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In Light, No Shape is a masterful Progressive Death Metal opus, rich in texture and atmospheric detail, delivering everything long-time listeners crave while channeling the mid-90s technical extremity of Death, Extol, and Meshuggah. This time, the band deliberately fractures the conventions of modern extreme production, opting instead for a more organic and visceral mix that sharpens the defining traits of their work.

In Light, No Shape marks the first lineup shift in a decade, as the band sharpen from a quintet to a quartet with founding guitarist Alex Baillie stepping forward as vocalist while retaining guitar duties, following the 2023 departure of founding vocalist Henry “Big Mac” Pryce.

The Brazilian duo DEAFKIDS returns with a vital and combustive new album, CICATRIZES DO FUTURO (SCARS OF THE FUTURE). This nine-track sonic assault forges a path beyond the conventions and boundaries of static musical genres. Here, electronic fury and fever-ish organic percussion collide with a relentless Latin American punk spirit. Cicatrizes do Futuro will be available on LP, CD and Digital formats via Neurot Recordings on 29 May 2026.

"Conceptually, the album is a visceral diagnosis of a world intoxicated by its own fictions of power, tracing the anatomy of a systemic grand deception and exploring its mechan-ics of psychological, social, and material domination, the indelible marks imprinted on bodies and minds and it's catastrophic consequences. It is a journey from the poisoned and addicted collective psyche to the desperate search for an antidote, while the future seems to be already cursed by the very forces that pretend to build it. Yet, for all its the-matic weight, CICATRIZES DO FUTURO is hypnotically danceable - physical and ritualistic music that demands body movement as a form of mental cleansing. The album doesn't just reflect a fractured and violent world — it breathes desire to live and resist through new sonic paths."

Imbued with a frantic Afro-Latin pulse, lead single "CICATRIZES" (SCARS) is available to listen to today and features a dirty, danceable and sweat-soaked intersection between raw punk and clave-led Afro-Cuban music, with a futuristic approach and bloodshot eyes. Heavy pulsating 808 bass drums hit hard as a characteristic D-beat foundation for Sarine's ultrafast percussion played in the Guaguancó rhythm, driving a relentless Acid-House bassline and fuzzed walls of guitar riffs while processed vocals screams in absolute madness.

"The lyrics of 'CICATRIZES' are like an eyewitness account of a world collapsing, facing its devastating material and psychological consequences. Describing the journey from apa-thy to traumatic perception, from alienation to incurable witnessing, the song captures the state of a consciousness that, awakening from the collective delusion, confronts the terrifying reality that has been concealed. The rhetorical question 'Is it all a delirium?' is quickly answered and amplified: it is not individual, but a collective 'great delirium!', a toxic and dominant narrative that normalizes the absurd and paralyzes action."

They continue, "Our music comes from the perception of the environmental, political, and moral toxicity that permeates our realities under such conditions. In the context of the album, the scars are those of a brutally stolen past reflected in a wicked future. A permanent mark of violence is also a memory that will never be silenced!"

Since the 2016 release of Bobby Dove’s debut full-length album, Thunderchild, the Montreal-born singer songwriter has built a following across Canada and beyond. Bobby has become known as one of the country’s most dedicated troubadours, crooning live audiences with heart-worn originals, and paying tribute to the golden age of Country music.

Drawing from their roots in thrash and black metal, ETERNAL EVIL have fused every influence they’ve ever embraced and pushed the boundaries of their genre further than any band in their league. The album’s artwork reflects a deeply personal struggle: serpents symbolize the hardship and betrayal that have surrounded the band, while the hand that strangles the snake stands as a powerful statement—no matter the challenge, ETERNAL EVIL will always rise above, prevail, and conquer, no matter the cost.

KNEECAP return to bend genre, language, and rules. The most talked about artists in the world are turning the page. A new chapter, new sounds, new manifestos.
A blistering album that revels in darkness while bursting through the void with illuminated revery. This is FENIAN.

Produced by Dan Carey (Fontaines D.C., Kae Tempest, Wet Leg), FENIAN upends expectations with an expansive sonic palate, traversing acid house, trip-hop, dubstep, and more - Masters of rave and rap theatre, FENIAN represents Kneecap’s most sophisticated exploration of language and sounds.

More darkness. More confrontation. More craic. More energy. More solidarity. More absolute bangers. And more fuel for the unrelenting engine that powers this unstoppable force. For their remarkable second album, Kneecap have come out fighting.

