Dear friends, 

Thanks for sticking with us through another tough year. I hope this music has brought you some solace and inspiration, as it has for us. We lost some real heroes, and put a lot of new (and old) sounds into the world. 

Our network of friends, collaborators, and fellow travelers continues to expand. I’m grateful to each of these brilliant people for what they’ve contributed to the alternate musical world we’re building together. I asked some of this year’s collaborators for their musical highlights of 2025, recorded or otherwise, and you can get lost in their answers below (there’s a lot to take in!). 

If you’re looking for a last minute gift, consider subscribing someone you love to the CSR. You’ll support the label directly, and they’ll get all our titles at a discount, plus some special CSR-only titles. If you sign up before the end of the year, we’ll also send a free surprise box of three catalog titles! Check it out HERE 

To make some room in the warehouse, the last of our “Earth” t-shirts are on sale for $15, with 100% of proceeds going to Red Hook Mutual Aid.

For those of you in the northern climes, remember that tomorrow is the longest night of the year. Each day gets a bit longer from here. That’s how it’s always been. 

Much love from Mississippi Records, to the sunflowers of your mind…

Below, read the top musical moments of the year, in no particular order, from the Mississippi fam…….

Harlan Silverman
The Cosmic Tones Research Trio

• Aarti ceremony at Asia Ghat in Varanasi India. Makeshift stereo systems blasting devotional music while a fire ceremony is preformed with the Ganges River slowly shining in the background. A musical experience that only happens in India.

• Mono Space, Portland, Oregon listening party for Cosmic Tones self titled LP. To sit with our Portland friends and family and listen to the album straight through on the beautiful sound system at Mono Space was a real joy.

• Le Guess Who Festival TCTRT performing “Sacred Garden” with guest vocalist Sandhya Sanjana. Having a deep musical dialogue with someone you’ve just met reminded me of the universal language of music. A very special moment that I’m grateful for.

• Walking into Essence Bar in Brooklyn at 12am and there’s a gospel choir with band going full out. Cyrus recommended we check out this spot where locals play after our show in Brooklyn. I have a video of the moment we walked in tired and suddenly being lifted up by the energy these elders were putting out. Such a fun night filled with music.

• Getting my first six string fretless electric guitar this year was a big aha moment. I immediately connected with the expression this instrument allowed me. It will be showing up on a lot of records I’m working on for 2026.

Izzy Dupuis
Mississippi Records, Portland Shop

The one thing that comes to mind is Michael Hurley's memorial. Seeing a huge crowd fill a tiny park with home made Hurley art everywhere and watching Toody Cole cover one of Michael's songs. Really special day. 

Matt Marble
Curator, American Museum of Paramusicology, Co-producer on Willem Nyland

Since I’m in Mississippi territory here, I’m gonna look outward to others—but… Cosmic Tones Research Trio, Willem Nyland, Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, Arvo Part, all these and more in 2025… c’mon! I’m leaving so many others out below, but these are the musical experiences I’ve returned to the most this year. Vital currents, source musics. 

• “Cloud Unknowing” by Julio Lopez (Self-released, 2025) I’ve played this on repeat since I first came across this quiet release. Lopez is clearly a master of their craft, which is here infused with such fluid presence of heart. Yet to receive their due attention in the States, they’re clearly one of our greatest musical treasures. One of the first albums of the year (January 6), “Cloud Unknowing” is also the best.

• “Life Circling Love” by Hartley C. White and Sylvie Walder (Self-released, 2012)

  This year I was blessed to discover the world of Hartley C. White, thanks to the posthumous advocacy of Zach Philips (Feivel is Glauque). Beyond reissues and collaborations with Hartley, Zach more recently shared a survey of Hartley’s work on NTS radio. Alongside Lopez’s album, I’ve played this one more than any other this year. While White’s legacy awaits the expansive loving attention it deserves, this one-of-kind beauty healer with French synth artist Sylvie Walder is adrift on the Youtubes.
  
  Ed. Note: Look out for this record from Mississippi in 2026!

• “Umburkus Returns” by David Michael Moore (Ulyssa Records, 2025)
  Discovering this Mississippi treasure has made me forever grateful to Ulyssa for finding and shining a light on the work of artist, musician, and woodworker David Michael Moore. Homemade zithers, buzz boxes, keyboards, birds, cicadas, and more—there’s nothing like Moore’s musical world. After a slew of online reissues, this culminating compilation is a most wonderful thing. 

