2025 Mix For NYE

An hour long mix for New Year's Eve  featuring solely music released in 2025, ambient and largely instrumental although some voices creep in to the Keith Tenniswood remix of Deeply Armed's The Healing and Mogwai's God Gets You Back. 

I was going to do a second mix to go with it, a more uptempo, more vocals based hour long mix but time and circumstances conspired against me. It'll follow at the weekend hopefully. In the meantime this one gives some low key shimmer and emotion to the last day of the year. 

NYE Hour Long 2025 Ambient/ Instrumental Mix

• Death In Vegas: Lightning Bolt (Live at EartH, 2025)
• Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider: The Story Of Your Life
• SUSS and Six Missing: Old Mission
• Robin Guthrie: Her Name Is Dulcinea
• Deeply Armed: The Healing (Keith Tenniswood Remix)
• Klangkollektor: Isle Of Stonsy
• Mogwai: God Gets You Back
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Sewell And The Gong: Communion Phase
• Kieran Hebden and William Tyler: Secret City
• Daniel Avery: Neon Pulse
• Moon Dust: The Glow (Slowed + Reverb)

The Death In Vegas track Lightning Bolt dates from 2011 and the Trans- Love Energies album but this version was recorded live when DIV played at EartH in Dalston this year, fragile, drifting ambience.

Jamie Lidell and Luke Schneider released A Companion For Spaces Between Dreams, Luke's pedal steel ambient- Americana crossed with Jamie's modular synths and tapes effects. Psychedelic inner voyage music. 

SUSS are also from the ambient- Americana/ cosmic country scene, a trio from New York. This song with Six Missing's electric guitar came out in November. 

Robin Guthrie occasionally tidies up his unreleased files/ shelves and releases music onto Bandcamp, tracks that didn't make albums released in the past- orphan tracks. Her Name Is Dulcinea is one of those, from 2012, that saw the light of day in November this year. Ambient shoegaze/ dream pop for which the word 'ethereal' seems a cliche but also very apt. 

Belfast's Deeply Armed released a 12" called The Healing in the spring complete with remixes by Death In Vegas, Andrew Innes with Brendan Lynch and lone swordsman Keith Tenniswood. The original is ghostly, shamanic psyche/ kraut. Keith strips it down with a primitive drum machine and heartbeat pulse. Low key beauty. 

Klangkollektor's Balearic/ dub instrumentals have been present in two releases in 2025- Dubtapes Volume 2 and The Stockport Tapes (recorded live at Bruk). Isle Of Stonsey adds pedal steel or Hawaiian guitar to the soundscape, a very chilled out, beatific excursion.

Mogwai's The Bad Fire opened with God Gets You Back, stellar guitar picking and FX that builds, going supernova in the second half when the synths, drums and vocals join in. 

Andy Bell's Pinball Wanderer album came out in February and has been played round here every month since. The title track marries late 60s acid folk guitar and cosmische rhythms with Andy's spacious, warm production. 

Sewell And The Gong's Patron Saint of Elsewhere has been one of my favourite records of 2025 and this track, Communion Phase, is as good as any from it- psychedelic, motorik and folky with an optimistic feel.   

Kieran Hebden and William Tyler's 41 Longfield Street Late 80s splices Kieran's laptop beats and productions with William's acoustic and electric guitars to make one of the most affecting albums of 2025- hypnotic, engaging, with an eye on the past (and on Kieran's Dad's record collection in the late 80s, alt- country and Nashville) but avoiding dewy- eyed nostalgia to create something entirely their own. 

Daniel Avery's Tremor album was a departure from his ambient techno of recent years and a swerve into channeling his early 90s industrial rock influences. He toured the album with a full band, guitarist, bassist and drummer kicking up a right old noise alongside his synths and machines. On the album's opener, Neon Pulse, he lulls us into a sense of ambient security, two minutes of gorgeous floaty sci fi synth ambience.

