Sweeping The Nation

A quick reminder first of all, with full details here and here And for further listening, our hundred best tunes of 2025 60 Autocamper - What Do You Do All Day?

40 Cheekface - Middle Spoon America's local band signal more dispatches from the nerdy, mostly impoverished artist ranks, looking out wryly at the outside world 39 C Duncan - It's Only A Love Song An unexpected turn into romantic chamber pop, ornate swoon…

We've never gone as far as a top 60 before, but that's how packed out with goodness the year was on an LP scale when even number 60 is something as instant and likeable as... 60 Autocamper - What Do You Do All Day?

Well, the coast seems clear this far in so here we go - the hundred most exciting, affecting, thought-provoking, exhilirating, hilarious and/or joyous songs we've heard this year.

Just think, the next time we post will be the end of year wingdings.

Now we're up to date let's just whip through these, shall we.

Slightly more up to date than the last one, another month cleared.

With the up to date cutting edge approach that's served us so well over the last twenty years, on the eve of Hallowe'en here's our August playlist.

Is it still worth doing these?

Well, mentioning how last month's playlist was fortunately a little quieter than usual was a red rag to the industry bull as this is the biggest selection of the month just ending's new releases.

Time to step up for another month of rounding up what's been going on.

Welcome once again - yeah, like we have regular readers, we've seen the numbers - to our monthly round-up of what we've grabbed on to over the month just passed, fully forty tracks this time around.

It's twenty years today since Sweeping The Nation started.

Actually timely for once, the thirty-strong best of what we heard over the course of this month just ending.

Adwaith - Planed (from Solas) Anna Hillburg - The Shape's Gonna Shift My Way Bambara - Letters From Sing Sing Bob Mould - Neanderthal Cheekface - Art House (from Middle Spoon) Dana Gavanski - Hang In For Us Both Factory Floor - Between You Florist - Gloom…

Anna B Savage - Mo Cheol Thú Hymn to love and to new home Ireland from typically intimate in warmth and detail third album You and i are Earth (capitalisation artist's own), which in a move that makes absolute logical sense shares a producer with Lankum.

Those we know about Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out (10th January) Sophie Jamieson - I still want to share (17th January) Anna B Savage - You & i are Earth (24th January) Sharon Van Etten - Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory (7th February) Pan…

Right then, let's wrap this misbegotten year up in the acceptable fashion.

But first, a reminder: 50 Lip Critic - Hex Dealer 49 New Starts - More Break-Up Songs 48 Isobel Campbell - Bow To Love 47 Drahla - angeltape 46 TORRES - What an enormous room 45 Magana - Teeth 44 Hello Mary - Emita Ox 43 MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks 42

20 Dana Gavanski - LATE SLAP Twisting guitar-pop melodies until they don't quite feel right, capturing the skill of musical optimism and lyrical hollowness 19 Laura Marling - Patterns In Repeat Motherhood suits Marling's meditative side, intimate and home…

30 Neutrals - New Town Dream Glaswegian transplanted to California gets to examine the human stories of tenement life from afar in an agit-janglepop setting 29 King Hannah - Big Swimmer A big step forward for a second album, narrating a diaristic candour…

40 Clarissa Connelly - World Of Work Copenhagen based producer/composer's rich voice drives brooding piano-led experiments in Celtic-aligned folk hauntology 39 St Vincent - All Born Screaming Stepping back into a daze, harsh beats rubbing against vulnerab…

50 Lip Critic - Hex Dealer Intense 32 minutes of full-on New York electro-dance-punk, like DFA's circuits overheating 49 New Starts - More Break-Up Songs Darren Hayman's new band in the long shadow of Hefner, all Velvets chug, power-pop dynamics and map-o…

Astraba - Sink The Moon Apart from this being a London band's debut there doesn't seem to be a lot of background to Astraba, which can feel suspicious for ones so fully formed, but they're a band who seem to have much in front of them, routed in layered p…

Autocamper - Summertime Manchester by spiritual way of Dunedin, the janglepop revivalists (if it ever needs reviving, or indeed counts as one) have their calendar all wrong but their spirit absolutely in the right place, scratchy and jolting while borrowi…