I'm Recommending These 12 New Recordings

You can still find great music in 2025—you just need to know where it's hiding

I continue to find great music in places others don’t look. Below is an update on my latest discoveries—a dozen new recordings showcasing artists from nine different countries.

As always, I cover a wide range of genres.

Most of these names will be unfamiliar to you. But that’s the reality of the current music scene—where the best work is hidden from view, typically surfacing on self-produced and indie projects.

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Rumer: In Session
Karen Carpenter-ish Pop with a Soulful Vibe

If I were a radio deejay handling the late night shift, I’d spin this disk at the midnight hour—dedicating it to all the lonely stay-at-homes and weary travelers on the road.

The vocalist will remind you of Karen Carpenter (and has earned praise from sibling Richard Carpenter)—not just in her vocal timbre, but also her intonation and phrasing. But the undercurrent here is souful, even while finding a calm center inside the groove.

If you also hear a bit of Burt Bacharach, that’s no surprise. Rumer was mentored by the songwriter, and is married to his former musical director Rob Shirakbari.

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Kenneth Kirschner: Studies: 2021-2024
Shimmering Microtonal Music for Keyboards, Electronics, and Other Instruments

There’s not much info online about composer Kenneth Kirschner. But in one interview he boasted about using five different tuning systems simultaneously on a new composition. He added: “There’s some real questions as to whether I’m going to get through it alive.”

He not only survives, but actually thrives, in those dangerous frontiers outside traditional scales. Some people think that music beyond conventional tuning must sound harsh and dissonant. But that’s hardly the case here. This is more like a house of mirrors translated into echoing and reverberating soundscapes—drawing you further and further into their alternative universe.

While I was listening to this album, my spouse Tara announced that this was the best thing she had heard my playing in ages. She just might be right.

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Sam Amidon: Salt River
Avant Folk with Traditional Flavoring

I still can’t figure out Sam Amidon.

Sometimes he reminds me of those traditional folk singers tracked down by music researchers in remote villages—vocalists who sing with a purity and directness and conversational delivery that only those who have never known a microphone can muster. Yet at other times, Amidon sounds like a folk singer from the future, mixing tones and tensions in some experimental lab for which only he has the key.

The crazy thing is that he manages to do these two incompatible things at the same time—most recently on his new album Salt River (produced by Sam Gendel, who has earned my praise in the past). Yes, Amidon is the folk singer from the future who is also the folk singer from the past—that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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Alex Ventling and Kim Paterson: Conversations
Intimate Fender Rhodes and Brass Duets from New Zealand

Here’s an unusual combination—no drums, no bass, just Fender Rhodes electric piano and flugelhorn (or sometimes trumpet). But once you hear it, it sounds so obvious. Why haven’t I encountered this duet strategy before?

But give credit to the two musicians—friends who are fifty years apart in age. They play with exceptional patience and sympathy, leaving room for each other and letting the music happen at its own contemplative pace.

The only details I can provide come from the record label, which tells me that “on regular visits to Kim’s house in Red Beach, the two would listen to records, discuss music, philosophise on spirituality and play together.” The resulting album captures that intimacy, conviviality, and depth.

This album is totally under-the-radar. You won’t hear about it from any of the leading music magazines. But you will be glad to have made its acquaintance.