{"id":10879,"date":"2025-07-02T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10879"},"modified":"2025-07-02T11:01:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T15:01:27","slug":"music-update-june-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/02\/music-update-june-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, June 2025."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I don\u2019t mean for these playlists to keep getting longer, but they just keep putting out great music \u2013 I end up cutting a few tracks every month to avoid them reaching three hours. This month\u2019s has 34 songs and runs two hours, eleven minutes, with two of the year\u2019s best albums released in June as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As always, if you can\u2019t see the playlist below, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/40YQaq7uxKSk2uyny53VUT?si=a23c053149de4bdf\">you can access it here<\/a>. And if you have a streaming service beyond the majors that you like, throw it in the comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Klaw&amp;apos;s June 2025 music update\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/playlist\/40YQaq7uxKSk2uyny53VUT?si=50e3a0947e1f451e&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Little Simz feat. Michael Kiwanuka \u2013 Lotus.<\/strong> The title track from Little Simz\u2019s latest album is the jewel in this particular crown, an eclectic, ambitious record that seethes with indignation. The rapper loaned $2.2 million to her longtime friend, collaborator, and producer Inflo for the first-ever live SAULT concert, but he didn\u2019t pay her back, causing her to be late on her taxes that year; she\u2019s now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stereogum.com\/2304873\/little-simz-talks-lawsuit-against-inflo-scrapping-four-albums-she-made-with-him\/news\/\">suing him<\/a>, and nearly every song and lyric on <em>Lotus<\/em> is in some way about her feelings of betrayal and hurt over the experience. &nbsp;Other standout tracks include \u201cLion\u201d (feat. Obongjayar), \u201cBlood,\u201d \u201cThief,\u201d and \u201cBlue\u201d (feat. Sampha). Remind me never to piss her off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kate Nash \u2013 GERM.<\/strong> Nash\u2019s new single is a spoken-word affair that attacks transphobes like J.K. Rowling by pointing out that there\u2019s no actual evidence that trans women pose any risk to cis women, while these so-called \u2018feminists\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2025\/jun\/03\/british-feminism-needs-reshaping-kate-nash-on-her-new-single-about-trans-rights\">ignore the actual harm done to all women by cis men<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Creeper \u2013 Headstones.<\/strong> The British goth-metal throwbacks released this thrashy lead single ahead of their next album, <em>Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death<\/em>, which is due out in late October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hotline TNT \u2013 The Scene.<\/strong> Hotline TNT\u2019s <em>Raspberry Moon<\/em> was the second-best new album I heard in June, a big step forward for this rock band \u2013 I hate when they\u2019re called shoegaze, that\u2019s flat-out wrong and a misunderstanding of the term \u2013 with stronger melodies from their heavily-distorted guitars. Other standout tracks include \u201cJulia\u2019s War\u201d and \u201cCandle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lord Huron \u2013 Bag of Bones.<\/strong> The fourth single released ahead of Lord Huron\u2019s newest album, <em>The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1<\/em>, is the strongest one yet; the record comes out on July 18<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Elbow \u2013 Timber.<\/strong> The four-song EP <em>Audio Vertigo Echo<\/em> is also part of the deluxe edition of <em>Audio Vertigo<\/em>, the album released last year that featured \u201cLover\u2019s Leap.\u201d All four tracks on the EP are solid, with \u201cAdriana Again\u201d the best of the set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Calibro 35 \u2013 Reptile Strut. <\/strong>Thistrack from the Italian band funk-rock band sounds like Jethro Tull recorded the score for a 1960s spy film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>TAKAAT \u2013 Amidinin.<\/strong> TAKAAT is the band that backs up Mdou Moctar, and on their first EP as an independent act, they sound \u2026 well, a lot like Mdou Moctar\u2019s music, just with a little less of the shredding. It\u2019s still excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WITCH \u2013 Queenless King. <\/strong>WITCH is one of the original Zamrock acts and returned in 2023 with their first album in 39 years, re-forming with a new lineup; they\u2019re back again with <em>Sogolo<\/em>, released last month, with the same ebullient sound that melds 1970s psychedelic rock with traditional Zambian music. Only singer Emanuel \u201cJagari\u201d Chanda remains from the original band, as the others all died from AIDS-related causes by 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sudan Archives \u2013 DEAD.<\/strong> Sudan Archives\u2019 last LP <em>Natural Brown Prom Queen<\/em> was <a href=\"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/21\/top-22-albums-of-2022\/\">my #2 album of 2022<\/a>; this is her first new music since then, although I can\u2019t find any word of a new LP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Emma-Jean Thackray \u2013 Weirdo.