Our Top 10 Lists have been named in honor of late Blog Director and DJ Clarence Ewing, who pioneered and published this annual feature for nearly a decade.
Our next list is from Willie McDonagh. Please note, Willie's list is unranked.
10. Animaru by Mei Semones (Bayonet)
Semones and her band blend the smile of bossa nova with the frown of indie rock, and for me the smile wins out. This is a great walking around album. You can take out an earbud to say hello to the animals you see, both domesticated and free.
Listen: Bandcamp
9. At the Feet of the Beloved by Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali (Real World)
The singers Rizwan Mujahid Ali Khan and Muazzam Mujahid Ali Khan, nephews of the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, carry on the family legacy with this record. Backed by an ensemble that includes tabla, harmonium, and a chorus of vocalists, they perform Sufi Islamic devotional music called qawwali. It's all about vocal control—these singers can erupt into bursts of notes and call forth passionate roars. Watching videos of their performances, I enjoy tracking their unspoken communication. They share glances, then reflect, calculating their next move and judging where the tune is going. As with all religious music, I find myself wary of losing meaning by interpreting it through my own secular lens. But qawwali is pluralistic in its home region, and it has long since crossed borders, becoming an internationally appreciated genre. I can sense the love!
Listen: Bandcamp
8. Bura by Raphael Rogiński & Ružičnjak Tajni (Instant Classic)
Experimental Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński joins forces with Serbian instrumental ensemble Ružičnjak Tajni for this progressive interpretation of folk music. These songs mostly come from traditional Serbian music, reconstructed for this record in part through archival materials. There's tension here. The full-throated singing is faithful to its roots in a time before recording technology, but the instruments play in a bold, 21st century style. It serves them both well.
Listen: Bandcamp
7. Dance Music 4 Bad People by Hieroglyphic Being (Smalltown Supersound)
Somebody has rubbed a coarse brush over my house music! I like so many of these sounds. Sometimes it sounds like the acid squelch of the 1980s, and sometimes it sounds like a fuzzy radio transmission breaking up in air. It all feels inevitable, like a thrumming machine that won't turn off until something inside it pops. The tracks do end, however.
Listen: Bandcamp
6. Ellis Island by Julia Hamos (Naïve)
Hungary and America trade secrets on this solo piano record, which first attracted my attention because it contains a performance of Charles Mingus's improvised composition "Myself When I Am Real.” It's far from his biggest hit, but it means a whole lot to me. It was a real surprise to hear a classical pianist tackling it, and what a job she's done! Hearing one of the great jazz composers next to Béla Bartók, Franz Schubert, György Kurtág, and Meredith Monk embodies the concept of the album—cultural exchange. Monk’s piece, “Ellis Island,” comes from a 1981 film she directed that was shot on Ellis Island inside buildings which had become overgrown in their disuse. As we live that rather pointed metaphor again, I find myself more eager than ever to cross areas of difference.
Listen: Presto Music
5. End of the Middle by Richard Dawson (Domino)
It's almost expected that a songwriter mines their lived experience in their lyrics, but Richard Dawson remains stubbornly committed to conjuring fictional characters. The songs on this album are triumphantly empathetic, and they all unfold in the first person. If you’re not used to this style, it shakes you out of your expectations right away. Dawson is in the air, plucking thoughts from modern Britain because these specificities tell all. Dawson has called End of the Middle a loose concept album—it concerns a middle class English family across multiple generations. Probably the history of our time will be told with great concern for the power players and the disruptors, but I like hearing about these folks.
Listen: Bandcamp
4. Forever Howlong by Black Country, New Road (Ninja Tune)
I never could get into Ants from Up There, but Forever Howlong was an instant love. It delights in earnest conversation and it dances around the Maypole. I thought of Molly Drake and Joni MItchell—music that treats our pain as serious but embodies a yearning that's much stronger.
Listen: Bandcamp
3. Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark by Gwenifer Raymond (We Are Busy Bodies)
Gwenifer Raymond plays an animated style of American Primitive guitar that has both feet on the ground. It’s reflective, but not tediously so, and it looks at the world passing by with a wink. After all, what’s one guitar when the rain clouds come rolling in over those big mountains? As we progress further from the folk revival that birthed this style, we run the risk that the genre will start to parody itself. But even John Fahey had to defend himself against the accusation that his take on the blues was essentially new-age rot. So the spirit remains here in 2025, and Raymond plays both the mystic and the plain-spoken picker.
Listen: Bandcamp
2. Mapambazuko by Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta paired up with Peruvian artist Ale Hop on this soukous-cumbia frenzy. Bakorta's clean guitar picking gets a boost from beeping and screeching electronics. And htey combine in ways that shouldn't get in the way of dancing.
Listen: Bandcamp
1. Salamanca by Seán McKeon (self-released)
I'd like to give a big shoutout to the CHIRP listener who wrote in during my show one week to ask “Is there any good bagpipe music?” You don't need to ask me twice. The question was an act of providence, allowing me to further indoctrinate Chicago-area listeners with the pipes (I played an air from this album). Dubliner Séan McKeon plays the uilleann pipes, the sweeter-sounding cousin of the Great Highland bagpipes. His playing is technically astounding, and he lays on the ornamentations faster than you can think sometimes. I don't think it's sacrilegious to put him above the old masters in that respect. Really, it's a win for music education! But what separates McKeon for me is how he follows the adventurous spirit of those old masters. He works the regulators with daring and just tries stuff, making the instrument sing in his own voice.
Listen: Bandcamp