FIFTY3FRIDAYS: HERE ARE SOME I MISSED EARLIER

Why ‘tis the season of those ‘best of’ lists. Yet in a year when I hardly wrote anything, it seems a bit of catching up is required before making any pronouncements about favourite records of 2025.  So, let’s chew over some of the songs I have not had the pleasure of bringing to your attention until now and see what lands. This process will continue and end beyond today's post with a Boxing Day Playlist. At least that’s the plan…

Photo by Gerome Bruneau

We’ll start with a name new to me – Sonnen Blume, an artist who purposely maintains an air of mystique around her music. German for sunflower, which may not be pertinent but at least explains the image above, Sonnen Blume is announced via BBC Introducing as ‘Staffordshire’s next big sound.’ Yet her musical journey began with learning the violin as a child, joining an Irish traditional band aged 13, taking up guitar in her mid-teens and playing Glasgow’s live circuit with bands up until her early 20’s, before stepping away from the spotlight for almost a decade until this year. Quite how she arrived in Staffs via Glasgow I am unsure. Anyhow I am sure we will be hearing much more of Sonnen Blume so we won’t stress over the patchy biography.  

“Satellite” is the strong lead track from a self-titled 10-song collection released last month. Propelled by pulsing bass and insistent drums, it’s a reflective yet compelling song with a killer chorus. The album brings together songs written over the past 10 years or so and what strikes you is the subtle variety in the songs and arrangements. You could broadly group them as dream pop but there’s real substance over ephemera here. Sonnen Blume’s writing has a maturity to it while vocally she has a lovely soft, breathy tone; aspects of her work put me in mind of the emotive honesty of (Sarah) Tomberlin. Words and music are all from songwriter V J Brady, the credits say, which may not reveal anything more about Sonnen Blume. Perhaps it’s a case of letting the songs speak for themselves. I heartily recommend the whole album – check it out on Spotify.

Staying broadly in dream pop territory yet like Sonnen Blume offering additional textures, London-based Soft Cotton County is the union of singer-songwriter-musician Andy Coombs, musician-engineer Sascha Panknin and vocalist Shira Fox. First materialising in 2009 with an eponymous debut LP, the trio went on to release a well-received album, Ten Years of Travel, last year and is currently working on new tracks for a 2026 follow-up. The band name comes from an imaginary designer label that Andy conjured as a name for the project; useful, he notes, if he were to branch out into a clothing range in the future.

The first of the new material was aired in the summer in the shape of the single, “Remember.” Drawing on the ethereal charm of dream pop, everything about the song is beautifully airy from chiming guitar to light touch percussion and synth washes. Shira’s gossamer vocals underline the fleeting nature of relationships, drawing a thin gauze over memories yet able to draw more tangible conclusions about the nature of love. The bittersweet and fragile live hand in hand with beauty here. A further taster of what is to come, “Soft Rain”, is out now and 2026 is shaping up to be an active year for Soft Cotton County as the band is considering moving into the live music arena.

Photo of Alex Hall/City Limits by Kevin England

Now to a name familiar to F3F readers, albeit in the 2025 guise of City Limits, a title those of us who have followed the music of Surbiton via Bournemouth pop troubadour Alex Hall are slowly getting used to. Alex has had a busy year with live gigs and single releases. One of these days his terrific back catalogue will come together in the form of a stellar album. Until then he continues to surprise us with his sheer range of writing and arranging skills.

Alex describes “The Pear Tree” as “a haunting, cinematic meditation on life, love, and loss.” The song has a sweeping post-rock grandeur to it that puts me in mind of the much-missed London collective, Revere.  Orchestrally rich, yet sparsely poignant in the verses, it takes the listener on a journey with a cyclical flavour, all centred around the eponymous fruit tree which stands as a constant as generations come and go, making the same mistakes. When Alex delivered this magnificent song 8 months or so ago, I felt it should have taken him way beyond the limits of the city onto elevated ground. I hope it still will. If you feel the same, please share it and pop it on your playlist.

It hardly seems just over 2 years ago that Nadia Sheikh headlined a fundraising show for us at my then local church in Kingston upon Thames. The British-Spanish songstress has featured regularly on this site since I first encountered her post-pandemic. Supported by her staunch bandmates, bassist Rowan Davies and drummer George Gardiner, Nadia’s career has maintained an upwards trajectory, overcoming any setbacks to continue to deliver inspiring music and compelling stagecraft. Her recent support slot for Bastille in Brighton is hopefully the sign of bigger stages to come in 2026.

“How to Lose a Friend” was the first of 4 singles in 2025 that came together in a fourth EP titled Done And Dusted this October. Each track shows a different aspect of her deeply personal yet always relatable canon. She wrote this song after losing “a really dear friendship due to feelings that I didn't share.” Its sheer energy seems to dispel the sadness, putting the narrative into perspective and releasing her inner power. Cathartic yet emboldening, “How to Lose a Friend” is, to quote Robert Palmer, simply irresistible. Make sure you check out the full EP on Spotify.

Spinning back a year, one of my favourite acts from Glastonbury 2024 was the Irish trio Kingfishr. One year later and the band’s reputation for anthemic songs that tug at heartstrings was crystallised in the release of its debut album, Halcyon; an appropriate title for a collection steeped in tradition. Live, the band has a camaraderie second to none while the songs are always immediate, played out with passion and a dash of humility. Standout song, “Caroline”, has been reworked for the album with frontman Eddie Keogh’s fulsome baritone leading the way while bandmates Eoghan McGrath (McGoo) on banjo and guitarist Eoin Fitzgibbon (Fitz) adding stirring musical counterpoint. Find the full album on Spotify.

The next act turned up randomly when I noticed a gig scheduled for Bush Hall this month; a date that made me briefly wish we were still living in SW London. Sadly, I couldn’t get there but the band name - The Army, The Navy – was quite enough to look further. Childhood friends Sasha Goldberg and Maia Ciambriello share a rare vocal chemistry, embedded in harmony and close connectivity. You can find two fine EPs, Fruit For Flies and Sugar For Bugs (they like wordplay) on Spotify while the LA-based duo’s first and I think only single in 2025, “Dirty Laundry” is the one I found that made me want to hear much more.

The final word this week comes from Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem. This is quite possibly my favourite song of 2025 for all kinds of reasons. I first saw her perform it on Later… with Jools Holland and the transformation of the singer and cohort from monochrome characters from The Handmaid’s Tale to rugby players were the perfect visual metaphors for a simply mesmerising song which needs no further commentary from the likes of me. “The Deep Blue Okay” is the final track from Self Esteem’s great 2025 album, A Complicated Woman. Enough said.