
The first verse is a little artless, lyrically, but that falsetto on the intro pays off so well with the build later on.
- “Laugh a Lot (feat. How To Dress Well)” (2016) by Magik*Magik
- “Space Kids” (2023) and “On the Line” (2024) by Mega Mango
RIP Mega Mango. Gearing up for an album release, the band went through an as-yet-unexplained lineup change sometime in late 2024, with lead singer/songwriter Crow Costello and lead guitarist/producer Alex Spagnolia leaving the group and new singer/songwriter Michelle Sosi joining up sometime around February 2025 (though this change was not announced until August 2025). Despite Costello and Spagnolia being the primary creative force behind the band and key to defining their sound (giving it the tongue-in-cheek label “phruitcore” after Spagnolia’s producer ID, Diet Lemon), somehow the new lineup (Sosi, along with bassist Niko Jones and drummer Sam Poll) have kept the Mega Mango moniker. Until and unless some explanation given for the split, it’s hard not to see the current lineup as usurpers; I’ve cooled off a bit since I initially found out about all this and maybe I’m willing to give them a chance, but thus far they seem solely interested in posting a bunch of YouTube shorts (they haven’t even updated the website beyond changing the header image and deactivating all the links to the old pages, except you can still find those old pages through Google because they didn’t even bother taking them down.)
All of which is to say, with the purported album undoubtedly scrapped, these two singles are the last we’ll hear of Mega Mango proper. And…they’re fine. “On the Line” is the clear favorite, it’s got that melancholy balanced by all the little sonic goodies they throw in there. It feels too short but that’s probably just a product of me wishing there were more songs and knowing there aren’t. “Space Kids” sounds cool, but it just feels kind of meaningless.
It’s a disappointing end for them, but hopefully Costello and Spagnolia will be back with something equally exciting at some point. And maybe Zombie Mango won’t suck.
- “Bootleg Firecracker” (2024) by Middle Kids
Ended up feeling pretty meh about this album but I do think this song is a vibe. The other big highlight was “Bend” which she really sings the heck out of.
- “But I Do (Demo)” (2022) by Now, Now
- “Lead Singer” (2019) by Owls of Now
- “Ode to Vivian (Rework)” (2022) by Patrick Watson
Annoyed that I can’t embed the Bandcamp track, but it’s a cool music video.
- “Same Place” (2019) by Peaness
I mean come on.
- “Eugh” (2019) by Porridge Radio
- “Call ACab” (2023) by Sam Stone
Starts hard, goes harder, keeps going hard.
- In This House (2023) by San Fermin
San Fermin seems to be intent on sounding as little like themselves as possible with each new iteration. Which I guess is interesting but it does mean unless you hear Alan Tate’s voice there’s no way to actually tell it’s a San Fermin song. Still, some good music on here.
- “51107” (2012) by Standard Fare
Certain of Eventual Failure 