Top 15 Releases of 2025 So Far
🔝Noteworthy Albums, EPs and Singles Made in Latin-America and Beyond
In a year where musical trends have swung wildly between maximalism and minimalism, the records we’ve selected here chart a different path. One rooted in intention. From Brazil to Bogotá, Santiago to San Juan, these artists aren’t chasing algorithms or retro aesthetics for nostalgia’s sake. They’re building new sonic lineages, honoring memory while forging the future, and, most crucially, making music that feels lived-in, unhurried, and emotionally precise. Whether it’s Julia Mestre’s disco-laced balladry, Ela Minus’ quiet revolutions, or Bad Bunny’s genre-melting testimony, ‘25 is already shaping up to be a year defined not by noise, but by resonance.
So welcome aboard. Below, you’ll find the records that have kept our ears wide open and our hearts tuned in. Projects that defied expectation, deepened legacy, and reminded us why we listen in the first place. From slow-burning serenades to dancefloor heat, field recordings to full orchestras, this is the sound of 2025’s first half, in high resolution:
Julia Mestre - MARAVILHOSAMENTE BEM
We begin our list with a radiant standout from Brazil: MARAVILHOSAMENTE BEM, the third solo album by Julia Mestre, and her most ambitious personal work to date.
Already celebrated as a member of Latin Grammy-winning group Bala Desejo, Julia has spent the last few years cultivating a solo voice marked by emotional clarity, vintage aesthetics, and unapologetically feminine storytelling. Here, she steps fully into the spotlight with an album that feels both nostalgic and distinctly modern. A love-letter to ‘80s MPB ballads, classic Brazilian pop, and disco divas reimagined through her own lens.
Built on lush production by Julia and longtime collaborators Gabriel Quirino, Gabriel Quinto, and João Moreira, the album flows through dreamy synthscapes, whispered vocals, and string-laced interludes. The result is a genre-defiant pop record rooted in intimacy, melancholy and glamour.
At its core, this one is an album about love in all its forms — blissful, theatrical, fleeting. From the cinematic sensuality of “Vampira” and “Pra Lua”, to the shimmering title track opener, Mestre plays with persona, tone, and nostalgia, channeling icons like Rita Lee, Marina Lima, Sade, and Donna Summer. On “Marinou, Limou”, Lima herself appears as a guest, her name transformed into a whispered mantra within Julia’s disco-pop dreamworld.
The earlier single, “Sou Fera”, teased this new era with neon-lit synthwave and sensual power. A retro-futuristic anthem that felt as much like a love song to Rita Lee as it did a roadmap to Julia’s evolving creative universe.
Other highlights include the tender “Sentimento Blues,” the Sade-esque “Seu Romance”, and the delicate instrumental suite “Interlúdio dos Amantes”, which adds breathing space to an already emotionally rich record.
For all its polish, the album is never overproduced. It’s confident, but not heavy-handed, balancing pop ambition with warmth, humor, and experimentation. In a year full of solid releases, it’s easily one of the most fully realized albums we’ve heard so far.
Frente Cumbiero - Inconcreto & Asociados
With Inconcreto & Asociados, Bogotá’s Frente Cumbiero returns in full form: louder, looser, and more layered than ever. Spearheaded by composer, producer, and musical anthropologist Mario Galeano Toro, the group’s third full-length is both a celebration and a deconstruction of cumbia’s transcontinental possibilities.
Released first on vinyl during Record Store Day (April 12) via La Roma Records, and digitally worldwide on May 1 through Salgaelsol and Discos Biche, the album feels as tactile and alive as the format it debuted on. It’s a wild, sprawling collection that leans into Galeano’s vision of tropicanibalismo de alta montaña, an experimental, high-altitude fusion of traditional Colombian rhythms, Caribbean horns, analog synths, and avant-garde spirit.
Whereas previous Frente releases leaned heavily into dub or percussive experimentation, Inconcreto doubles down on contrast. The compositions are both meticulous and chaotic, steeped in deep folkloric roots yet always sidestepping genre orthodoxy. Cumbia is the language, but the grammar is scrambled, rethought through jazz phrasing, vintage production, and scattered guest appearances from a pan-Latin diaspora.
