10 of the Best Independent Releases of 2025
We’ve had our say about the best of 2025, but what about those without a major label behind them?
We gave our opinion on the 25 Best Albums of 2025 (see here), but what about those not releasing on a major label and somehow managing to navigate the music industry on their own terms? It’s an impressive feat to independently release a single, tour without breaking the bank and balance a day job with getting in the studio. Truthfully, you don’t need a big major label backing to make good music — and these lot prove that.
1. Astles — Soundtrack for the 21 Bus Home
After the Liverpool-based musician received funding from PPL, he signed a publishing deal, found management, and started working with fellow artists. His debut album, Soundtrack for the 21 Bus Home, is as personal as it gets: inspired by his uncle, a music booker at Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre, who sadly took his own life and left behind a cassette titled Soundtrack For The 21 Bus Home in his possessions. It’s like opening a door to Dan Astles’ life, and getting to peer straight in.
Stay up-to-date with Astles on Instagram here.
2. Oh Dear — Backseat
Formerly in rock band VALERAS, Katie King and George Parnell are doing things entirely their way and creating music in their bedrooms for the love of it. Despite only releasing six songs since 2021, it’s quality over quantity, and 2025’s Backseat is the perfect proof of this. Making sensational synth-pop, this pair are owed the spotlight. More sweet, joyful indie-pop songs in 2026, please.
Stay up-to-date with Oh Dear on Instagram here.
3. Sophie May — Another Song for the End of the World
Cementing herself as one to watch since she burst onto the scene with With The Band in 2022, Sophie May has been on an impressive rise since. Sharing honest tracks about her struggles with OCD, like Worst Thoughts In The World and Tiny Dictator, Sophie has become a voice for those in a similar position (myself included).
In 2023, she was tasked with creating a track for Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, but shared on social media that they’d decided to go with Paloma Faith’s offering instead. With enough fanfare, Sophie shared No More Birthdays anyway and has since reached five million streams.
Last year, Sophie returned with Dog Body, before announcing her forthcoming debut album, Stars and Teeth, due for release this April, with the new, enchanting track Another Song for the End of the World.
Stay up-to-date with Sophie May on Instagram here.
4. Small Forward — Crush
Indie band Small Forward started laying their path back in 2015 after meeting at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California and releasing demos created in their makeshift home studio. In 2020, the band released their debut album, then two singles after, before returning in September of 2025 with their second album, Crush, featuring one of my favourite tracks of the year, I Only Feel Love When It’s Missing.
Stay up-to-date with Small Forward on Instagram here.
5. Hutch — Rustle
Jangly psych quartet Hutch, who are based in Brighton, where the music scene is one big connected community (and family, too, as frontman JP’s brother Austin is in Ideal Living), admittedly struggle with releasing music as there’s no one to tell them when or what to release.
Rustle was well-received live, but releasing it took its time. Juggling jobs, general life and staying independent means you can’t always churn out music like there’s no tomorrow. Still, Hutch’s live set is enough to leave us excited for what’s in store for the band this year — and Rustle is one hell of a song to lead us into a new year. Watch this space, as there’ll definitely be a lot more from the quartet this year.
Stay up-to-date with Hutch on Instagram here.
6. Austel — The Beach In December
Her 2024 debut album, Dead Sea, saw Austel go down a piano-led route, but 2025 saw her lean into folkier, guitar-driven sounds, sharing the luscious stand-alone single, The Beach In December, in late November, with the help of PRS Funding.
Stay up-to-date with Austel on Instagram here.
7. Matilda Mann — Inventing
Admittedly, I often get Matilda Mann mistaken for Lizzy McAlpine. I’m not really sure why. It might be the fact that they’re both brunette, and I saw Matilda open for ROLE MODEL, and Lizzy has featured on a song of his. I do this quite often, so it’s no surprise to me. Mind you, Matilda is British and Lizzy is American. That should be a tell-tale sign.
More importantly, and impressively, Matilda struck gold with her latest single, Inventing, managing to carve a social media campaign across TikTok and Instagram that led to the track being continuously used before it was even released. Hitting three million streams in just under three weeks, this is an incredibly impressive feat for Matilda’s first-ever independent release.
Stay up-to-date with Matilda Mann on Instagram here.
8. GoldFord — Got You Right
Turning to music after experiencing a devastating loss and realising he didn’t want to live a life of regret, Jeff Goldford — better known as GoldFord — cracked the lid off the tin at age 30 and decided to sink his teeth into music full-time, leaving behind a corporate life.
Despite featuring on season 9 of American Idol at the same time as Tori Kelly, Jeff didn’t advance through to the final 24 and instead took his music career into his own hands, gaining traction three years later with his debut single, Upside Down, and having his song, Walk With Me, chosen as a theme song for the TV show Grey’s Anatomy in 2020.
In February of 2025, Jeff released the undeniable earworm that is Got You Right, flexing his warm, textured vocals and chilled sound, before hopping over to the UK later in the year for a tour.
Stay up-to-date with GoldFord on Instagram here.
9. Ololon — A Very Ololon Christmas
It takes a special someone — a music lover, perhaps, or maybe someone who doesn’t care about release schedules and all that boring drivel — to drop not one, not two, but three projects in one year. Starting off 2025 with third album, Polish Plait, in March, Ololon then followed his third full-length with his fourth a month later, dropping Oximia’ades Nepos & the Fasijik College of Fazu’ul in April, before spreading Christmas cheer with the EP, A Very Ololon Christmas, in November.
His latest release moves away from the experimental sound he’d become accustomed to and pushes him out of his comfort zone and into a pop-tinged sound, shrouded in nostalgia.
Key highlights for me are Navelgazing and Presents for Jesus, but with so much to discover, get stuck in from the very beginning with Oliver’s debut album, Plastic Fragments, released in 2022. Dear God, get him out of that call centre…
Stay up-to-date with Ololon on Instagram here.
10. Phoebe Green — What Are You Doing
When I met Phoebe for the first time at her homecoming show at The Deaf Institute in Manchester last year, she spoke about how she’d love to do a tour to celebrate ten years of her debut album, 02:00 AM. Despite fonder feelings towards her debut now, Phoebe has spoken about moving away from that sound in the past, and latest track, What Are You Doing, couldn’t be further from that.
I remember Phoebe and her younger sister, Lucy, covering Arctic Monkeys’ When The Sun Goes Down back in 2016, and hearing the way her voice, sound and production has developed since then has been nothing short of awe-inspiring. After all, her debut album came out at a time when I found it so incredibly relatable, and therefore I’ve spent 1,565 minutes of my life listening to it — and that doesn’t include the initial streams before I jumped ship from only listening to iTunes.
Despite having a taste of the record label life with her debut studio album, Lucky Me, Phoebe has returned to doing it alone and taking back complete creative control after parting ways with Chess Club Records. I’m sure whatever she lends her hand to next will be nothing short of creative, colourful and captivating.
Stay up-to-date with Phoebe Green on Instagram here.
