SF0199 Festive Forthy 2025 Pt 1, #40-28

I was delighted to discover that the Festive Forthy has become a bit of an annual ritual for some people. I well remember getting my mother to record the old Festive 50 over the Christmas period when I was in the pub. (The Rocket, RIP). It was definitely a big part of Christmas for me. Quite often it was the first time I heard various bands as I’d missed some during the course of the year. Of course, back then it was a very different world in which the NME, Melody Maker and the Festive 50 provided the only meaningful round-ups of the year just gone.

How different it is now. I’ve spent the last few weeks, and accelerating my efforts during December, meticulously filtering the vast number of end-of-year round-ups. It’s quite a relief when I can skip quite quickly through a list from Kerrang or a cutting edge rap publication.

This first tranche for 2025 is I hope a promising start. We’ve got one or two old faithfuls in Richard Dawson, Bnny and Sorry. But most artists are making that debut.

I will just draw your attention to one or two tracks. We played Post Office Winter on our Chicago episode a few years ago, and I was delighted to see they produced a single this year, though less happy to discover it’s only generated 10,000 listens. What’s wrong with the world? There are a couple of more experimental tracks: one from Benjamin Booker and another from Asher White. As I mentioned on the podcast itself, I try to represent as many genres as possible in these roundups and Asher White made it easier for me this year by smushing at least five different genres into the one song.

I also try to get round the world if I possibly can and I was delighted to come across ‘Coloratura’ by Ichiko Aoba from Japan. Although an episode like this does not necessarily highlight the track to best effect. If you want to dissolve into a languid, peaceable state I recommend putting on their album ‘Luminescent Creatures’ and simply defocusing.

There is no doubt you can’t please all the people all of the time. I can only hope to please some of the people some of the time. I had the pleasure of meeting up with a couple of stalwarts from our Friends of Sombrero Fallout forum last week on my road trip to Sydney. One of them, David Hughes, who coined the phrase Festive Forthy way back when, was kind enough to release his own favourite 12 albums this week. His sense of adventure makes him an idea listener, although I can’t hope to match his eclecticism. Once again proving that many of my listeners would be better candidates to run this podcast rather than myself.

So here it is: Numbers 40-28 of this year’s Festive Forthy.