Among the standout tracks is the bold reimagining of Brazilian songwriter Getúlio Cortes’ “Negro Gato”, featuring raw vocals by Batori Pardo and tambor alegre by Richard Arnedo. Elsewhere, UK tuba maestro Theon Cross lends heavyweight low end to “Paratebueno”, and Argentina’s Manu Schaller adds eerie theremin textures to the spectral “El Tereminé”, included in our Top 40 Tracks of 2024.
And then there’s “Puente del Papa”, a multi-instrumental cumbia hallucination featuring accordionist Jhonivan Saenz, Monterrey legends Charly de la Garza and Chales, plus a special spoken-word appearance from Gabriel Dueñez, visionary of the cumbia rebajada movement. It’s a generational passing of the torch, wrapped in dissonance and deep groove. Rather than features, these interventions feel like field recordings of alternate realities.
Visually, the album is sealed with artwork by Mateo Rivano, a longtime Frente collaborator whose surrealist totems and folkloric colorways mirror the album’s non-linear, shape-shifting character.
More than a band, Frente has always felt more like a research lab, a roots-powered time machine, and a Trojan horse for cumbia’s experimental future. With Inconcreto & Asociados, Galeano and his cast of players deliver a dizzying, vital new chapter in their ongoing exploration of Latin American sound.
Bejuco, La Escuelita del ritmo - Ritmo de dos mares
On Ritmo de dos Mares, Bejuco (Tumaco, Colombia) and La Escuelita del Ritmo (Portobelo, Panamá) come together to craft more than just an EP. They’ve built a musical bridge across oceans. Rooted in the Afro-diasporic traditions of both the Colombian Pacific and the Panamanian Caribbean, this six-track collaboration is a powerful act of sonic kinship, memory, and mutual recognition.
Recorded through artistic residencies in both territories, the release is an invitation to listen with intention. The sound of the marimba de chonta from Tumaco meets the pulse of the tambor congo from Portobelo in a dialogue that’s at once ancestral and immediate. Each track carries the weight of tradition, but also the spirit of celebration, resistance, and renewal.
The project’s thematic core revolves around the sea, as a path, a memory, and a metaphor. Songs speak of coastal life, shared struggle and joy, Afro-descendant identity, and the timeless echo of drums across water. But Ritmo de dos Mares is more than music: it’s accompanied by a full multimedia experience including a documentary, podcast, video clips, and field recordings, expanding its impact beyond the auditory into an archive of living culture.
This collaboration reflects the mission of both groups. Bejuco, founded in 2015 in Tumaco, is one of Colombia’s most vital new collectives, blending bunde, juga, and Afrobeat with the depth of the Pacific’s marimba-based traditions. Described by member Cankita as a sound with “the force of the tide”, their music is bold, rooted, and open to the world. Since joining Discos Pacífico in 2020, the band has deepened its exploration of sound and community from the mangroves of Nariño to international stages.
Meanwhile, La Escuelita del Ritmo is a cultural and social cornerstone in Portobelo, Panama. The collective is supported by Fundación Bahía de Portobelo and Fundación Gladys Palmera, whose shared commitment to accessible culture and Afro-Caribbean heritage has helped shape this project. With a mission rooted in transformation through music, the Escuelita preserves and promotes the Congo tradition, an Afro-Panamanian cultural form recognized by UNESCO for its historical and spiritual legacy. Through free music education, dance, and sound production programs, it empowers new generations while safeguarding an endangered lineage.
Together, these initiatives remind us that while oceans may separate, rhythms reunite. Ritmo de dos Mares is a testimony to the enduring power of sound to connect histories, heal wounds, and imagine shared futures.
Essential listening — and one of the most meaningful releases of the year so far.
Pablo Joaquín - Tintinea
There’s a clarity to Tintinea, the latest album from Chilean singer-songwriter Pablo Joaquín, that feels instantly familiar, but never predictable.
