8 Great Folk Albums from Spring/Summer 2025
We recently announced a new series of quarterly columns here at Treble, as an effort to expand our coverage and try and put our arms around a wider swath of sounds. A couple weeks ago we launched a new punk column, then last week goth, and now we turn our ears to what’s new in folk.
In December, when I compiled a list of the best folk albums of the year, it served as kind of a backdoor pilot for this column, which I’ve been wanting to launch for a long time. It seems a little funny to be saying that folk music is something that excites me right now—folk is as old as music gets, for one, and the nature of folk is often such that words like “exciting” don’t seem to apply. But that’s, of course, a misreading of what folk really is. It’s troubadours with acoustic guitars, sometimes, yes. But it’s also a conversation with the past, a way to connect what’s been with what is and what will be. And folk, for the purposes of this column, will have a fluid definition—steeped in tradition, perhaps, but not restrained by it.
Take a look at our first batch, for instance, which features acoustic ambience, medieval standards with doomy atmosphere, explosive post-rock arrangements, psychedelia, traditional elements with a funky backdrop and more. And I don’t see it getting any narrower from here. So let’s kick off the inaugural For the Sake of the Song with a batch of the best folk albums from spring and summer 2025.
Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums we cover are chosen by our editors and contributors.
Annahstasia – Tether
My god what a beautiful album. The debut album from Los Angeles singer/songwriter Annahstasia arrives later than initially planned—she originally signed to a major label as a teenager and found herself surrounded by vocal coaches who sought to reshape her vocals—but the finished product is well worth the journey it took to get here. Annahstasia Enuke’s songwriting is gentle and breathtaking, guided by a quivering voice rich in feeling. It’s a powerful instrument on its own, the first thing you hear on “Be Kind” before it begins to fill with gentle touches of strings and her gentle guitar plucks. But it’s equally fit for a maximalist arrangement like that of “Villain,” graced with mesmerizing horns and piano. It’s impossible to walk away from this record without being moved.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Jim Ghedi – Wasteland
The history of folk music is pretty dark—cautionary tales, murder ballads, disasters, everything I’ve written about in my Blood on the Tracks series, if you’re looking for more examples (or the Sophia Djebel Rose album below, for that matter). But British artist Jim Ghedi takes it a step further by actually making folk music heavy. He’s been releasing music for a decade, much of it more stripped down with mesmerizing, intricate guitar work, but this year’s Wasteland is something else entirely. A work that’s as haunting as it is powerful, Wasteland pairs ominous gothic folk arrangements of open-tuned acoustic guitar and violin with explosive post-rock climaxes befitting Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Quieter moments like “Just a Note” draw the focus into Ghedi’s expressive and intense vocal presence, but just one track later he dials up the bombast on “Sheaf & Feld,” which is just a wizard’s beard’s breadth from doom metal. So I suppose that raises an important question: Is this a folk album? Undoubtedly—and it kicks ass.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
Steve Gunn – Music for Writers
Steve Gunn’s solo albums tend to be more song-driven than the more free-form psychedelia of his work with Gunn-Trucsinski Duo, whose records range from gentler ambient sounds to fiery live duo barnburners. Yet his latest solo album marks a transition away from the melodic albeit intricate folk-rock he’s known for in favor of a gentle instrumental record that pairs his acoustic guitar plucks with atmospheric arrangements. It’s all gorgeously approachable yet weightless, a meditative set of pieces that are never imposing yet always beautiful. Fittingly, it’s titled Music for Writers, and I had it playing while I put the finishing touches on my review of the new Shrapknel trio of albums (note: not folk), and wouldn’t you know it? It was exactly what I needed.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Laura Itandehui – Si me ven alegre
The sophomore album by Oaxacan singer/songwriter Laura Itandehui is, simply, delightful. A bright and eclectic set of folk that comprises a broad range of sounds that range from salsa to cumbia and calypso, Si me ven alegre is a lush and vibrant affair. There’s a colorful splash of horns on stunning opener “Mejor Ya No Regreses,” a softly soothing approach on “La Distancia,” and a darker foray into Cuban danzón territory on “Causa Perdida”—her gorgeous vocals the constant that ties it all together. An absolutely intoxicating record.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Kuunatic – Wheels of Ömon
The eight tracks on Kuunatic’s sophomore album Wheels of Ömon are more like clandestine, moonlight rituals than songs to be performed for an audience. The Japanese trio is a psych-rock group at heart, akin to a group like Brazil’s Rakta, hypnotic and intense and often otherworldly. On their latest, however, they incorporate more Japanese folk instrumentation, pulling slightly away from the cosmic thrum and toward a fluid mixture of the modern and the traditional. “Yellow Serpent” is a prime example of how stunning this effect can be, a darkwave dirge kissed by gentle strings and mesmerizing repetitions, and similarly stellar is “Halu Shanta,” with a stark backing beneath its mystical incantations. But a group like this also manages to make a cappella arrangements, even at their barest, seem strangely powerful, drawing near the haunting tones of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares on “Myth of Klüna.”
