#sofia kourtesis

Actors Artificial — Strategies of Absentees (Disfold)

It begins with a shimmer, a sparkling cloud of tone shards and ghostly breathing. This beautiful entrance into Strategies of Absentees, the sophomore release from Actors Artificial, eventually dissipates, revealing a stark and mournful atmosphere. It’s a song, complete with melody, rhythm, vocals and a title. Jonathan Parant (Fly Pan Am) has conjured it into existence, with help from Dominic Jasmin on bass and drummer Sam Bobony. But he’s transcended the notion of “song” altogether, instead crafting “models of melancholic rock stasis alongside processes of noise-recombinant conversions.” His music is a conduit, a structure that he manipulates in a digital séance to create gorgeous atmospheres that are “intensified through interrupted relays executed via the electroacoustic tactics of Roger Tellier-Craig.” The results are mind-altering, infectious, and reality-bending like a Christopher Nolan film. Flipping the cassette over reveals more fractalized sound to behold and digest, further evidence that Parant and his comrades are rewiring the circuitry of song.

Bryon Hayes

Amphisbaena — Rift (I, Voidhanger)

Idiosyncratic black/death from weirdos who have also brought you music from unhinged outfits like Rites of Thy Degringolade and the mighty Antediluvian. On this new LP, Amphisbaena toggles between atmospheric passages of sound that could almost be called pretty and torrents of chunky, tormented sonic ugliness. If you (like this reviewer) are sick to death of all the praise for the “ambient,” toothless music of Blood Incantation, Dream Unending and their ilk, then have no fear: tune into Amphisbaena’s “Rift III-Ruinous Godlike Simulacra” and let yourself get pummeled and twisted into Lovecraftian impossible geometries. With that in mind, it might be better to say: Have fear. Amphisbaena is clearly trying to open a rift — maybe in Reality, maybe in your small colon, maybe just in your head. But if the band pries it open much wider, something awful will emerge. Sounds about right.

Jonathan Shaw

Allysen Callery — King Neptune b/w We Float Down the River (Tepid Toad)

Two eerie folk songs, just delicate lattices of finger-picked guitar and serene, half-note bending vocals, are lovely and light as a spider’s web. In the track with vocals, “King Neptune,” Callery sings in a manner that fits somewhere between Sandy Denny’s trilling mysteries and the cool, otherworldly tones of Linda Perhacs. The shorter “We Float Down the River,” highlights guitar skills that put her in a class with Annie Briggs. It’s all pretty wonderful, and the only possible quibble is: can we have some more? 

Jennifer Kelly

Amy Cimini — See You When I Get There (Relative Pitch)

You might know violist Amy Cimini from Architeuthis Walks On Land, her duo with bassoonist Katherine Young, or from her scholarly investigations of Maryanne Amacher’s work. But if you frequent San Diego karaoke bars, you might know her as the person who loves to do Iron Maiden’s “Number Of The Beast.” Out of that breadth of interests comes this solo recording. Cimini’s aggressive bowing and a hint of electronic enhancement charge winding, non-repeating performances that revel in the popping qualities of plucked and scraped strings. If you appreciate Jessica Pavone’s solo recordings, this album will likely scratch similar itches; Cimini even dedicates the first track to her. But the pieces on See You When I Get There are more mercurial than Pavone’s work, spinning unexpectedly into pure, unstable sound.

Bill Meyer

Dark Thoughts — Highway to the End (Stupid Bag)

It’s easy to take the sort of punk rock that Philly band Dark Thoughts writes and plays for granted: some would call it straight-up Ramones worship, cut with textures from those early singles from the Queers and the street punk ethos of the Cockney Rejects. And if you have kicked around the fecund Philly scene for any time at all over the past 10 years, it’s easy to take Dark Thoughts for granted. Seems like they will always be there, to play another set with energy and tunefulness that appear effortless — and to organize another bill and promote another show for six or seven other local bands. But there’s a valedictory vibe to this new tape’s title and a bummer sensibility to some of the songs: “So Alone,” “Off the Rails,” “Please Don’t Be Lonesome.” The “end” in the title may be metaphorical, but it’s a good reminder. We shouldn’t take anything for granted — especially not punk bands that glue their respective scenes together with such generosity of spirit, and with such great riffs.

