Your winter indoor indie-folk festival is here!!

The women have taken over the top 5 in our ranking this year. So it only seems appropriate that “I’m with Her” would lead the way. This year the trio released their second album; the first appearing way back in 2018. Why did it so long? Of course, they have always been with us, as three individual, creative performers who have all featured in our year end playlists on a regular basis. All three are consummate songwriters and solo performers well known to indie-folk audiences. Sara Watkins is a charter member of Nickel Creek, and has worked with everyone from Jackson Browne to Decemberists. “Sun Midnight Sun” persists as one of the best folk roots albums ever made. Aiofe O’Donovan is a much sought after collaborator. She was regularly featured on A Prairie Home Companion / Live from Here. Her song Call My Name , performed with this trio, won a Grammy in 2020. Sarah Jarosz won a Grammy for Best Folk Album in 2016. She leans more to her Texas roots in her songwriting. Individually, each is a musical artist and performer of significant gravitas. Together, well …

“I’m with Her” released half a dozen YouTube video performances this year, all highly rated by our panel of seven reviewers (Henry, Josh, Anna, Andrea, Nancy, John and Emily). They all featured sumptuous harmonies and strong lyrics. Their performance video of ‘Wild and Clear and Blue’ stands out for its exquisite harmonies and the deeply sentimental statement of the value of a childhood nurtured in music.

The rest of our top ten performance videos for the year include:

#10. Lyrra, The Hymn of Acxiom. This is a Vienna Teng composition. Teng wrote the gripping Atheist Christmas Carol. The song isn’t strictly indie-folk, but we are liberal in including adjacent genres. The composition and performance are absolutely gorgeous.

#9. mxmtoon, rain. mxmtoon first featured on our year end list of 2019 with a buried “Paste Studios” track feelings are fatal. We are not surprised to see her with a polished band in an Amazon feature production.

#8. Hayley Reardon, In My Country. Reardon had 3 great tracks under consideration by our panel, and by a hair, this was considered the best. But seriously, only 855 views at present? This has to change.

#7. Nation of Language, Inept Apollo. A deep track buried in the copious KEXP video publisher list, this throwback prog-rock track won over the panel. The band has been performing since 2016, and their fourth album Dance Called Memory was released this year. Highly original and a great listen.

#6. Freya Ridings, I Can’t Hear it Now. This English singer-songwriter has appeared on our year end list in 2024, 2023, 2020 and 2019. Consistently great.

#5. One Voice Children’s Choir, cover of K-Pop Demon Hunters’ Golden. You know what this is, I am sure. If not, ask any 12 year old. We like this song performance by One Voice, who we feature on occasion. The 200 audio track K-Pop original is great, but we like this better.

#4. Daisy the Great, Rest of my Life. Daisy the Great were first featured on our year end list of 2022 with a Paste Studios’ deep track. This one is also a bedroom performance, a venue not to be diminished, given Billie Eilish’s initial flush of success. Another great performance, with a strong melody and velvety vocal harmonies.

#3. Cat Burns, alone. Cat Burns is a young England-based singer songwriter, first featured in 2023. Another winning performance this year.

#2. Rose Betts, Take This Body Home. Betts’ coloratura vocal phrasings combined with a winning Irish list perfectly render this melancholy song. Excellent lyric.

Here is the link to the playlist:

Or use this link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIXSweDP-2hhCOMSI2Nu_TYLMWHrc5a5r

This particular playlist is only available on YouTube, but we have other year end playlists as well on Spotify and Youtube Music.

Search any of these repositories on “Artsfols 2025” to find all our recent playlists including our Discovery playlist with hundreds of indie-folk performances.

Search on “Artsfols” to see all our playlists including previous years back to 2013.

A few things about our list:

Our panel this year includes Anna, Andrea, John, Josh, Nancy, Emily and Henry. We live in three Canadian provinces and in the USA.

We like to see the performers perform and play instruments, that is, we want to see the music being made. If we make an exception to this rule, it is with cause – i.e. for a dance, or for an animation. We prepare this list as a labour of love; there is no attempt to monetize anything. The list is not definitive; we use an objective process to rate and score the songs to obtain a ranking, but mainly the list just reflects our taste. We don’t all hear the songs in the same way, one panel member might love a song that another thinks shouldn’t be on the list. Nevertheless, every song on the list has something going for it that appealed strongly to someone – a lyric, a melody, a harmony, a memory, an instrumental line – and while that resonated with one person, it may not have with someone else. But, we also learn to listen from each other through dialogue. Finally, we all love live performance; we attend concerts and folk festivals, we listen to recorded music. Winters are long here in Canada, and this process helps get us through. Ars longa, vita brevis.