<\/strong> Thackray\u2019s latest album, also called <em>Weirdo<\/em>, is largely a reflection on and document of her grief when her partner, producer Matthew Gordon, died unexpectedly in 2023. The record is similar in style to her last full-length, 2021\u2019s <em>Yellow<\/em>, and despite the somber subject matter includes a lot of upbeat jazz\/funk tracks, including this one and \u201cWanna Die.\u201d I feel like Laufey gets a lot of the attention that should go to Thackray, whose music is more authentic to jazz but less poppy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nathan Salsburg \u2013 Ipsa Corpora (Excerpt).<\/strong> Salsburg\u2019s latest album, <em>Ipsa Corpora<\/em>, is just one 40-odd minute track of him playing acoustic guitar, with nothing else, and it\u2019s mesmerizing. I wasn\u2019t familiar with him at all before finding this on the NPR new music playlist. This is just a two-minute excerpt from the back half of the album, and it includes one of my favorite sequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Suede \u2013 Trance State. <\/strong>The second track from Suede\u2019s upcoming album <em>Antidepressants<\/em> continues in the dark post-punk vein of the previous single, \u201cDisintegrate,\u201d and I couldn\u2019t be more excited for the full record. It feels like it\u2019s squarely aimed at my age cohort, anyone who came of age as a music fan in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Just Mustard \u2013 Pollyanna.<\/strong> Okay, <em>this <\/em>is real shoegaze. The Irish band\u2019s last album, <em>Heart Under<\/em>, was also in my top 10 for 2022, as one of the purest distillations of the original shoegaze sound of the early 1990s, including some of its harsher elements. This track softens some of that, so vocalist Katie Ball is a little easier to hear above the music, but the result is that they sound a little more like Lush and less like MBV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Steve Queralt feat. Emma Anderson \u2013 Lonely Town.<\/strong> Speaking of Lush, here\u2019s their guitarist Anderson on another track from Ride bassist Queralt\u2019s first solo album, <em>Swallow<\/em>,and it turns out when you mix Lush and Ride together you get a song that sounds like both bands. Weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>World News \u2013 Don\u2019t Want to Know. <\/strong>Dreamy jangle-rock from London. These guys look too young to be making music like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lake Ruth \u2013 An Offering.<\/strong> Lake Ruth\u2019s new album <em>Hawking Radiation<\/em> was inspired by Adrian Tchaikovsky\u2019s novel <em>Children of Time<\/em>, the Heaven\u2019s Gate suicide cult, and the art of Paul Klee, a diversity of sources that shows up in the music, which draws on psychedelic rock, electronica, and even some pop elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sophia Stel \u2013 Everyone Falls Asleep in Their Own Time.<\/strong> Stel is a singer and electronic musician who released one EP last fall and is back with this single; it reminds me of Beth Orton, the better aspects of Sarah McLachlan\u2019s music, even a little Tasmin Archer\u2019s \u201cSleeping Satellite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rocket \u2013 Crossing Fingers.<\/strong> This LA-based band took its name from the Smashing Pumpkins song, perhaps influenced by a desire to find the least SEO-friendly name possible, and their sound reflects that vein of early-90s alternative, guitar-driven rock. Think early Weezer, Helmet, Dinosaur Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mike Bankhead \u2013 Something that I Can\u2019t Explain. <\/strong>Mike\u2019s a longtime friend of the dish, long enough that I couldn\u2019t even put a finger on when he started reading and commenting. He\u2019s also a singer and bassist, and this alt-rock song is his first new track since 2023\u2019s EP <em>I Am Experienced<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>flowerovlove \u2013 new friends.<\/strong> One of the weirder comments I\u2019ve gotten on my music posts over the almost fifteen years that I\u2019ve been writing them has been the claim that I dislike pop music. Like a lot of people, maybe most, I started out as a fan of pop music, and that\u2019s still reflected in my playlists in music that reminds me of that era of pop. It has also made me wary of contemporary, big-label pop, because it\u2019s so overproduced, but there\u2019s plenty of good pop music out there if you\u2019re willing to look a little harder for it. flowerovlove is a perfect example \u2013 she started out releasing her own music in the pandemic, and although she\u2019s now signed to a major label, so far she hasn\u2019t compromised her bedroom-pop sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Obongjayar \u2013 Gasoline.<\/strong> This song is from the soundtrack to <em>F1<\/em>, and continues the year of Obongjayar, as he released his second album <em>Paradise Now<\/em> in May and appears on two of the best tracks on Little Simz\u2019s new LP. (Her appearance on his record, however, is its worst track. This song isn\u2019t on his album but would fit quite well there with its mix of Afrobeat, electronic, and western pop traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Young Fathers \u2013 Promised Land.<\/strong> Young Fathers did the entire soundtrack to <em>28 Years Later<\/em>, most of which is background music rather than full-fledged songs. It also includes a reading of Rudyard Kipling\u2019s poem \u201cBoots.