Jonathan Shaw

Avalon Emerson — Perpetual Emotion Machine (Dead Oceans)

My two favorite EPs of 2025 were recently released within a week of each other. The first is Avalon Emerson’s latest, Perpetual Emotion Machine (not to be confused with the recent Radium88 album), which finds her returning to the dancefloor via Dead Oceans after a stint helming the more pop-oriented Charm. Emerson has a well-established reputation for thoughtful approaches to DJing — a tour highlighted by her Zohran Mamdani sample at Nowadays is a recent example — and it’s no different here despite ultimately being guided by pretty standard 4/4 rhythms. All of these tracks were club-tested prior to release, but that doesn’t render the classic Beauty and the Beast reference of Air France’s “Collapsing at Your Doorstep” 17 years on or a deeper-cut Oppenheimer Analysis cover of “Don’t Be Seen With Me” any less potent. If you can get past the nostalgia for either of those, it’s hard to pick a favorite. Beautiful work from a producer in her prime.

Patrick Masterson

Family Ravine — Horizonites (Eiderdown)

Have you ever looked out from the ocean shore or the edge of a flat expanse of land to watch the sun rise and set? Maybe you’ve experienced the circadian cycle through a window, watching the sky lighten and darken over a cityscape. With Horizonites, Kevin Cahill attempts to reflect this cyclical phenomenon in his music. He leverages guitar, mandolin, kalimba and melodica to craft long-form meditations: macrocosmic tapestries from microcosmic threads. Cahill begins with skeletal latticework patterns that multiply and fractalize into beguiling tone swarms, bending diurnal melodies into nocturnal thrumming. It’s easy to get lost inside these dense thickets, particularly the side-long “Line Under a Circle Moving Together,” which folds the racket of the city into twilit pastoral bliss.

Bryon Hayes

Rebecca Foon & Aliayta Foon-Dancoes — Reveries (Constellation)

Of these two composing/performing sisters cellist Rebecca Foon might be more well known to most Dusted readers, having co-founded Esmerine and worked with Thee Silver Mt. Zion and Set Fire to Flames among many others. But violinist Aliayta Foon-Dancoes has been playing in symphony orchestras and amassing a lengthy list of collaborations and compositions in her own right. For their first album together, both of their main stringed instruments are augmented by piano and subtle production touches (from the duo working with Jace Lasek as co-producers). The resulting 38-minute suite in in turns graceful, mournful, and foreboding, engaging with both artists’ longstanding concerns around environmental collapse in a manner that is no less intense for all its beauty.

Ian Mathers

Hard Chiller — Baby! (Born Losers)

As that once ubiquitous, reviled genre known as nü-metal covertly (or not so covertly, if the name Holiday Kirk means anything to you) continues its rehabilitation and Gen Alpha rediscovers its charms, it’s been interesting to watch the downstream influence of its history shifting from one whose core artists contemporaneously were Korn, Marilyn Manson and Limp Bizkit to one where the subgenre’s entire axis pivoted on Deftones. You’re going to have a more tasteful (if less interesting) record if you lean on the latter nine times outta 10 regardless, but Santa Rosa’s Hard Chiller are especially adept in execution on their debut LP Baby!. It shouldn’t be a huge surprise once you see the pedigree — members of From Indian Lakes, RxBandits, No Motiv and The Velvet Teen pool their collective experience in an alluring marriage of White Pony and Placebo. Efficient and full of earworms, Hard Chiller cut the fat from their forebears. Time to chug the chugga.

Patrick Masterson

Inland Years — Keep Your Eyes on the Road (BSDJ)

You might get a big whiff of Sebadoh from this Inland Year’s bedroom psychedelia, in fuzz-sloughed but indelible melodies that emerge from Keep Your Eyes on the Road. Foggy rockers like “Make You Feel Better” coo minor key harmonies over rattling beats, a bit like Honey Radar, while “That Day” clatters and soothes in a tripped out way, like an off-cut from the Sadies in a psychedelic vein. Everything sounds like it’s happening several rooms away, not as loud or crisp or emphatic as it might be if you were right there. But that just adds to the dreamy, unreachability of these songs, which slip away even as you’re trying to grab on.