Like a breeze through open windows, the album moves lightly across 10 tracks, where acoustic folk melodies meet indie-pop sensibilities, drawing soft comparisons to artists like Erlend Øye and Sufjan Stevens.
Formerly known as Pablojarasca, this is the first full-length release under his own name, marking a symbolic and creative step forward. Produced alongside Nacho Barrientos and Pau, Tintinea leans into studio detail without losing intimacy. The instrumentation remains delicate and minimal, yet brimming with color: layered harmonies, warm guitar textures, and melodies that stretch out like lazy afternoons.
There’s lightness here, with songs about love, friendship, quiet joy, but also poetic weight. The track “Tren a Vapor” is a masterclass in understated songwriting. With subtle chord progressions and gently tumbling lyrics, it captures the kind of emotional architecture that rewards repeated listens.
In his own words, Pablo calls Tintinea a place “where all the sounds I collected came to say something new and meaningful”. These fragments, overheard metro sounds, voice notes, fleeting conversations, become the soft backbone of a record that never feels heavy, even in its introspection.
The result is something that shimmers without trying to shine. Music for walking, writing, and breathing a little deeper. One of the most quietly affecting records of the year so far.
greatwaterpressure - summerleague
With summerleague, Italian collective greatwaterpressure deliver a compact, carefully produced EP that feels like a warm breeze blowing in from the past. Across four sleek tracks, they fold together the bounce of Chic-style funk basslines, and the mellow confidence of early Jamiroquai, filtered through a distinctly modern, lo-fi pop lens.
Led by producers Edoardo Grimaldi and Gabriele Prada, and fronted by vocalist/lyricist Jacopo Cislaghi, the Milan-based project had made an impression earlier this year with Passo Zero. But here, with summerleague, they elevate their sound into something more cohesive — a late-night, city-pop-adjacent dance record that’s both nostalgic and forward-facing.
Standout track “alibi” sparkles like a Tokyo skyline at golden hour, evoking a kind of Mediterranean city pop. Playful yet wistful, with horns, subtle synth flourishes and quietly shimmering guitar work. Elsewhere, rubbery grooves and slow-funk rhythms explore themes of escape, heartbreak, and emotional drift. Think Lucio Battisti meets Mac DeMarco, but dressed for the dancefloor.
This EP is a gentle rebellion against the watered-down, mass-market disco of recent years. It may not shout, but it speaks with style: a well-mixed long drink of retro soul, understated electronic flair, and easygoing class.
Ela Minus - DÍA
Ela Minus doesn’t ask for your attention. She earns it, quietly and with precision. On DÍA, her second full-length release, the Bogotá-born producer steps out of the shadows of her debut acts of rebellion, not into the spotlight, but into a softer, braver kind of light.
This is not a club record in the traditional sense, nor is it a rejection of dancefloor language. Instead, it treats the club less like a sanctuary and more like the place where mourning becomes movement, and personal reckoning begins to pulse to a beat.
The album opens with “ABRIR MONTE”, a wash of ambient static and tactile synth pads that evoke early-morning disorientation: the gentle unease of realizing the day has truly begun, whether you’re ready or not. It gives way to “BROKEN”, perhaps one of Ela’s most raw and emotionally exposed pieces to date. Her voice is present, almost trembling, yet composed, as she sings of identity, failure, and the quiet violence of expectation.
If acts of rebellion was outward-facing, radical in tone and resistance, DÍA turns that energy inward, not with less urgency, but with greater complexity. Healing, as she reminds us, is hard work. The record’s middle suite — “QQQQ”, “I WANT TO BE BETTER”, and the three-part sequence “ONWARDS / AND / UPWARDS” — makes clear that Minus isn’t interested in offering electronic escapism. These are not songs that ask you to forget; they ask you to remember better, feel deeper, and rebuild.
There are musical echoes of Fever Ray, The Knife, and Jamie xx, but the production on DÍA feels unmistakably hers: distorted yet intimate, aggressive in tone but meticulous in detail. The bass hits low and warm; the synths shimmer with sharp edges. Her voice, now front and center, is used as an instrument of affirmation, sometimes sung, sometimes spoken, often broken.
