A 2025 Catalog Retrospective
As we come to close in the year of 2025, we find ourselves thinking back on the catalog releases we were able to platform, and the artists that imagined, composed, and produced those bodies of work. Over 8 years of operation, we have been blessed at every turn to find ourselves working with creatives, whether they’re on the bleeding edge of their craft or in the enviable center of their confidence, who consistently approach their craft with the kind of dedication that ingratiated us with our most formative influences in the first place. Naturally, this whole project is in simple service of getting this music into the ears of fans far and wide, new and familiar, and spreading a little bit more of this musical panoply one tune at a time. The Rust Music thanks you for your continued trust in the vision of a world envisioned through sound, and we look forward to sharing the next wave of eclectic artistry in 2026.
Please enjoy a quaint scroll through the releases that have propped up our catalog for 2025, and don’t hesitate to check out the included links and explore the trove of music each of these artists has to offer:
Faelow - Lumivora
Styles: Ambient, Downtempo, Chillout
RIYL: Tipper, Somatoast, Mr. Bill, Foxtail
We’ve been keeping a close eye on Faelow since the premiere of his debut EP, Floating Underground, and in the 5+ years since then, he’s shown remarkable artistic growth and vision. Having stayed the course of downtempo, scintillating electronic music throughout that time, there’s a certain polish that’s evident in both sound design and composition across his maturing catalog.
In the wake of his widely lauded ambient set at The Rendezvous in 2024, Faelow had the ingredients for this album already in the works. Pushing these arrangements over the compositional finish line, he’s turned out 8 tracks with meandering and tempered gaits. Favoring detailed soundscapes over high-energy rollers, this release is populated with aqueous instrumentation and reverberant, subsurface percussion. Dialed in for both the stage and the home, Lumivora is a stand-out release that sets a bar standard for 2025’s potential additions in the landscape of melodically-rich electronic productions.
Purchase / Stream · Release Page
More from Faelow on: Instagram, Facebook, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Music
GUNK - Now That’s What I Call GUNK
Styles: Glitch Hop, Breaks
RIYL: Tipper, KLO, Spoonbill, Mr. Bill
Last year saw the unveiling of a new duo project GUNK for Josh Kipersztok and David Westbom. Josh is near and dear to us here at The Rust Music under his Smigonaut moniker, and David’s reputation precedes him as the mind behind Asteroids and Earthquakes, Together, they combine their creative talents to explore a frenetic new direction, and the fruits of their efforts are bared full in their project debut, Now That’s What I Call GUNK.
Brolic, energetic, and brackish where it counts, Now That’s What I Call GUNK is injection-molded for the dancefloor. Meaty bass lines meet dense, percussive breakdowns for a vibe that punches above its weight class. Searing synthesis takes the spotlight for the EP, with every track tearing through the mudpie of patches on the ingredient list. It’s an engaging and fresh take on upbeat Neuro Hop, bringing sound design back into vogue through bodacious groove and production finesse. Available wherever good tunes are found, Now That’s What I Call GUNK is sure to stay in rotation throughout 2025 and beyond.
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More from Gunk on: Instagram, Facebook, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Music
Ancillary Tones & Isaac Tumor - Metacognition
Styles: Chillout, Lo-fi, Experimental Beats
RIYL: Bibio, Teebs, Dabrye, Prefuse 73, Daedelus
Straight from the jump, the word that comes to mind is “lush”; the tempos vary from slow-churning to brisk in their stride, but the palette of tones throughout every track underpins the warmth and dynamics to their sound design and layering choices. Generous bits of foley dance throughout the album’s backdrop, taking playful shape against pocketed percussion and one-off licks. Where tracks like “Dust on the Scales”, “Plateau”, and the opening “Microcrystalline” take the steady downtempo path, twisting brooding and vibrant synthesis atop brackish beats, “Ambivalent State”, and the album’s closer “Arbelito” push a jolt of energy into the mood, bringing the overall vibe and bpm to a brisk dance floor swing. Between all of that rests the homegrown trip-hop fusion that marks the discographies of both individual contributors. Found wherever good tunes call home, Metacognition has the instant appeal of longevity, with so many nooks, crannies, and sonic crevices to explore, and we couldn’t be more satisfied with its presence in our catalog.