Throughout, the sirens and alarms ring, and the chorus’s blast. Revolutionary and rebellious, confrontational and impossibly catchy, inescapably intelligent and brilliantly rendered, FENIAN doesn’t just represent the next phase in Kneecap’s trajectory but stands as a remarkable record that thrills as much as it surprises. The mayhem of their breakout year is a memory now. But Kneecap are neither dwelling on that nor merely persevering through it. In FENIAN they excel, reaching a new peak that is undeniable in its mastery.

Pressure makes diamonds, and FENIAN glistens with Kneecap’s uncut gems.

In Four Tales, sound and architecture unite in a conversation that expands senses and entangles our rhythms with all other pulses that surround us. A city aware of itself.

In the album, floating between documentation and imagined drifts, urban infrastructures and bodies of water are explored as entangled entities to be carefully tended to. Rooted in listening as an act of care, the album takes four distinct approaches to water-based sound journeys: three solo tracks and a collaborative one.

In Four Tales Matilde Meireles expands on the work she composed as part of DRIFT, a collaborative project centred on a modular, site-specific floating pavilion and public space in Belfast. DRIFT was commissioned by Belfast City Council as part of the Belfast 2024 cultural programme. It brought together two local architecture studios (OGU and MMAS) with sound artist Matilde Meireles.

The project was conceived as a “floating instrument”, an open-ended public space that fosters new perspectives on city-river connections. By creating opportunities for stillness and attentive listening, it opened dialogues between people and place. Its surface, draped in cotton ropes of varying blue shades, gently demarcated the boundary between interior and exterior. The structure, built from reusable aluminium scaffolding, floated at two sites, Stranmillis Weir and Belfast City Centre, throughout August and September 2024.

While the floating pavilion was inherently community-driven — creating spaces for new connections and shared plural experiences — Four Tales translates this communal ethos into sonic form, maintaining a fluidity that extends beyond human narratives. It suggests sound and extended forms of listening as ways of forming community not only among people, but within the broader ecological network of which we are part. Four Tales is also a personal project, entailing eight years of living in Belfast and spending a vast amount of time with the River Lagan.

In tale One, field recordings trace the water's dynamic movement in its many forms across different times and geographies: the gentle flows of the River Lagan in Belfast, the River Avon in Wiltshire, the River Tejo in Lisbon and the River Tambre in Spain; the calm sea in Greece; a storm in Mozambique’s capital; and the crisp, icy surfaces following snowfall in Wiltshire. These sounds reflect water’s permeant presence intricately woven with the granular textures of DRIFT’s cotton rope and scaffolding structure as they respond to the River Lagan’s shifting patterns. Recorded and composed by Matilde Meireles, the track stems from the headphone-based installation Movements of Water Between Atmosphere, Land and Sea, experienced by visitors of DRIFT during the pavilion's public activation programme.

Two combines the site-specific exploratory works made for two mooring points on the River Lagan, creating a continuous experience that moves from one location to the other. The journey evolves from the subtle, faint life beneath the River Lagan’s surface and the rhythmic patterns of movements of water, through atmospheric phenomena, electromagnetic interference and vibrations from metal structures lining the river. The micro and macro movements in the landscape are set alongside richer underwater ecosystems and imagined animal calls, as well as tonal and rhythmic pulses deeply rooted in the original recorded materials. Recorded and composed by Matilde Meireles, this track reimagines the listening sessions Matilde created for DRIFT as a sonic journey between two locations along the River Lagan: Stranmillis Weir and Belfast City Centre.

In tale Three, Meireles compiles raw biodiversity recordings collected around Stranmillis Weir into a looping, exploratory narrative that examines the rich yet incomplete nature of field recording. The recordings include animal calls, animal movements and the occasional sound distortion. A narrator catalogues both recorded species and those present but absent from the sound files — exploring the gaps between actual presence and what technology can document in a fleeting period of time. Composed by Matilde Meireles with recordings by Wild Belfast, this is a result of the collaborative and exploratory approach to cross-disciplinary mapping, where DRIFT’s team worked with Belfast-based conservation advocacy group Wild Belfast to document biodiversity around the pavilion. Wild Belfast used a Wildlife Acoustics Song Meter to map the species heard within a 500-metre radius of DRIFT across a 4-day period.

NOVA BOSSA acts as a mirror to the contradictions of contemporary youth

between the desire for independence and the fear of abandonment
between rejecting norms and searching for meaning
between solitude and a deep craving for connection
between social disillusionment and creative resilience

The lyrics blend urban poetry, raw introspection and social critique, all carried by a musicality that oscillates between melancholy and energy. Pedro embodies a generation torn between the urge to burn through life and the fear of burning out, desperately trying to find his place in a world he often sees as absurd.

Recording this trio with jazz legends Greg Osby and Bill Frisell means, for me, a dream coming true!