The closing track “COMBAT”, delivers what feels like a final turning point. Here, Minus channels a dreamlike, ambient palette that merges woodwinds with synth swells, in a piece that’s both gentle and radical. And if you’ve seen her live — as we did recently— then you know this isn’t just theory. Her stage presence is commanding, but never contrived. One of the most human, magnetic performances currently on the road.
DÍA is not about perfection. It’s about process and what happens when you pause the loop, take a breath, and let the morning in, no matter how late it arrives. On this record, Ela Minus proves that vulnerability can be as radical as resistance, and that maybe, to save anyone, we have to start with ourselves.
Jungle - "Keep Me Satisfied”
Fresh off their BRIT Award win and the worldwide tour behind Volcano, UK dance collective Jungle returned with an epic finale to the era: the single “Keep Me Satisfied”. Rather than signaling a departure, this track distills everything the band does best — velvet grooves, tight funk, and euphoric momentum — into three minutes of dancefloor perfection.
Now officially a trio, with Lydia Kitto stepping into the spotlight alongside co-founders J Lloyd and Tom McFarland, Jungle sound more assured than ever. Kitto’s vocals float effortlessly above a bed of analog warmth: crisp guitar licks, fluid basslines, choir-style backing vocals, and percussion that feels both grounded and cosmic. It's vintage Jungle, but sleeker. A soul-disco transmission refined to its most hypnotic, feel-good essence.
If Volcano was about scale and collaborations, “Keep Me Satisfied” is about focus. The instrumentation is tight and deliberate, modern without losing the tactile energy of a live band. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it doesn’t need to. Jungle are now in that rare space where they don’t chase trends, but instead polish their own.
The accompanying video, co-directed by longtime visual duo Josh Lloyd-Watson and Charlie Di Placido, is pure Jungle: dancers breaking free inside a surreal vinyl-stamping factory, moving with a precision that blurs the line between ritual and rebellion. It’s a visual metaphor for the music itself; tightly choreographed, but deeply human.
Felipe Orjuela - “A los Golpes Como las Personas Naturales”
Felipe Orjuela has long been simmering on our radar, as a curious architect of Colombia’s new cumbia, and a key figure behind projects like La Dosis Máxima (Gato é Monte, 2024). However with “A los golpes como las personas naturales”, he makes a bold leap into something else entirely: a maximalist, genre-defying anthem that cements his place at the front of Colombia’s futuristic cumbia revival.
Released as the 185th entry in Bogotá’s In-Correcto label catalog, the track fuses analog percussion — caja vallenata, guacharaca, congas, timbales — with thick walls of synth and Farfisa organ. But what elevates it isn’t just the fusion. It’s the urgency. The track gallops forward like a tropical Ride of the Valkyries, sounding not so much nostalgic as it does apocalyptic, or maybe revolutionary. A cumbia for cities on the verge.
For an artist known for his versatility and back-end contributions to the Bogotá scene, “A los golpes…” marks a turning point. It’s the sound of a producer stepping into the light. Unafraid, unfiltered, and entirely on his own terms. By far one of the most innovative tracks we’ve heard this year.
Truzman - “Mirando el horizonte”
Venezuelan-born, Barcelona-based artist Samuel Truzman returned in March with “Mirando el Horizonte”, a stunning single that folds Latin dub into tropical warmth with lyrical clarity. Produced by Cheo Pardo (Los Amigos Invisibles), the track channels the meditative grooves of Cultura Profética and Gondwana, but infuses them with a lighter, crisper touch — less haze, more light.
Where much of the Latin dub revival leans into the smoky and dense, Truzman finds air and movement. His songwriting carries both philosophical weight and melodic finesse, unfolding like a guided meditation you can dance to. “Se trata del camino y no de la solución” / “It's about the path, not the solution”, he sings. A simple mantra with deep roots. The song builds slowly, orbiting themes of intuition, inner clarity, and spiritual return.