Purchase / Stream · Release Page
More from Isaac Tumor on: Soundcloud, Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, Beatsupply Interview
More from Ancillary Tones (aka Bell’s Worth) on: Soundcloud
Rumpistol - Nebula
Styles: Downtempo, Atmospheric Jazz, Space Rock, Contemporary Classical
RIYL: Nils Frahm, Lusine, Bwoy De Bhajan, Telefon Tel Aviv
Nebula is inspired along two mingled fronts, being both a testament and a love letter to the waning awe that the Space Race (and its implications) imbued amongst the many peoples of the world, while also being designed with an implicit focus on the results on stage. Nebula’s arrangements work in tandem with these ideas, combining jazz, classical motifs, space rock, and modern electronic music, utilizing an array of both vintage and contemporary tones, synthesis, and compositional approaches to channel the all-encompassing wonder of the cosmos. Its pacing is entirely unlike the more dance-oriented offerings in the Rumpistol discography, replacing frenetic energy with the draw of tempered, introspective listening. Explicitly recorded and designed alongside a cast of instrumentalists and visual designers, the record is the next logical step in Rumpistol’s recent grounding in his consistent live ensemble, breaking out of the traditional molds that tend to keep producers narrowed to a single lane. Naturally, for The Rust’s upcoming 95th release, we can think of no more perfect a match than the Nebula LP.
Purchase / Stream · Vinyl · Release Page
3420 - Tenacious (Remixes)
Styles: Trip Hop, Glitch Hop, Dub, Bass
RIYL: Pretty Lights, Thought Process, 5AM Trio
Succeeding the release of their Tenacious EP from 2023, the Denver-based 3420 trio have been sourcing some outside assistance in reimagining the EP’s form and flavor. Tapping into friends new and old, they’ve had this collection of tunes thoroughly remixed into a fresh package that breathes new dynamics into an already lush blend. Channeling the skill sets of rsrch cmcls, Backleft, Hydroglyph, TheBusiness, and Wolf’d, the original overtones of jazz, dub, drum & bass, rock, and glitch hop prevail through the reinterpretations provided by this collection of friendly acts and artists.
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Listen on: Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube
Rumpistol - Tralfamadore/Cosmic Waltz (Remixes)
Styles: Ambient, IDM, Contemporary Classical, Experimental
RIYL: Carbon Based Lifeforms, Jon Hopkins, Telefon Tel Aviv
Breathing fresh air back into Rumpistol’s release from earlier in the year with two fresh remixes from the Nebula album, AYO and ISAN .
Blending deep textures and emotional depth, the Danish artist AYO takes us on an 8-minute ambient journey, The track takes its name from Kurt Vonnegut’s fictional planet, Tralfamadore, and is released on Vonnegut’s birthday, Nov 11th — a fitting cosmic tribute.
To accompany it, the Nebula vinyl bonus track Cosmic Waltz has been given a minimal and elegant reinterpretation by the British IDM pioneers ISAN, who will celebrate their 30th anniversary in 2026. The rework is dedicated to NASA’s Voyager I space probe which began its legendary journey on September 5th, 1977, exploring first Jupiter and Saturn before becoming the first manmade spacecraft to enter interstellar space in 2012. A symbol of hope and perseverance against all odds, Voyager I continues to give us a window into the cosmos beyond the influences of our Sun, and carries a time capsule of life and culture on our pale blue dot.
Purchase / Stream · Nebula Vinyl · Release Page
AYO on: Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud
ISAN on: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Website
Nebula on: Vinyl, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Music
Cirqular - Stimulate
Styles: Psybass, Psydub, Downtempo,
RIYL: Quanta, Ott, Globular
With the Stimulate EP, Cirqular ventures further into the jazz-inflected edges of his palette, exploring trip-hop through the lens of his signature psydub style. The three-track release features a standout collaboration with saxophonist Tino Valentin, weaving organic textures into deep, immersive grooves. Equally at home in headphones or on a full-scale sound system, we’re proud to present Stimulate as The Rust Music’s 96th release.
Purchase / Stream · Release Page
Follow on: Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Bandcamp, Spotify, Soundcloud