• “Samesoul Maker” by Darius Jones (Live, 2025)
  I was fortunate to hear Jones’ work for voices, bells, and vibraphone live at Wesleyan University this past October. A companion piece to his mythic extraterrestrial music project, “The Oversoul Manual,” it’s an incantatory work. Here’s the prior live premiere at Roulette in 2023.

• “Open Vocal Phrases” by Arthur Russell (Audika Records, 2025)

  This is the release I’ve been waiting for from the Arthur Russell vaults. A deeper wade into the waters of World of Echo. Long arcs of hushed wonder filled with sudden magical moments! I also have to mention Wave Farm’s sharing of an unreleased recording of Arthur playing cello in Philip Glass’ “Cascando.” Performed live with the Mabou Mines collective in 1976, this was Glass’ interpretation of Samuel Beckett’s radio play, “Cascando,” the cello part written specifically for Arthur. 

Thomas Feng
Pianist, Co-producer on Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s “Church of Kidane Mehret”

I did so much performing this year it's been hard to come up with top musical moments that I wasn't directly involved with! But here's what I got.

• Eve Beglarian (on a poem by Anne Sexton), "only your dolls," performed by Devony Smith and Danny Zelibor, released this year.

• Gloria Cheng's album Root Progressions, released this year; Jon Jang's "Ancestors and Sisters" was a highlight.

• No recording of the particular performance I'm thinking of, but Ensemble X (directed by my doctoral advisor Xak Bjerken) at Cornell performed a program of music by György Kurtág and Sofia Gubaidulina this year. (Gubaidulina had just died.) Her "In croce" was especially moving live.

• The Emahoy concerts put on by Monday Evening Concerts really were special. I played most of it, but took a backseat for Richard An's string arrangement of "Farewell Eve," which brings the piece to life in a new way. (Not sure whether they will make this video public soon, but I hope so.)

Fiona Ryan
Artist, designer of Mississippi newsletter and Emahoy’s Church of Kidane Mehret cover

• Watching my 8 year old son walk through the airport with headphones on for the first time. Listening to his favorite playlist and feeling very cool and enhanced.

• Having an unexpected 15 minutes to kill in Dublin and jumping into the first pub we heard live music coming out of. It was packed, dark, middle of the day, and everyone was singing along and clapping to The Wild Rover and it was just the emotional reminder I´d needed to open my heart and belt it out with the people!

• Yerai Cortés' "Guitarra Coral" live here in Barcleona. If you have a chance to see him with these incredible women, go. There is an amazing documentary about Yerai directed by Antón Álvarez (C. Tangana) - La guitarra flamenca de Yerai Cortés and the finale song kills me (not linking spoiler here ; )
  

• Listening to Emahoy´s The Church of Kidane Mehret while getting to design the cover (!). Especially Ave Maria and  Essay on Mahlet, The Prayer of Saint Yard. Expanding, space, silver sun!
  

• Getting to hear new albums and mixes by friends, Demolition -Cool Calm Pete, Positive Mental Attitude cassette​ -Blazer Sound System x Rockers NYC, Como La Flor w/ Jazmin (monthly mixes) on NTS, and always the MR youtube and NTS mixes

Jamal Khadar
Music archivist, host of NTS Radio’s Reimagining Country, co-producer, Alick Nkhata

• Dusty & Stones documentary hits streaming
  Jesse Rudoy’s film about a country duo from rural Eswatini finally landed this year, and it’s a gem. What starts as a gentle portrait of how country music took root in rural African (a history I’m obsessed with) turns into a road-movie across the U.S., with two magnetic cousins. As they navigate Taco Bell stops and Texas highways, we get a frontline view of the slow collapse of American myths. One of the most quietly revealing music docs of the year.

• Music from the Ozarks

  The reimagined “Tupelo Blues” in 2024’s Killers of the Flower Moon [which otherwise had a historically and geographically inaccurate soundtrack!] sent me digging for cleanly recorded old fiddle music from the mid-South borderlands. Smithsonian’s reissue of I’m Old But I’m Awfully Tough scratched the itch: traditional Ozarks fiddle tunes and ballads, recorded with startling clarity. “The Lighthouse”, a scratchy little fiddle tine, has lived in my head all year.

• Country & Midwestern
  Mark Guarino’s book maps Chicago’s overlooked role in shaping country, bluegrass, and the folk revival — from the WLS Barn Dance to the 90s alt-country sounds of Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt. It’s dense, surprising, full of left-field histories and musicians you didn’t know you needed to know.

