Discovering this Jackhammer Noise and Dancefloor Alt-Rock of the Band Ashnymph and the Week's Best New Tracks
Originating in London and Brighton
Recommended if you like artists like Underworld, MGMT, or Animal Collective
Up next An as-yet-untitled EP, to be released in 2026
The pair of releases shared to date by the group Ashnymph are hard to categorise: their personal label of the sound as “subconscioussion” doesn’t offer many clues. Debut Saltspreader blended a jackhammer industrial beat – bandmember Will Wiffen has occasionally been spotted on stage wearing a T-shirt that features the symbol of Godflesh, icons of industrial metal – with vintage-sounding synthesisers and a guitar line that partly brings to mind the classic Stooges track I Wanna Be Your Dog, before transforming into a barrier of unsettling sound. The planned result, the band has indicated, was to conjure highway journeys, “the ceaseless flow of vehicles 24-hours a day over vast spans … amber lights after dark”.
The next release, Mr Invisible, falls between club music and experimental rock. Firstly, the cut's tempo, strata of mesmerizing synths, and vocals that arrive either psychedelically smeared or mesmerizingly repeated in a way that recalls Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman period all indicate the dancefloor. Alternatively, its intense performance-style shifts, brink-of-disorder feel and overdrive – “making everything sound crunchy is a lifelong ambition,” Wiffen has said – mark it out as very much the work of a band rather than a solitary home producer. They’ve been playing around the independent music circuit in south London for less than a year, “anywhere that will turn the PA up loud”.
But each is thrilling and unique – from each other and contemporary releases – to spark curiosity about the band's future direction. Whatever it is, on the evidence of Saltspreader and Mr Invisible, it’s unlikely to be boring.
This Week’s Best New Tracks
Dry Cleaning – Hit My Head All Day
“I really require adventures”, singer Florence Shaw declares on her band’s beguiling return, but throughout the song's duration – with human breath marking time – you perceive that the motive eludes her.
Azimuth by Danny L Harle with Caroline Polachek
Combining Evanescence's dark flair to peak 90s trance – even the words “and I ask the rain” – Azimuth suggests dusting off your best Cyberdog wear and making your way to a rave, right away.
Robyn – Acne Studios mix
Robyn’s soundtrack for the Acne Studios' spring/summer 2026 presentation teases her upcoming ninth album, including gritty guitars reminiscent of Soulwax, energetic beats like Benny Benassi and the words “my body’s a spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive”.
Jordana's Like That
Listeners adored her album Lively Premonition last year and the US singer-songwriter continues to show off her impressive hook-crafting ability as she expresses unrequited feelings.
Get a Life by Molly Nilsson
The independent Swedish artist put out her new album Amateur this week, and this song is extraordinary: a electronic guitar part jerks forward at hardcore punk pace as the singer urges we grab life by the scruff of the neck.
Superstar by Artemas
Post explorations of tired relationships on his megahit I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its overlooked mixtape Yustyna, the British-Cypriot star is wretchedly in thrall to his latest lover amid pulsating coldwave production.
Jennifer Walton – Miss America
Off an impressive first record, a soft synth lament about Walton discovering her dad had died in an hotel near an airport, tracing her uncanny surroundings in tender incantations: “Retail area, shady transaction, nervous fits.”