The 25 Best Releases of the Year

The Greek word for “movement” is a fitting title for KINEMA, an album that fluidly glides through the multitudes it contains. The 10-song set unfolds with the color and verve of a turning kaleidoscope, offering the introspective texture of acoustic plucks in one breath (“Hands of mine”), an emotive swell of strings in another (“All that Matters’”) and driving, club-forward percussion (“Kinema”) elsewhere. Kölsch’s melodic techno is as well-practiced as one would expect on the Danish producer’s eighth studio album, and as inimitable as ever on this mosaic of his influences: shoegaze, opera, soul and everything in between. KINEMA also marks Kölsch’s foray into songwriting. No wonder, then, that it feels like he left a piece of himself in it. — RACHEL NAROZNIAK

Bob Moses’ BLINK asks an existential question: “How do you reconcile the desire to have a meaningful life with the realization that it’s gone in an instant, that you can’t hold onto things for too long?” While the answer might not be found in the project’s 10 tracks (or elsewhere, for that matter), Tom Howie and Jimmy Valence’s attempt to work it out certainly feels like it gets close, or closer, to the heart of it. Achingly deep and emotionally precise, the duo’s fourth studio LP straddles the ever-thin line between for now and forever — a push-pull that plays out in Bob Moses’ lucid electronic-rock. Bittersweet, sure, but BLINK insists on the sweet. — R.N.

Dance legend Kevin Saunderson and his DJ/producer son Dantiez started teaming up at the end of the last decade when the latter joined the former’s relaunched Inner City outfit, and now they’re working together under the name e-Dancer, which the senior Saunderson previously used as an alias for some of his most beloved ’90s work. The duo’s self-titled first LP together is an undeniable winner that both harkens back to and expands on classic house sounds throughout the ages, with swirling strings taking “Symbolical” to new heights and piercing piano stabs making the aptly titled “Reece Punch” irresistible. “He starts it, and I usually finish it,” Saunderson told Billboard in June of his and Dantiez’ collaboration, a workflow process we hope the duo continues on with for many such future releases. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER

The second album from the Colombian producer finds her collecting her thoughts after a period of personal flux, with Ela Minus using DÍA’s ten tracks to explore her inner terrain, an often overlooked realm in the dance/electronic world. In both themes and production, the results are as complex as they are captivating. “I used to make fun of everyone/ I want to be better/ I thought I was better/ But I just seem to keep acting like a little kid,” she confesses over a brightly thumping production on the album’s centerpiece, “I Want to Be Better,” acknowledging here and elsewhere the hard truths that can reveal themselves after the house lights in the club come back on. — KATIE BAIN

The French producer’s sophomore LP takes the songwriting prowess and experimental touches of his debut album, Born a Loser, and injects that signature style with club-focused rhythm. Its 13 tracks carry the French Touch torch with pride, looping and chopping up euphoric disco, house and funk grooves into a deliciously textured bouquet of feel-good highs and stank-face-inducing low ends. Features from Channel Tres, Trueno, Calcutta, Carlita and Bethanie Home give the album emotional range, dynamics and spiritual breathing room, proving that a dancefloor-focused album can still hit the at-home-listening mark. — KAT BAIN

With his textured, moody tracks, Barry Can’t Swim has long made music for reflection. But after the breakout year sparked by his 2023 debut album When Will We Land?, the Scottish producer’s examination of his newfound success, and of himself in it, makes for an even deeper and weirder follow-up in Loner. “There is nothing permanent except change,” opener “The Person You’d Like To Be” begins, a preview of the record which never stays in one place. He swings between melancholy house, blistering rave, and even soaring string ambience. For Barry, Loner is an act of rediscovery, and proof that he can thrive in uncharted waters. — KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ

While the fourth album from the mighty German producer corrals a high-caliber crew of collaborators — The Martinez Brothers, Marco Carola, Skrillex, Carl Cox and Italian rapper Guè included — the 14-track set feels thoroughly like Loco Dice, whipping together techno, house and hip-hop into textural, swaggering tracks that altogether play out with same kind of swagger and flow as his legendary sets. Dice himself told us that the album was christened as purple because of these tracks match the vibe that most heady of colors conjures, saying that “purple are the tracks that survived all the testing and that are very special.” To that we say, no skips. — K. Bain