Moon Dust is yet another Richard Norris project this time with Lol Hammond from The Drum Club. Piano and FX, a slowed down and reverb laden way to drift out of this hour's worth of music. 

Monday's Long Songs

Sewell And The Gong's Patron Saint Of Elsewhere is one of my most played LPs of this year, a beautifully lightfooted, reflective collection of instrumentals finding a sweet spot somewhere in the middle of folk, Balearic and cosmic ambient. Quiet Storm, one of the album's seven tracks, has recently been released as a pair of remixes. Manchester's Ruf Dug, DJ, producer, radio show host and label boss, turns in a wonderful six minute and forty eight seconds long version, beautifully weighted ambient with some deep bass and a bell. A vocal sample warns of the perils of anger and its power to cause division. 

After that there's an even longer Chris Coco remix, nine minutes of slow motion Balearica with bubbling bass, storm clouds and thunder, chanting, acoustic guitar and eventually- wait for it- a massively slowed down shout of 'Can you feel it?', borrowed from Mr. Fingers, that sent shivers up and down my spine the first time I heard it. 

Get the remixes and the original at Bandcamp. 

Twenty One Minutes Of Two Minute Tracks

I had an idea that I would do a Sunday mix of all those short electronic/ ambient tracks that appear on albums, the intros and outros, the bridging tracks, found sounds, brief ambient pieces and short one minute ideas that never got worked up into a full track but that the artist clearly liked. I realised that to make it forty minutes long would require at least twenty tracks and time constraints this week meant that I started the mix but haven't got anywhere near forty minutes- it's just shy of twenty one minutes, fourteen tracks from a variety of sources. I need to give it more thought really and gather together some more and either do a part two or expand this one out but in the meantime, here it is...

Twenty One Minutes Of Two Minute Tracks

I decided early on that two minutes was the cut off (although there are a couple here which just tip over that time). I was going to go totally beatless but that didn't work out. It's almost completely without vocals too. I wasn't sure it all worked but playing it back last night I was pretty happy with it. An expanded edition/ part two is definitely on the cards. 

• A Man Called Adam: Easter Song (Gospel Oak FX)
• Two Lone Swordsmen: Tiny Reminder No. 1
• Four Tet: This Is For You
• Sewell And The Gong: MYND
• The Orb: Snowbow
• Ultramarine: A Year From Monday
• A Man Called Adam: Easter Song (Hi- Tech)
• M- Paths: Calm
• Polypores: Mystery Energy Score
• Aphex Twin: Avril 14th (reversed music not audio)
• Pandit Pam Pam: Interludio
• Daniel Avery: First Light
• Sydney Minsky Sargeant: Intro
• Andrew Weatherall: Intro

A Man Called Adam's Easter Song is one of their best, a triumphant piece of optimsitc, life affirming Balearica. In 2017 the duo put out a special edition on Bandcamp to celebrate the song's 20th birthday which came with two new very short versions, the found sound intro of Gospel Oak FX and the ambient with beats of Hi- Tech. Both appear on this mix. 

In 2000 Two Lone Swordsmen released their electronic triple disc opus Tiny Reminders, Weatherall and Tenniswood's pursuit of  techno/ bass purism followed through to its end. Each of the three disc opened with a burst of static/ quiet noise called Tiny Reminder and numbered 1, 2 and 3. 

Four Tet's Sixteen Ocean's was a 2020 highlight, three sides of vinyl that soundtracked those early days of lockdown in March/ April 2020 of that year. This Is For You is one of five short tracks on it- the others are Hi Hello, ISTM, 1993 Band Practice and Bubbles At Overlook 25th March 2019- any/ all of which I was going to include here and didn't.

Sewell And The Gong's Patron Saint Of Elswhere is one of my favourite albums of 2025, a Balearic  folk/ motorik beauty with MYND a short one minute fourteen seconds of sound sandwiched between much longer excursions. 