\u201d \u201cPromised Land\u201d is its most traditional track, at least in line with the Mercury Prize winners\u2019 typical output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SPRINTS \u2013 Descartes.<\/strong> This Irish punk band\u2019s second album, <em>All That Is Over<\/em>, is due outon September 26<sup>th<\/sup>, and this first single is one of their best tracks to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Minus 5 \u2013 We Shall Not Be Released.<\/strong> Another friend of the dish, so to speak, as I interviewed Scott McGaughey on my old podcast and have met him and the other members of The Baseball Project. The two bands <a href=\"https:\/\/bnds.us\/1yeiwy\">are touring together this fall<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arc de Soleil \u2013 Sunchaser.<\/strong> Arc de Soleil is composer\/producer Daniel Kadawatha, who does a pretty solid Khruangbin impression \u2013 as does Balthvs, who I nearly included on a playlist earlier this year. I don\u2019t think any of these knockoffs are as good as Khruangbin, but they\u2019re good enough to listen to in their own right, and the guitar melody here reminds of some of the better stuff from the brief heyday of guitar instrumental albums from when I was in high school\/college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wavves \u2013 Spun.<\/strong> The riff at the start of this track reminds me a ton of Superdrag\u2019s \u201cSucked Out the Feeling,\u201d a song that I love until the chorus until it seems to try too hard to be edgy; then Nathan Williams shifts gears slightly for the second half of the song without losing that core melody. This is the title track from Wavves\u2019 latest album, their first of new material since 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Beths \u2013 No Joy. <\/strong>The second single from the Beths\u2019 upcoming album <em>Straight Line was a Lie<\/em>, due out on August 29<sup>th<\/sup>, isn\u2019t one of my favorites from them, actually. The hook isn\u2019t as good as those on their best singles, and I think the super-short lines in the verses take away from the wordplay in Elizabeth Stokes\u2019 lyrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jehnny Beth \u2013 Obsession.<\/strong> Jehnny Beth\u2019s latest single is pure madness \u2013 cacophonous, disjointed, just glorious \u2013 and an excellent sign ahead of her new album <em>You Heartbreaker<\/em>, due out August 29<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Puffer \u2013 Jimmy.<\/strong> Puffer are a Montr\u00e9al-based punk band who seem to have a DIY ethos, recording and releasing their debut album, <em>Street Hassle<\/em>, themselves. They don\u2019t have much of a previous footprint, just two EPs to their name prior to this record, but it\u2019s great if you\u2019re a fan of classic, old-school punk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lowen \u2013 Waging War Against God.<\/strong> This track is actually from Lowen\u2019s 2024 album <em>Do Not Go to War With the Demons of Mazandaran<\/em>, a superb blend of doom and extreme metal with Persian music. It would have made my list of the best albums of the year had I heard it in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tulip \u2013 Arabella. <\/strong>I linked to the <em>Texas Monthly <\/em>story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texasmonthly.com\/arts-entertainment\/salvation-through-metal-tulip-band\/\">on Tulip\u2019s origins<\/a> in a Saturday roundup earlier this month; they blend symphonic metal and death metal elements, slightly overproduced in my view, and I\u2019ll give anyone who escapes from the sort of controlling religious environment they escaped some extra points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Unleashed \u2013 Hold Your Hammers High.<\/strong> Unleashed is one of the pioneers of Swedish death metal, before the \u2018melodic\u2019 death metal movement that grew out of the Gothenburg scene \u2026 but this track, from Unleashed\u2019s upcoming album <em>Fire Upon Your Lands<\/em>, sounds a lot like late-80s thrash with vocals that are more shouted than growled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>DRAIN \u2013 Nights Like These.<\/strong> DRAIN is a crossover thrash (meaning a blend of traditional thrash and hardcore punk) revival band from Santa Cruz, which makes sense given that sound\u2019s deep roots in the San Francisco area (Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and Death Angel all came from that scene). The vocals are a bit death-growly for me, but the riffage behind them should satisfy fans of the genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t mean for these playlists to keep getting longer, but they just keep putting out great music \u2013 I end up cutting a few tracks every month to avoid them reaching three hours. This month\u2019s has 34 songs and runs two hours, eleven minutes, with two of the year\u2019s best albums released in June [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1433,359,609,167,1127,757,852],"class_list":["post-10879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2025-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-hip-hop","tag-indie","tag-jazz","tag-metal","tag-music","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10879"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10881,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10879\/revisions\/10881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}