While Rosalía’s Lux may have been widely praised for its genre fluidity and expressing an expansive yet personal view of the human experience, HAAi’s HUMANiSE is worthy of equal attention. On her sophomore album, the Australian producer plays with sonic polarities — ethereal vocals and subterranean bass; glitch-pop and synth-pop; the pristine and raw — often within a single track. While plenty of electronic musicians will pontificate on the meaning of machines, rarely do they craft a work that embodies the complexity of contradiction that is being alive. Your AIs could never. — ZEL MCCARTHY

For his third studio album, TEED conjured memories of his childhood summer vacations, then made music that sounded like the emotions those memories made him feel. From this complex process comes the simply gorgeous Always With Me, 11 tracks of lush, cerebral and stylish electronic music that, as the creation process would suggest, are dripping with feeling — longing, hope, melancholy, romance and the thousands of other things an adolescent might feel while getting their first tastes of freedom amid the family trip. The artist born Orlando Higginbottom weaves in house, synth, ambient and indie pop, with the shimmering results sounding entirely cohesive and entirely him. — K. Bain

God forbid big-name EDM producers actually stitch together full albums in one continuous mix like they would their DJ sets — but what about the individual tracks’ Spotify playlistability?!?? Luckily, nearly a decade and a half into being a household name, Skrillex has little left to prove as a conventional hitmaker or streaming star — so for his final release on Atlantic, he dropped the April 1 surprise album F—k U Skrillex…, a 34-tracks-in-46-minutes old-school blast of quaking drops, less-is-more guest vocals and hilarious voiceover interjections. It’s fun, it’s high-energy, it’s got a phenomenal peak single in “Voltage,” and it makes you wonder why Sonny Moore hasn’t already released five albums just like it over the past 15 years. — A.U.

The puckish German producer’s first album in seven years is another heady entry in a catalog full of them – take it from the man himself, who described Music Can Hear Us as “the most potent legal drug currently available on the open market.” But what differentiates the veteran DJ from others making incense-friendly fare is his strong tether to the dancefloor: Spacey as the album might be for much of its runtime, tracks like “Buschtaxi” – one of the best songs Koze has ever made – serve as reminders that his true home isn’t the cosmos, but a stage nestled among a thumping soundsystem. — ERIC RENNER BROWN

It’s all about that kick drum. It’s the first thing you hear on Belgian DJ/producer Charlotte de Witte’s official debut LP, and it’s the thing you hear most consistently throughout the album’s 70-minute runtime — pounding, insisting, somehow just sounding louder, fuller and better than other trance or techno producers’ kicks. That drum sound is the compass guiding you through the album’s hour-plus of wavy guest vocals, squelching acid synths and subsonic bass drops, allowing you to find your way through its mysterious-but-beautiful sonic haze and ensuring you never drift off too far from its center. And when it’s finally over, you feel kinda lost without it.  — A.U.

On British-Canadian chanteuse Rochelle Jordan’s sleek and sultry third album Through the Wall, she reunites with long-time producer KLSH, alongside Kaytranada, Machinedrum, DāM-Funk, Terry Hunter, Hamdi and others. She oozes confidence on standout ’90s-house-nodding single “Ladida” and embodies the giddy uncertainty of having a crush on “The Boy”​​ — further evidence of Jordan and Kaytranada’s sublime synchronicity. Byron the Aquarius also brings warm grooves to the project, from catchy minimalist perfection on “Sum” to breezy poolside house on “Never Enough.” Clocking in at an hour, Through the Wall never strays from its purpose, power or style, much like Jordan’s far-too-under-the-radar career. — ANA YGLESIAS

If it’d been produced by less deft artists, the concept coalescing this album — music woven together with bits of sonic bric-a-brac taken from old movies and interviews that altogether plays like a radio station unstuck in time — might have come off as hokey. But under Zeds Dead’s watch, the mightily titled Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness hits hard in both the velocity of its low end and the impact of the emotion it conjures. (Moments that, like on “One of These Mornings,” often happen in the same song.) Altogether the March album marked a leveling-up of the longstanding Zeds Dead project, a declaration of what the duo is capable of and why it’s one the greats. — K. Bain