The musicianship is stellar: Dario Adames on drums, Alejandro Berti’s flugelhorn, and vocal harmonies by Alea and Cheo Pardo lend the track its layered, soulful texture. It’s music with both groove and gravity.
Visually, the video, directed by Leonardo Rodríguez and nicely shot by Putoempleo, mirrors the track’s sensibility and quiet communion. There’s no flash, only presence.
With “Mirando el Horizonte”, Truzman consolidates his voice as one of the most compelling figures in the new Latin reggae sound. It’s music for people finding their center again. On the dancefloor, on the road, or somewhere between the city and the sea.
Bad Bunny - DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS
On Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Bad Bunny trades bombast for introspection. Still global, still massive, but this time Benito cuts deeper. The sixth studio album from the Puerto Rican superstar is less about reaching new audiences and more about nourishing the ones who brought him here. It’s a layered, reflective, genre-spanning homage to Boricua identity, both musical and political. Anchored in roots, but never stuck in them.
Opening with a flip of El Gran Combo’s “Un Verano en Nueva York” and detonating into a percussive dembow ode to diaspora resilience (“NUEVAYoL”), the album sets its intentions early: this is Benito as archivist, translator, and provocateur. DTMF is rich in callbacks to early perreo, old-school plena, dusty boleros, crumbling roads, and childhood radio, but filtered through his sharpest, most emotionally intelligent songwriting to date.
Standout track “BAILE INOLVIDABLE” could rank high in traditional salsa territory, yet carries all the melancholy of a club closer in 2025. “TURiSTA” flips the tourist gaze and calls out displacement through the soft ache of bolero. And “CAFÉ CON RON”, backed by Los Pleneros de la Cresta, delivers one of the year’s most memorable genre fusions: plena as protest, party, and poem.
Benito’s Tiny Desk appearance earlier this year sealed the deal: stripped-down, folkloric, all heart. He wasn’t pitch-perfect, but he was present. And that’s what this project captures: presence. Musical memory as political testimony. Intimacy without indulgence. Pride without posturing.
While some fans may long for the euphoric hooks of Un Verano Sin Ti, DTMF rewards those who listen slowly. It’s filled with small, deliberate gestures, lyrical nods, rhythmic inflections, stories told in clave and code. And perhaps most impressively, it invites older generations into the world of urbano, bridging a gap many thought impossible.
Bad Bunny may be at the top of global music, but this record proves he’s still rooted and ready to grow something new. Not louder, not flashier. Just realer.
Natalia Lafourcade- Cancionera
With Cancionera, Natalia Lafourcade doesn’t just honor tradition, but becomes its vessel. This is her most performative album yet, not in the theatrical sense, but in how it invites us to witness the act of singing itself: as ritual, as labor, as inheritance. If De Todas las Flores was a garden grown from grief, Cancionera is its altar. A space of homage, vulnerability, and melodic devotion.
At first glance, Cancionera might seem like another chapter in Lafourcade’s deep dive into Latin American songbook traditions. However, this one is something more haunting and lived-in. It feels recorded not in a studio, but in the quiet hours after a family gathering, when the last glass of mezcal is half full and someone finally plays the song that makes the room go still.
Throughout the album, Natalia leans further into her role as la cancionera. The singer of stories, caretaker of sound. “El Paloma y La Negra” ends not with a fade-out, but with laughter, handclaps, and the unmistakable sound of a room alive with music. “Cocos en la Playa” captures the sweetness of a beachside daydream before it dissolves into brass and breeze. Rather than plain tracks, these are live settings.
Even her collaborations feel preordained. On “Luna Creciente”, she joins Hermanos Gutiérrez in a moment of near-stillness. Their guitars like twilight air, her voice a flickering candle. It’s not a song that builds, but one that settles, evoking the sacred hush of the desert night. Here, Lafourcade’s vocal restraint becomes its own kind of power — a willingness to breathe, not just sing.
