Implosion
The Bug vs Ghost Dubs
(Pressure)
In the red corner, Kevin “the Bug” Martin, a 30-plus-year music veteran whose LP London Zoo (2008) was a high point in a career built largely on British, dub-derived sounds. In the blue corner, Germany’s Michael Fielder, aka Ghost Dubs, another experimental dub innovator influenced by Martin and his own country’s history of niche electronic subgenres. Fielder’s highly regarded 2024 LP Damaged came out on the Bug’s label.
Implosion sees the two go mano a mano, alternating instrumental tracks. The German electronic auteur Stefan “Pole” Betke, master of ambient detailing, is the album’s engineer.
This abstract, menacing version of bass music leaves dub’s Caribbean party rhythms far behind, privileging judder and echo on dread-inducing soundscapes on to which the listener can project whatever they like. There is no victor between the two artists, but Fielder’s tracks are nimbler: you could even almost dance to the minimal techno-inclined Waterhouse. Ironically, one of his creepier outings is called Hope. Kitty Empire
Night Fishing On A Calm Lake
Jerkcurb
(Handsome Dad)
Jacob Read, a visual artist and painter, creates shadowy, character-driven illustrations to help crack open and flesh out the world of his musical alias Jerkcurb. So the artwork on second album Night Fishing On A Calm Lake – partly written in the wake of his father’s passing, and filled with grief and sadness – says a lot. An empty boat in a sea of blue, it is meditative and adrift: a lonely metaphor for a period of deep confusion.
Much of the record is reminiscent of the woozy twilight hour depicted: the spectral backing vocals and guitar bends of Death Valley Morning Dew or the slow, heavy-lidded tempo of Loss Dub evoking long dark nights of the soul.
But Read still finds moments of levity. The pillowy synths of Hungry offset its message (“How much time does grieving take?”) while the playful Mothematics is childlike and curious, like an odd Syd Barrett relic. Too Much Intelligence buries Jerkcurb’s concerned observations about ageing and anxiety under a bright, dappled melody before Oh No, with a cinematic piano flourish and a sigh of resignation, brings the curtain down. Lisa Wright
Do It
Stray Kids
(JYP Entertainment)
“I can’t remember when I had my own free time,” sings Bang Chan on Holiday – a line that lands with the blunt exhaustion of a K-pop star pushed to the height of fame. Chan is one of Stray Kids’s eight members, and this EP is, after all, their third release of new material this year.
The record snaps awake with Do It, an energetic, playful reggaeton track with rubbery percussion and 80s-inspired glazed synths that give it a neon bounce. The boy band’s sound has long been a jittery clash of hyper-artificiality and hyper-sincerity, and on this track that tension pays off.
Across the EP, clipped drum taps and breathy hooks give the impression of bravado. But in Photobook, the melancholy returns as the group flip through memories they can’t return to. Stray Kids formed on a reality survival show, and they still live together in dorms in Seoul: on Divine, when they proclaim “all we need is love, dreams, and Stray Kids”, for a moment you almost believe it.
But Holiday is the track that lingers – a weary plea from a group that never misses. Someone should let them take that break they sing of. They’ve earned it. Lily Isaacs
Mahku
Manizeh
(Leiter)
South Asian spiritual singing is having a resurgence. Diaspora vocalists such as Ganavya, Arooj Aftab and Sheherazaad have, over recent years, released acclaimed records that reference North Indian classical traditions along with elements of jazz, folk and electronic production. The latest to join them is London-based Manizeh Rimer, whose tender debut album Makhu features co-production by Ganavya.
Across eight tracks, Rimer weaves a lilting backdrop of jazz-referencing instrumentation with a series of Jivamukti yogic chants. Opening with the trilling strings and twinkling bell chimes of Ashem Vohu, Manizeh creates an enveloping ambience in which to introduce her intimate vocals. It is a soporific, inviting mood that continues on the humming bass and harmonium arrangement of Avan’s Sita Ram and the melismatic piano phrasing of Narayana.
While a finger-picked guitar cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide punctures the meditative atmospherics with its recognisable melody, the other chants are perfectly pitched to lull listeners into peaceful introspection. Referencing the spiritual work of Alice Coltrane and the supple vocal tone of R&B singer Dawn Richard, Makhu establishes Manizeh as a gentle new voice worth hearing. Ammar Kalia
One to watch: Still Blank
Right at the year’s end arrives one of the best debuts of 2025. Still Blank’s self-titled album is exuberantly good – 10 slices of crisp, confident guitar pop. In 2030 you might be able to make something similar by feeding Spotif-AI the prompt “Fleetwood Mac x Mazzy Star x Cat Power”. But until that horrendous day, we have twentysomethings Jordy and Ben, from Hawaii and Manchester respectively. They met in a Liverpool bar in 2022 as Jordy, then a student at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, was supporting Ben’s old band. Even when Jordy was subsequently deported from the UK over visa issues, it couldn’t extinguish their spark.
They’d started making demos for the sake of being creative together. Yet it quickly became clear that their music’s relaxed intensity, plus the shared-secret caress of Jordy’s voice, had summoned magic.
The duo signed a deal and moved to Los Angeles. And, as with all the best bands, there’s a darkness to Still Blank that casual listeners might not hear. Songs such as What About Jane have a sonic swagger and subtly caustic lyrics, wrestling with childhood, identity, how we present ourselves versus the person we are inside. “We love zooming in on the world, putting humans under a microscope,” says Jordy. No need to zoom in to notice how much talent Still Blank have – you can see it from here, or Hawaii. Damien Morris
Still Blank is out now on National Anthem/Capitol
Photographs by Alexandra Magheru/Holly Whitaker/JYP Entertainment/Florian Schneider/Ryan Molnar