Under his Eats Everything moniker, U.K. producer Daniel Pearce has moved fluidly between scenes and labels within the house ecosphere for years as the consummate DJ, often bringing disparate entities together for the glory of the dancefloor. There’s no better encapsulation of this ethos than at the midpoint of We Lost Ourselves and Found a Family in “One Call,” featuring stalwart MJ Cole and up-and-comer Eight9FLY. Like the rest of the album, it speaks to the unifying powers of dance music as more than a genre, but a community. — Z.M.

Sudan Archives steps into a new era on her third album The BPM, emerging from major life changes with a club record that showcases her creative complexity. Executive-producing for the first time, she kept her circle small – her sister, her cousin, her friend – which gave her the freedom to explore her most intimate (and sometimes unhinged) corners. Whether she’s coping with heartbreak, taking a chance on intimacy, or reclaiming her power, the party around her rarely stops, ricocheting from late-’00s trap and hazy Jersey club to wailing house, all connected by the bright textures of her violin. Wild but vibrant, The BPM turns the dance floor into a space for release and renewal. — K.R.

“One of the things that’s really been brought by the popularity of dance music over the last few years, or the effectiveness of dance music, has been the almost radical simplification of beats and ideas,” Chris Lake told Billboard over the summer. “It’s great, and it’s powerful. But I personally wanted a course correction. I’m a naturally musical person, and I had a vision of of how I could make things more musical, but still feel substantial and effective in a club. That’s what I wanted to do.”

And that’s what the English producer did on Chemistry, the debut album of his long career, released in July on his own Black Book Records. While a lot of dance music can feel disposable or appropriate only for party settings, tracks like “On & On” and “Favourite One” are songs we lived with far beyond the confines of the club this year, with the album altogether injecting a dose of musical nutrition into the scene at large. It also served as the centerpiece that Lake’s flurry of other excellent 2025 singles — the ass-shaker “925” with Sammy Virji, the scorching “La Noche” with Skrillex and Anita B Queen and the funky “one2three” EP with Disclosure — orbited around. — K. Bain

On previous album efforts, the reflexively rebellious dance-punk sibling duo Frost Children would partition its duality: one side loud and raucous, the other soft and tender. On SISTER, both entities converge across a collection of sounds that defy musical categorization and challenge the conventions of popular songwriting. On tracks like “CONTROL” and “Position Famous,” the raw nerve that has served as Frost Children’s creative source since its origins at the start of this decade is as reactive as ever. Only now, the band knows exactly how to use it. — Z.M.

Los Angeles hero Tokimonsta’s seventh album Eternal Reverie includes the sunny Brazilian-deep-cut-sampling “Corazón / Death by Disco Pt. 2,” the sassy “Lucky U” with long-time collaborator Gavin Turek, and “On Sum,” a vibey heart-eyed duet starring Anderson .Paak and Rae Khalil. While eclectic in sound, the connective tissue is that they’re all bangers, with the entire project weaving an enchanting journey through the past, present and future of the Korean American producer’s layered, ever-evolving left-field electronic sound. The first half showcases her deft, layered beatmaking and ease in expanding her sonic palate through collaboration, while latter tracks like “Corazón” and a buoyant house edit of Oby Onyioha’s ’80s Afro-disco classic “Enjoy Your Life” celebrate the joy of sampling. — A.Y.

The jump to pop stardom that many assumed PinkPantheress had made with her smash 2023 Ice Spice team-up “Boys a Liar” didn’t really sustain through that year’s debut LP Heaven Knows, so it wasn’t totally clear where she would go next. The answer: back to basics, with this May’s Fancy That largely returning her to the adrenaline-rush samples (two different spins on Basement Jaxx’s “Romeo”!) and sweetly undeniable hooks of her breakout mixtape To Hell With It, but with more fully developed songs and stronger vocals. The result was her most acclaimed work yet, another Hot 100 hit with the irresistible, Underworld-lifting “Illegal,” and a pop star career back on track. – A.U.