There are more theatrical moments too. “La Bruja” channels myth and magic through flamenco handclaps and minor key spells, while “Mascaritas de Cristal” cuts like a knife: Lafourcade, biting and clear-eyed, calling out deception in a performance that borders on the incantatory.
And yet, for all its spiritual undertones and ancestral textures, Cancionera also swings between tonal extremes. Mournful boleros, festive interludes, somber jazz, carefree danzón. At times this wide emotional range can feel jarring, like pages from different books bound into one. But Lafourcade’s commitment to full-band live takes, raw vocal phrasing and the imperfections of memory, keeps the project grounded in the human. A record that acknowledges the ghosts at the table, but keeps singing for the living.
Atilio- “Aquí”
At first listen, “Aquí” might register as a fun and gentle lo-fi ballad about displacement. But beneath its serene surface lies something more pressing. Written and performed by Salvadoran artist Atilio, the song is a poignant dedication to his father, Atilio Montalvo, former guerrilla commander, peace accord signatory, and, now, political prisoner in El Salvador. Arrested in May 2024 and accused of planning acts of terrorism, Montalvo is one of many elderly ex-combatants facing prosecution amid a wave of politically charged detentions under the country’s current regime.
The track opens with sparse instrumentation and a voice that carries both melody and weight. “Aquí” is not just a location, it’s a statement. A refusal and a yearning. The lyrics don’t explicitly name politics or persecution, but their emotional landscape is clear: feeling alien in your own home, longing to bloom in soil that resists you, and refusing to disappear quietly.
What makes the song resonate far beyond El Salvador is precisely this duality. It’s deeply personal and anchored in the story of a son witnessing the criminalization of his father’s past, but also profoundly universal. Anyone who’s felt exiled in their own skin, betrayed, or punished for trying to build something better will find a mirror in this song.
Musically, “Aquí” moves with restraint, allowing space for every syllable to land. It’s a track that understands silence as part of the message. A sonic parallel to the censorship and repression it critiques. Images from the accompanying video interweave archival footage of Montalvo from the Salvadoran civil war era with contemporary visuals of detention, protest, and memory, turning the personal into political without resorting to slogans.
Atilio’s artistry lies in how he makes resistance sound intimate. “Aquí” is not an anthem in the traditional sense. It’s a hymn for those who stay and hold space, even when the world around them insists on erasing the past.
Jey mv, Fugazzeta - “Como tú”
Just when it feels like reggaetón has entered a phase of algorithmic autopilot, Jey MV and Fugazzeta deliver a track that resets the temperature. “Como tú”, released in May, might not be charting globally, but it's quickly become one of the most refreshing entries in the genre’s underground vanguard—a Venezuelan vocalist and a funk band pairing up for a synthwave-infused gem that’s equal parts sensual and space-age.
This is not your typical beat drop. Built around shimmering synth stabs, a laid-back funk groove, and Jey’s elastic vocal phrasing, the track evokes the gloss of Rauw Alejandro’s synthwave-fused cuts on VICE VERSA and the tactile warmth of contemporary Tainy productions, without feeling derivative. If mainstream reggaetón has leaned heavily into predictable patterns, “Como tú” deviates. It feels like a summer night filtered through VHS fuzz: tropical, glitchy, and emotionally resonant.
Fugazzeta, a Venezuelan funk collective known for their sharp arrangements and analog textures, serve as the perfect foil to Jey mv’s voice—tight, stylish, and subtly retro. The result is a hybrid format that carries genre-blending spirit, right in that stage where no one can quite agree on what it sounds like yet. That sense of experimentation is what makes the track feel like a blueprint for something new rather than a throwback.
In a moment where reggaetón’s sonic identity feels under siege, worn thin by repetition and fractured by ideological rifts, this track reminds us of the genre’s real strength: elasticity. It can bend, adapt, transform. And artists like Jey mv are proof that its next chapter might not come from the industry strongholds, but from the fringes where curiosity, not marketing, leads the way.