As much as it’s a huge privilege and joy to present this recording, it was also a challenge for me to create music that fits the mastery of Bill and Greg. They have played so much beautiful and exciting music in their long careers that I really struggled to create something meaningful that isn’t just a copy of the amazing music Greg and Bill have already created and performed before…

After much thought, I decided to create simple, but sound-wise very defined and slightly unusual settings to fit the sounds of Bill’s guitar and Greg’s sax.

I’m really happy and quite proud of the final result!

Each tune turned out very different: from the “jazzy” Jammin’ in the Childrenscorner (which I originally wrote for Dave Liebman), to the almost pop-like “Quiet Light”, to the rhumba-inspired tunes “Homenaje” and “Rhumba” — each tune has its very own story to tell.

I use some custom-made percussion instruments alongside the drums, which gives me the possibility to expand my sound and musical expression in different directions, from regular drumming to simple bass lines to soundscapes. Together with Bill’s full guitar sound and Greg’s visionary, risk-taking, and ensemble-focused way of playing the sax, the trio sounds bigger than just a regular trio, giving each tune a very clear and specific character and frame.

The session only took about 4 hours; most of the presented tunes are first takes, which gives the music a very spontaneous and fresh touch.
The full session was played live in a very spontaneous way; I didn’t use any overdubs.

I really hope that you enjoy this music as much by listening as we enjoyed creating it!!

Greg and Bill were so supportive and had such a great and positive spirit that it almost felt like a meeting of old friends.
I’m deeply thankful for this!

Henriette Eilertsen's solo debut from 2021, "Poems for flute", is regarded by many as one of the classics in the Motvind Records catalogue. Since then, many concertgoers have also been thrilled by Eilertsen's recent trio, with Joel Ring (cello & electronics) and Øystein Aarnes Vik (drums). Finally, we are approaching the opportunity to dive deep into this warm, mysterious and alluring sonic bath.

"Fly Ikaros" is the first single from Henriette Eilertsen Trio's debut album "Moder" (MOT40LP/CD). The leader's unmistakable tone and improvisational prowess are natural focal points, but there is no doubt that we are dealing with a proper band. Joel Ring and Øystein Aarnes Vik are masterfully light-footed and tight; calmly driving the music forward, filling it with color and texture.

Eilertsen has been inspired by the Greek mythological figure Icarus, who flew so close to the sun that his wings melted, and offers a fresh and uplifting perspective. The fact that Icarus was advised not to fly close to the sun is only half the story. He was also advised not to fly too close to the sea, as his wings would be weighed down by the water. Where many see the story of Icarus as an example of the dangers of arrogance and overconfidence, Eilertsen sees it as a reminder of the importance of finding balance.

And it truly sounds as if Eilertsen and her trio have found a steady point of balance; centered around strong compositions and bubbling interplay, which at the same time manages to appear intimate and boundlessly expansive.

LA JUNGLE shifts into third gear and treats itself to a two-drum-kit go-fast. The duo becomes a trio with its seventh studio album, An Order Of Things. Nine tracks written by six hands in Mons, on the banks of La Trouille — the unsettling river — and recorded in the woods of Normandy.

In 2026, Roxie, Jim, and their friend Da offer a new order of things after 700 shows and more than 10 years of touring face to face. Double kick, double snare, triple trance. Dance, always.

Jennifer Hernandez has entered an era of peace. The Brooklyn-based producer, educator, and synth builder known as JWords recently turned 30 on Valentine’s Day, leaving her rocky 20s and her turbulent Saturn return in the past. Sound Therapy, the follow-up to her 2022 debut solo LP, Self-Connection, deals with the troubles and triumphs she’s experienced over the last few years. It gets heavy at times, but rather than linger on the past, the music she’s making now reflects her present circumstances. Instead of building a rollercoaster record based on the traumas of yesteryear, she opted for a confidently Zen approach. “It’s a new era,” she says. “A calmer, chiller, ‘Yeah, I got my shit together’ kind of era.”

Growing up Dominican-American in Union City, New Jersey, JWords was a sonic omnivore, devouring the hip-hop and R&B she heard on BET’s Rap City, the Jersey Club that took over the neighborhood, and the Latin music she heard at home. The only genre she couldn’t stand was rock, but in her senior year of high school she somehow found herself playing keys in an all-male psych rock band. While the experience opened her mind to new sounds and was the start of her love affair with synthesizers, it also showed her she never wanted to be in that situation again. When she started making beats, her goal was to build the foundations on which fellow femme artists could express themselves away from men, free to explore their “whimsical, magical energy.” She’s been living that dream for the past decade.