The Orb tend to do long tracks. Snowbow is from 2005's Okie Dokie It's The Orb On Kompakt, an album I only found recently and have been enjoying. Snowbow is the closing track, two minutes and fourteen seconds.

A Year From Monday gave me the idea for this mix. It's on an album of Ultramarine recordings from 1997/ 8 that sat unreleased until this year. I posted it a few Monday's ago and listening to it in the car I wondered how it would work with a load of other very short tracks around it. 

M- Paths' Calm was on their album Hope, released on Mighty Force in 2023, a rippling melody line and drums. 

Polypores released an album in June, Cosmically A Shambles. I posted a song from it on Friday. The slightly hyperactive and bleepy Mystery Energy Score is in the middle of the album and this mix. I couldn't decide if its energy was a good change of pace or not and nearly took it out. In the end I thought it just about worked.

Aphex Twin's Avril 14th is his most streamed track, a Satie like piano piece smothered in reverb. THis version, the music reversed not audio version, is from user18081971's Soundcloud page, widely acknowledged to be Richard D James' outlet for all manner of unreleased music. 

Pandit Pam Pam is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Interludio is from Dot, an EP from January this year, six tracks recorded while caring for a young baby, Diogo. 

First Light is the opening track on Daniel Avery's Song For Alpha, a 2018 album that was the start of a run of outstanding albums that isn't over yet. One minute and forty seconds of wodnerful ambient drones. 

Sydney Minsky Sargeant's album Lunga came out last week, an autumn 2025 highlight. Intro is the opening track (obviously), a short ambient piece that eases us into Lunga. And out of this mix.

Andrew Weatherall's Intro was the very short first track on Convenanza. 'I seem to have got in with the wrong crowd', the voice says, setting Andrew's stall out. 

Forty Minutes Of Folkishness

Today's Sunday mix is an inspired by or 'ish' mix, forty minutes of music that is folk adjacent or inspired- the melodies, the playing, a cover of a late 60s, English folk rock classic, an edit of a 60s folk song, some other songs that just feel like they're in the folk music vernacular. Most of the songs on the mix are from this year, the rest from fairly recently.  For want of a better phrase, they've all got a folk vibe. 

There's plenty more music sitting in my downloads and music folders that fall within the boundaries of this- Richard Norris and Dot Allison both come to mind so a part two may follow.

Forty Minutes Of Folkishness

• Luke Schneider: midafternoon classic
• Matt Deighton: Tannis Root
• Coyote: The Outsider
• Andy Bell: Pinball Wanderer
• Andy Bell: Light Flight
• Sydney Minski Sargeant: Long Roads
• Totem Edits 12: Feel
• Sewell And The Gong: Passing Oort Clouds
• Four Tet: Into Dust (Still Falling)

Luke Schneider is from Nashville, a pedal steel guitarist and part of the ambient Americana scene. midafternoon classic came out last year, a couple of minutes of ambient/ folk with nylon strings, pedal steel and harmonica. His latest four track release came out two days ago and can be found here. 

Matt Deighton's Villager is a 1995 folk gem, much overlooked at the time. Tannis Root is a few minutes of acoustic guitar and some woodwind, lovely modern instrumental folk inspired music that came out on Moonboot's Moments In Time compilation. 

Coyote's The Outsider was the closing song on their 2021 album The Mystery Light, an acoustic guitar sequence and the vice of mystic/ writer/ speaker/ philosopher Alan Watts. The Coyote duo were nodding their heads at Andrew Weatherall too, who wrote under the pseudonym The Outsider in the Boy's Own fanzine and who was exactly what Watts is talking about, 'you don't have to join, you don't have to play the game...'

Andy Bell's Pinball Wanderer came out at the start of this year. The title track is lit up by a late 60s folk rock guitar melody, some shuffly acoustic guitars and a sense that Fairport Convention and The Stone Roses in 1989 got in a room together. On his 2022 covers EP Untitled Film Stills, Andy covered songs by Yoko Ono, The Kinks, Arthur Russell and Pentangle. Light Flight was from Pentangle's 1969 folk- rock album Basket Of Light, an album that pushed them into the charts. Light Flight was also the theme tune to BBC 1's Take Three Girls, a late 60s/ early 70s drama about three young women sharing a flat in London. 

