Six Days, 16 Venues: Pitchfork London 2025 Delivers Its Biggest Edition

Nearly 100 artists performed across 16 London venues over six days at the sixth Pitchfork Music Festival London, making the 2025 edition the biggest in the event's history. The programme spanned ballrooms, nightclubs, churches and pubs, with appearances exclusive in character to the festival: Nirosta Steel brought left-field disco to the ICA, Actress live-debuted his new project Radical Frame at EartH Theatre, and Noname marked ten years of her mixtape Telefone at Heaven.

Six sets defined the week.

Ana Roxanne — KOKO, Tuesday, November 3

Ana Roxanne appeared at KOKO with bassist Nico Leibman and drummer Jem Doulton, performing hymn-like material from her latest album, Poem 1. Her vaporous mix of New Age ambient, minimalism and choral music may be featherlight in texture. It nonetheless, in the reviewer's words, has "the power to knock the wind out of you." Roxanne makes every chord change and bass note feel like a seismic variation, leaving room for her unhurried soprano on "Keepsake" and the bracing elegy "Cover Me." Even the gentle brush of a snare drum filled the theater.

Tortoise — Hackney Church, Wednesday, November 4

Tortoise opened with "Night Gang," the droning outro to Touch, their first album in nine years. The core members now live in different cities and no longer record in jam sessions at John McEntire's Soma Electronic Studio, which made watching them move as one organism a luxury. After nearly four decades of playing, they did not miss a beat during the interlocking time signatures of "Glass Museum." Doug McCombs' bass, the review noted, remains loud enough to make the tip of your nose tingle.

The Avalanches — Roundhouse, Friday, November 6

The Avalanches opened their biggest UK headline show to date with the Flirtations' Northern Soul classic "Nothing but a Heartache," before cutting into glitchy ad-jingles from their latest album, No Bad Memories. Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi mixed frenzied footwork from collaborator Khadija Al Hanafi, Jersey club kicks and twisted breakbeats; "Because I'm Me" and "Since I Left You" closed the set like a victory lap.

Bassvictim — Troxy, Friday, November 6

Ike Clateman and Maria Manow played a sold-out Troxy on the day they released new album War + Peace. London is the duo's spiritual hometown, and the crowd turned the art-deco ballroom into a messy south London house party. The set suggested the pair are growing out of their reputation for haphazard performances: Manow thrashed with newfound poise, while Clateman let the bass rattle the room on "27a Pitfield St." Two years ago, Manow worked at this venue's bar. On Friday she chanted her love letter to the city, "L-ON-D-ON."

Thaiboy Digital — Village Underground, Saturday, November 7

Thaiboy Digital, the Drain Gang rapper whose EDM-fantasia album Paradise cast him as "CEO of the club," played to a Shoreditch crowd largely in its early twenties. He emerged in a puffer jacket over a polo to the shimmer of "Beijing" and shed it quickly in the heat. He debuted a handful of new tracks and delivered a rare rendition of his first single, the lovelorn "Yr so Beautiful."

Hania Rani — Royal Festival Hall, Sunday, November 8

Hania Rani began beneath the Royal Festival Hall's neo-classical organ, built from 7,866 pipes stretching 60 feet across the stage. Her performance, split between organ, grand and standing piano, and analog synthesizer, was recorded with live reel-to-reel tape delay by collaborator Greg Freeman. The echo gives her cascading arpeggios the ghostly, cinematic sheen that sounds like nobody but her. Rani drew attention to the materiality of instruments throughout, asking the audience to hear the air flowing through the organ's metal pipes.

What does this change for London's autumn calendar? A festival that began modestly now commands the city's most storied rooms for a full week, and the 2025 edition suggests it can fill them.