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Maurice Louca – Barĩy (Fera)
Maurice Louca’s music doesn’t occupy a solitary niche; past albums from the Egyptian artist have appeared on our best-jazz roundups, and his shape-shifting sound likewise veers into psychedelia and post-rock. Yet his latest, Barĩy (Fera), is more stripped down and meditative. There remain elements of jazz here, particularly in the noir atmosphere of a standout like “Sahar.” But there’s a simpler, starker approach overall, comprising mostly acoustic instruments and shorter songs, easing into a hypnotic progression on highlights such as “Polaris” or “El Taalab.” Another change in sonic scenery for Maurice Louca, another moment of brilliance.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Sophia Djebel Rose – Sécheresse
One of the most intense and haunting songs I’ve heard all year is Sophia Djebel Rose’s sprawling, nine-minute interpretation of “Blanche biche,” a centuries-old French folk ballad about a girl who is transformed into a deer, and afterward, her brother—not recognizing her—kills her, and she’s eaten by her family. Though she never quite escalates to Scott Walker levels of horror, it’s also not too far off, a sustained level of doom and darkness permeating its chilling tale, sung in French by the Lyon-based artist. Rose’s music is steeped in a kind of eerie sense of wonder and witchcraft, typically minimal in their presentation—usually guitar and voice, with stark percussion or the drone of a harmonium—and the chill that runs through them is one that goes bone deep.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek – Yarın Yoksa
Derya Yıldırım, German-born and of Turkish descent, has made a career out of bridging musical traditions with a contemporary sound. Take, for instance, “Hop Bico” from her latest album Yarın Yoksa, with psychedelic soul outfit Grup Şimşek—an Anatolian folk standard given more modern dimensions through swirling psychedelic funk sounds and spacey production from El Michels Affair, who brings his signature groove to the album overall. The grounding element throughout the album is the bağlama—a seven stringed lute—that Yıldırım plays, with its signature resonance that she describes as “magical.” But when a lush and velvety bed of strings emerges on “Yakamoz,” the magic only intensifies.
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Amazon (vinyl)
Time Has Told Me
Songs: Ohia – Impala
Secretly Canadian’s been doing us all a favor by getting everything in the Songs: Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co. catalog back in print, sometimes in very limited runs (I think I found the last copy of Protection Spells on the internet) and sometimes as a deluxe package that’s well worth the investment—like the stunning Sojourner box set, which still feels like a hidden gem. The latest to get a repress is the long out of print Impala from 1998, an earlier more lo-fi Molina highlight that’s somewhat less defined than the more gorgeously perfected gothic folk or country rock that’d become staple sounds. Yet within that wide-open approach is a wealth of gorgeously understated songs, from the taut “Easts Heart Divided” to the smoldering slowcore of “An Ace Unable to Change” to the Sade-inspired Casio sensuality of “This Time Anything Finite At All.”
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
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