I wrote about Sydney Minski Sargeant's forthcoming solo album Lunga last week. The single Long Roads is folk indebted, echoes of Nick Drake and Syd Barrett in the playing and singing. Lunga promises to be one of autumn's highlights. 

Totem Edit is Leo Elstob and Justin Deighton. On Feel they take Gordon Lightfoot's 1967 song The Way I Feel and turn it into a 2025 folk/ Balearic groove. I've played this out and it always gets a response. 

Sewell And The Gong's recent album Patron Saint Of Elsewhere is one of late summer 2025's best, a lovely fusion of folk, drones, pastoral melodies, motorik drums and samples. Previously, in 2023, Sewell released a four track EP called Tonight We Fly and Passing Oort Clouds is a beautiful, folk inspired instrumental, looped melodies, acoustic guitars and a gently prodding rhythm. Oort clouds are (possibly) a giant spherical shell surrounding the sun, the stars and the Kuiper Belt, a bubble made of icy comet like objects. 

Four Tet's Into Dust (Still Falling) came out earlier this summer and has been getting regular plays round here ever since, the Mazzy Star sample and vocal sinking into Four Tet's folky melodies and skippy drum track, Hope Sandoval's melancholy playing off against Keiran Hebden's propulsion.

Monday's Long Songs

This came out in 2023 but I only discovered it recently- not sure why it took me so long as I posted a Justin Robertson remix of a track from the same EP over a year ago. Sewell And The Gong is Matt Sewell, an illustrator, artist, ornithologist and author in his day job who had an acoustic guitar in his studio. Eventually he hooked up with multi- instrumentalist, producer and fellow traveler Chris Tate and began to put some of Matt's folk- inspired guitar parts down on tape and embellish them a little. The result was an EP, Tonight We Fly, beautifully done, psychedelic folk with this track- Better Words- as the fourth of four...

Better Words sounds like something very familiar even on first listening, there's something about the melodies and arrangement that hark back to something deep inside- themes from children's TV in the 70s maybe, some lost folk memory, a fusion of late 60s folk rock and 90s/ 2000s lo fi Balearica. All four tracks are lovely and can be found at Bandcamp. 

There's a remix EP with the previously mentioned Justin Robertson Deadstock 33s remix of Passing Oort Clouds too and then on the first of next month a seven track mini- album called Patron Saint Of Elsewhere with a pair of tracks already out including the eight minute Quiet Storm, more wonderful gently psychedelic folk with shimmering guitars, found sounds, FX, hand drums and somewhere deep inside it some voices. 

An Hour At Tak Tent

Tak Tent Radio is a Scottish based internet radio station that broadcasts all manner of interesting, experimental, leftfield and niche shows by a variety of guests. I've contributed guests mixes for a few years now and last weekend the latest Bagging Area Tak Tent emission went out, my eleventh. You can listen to it at the Tak Tent website here or at Mixcloud here. It's a chilled out dubby/ ambient/ Balearic affair, mostly music released this year but with a vintage Andrew Weatherall and David Harrow track thrown in, their sole recording as Planet 4 Folk Quartet (for Warchild in 1995). 

• M- Paths: Emerge
• Planet 4 Folk Quartet: Message To Crommie
• Richard Norris: Pagan Dub
• Sewell & The Gong: Passing Oort Clouds (Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s Remix)
• Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s: Minus Shadows
• Psychederek: Hapi
• Spatial Awareness: Dream Food (SA Dub)
• Timothy J. Fairplay: Centurion Version
• Coyote: Every Forest Has A Shadow (Vanity Project Remix)
• KlangKollektor: Midnight Express
• Florecer: Hidden Thoughts