XL Recordings: five vital 2025 releases from our Record Label of the Year
From UK techno to new rap stars and beyond, our award-winners have had an exceptional 2025
While perhaps known to most as the label responsible for Adele, The xx and latter-day Radiohead releases, XL Recordings have spent their 2025 releasing the very best in new and innovative UK dance, rap and beyond. It’s why we crowned them with The Record Label Award at the ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025.
To celebrate their win, we track five essential 2025 releases from the boundary-pushing label.
Blawan – SickElixir
Barnsley-born producer Jamie Roberts, aka Blawan, has become a pioneering figure in UK techno over the past 15 years. New album SickElixir sees him continue to veer away from the genre and into a more wide-ranging sound that pulls from each and every corner of dance music. Within this sonic experimentation and commitment to originality is a link to themes of the artist’s recovery from drug addiction and subsequent reflections on its impact on his life and career. “It’s a tool to pull yourself out of a hole [with],” he told Zane Lowe of making music. “It’s done that for me.”
Jim Legxacy – black british music (2025)
With his debut mixtape (2023’s Homeless N*gga Pop Music) and co-writing and co-production credits on Dave and Central Cee’s enormous ‘Sprinter’ single, Lewisham’s Jim Legxacy entered 2025 as a bright new hope. By the end of new record black british music, it’s clear he’s the best emerging UK rap star, full stop. The record begins with the appropriately titled ‘context’, telling listeners about the rapper’s process of grieving his late sister, before exploding into a technicolour world of punk (‘’06 wayne rooney’), delicate folk (‘issues of trust’) and snappy dance beats (‘big time forward’). His energy, superb songwriting and unexpected influences (“On the block I was listening to Mitski”) make him an undeniable star here.
Joy Orbison and Overmono – ‘Lippy’
In Joy Orbison and Overmono, XL have two of the UK’s best and most forward-thinking dance acts on their books. Under the umbrella of ‘Joy Overmono’, they’ve released a host of collaborations across the past five years, including the amped-up ‘Freedom 2’ with Kwengface and ABRA collaboration ‘Blind Date’. This year’s heater comes in the form of ‘Lippy’, showing a warmer and softer string to their collective bow. Driven by the addictive vocals of Skiifall, it ensures yet another year of Joy Orbison and Over-mono tunes soundtracking festival season across the globe.
Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones
After emerging with his sublime take on alt-pop with 2013’s lauded Erotic Probiotic 2, Nourished by Time – aka Baltimore songwriter Marcus Brown – made his full-length XL Recordings debut on The Passionate Ones this year. An album that shoots for pop perfection but retains all the intriguing eccentricities that he’s made his name on, it excavates feelings on late-stage capitalism but manages to not be buried under the weight of its subject matter thanks to sugary melodies and buoyant beats. Brown’s voice, always front and centre, is a rich, booming instrument and interacts gorgeously with the 80s pop sheen of his instrumentals.
Radiohead – Hail to the Thief Live Recordings 2003–2009
The genesis of Radiohead’s new live album came when Thom Yorke was returning to the headspace of the band’s angry, politicised 2003 album Hail to the Thief for the 2025 play that saw the album’s music and themes intertwined with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. To prepare for the project, Yorke asked for Hail to the Thief-era recordings of the band playing live to be lifted from the archives. “I was shocked by the kind of energy behind the way we played,” he said. “I barely recognised us, and it helped me find a way for-ward.” These recordings show a band with teeth bared, entering a new millennium more vicious than ever.