Dearest KXCI Listener:

2025 was not an easy year for almost any person or entity I hold near and dear, but holy smokes did it deliver in the music department.

How fortunate we are to live in a time when artists continue to share their gifts with us, even as so many systems try to silence them when they speak their mind or make it incredibly difficult for them to make a living from their craft.

As always, I can’t bring myself to attribute a hierarchical order to these things, so here are my top ten albums, songs, and in-studio guests, in no particular order. Except for the unlisted Puppy Category (Odi is always number one).

Thank you for listening to and supporting independent radio in 2025. –HL

The Albums

Youth Lagoon Rarely Do I Dream

Geese Getting Killed

Dead Pioneers Po$t American

Queens of the Stone Age Alive in the Catacombs

Neko Case Neon Grey Midnight Green

Wet Leg moisturizer

Cleo Reed C%ntry

Silvana Estrada Vendrán Suaves Lluvias

HAIM I Quit

Sharon Van Etten  Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory

The Songs

Cleo Reed “Salt & Lime”

Geese “Cobra”

Genesis Owusu “Pirate Radio”

Sharon Van Etten “Afterlife”

Joe Pena “Already Gone” (2025 re-recording)

Valerie June “Endless Tree”

Ben Kweller, Waxahatchee “Dollar Store”

Momma “I Want You (Fever)”

Curtis Harding  “There She Goes”

Sabrina Carpenter “Manchild”

The Guests

Fishbone

Shannon Shaw

SG Goodman

Jason Lee (actor + photographer)

Neko Case

Alejandro Escovedo

Trevor Powers (Youth Lagoon)

DeAnna Daniels, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Religious Studies (guest DJ, Halloween)

Katherine Paul (Black Belt Eagle Scout)

Amythyst Kiah