2025 - The Year In Review - Music purchases

I'm torn between a feeling of "why am I doing this?" and "but I really do want to keep this blog alive in some form or other." So I suppose I'll go ahead and post the log of what I bought music-wise last year, though it may well prove to be my last post of the year. Maybe not. Who can say?

The big obsessions I'll point to were Holy Motors, Cigarettes After Sex, and Miranda Sex Garden, and yes, I noticed a certain amount of sex on the brain, at least name-wise. Fact is, I've been listening to a good bit of stuff in a shoegaze/dreampop direction, noisy or ethereal or both, and all of those acts scratched that itch to one degree or another, with albums by all three acts getting a lot of replay, especially Holy Motors' Slow Sundown (2018), MSG's Suspiria (1993), and CAS's eponymous debut (2016). None of these records are particularly new, though they were new to me, and Miranda Sex Garden is one of those acts that was defunct for a bit of a while though they seem to have rebanded (albeit in a bit of the King Crimson-ey way, with only one original member of the band still present and driving things).

I suppose another thing to point out is that last year was a year of deep-dives into the shopping list and finally getting records by Matt Berry, Sylvan Esso, and Mountain Goats (along with a few others) that have been on the "get" list for ten, twenty, thirty years and it just seemed finally to be time to go ahead and buy them (and, happily or tragically, my musical tastes hadn't evolved enough in the meanwhile for me to no longer want those records; turned out I still enjoy them into my middle age).

Another shout-out goes to Robin Carolan's Nosferatu soundtrack, which was very helpful in pushing through some writer's block and getting a bit of fiction done at long, long, oh so very long, why did it have to be so long, all that time wasted, so long last.

Several notable reissues/remasters made their way to my hard drive as well.

Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense is a record I sort of didn't own but ironically had on cassette for a long time: I taped the audio track off the VHS way back in the day, and so the expanded reissue album actually more closely matches the version of the soundtrack I grew up with than the extremely truncated official release that I never got around to buying ever did. It's a pleasure to both legitimately own it and to own it the way it ought to be instead of the way it originally was issued on LP and CD way back when.

I also finally came around to getting the digital version of the 2018/2020/2022 James Guthrie remaster of Pink Floyd's Animals, a reissue of the 1977 album that hung out in limbo for several years and wound up with a range of production/copyright/release dates because Roger Waters got somebody to write liner notes giving him all the credit (though acknowledging that David Gilmour was also a member of Pink Floyd and maybe did some guitar things on the record) and David Gilmour apparently didn't care for that, something about other people also being in the band and perhaps him co-writing the 17-minute song that takes up nearly half of the record. It was both kind of stupid and also a pretty perfect encapsulation of how Roger Waters might have come out of his Pink Floyd departure a little better if he possessed an iota of self-awareness, grace, diplomacy, and tact. As for the reissue itself: it's... I mean, it's interesting, in that the clarity highlights some elements of the album rather nicely, especially when it comes to Richard Wright's frequently overlooked and undervalued keyboards really being the driving thing that propels the album along, but it also manages to provide so much clarity that the kind of industrial murkiness that was part of the record's ominous and oppressive charm is subtracted; in particular, the parody of The Lord's Prayer in the middle of "Sheep" comes out a lot clearer and therefore a lot less funny and weird (if you know, you know).

The other big Pink Floyd reissue of last year is the 50th Anniversary reissue of Wish You Were Here, though looking at my list here again, I realized I purchased it in January 2026 as a birthday present to myself instead of immediately when it came out in December 2025, so never mind.

Anything else? No, can't think of anything. Feel free to share any music you liked, new or not, in the comments.

Nobody Wants To Be Here and Nobody Wants To Leave	The Twilight Sad	2014
Witchazel (Tenth Anniversary Reissue)	Matt Berry	2009/2021	(10th anniversary of Berry signing to Acid Jazz in 2011)
The Year We Make Contact	Charmparticles	2010	ep
Sedated in the 80's 4	various artists	1995	compilation
Heaven Or Las Vegas	Cocteau Twins	1990
It'll End In Tears (Remastered)	This Mortal Coil	1984
I Am Easy To Find	The National	2019
Into the Labyrinth (Remastered)	Dead Can Dance	1993
U.F.O.F.	Big Thief	2019
Luminous	The Horrors	2014
The Comforts of Madness (30th Anniversary Reissue)	Pale Saints	1990/2020
Distractions	Tindersticks	2021
Brighter Wounds	Son Lux	2018
Animals (2018 remix)	Pink Floyd	1977/2018
Broken English (Deluxe Edition)	Marianne Faithful	1979/2013
La Mia Vita Violenta	Blonde Redhead	1995
Sit Down for Dinner	Blonde Redhead	2023
Before the Poison	Marianne Faithful	2005
Sketches of Spain	Miles Davis	1960/2009	50th anniversary legacy edition
Nell' ora blu	Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats	2024
Birth, School, Work, Death (Expanded Edition)	The Godfathers	1988/2011	expanded edition
Sylvan Esso	Sylvan Esso	2014/2024	10th anniversary edition
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space	Spiritualized	1997
Suspiria	Miranda Sex Garden	1993
Blushing	Blushing	2019
Slow Sundown	Holy Motors	2018
Singles: "walk"; "La Maga"; "heroine"; "four days"	sadplanet	2024-2025	London UK band, hasn't released any full-lengths or eps yet
Pink Floyd at Pompeii - MCMLXXII	Pink Floyd	2025	Originally recorded 1972/remaster
Stop Making Sense	Talking Heads	1984/2023	Deluxe edition
Gemini	Slow Salvation	2025
Indifferent	Diffident Daffodils	2024
Beat	Bowery Electric	1996/2016	20th anniversary reissue
Lovejunky	The Popguns	1995/2019	remastered/extended
Horse	Holy Motors	2020
Nosferatu (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)	Robin Carolan	2024
Remedy	Azure Ray	2021
Lines in a Leaf	The Album Leaf	2025	Issue of early demo recordings ca. 1998
Bowery Electric	Bowery Electric	1995
Here We Lie	Slow Salvation	2023
No Gods No Masters	Garbage	2021
Cascade	Peter Murphy	1995
Celebration / Er Det Tirsdag Må Være Belgien	End of Your Garden / De Må Være Belgiere	2010	heard a track from this on Dark Wave and now I'm frankly not sure who the band actually is or whether this is an album or double-ep reissue
Slowdive	Slowdive	2017
Vertigo	Bowery Electric	1997
All Hail West Texas	The Mountain Goats	2002/2013	reissue
Double Infinity	Big Thief	2025
Echelons	For Against	1987/2004	reissue
Love Pedals	The Stargazer Lillies	2025
Route One	Sigur Rós	2018
The Mercy of Women	dead leaf echo	2023
Close Up	Sea Lemon	2022	ep
Cigarettes After Sex	Cigarettes After Sex	2017
	Cigarettes After Sex	2012	ep
X's	Cigarettes After Sex	2024
Cry	Cigarettes After Sex	2019
Iris	Miranda Sex Garden	1992	ep
Velventine	Miranda Sex Garden	2024	ep
The Wild Youth EP	Daughter	2011	ep
His Young Heart	Daughter	2011	ep
A Chorus of Storytellers	The Album Leaf	2010
Heavenly Creatures	Holy Motors	2015	7" single (digital)
Ringo Deathstarr	Ringo Deathstarr	2021
White Light from the Mouth of Infinity	Swans	1991/2016	reissue