“It was like there needed to be a new Above & Beyond album, or there would be no more Above & Beyond,” the trio’s Tony McGuinness told Billboard of the group’s fifth studio album Bigger Than All of Us, released in July. While the project created new momentum for the legendary trance trio, so too did it find A&B revisiting the same kind of dually larger-than-life/life-affirming anthems it’s made its name on for the last 25 years. Albums tracks “Here Before” and “Carry Me Home” deliver this type of classic A&B — music to cry and sing and pump your fists to among a crowd of thousands — while others like “Heartland” and the title track demonstrate an evolution to more at-home listening fare. All in, music for empaths, by empaths, and a soothing hour and seven minutes amid a tumultuous year. — K. Bain

Making her full-length album debut in astounding style, Australian producer Ninajirachi delivered something at once beautifully heartfelt and technically mind-boggling. I Love My Computer is a relatable ode to nostalgic Y2K internet culture and the incredible places her laptop music has brought her. It boasts 12 perfect tracks that bleed in and out of each other with delightful groove. From erratic glitches to glittering sing-alongs, pounding bass to swirling synth chords, it moves with emotional intimacy and club-banging ferocity from start to finish.

Whether you’re reminiscing about the illegally downloaded songs that soundtracked your grade school experience, haunted by that one messed-up video you stumbled upon when you were 14, or just posting a sexy selfie to your IG story for your crush to see, I Love My Computer is the soundtrack for every chronically online kid-at-heart. It also swept November’s ARIA Awards, where Ninajirachi earned more nominations than any other artist and won three awards. — K. Bein

Released a mere 14 months after the expansive Grammy-nominated Timeless, Kaytranada delivered a warm and relaxed batch of beats on this summertime album. Bookended by two tracks that reverently borrow from the R&B canon, the fourth solo LP from the Montreal-based artist mostly swerves on vocal collabs, offering a predominantly instrumental and sample-based set. Ain’t No Damn Way is a producer at the top of his game, inspired by his references (J Dilla, Drexciya, early Neptunes) while still unburdened enough to deliver his own flavor and frequency of vibes. — Z.M.

“We might have one for the books,” British rapper Giggs posits on the opening track of Sammy Virji’s second album, Same Day Cleaning, which subsequently spends the rest of its 53 minutes demonstrating this statement as certain.

Giving a fresh take on UKG throughout, the album is characterized by a sense of buoyancy and effervescence, with Virji making dance music that simply swings, maintaining a spirit of fun without ever compromising on sophistication. And while playful, Virji is able to build in emotional heft with just a few synths, a bouncing beat and the wistfully sung and casually blistering sentiment that “I guess we’re not the same anymore,” as he does on the standout track of the same name.

Loaded up with a who’s who of U.K. dance and dance-adjacent titans like Flowdan, Skepta, salute and Chris Lake, the September LP contains a few of the year’s slickest tracks — see: the strings-drenched “Cops & Robbers” with Skepta and the fuuuuunky “925” with Lake and RoRo — and generally summarizes the massive influence of Virji, UKG and the U.K. scene at large this year. — K. Bain

Over the last decade and change, the avant-pop innovator has earned her reputation as one of pop’s most ambitious alchemists — and her third studio album is another triumph at the intersection of pop, dance and experimental music. For Eusexua, Twigs assembled a murderer’s row of collaborators, from pop fixtures like Stargate and Jeff Bhasker to dancefloor luminaries including Nicolas Jaar and Two Shell, to make some of the most muscular music of her career. Fittingly, the Welsh producer Koreless – who worked on every Eusexua track – devised the instrumental for standout “Drums of Death” on a flight to Berlin to play Berghain.

But for as hard as moments like “Drums” hit, Eusexua also weaves in a deeply feminine, nearly divine sense of delicacy, like on the electronica ode to female pleasure “Girl Feels Good,” which reminds us that when “a girl feels good, it makes the world go ’round.” Eusexua holds both the light and the dark, the hard and the soft, the pre-party and the after-hours ends of dance music, exploring this world while also expanding it. — E.R.B.