Listening diary: week 43, 2025

Here are some records I’ve listened to over the last week.

The most interesting thing about my relationship with Bob Dylan’s music is that I’ve hitherto managed to avoid having a relationship with Bob Dylan’s music, and only recently thought about starting one. I’m listening to his early albums alongside the Never Ending Stories podcast’s excellent Do Look Back mini-series on this period, as a way of getting to grips with a body of work I mainly know through cultural osmosis. At this point I have nothing insightful to add about one of the most analysed discographies in music history, other than to say - these records are good?

Kelly Moran’s music means a huge amount to me personally; I’ll write more about this in future but this is another lovely record full of cascading sheets of piano, with enough experimental grit in the oyster to stop it being too easy on the ear. Oneohtrix Point Never’s new LP is shaping up very promisingly, a return to the tight sound palettes of his mid-period work (although I have enjoyed the more elaborate follies he’s embarked on recently).

RIP Dave Ball from Soft Cell - an underrated figure in electronic music circles, whose work still seems utterly of the moment. The Necks are one of those bands I’ve encountered on paper for years and thought “that sounds like hard work”, until I bothered to press play and discovered how devastatingly blissful their music is.

Want You Back In My Life Again by The Carpenters is a total jam. The Enya-does-Spector synths of Brian Wilson’s debut are incredibly comforting to someone of my age whose childhood was soundtracked by digital simulacra of acoustic instruments. The last two tracks of Surf’s Up remain his most jaw-dropping achievement.