• 4, 5 and beyond. A standout year for archival work.

  Mississippi’s Radio Lusaka (Alick Nkhata - I was involved, full disclosure) and Heavy Combination (Joseph Kamaru) finally give two regional giants the careful restoration and new audiences they deserve. Add Bizimungu Dieudonné’s Rwandan release and Olvido’s African Steel (Uganda/Zambia), and you’ve got a wave of reissues showing just how much East and Central African musical history is still sitting in the shadows.

Bonus: Seeing a live improvised conversation between Cyrus and Lonnie Holley – ending with Lonnie telling me to “keep stirring the pot” was a personal favourite. Here’s to us all stirring harder in 2026. It’s more urgent than ever.

Roman Norfleet
Artist

• My deepened connection with the presence of The Most High in sound and music.

• Black Mystery Month concert in February with Be Present Art Group and Albina Music Trust

• Playing in concert (April 13th) dedicated to Swamini Turiyasangitananda Alice Coltrane with the Sai Anantam Ashram students and family in Los Angeles.

• Release of Cosmic Tones Self titled album

• The Cosmic Tones Le Guess Who & Netherlands Journey

Cyrus Moussavi

Mississippi Label Head

• Lisa O’Neil - All Of This Is Chance  

  Matt of Domino Records stopped by our place on his way back to New Orleans from Ireland. He was raving about Irish music and Lisa O’Neil in particular. It was the middle of summer and a thunderstorm came through, chasing us off the fire escape. I made dinner and our baby stared at him from across the table and Matt said, “I like this one!” It took a while to get around to listening, but Lisa’s voice and stories eventually took over, playing on repeat, ancient and new at once. 

• Mississippi Goes Dutch

  Lonnie Holley curated part of the brilliant Le Guess Who Festival in the Netherlands and graciously invited several Mississippi artists, including The Cosmic Tones Research Trio, The Space Lady, and the Assiko Golden Band from Dakar. The Senegalese drumming ensemble has upwards of 15 people, so figuring out who would get the seven artist visas was tough. But an amazing group of artists came through. On one of their first nights in the Netherlands, I invited them to a pre-festival event Mississippi was hosting at OCCII, a squatted (and now official) music venue, artist studio, legal clinic, community kitchen, etc. occupying almost a whole city block in one of the most expensive and gentrified cities in the world. A source of serious inspiration for me, and one I was eager to show the band. 

  The whole group took the train from Utrecht and, after years of working together, we met for the very first time in a Dutch train station. We took the bus to OCCII, where our host, Sjoerd, without a moment’s hesitation, whipped up a huge vegetarian meal for everyone (including my dad, who was along that night as guest of honor). As we all washed dishes and set up benches for the crowd to come in, I asked the band leader, Djiby Ly, about how he saw the communal squat culture at OCCII. “Oh it’s cool, this is how we do shows in Senegal.” They made a fire in the back courtyard of OCCII to tune their drums, then tore it down for the lucky people in the room. The next night they played for hundreds of people at LGW, and then backed Lonnie as part of his headlining set at the festival. That weekend, The Cosmic Tones Research Trio played a set that brought me to tears, and the Space Lady played to nearly 1k people in an ancient church!
  

• Kuniyuki at Making Time

  We had the pleasure of opening up Philly’s Making Time festival with a Mississippi DJ set, which was really fun and only somewhat embarrassing considering the heavy hitters who were about to take to those stages. I like the festival cause the stages are basically ground level, and you’re right there with the artists (plus there is not a corporate sponsor in sight). The highlight was standing a few feet from Kuniyuki during his daytime set by a funky pond under a flight path, and then an ambient set in the dungeon (?) of a Civil War era fort. In both instances, I got a sense of his control, his deep love and reverence for the music, and his impeccable timing. A true master. 
  

• Music For A Revolution Vol 1 : Guinea's Syliphone Recording Label (1967-1973)

  We’d been thinking of a compilation of music from Guinea’s great Sylliphone label for years. Radio Martko actually did it on this lovingly curated double LP, and did it so well that I wasn’t annoyed. Maybe it’s a sign of growing up. Special mention also to Ibex Band - Stereo Instrumental Music and Drissi El-Abbassi - Rai Sidi Belle Abbes, archival projects on repeat this year.