Tony Allen, La BOA- LA BOA MEETS TONY ALLEN
There are few names more synonymous with Afrobeat than Tony Allen. And in La BOA, he found one of his most vibrant posthumous collaborators. Tony Allen Meets La BOA, released by Comet Records and Mambo Negro in early 2025, is far more than a remix album or a tribute. It’s a full-circle, cross-continental conversation between two lineages of rhythm: the Yoruban pulse that birthed Afrobeat, and the tropical syncopation of Colombia’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts.
Originally recorded for the Afrobeat Makers Series in Paris over a decade ago, Allen’s drum sessions here become the spiritual backbone of nine new compositions arranged and produced by Daniel Michel, founder of Bogotá’s Mambo Negro Records and bandleader of La BOA (Bogotá Orquesta Afrobeat). The result is a striking fusion: dub-tinged Afrobeat grooves, powerful brass arrangements, and lyrical flows that tap into Colombia’s contemporary urban voice, featuring rappers like N. Hardem, vocalists from Bejuco, and house pillars like Diana Sanmiguel.
But perhaps what’s most remarkable is how organic it all feels. This isn’t a resurrection by algorithm. Allen’s ghost doesn’t haunt the album, but rather inhabits it. From the spiritual groove of “TAMBOR” to the politically charged “PODER” and the soaring horn lines of “LA MÁQUINA DE TONY”, each track pulses with both reverence and invention.
Michel, who once named a song “Tony Allen (No Compro)” in homage, now finds himself in true collaboration with his hero, a full decade after founding La BOA. In his words, the record feels like “receiving a diploma”.
More than a graduation. It’s a handoff. One master drummer’s final groove, kept alive by a new generation of sonic explorers.
Bon Iver- SABLE, fABLE
On his fifth studio album, SABLE, fABLE, Justin Vernon does the unthinkable: he trades sorrow for joy, opacity for warmth, and ambient exile for full-bodied communion. It’s a record that doesn’t just evolve the Bon Iver sound, but instead reorients it, like someone flipping a dusty photograph to reveal the sun behind the silhouette.
The album begins in the dark. The SABLE prologue, first released as an EP, is steeped in quiet despair, a trilogy of wintry songs where Vernon whispers doubts into a near-empty space. But as the breathy synths dissolve into fABLE, something shifts. The world opens. A drum machine pulses. Vernon gasps, almost laughing: “Oh, the vibrance!”
From there, fABLE unfolds as a revelatory experiment in pop, soul, gospel, and praise music. On tracks like “Walk Home” and “If Only I Could Wait” (featuring Danielle Haim), he crafts some of his most tender, melodic songwriting to date, closer to adult contemporary than any avant-folk label he’s ever worn, and all the better for it.
But make no mistake: this is not Bon Iver gone soft. SABLE, fABLE is arguably Vernon’s riskiest work yet. It confronts the emotional mythology of the Bon Iver project. The heartbreak cabin, the digital breakdown, the fractured poetics. It offers a new story: healing. Songs like “There’s a Rhythmn” trade metaphor for movement, ending with a spontaneous jam session that feels less like closure and more like continuation.
Vernon has always been a builder of sonic fables—glitchy, abstract, steeped in pain. But here, he names the rhythm, lives inside it, and lets us dance with him. SABLE, fABLE doesn’t abandon the past; it learns how to carry it without collapse.
Taken together, these releases remind us what music is still capable of in an age of overwhelm: creating space, not just filling it. Whether through ancestral drums, underwater synths, whispered prayers, or rewired dancefloor beats, these artists are redrawing the map entirely. We’re not here to declare what’s “best”, but rather to trace what feels vital. And if there’s a through-line to all of this, it’s that the future of sound isn’t found in the loudest drops, but in the quiet conviction of those bold enough to listen deeper, take risks, and say something that lasts.
Which albums or tracks have shaped your 2025 so far? What new voices, unexpected collabs, or sonic left turns have stayed with you? Drop your favorites in the comments or send them our way. We’re always listening. And keep your radar sharp: our New Music Vault June 2025 edition drops soon, with even more discoveries, spotlights, and future classics.
For the time being, keep the rhythm alive!