Jennifer Kelly

Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O’Rourke — Pareidolia (Drag City)

The story behind this collaborative release doesn’t really offer many clues as to what it might sound like before you press play. In 2023, Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O’Rourke embarked on a two-week tour of Europe. The musical material they brought with them to play was prepared individually, with no advance knowledge of what the other was planning. The live sets were recorded, then pieced together into the two sides of music represented here. This means that although each of the four tracks may comprise elements from different performances in different locations, the results are surprisingly coherent. There’s plenty of abstract, shimmering synthesizer textures that will be familiar to anyone who’s dipped into O’Rourke’s ongoing Steamroom series, plus recordings of trumpet and manipulated tom-toms, and some fluttering flute that was presumably played live by Ishibashi. The first half feels more tentative and exploratory; the second half reaches its culmination with some lovely sustained pads and a satisfying sense of resolution. Pop a pair of headphones on and the forty minutes of music becomes a mesmerizing journey.

Tim Clarke

Sofia Kourtesis — Volver (Ninja Tune)

The second of my two favorite EPs of 2025 comes by way of Berlin-based Peruvian Sofia Kourtesis, who’s been an elite producer since her Studio Barnhus days but kept a relatively low profile (and thin discography) up until 2023’s masterful Madres, a full-length debut that struck me as similar in tenor to DJ Koze’s Knock Knock in its grander swings and pop nods after years in the heads-only trenches. Volver finds her in an even more festive mood; though lead single “Unidos” with Dan Snaith’s Daphni alias is a delightful English-language anthem, it’s celebratory Spanish that permeates both the lyrics and the sonic palette more broadly both in choices of singing (plus one additional cameo from fellow Peruvian Miguel Ballumbrosio) and in percussion, where the occasional bongos and shakers color in the margins of the Latin house on offer. Inspired by a Pedro Almodóvar movie and dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community, the “Unidos” chorus acts as artist statement: You never let them get you down. One of the year’s best releases in any genre.

Patrick Masterson

Peachfuzz — Impeachment (Facada)

Lisbon outfit Peachfuzz is made up of three adventurous musicians from that city’s vibrant music scene. Guitarist Norberto Lobo brews enigmatic concoctions through both acoustic and electric means. João Almeida’s trumpet benefits from his youthful exuberance, as he stretches his instrument through electronics and extended techniques. Equally precocious is drummer João Pereira, as he’s involved in a variety of musical conceits. As a trio, the gentlemen focus on stretching sonic boundaries, blending instrumentation and electronics into swirling maelstroms of sound. With Impeachment, their wittily named second release, they establish multi-layered tapestries emblazoned with noise, drone and improvisatory exhalations. The album shows off the trio’s versatility, ranging from high energy free improvisation to deep sonic meditation. The payoff is dependent on the mood of the audience. Capricious listeners may not have the stamina to digest the 20-minute drone workout of “A Peach Ó Comboio,” but those with patience will definitely be rewarded.

Bryon Hayes

Primitive Impulse — Piss It Away (Feel It)

Cincinnati’s worst belch up 20 minutes of buzzing, thumping hardcore, and it’s all pretty good. Check out the three-and-a-half minutes that compose “Dogs Will Hunt” and “Dying Wage,” and you’ll hear the gruff sort of street punk that lets melody in through an alley doorway, a sudden burst of blues-metal guitar worthy of the Necros and gravelly vocals that you’ll need to pick out of the patch of roadrash they leave on your ass. Sound like fun? The whole record (which you may still be able to cop on “clear beer vinyl,” natch) is full of that variety of angry, recalcitrant punk rawk. Skullets, big bellies (channeling Pig Champion, but not quite there yet) and working-class rage — maybe you’ve heard it before, but no one has ever heard enough. Vocalist Thad snarls, “Your debt is your grave!” Some messages never get old.