“We all move around, tryna fill some void / I don’t even know what the void is,” JWords raps on “void 222,” sticking loosely to her bare-bones, percussionless beat. It’s one of five times she picks up the mic on the nine-track record. Despite the fact that she began as an MC (hence the name JWords), this is the first time in her professional career she’s been a lead vocalist. On some songs, her words are more meditative than narrative. On lead single “Lush,”she repeats the phrases “I see me in you” and “I see you in me” over pillowy synths and a crinkly techno backbeat until her words become a mantra. On “Clarity,” she raps alongside Nappy Nina with authority over a tricky rhythm somewhere between footwork and Jersey Club.

It’s JWords’ production, of course, that shines brightest on Sound Therapy. Opener “Lotus” contains the type of sparkling synthplay one might expect to find stowed away on a lost Dilla hard drive. “FELT” pummels you with a techno drum line but slowly morphs into a much chiller arrangement of synths. And “LoveCrime” presents an entrancing, oddly shaped structure that JWords somehow finds a way to rap over. The song deals with romantic loss, but it’s mostly about self-love. “This a letter to myself,” she raps. “When I fall in love, don’t fall in too deep.”

In the end, JWords is grateful for all of the experiences that have brought her to the present moment. She’s seen rock bottom now and never wants to return, but she learned some of life’s most essential lessons there. These days, she’s enjoying her hard-won serenity. She’s got a job teaching kids how to DJ and make electronic music. She’s learned to solder and has plans to create her own style of synth. She’s making her best music, transcending nominal genre boundaries in pursuit of brilliance. She’s calmer. She’s chiller. She’s got her shit together. “Life kicked my butt, but I got back up, and it turned out to be okay,” she says now. “‘What doesn't kill you makes you stronger,’ like the song says. She was right.”

Jim Lauderdale is a 2-time Grammy-winning Americana icon, a singer-songwriter who is a symbol for creative integrity and prolificacy for 35 albums over decades of recording. He’s an A-list Nashville songwriter whose songs rule the country charts while recording an eclectic catalogue of albums that run the gamut of American roots styles.

Big Crown is proud to present Thee Marloes’ sophomore album, Di Hotel Malibu. It arrives as a widening of the frame — a confident step away from the lines that once neatly held their sound, and toward something more porous, conversational, and deeply Indonesian. It’s been two years since Perak, the Surabaya trio’s debut for Big Crown Records, introduced their unique sound. This new record doesn’t abandon that lineage so much as stretch it, showing how much they have grown as a band since the release of their debut and all the experiences that came with it. Composed of vocalist and keyboardist Natassya Sianturi, guitarist and producer Sinatrya Dharaka and drummer Tommy Satwick, Thee Marloes have always worked as a unit, their songs shaped by shared reference points and a lived-in sense of groove. On this album, that collective language expands. The arrangements move across a broader spectrum, with new instrumental colors, unexpected rhythmic turns, and a looser approach to structure. The band describes it as a response to the last two years of living: social realities, love lives in flux, and all that success has brought into their lives.

The album opener “Under the Silver Moon” is a stone cold two-stepper that addresses the bitter and the sweet of long-distance love affairs over a breezy musical backdrop. “Six Years” is a page from singer Natassya Sianturi’s life and her struggle to take the step of leaving a comfortable and stable daytime job to follow her dreams of a full-time career in music. “Harap Dan Ragu” explores life, death, and the emotions that orbit them, opening with an earworm guitar riff that ushers in Sianturi’s honeyed vocals, this time in her native language of Indonesian. The album continues to switch vibes and tones track to track with the darker, more introspective “The More”. The gorgeous musicianship and pulsing drums are met with the deeply poetic lyrics that walk the line between futility and unbreakable resilience. Thee Marloes dip into their drop dead gorgeous ballad bag with “Through the Changes” with a powerful yet delicate song about how we imagine and deal with what comes after death. “Boru” sung entirely in Batak, a traditional language from North Sumatera, goes further into asserting heritage as a foundation and mission statement for the group while “I’d Be Lost” takes us back to the dancefloor with a light and lovely profession of love.

In the end, Di Hotel Malibu is the result of the best type of inspiration: the global attention Thee Marloes have earned, and the chance to play their homegrown music for fans around the world has put wind in their sails. Enjoy the record, then catch them as they tour the globe. Soul Music from Surabaya, another Big Crown Sureshot.
credits
released May 22, 2026

Modern Woman, the London art-rock outfit fronted by primary songwriter Sophie Harris, are set to release their anticipated debut album ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ on May 1st 2026 via their new label One Little Independent Records. ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ represents the culmination of Modern Woman’s journey from Harris’s early, intimate songwriting project into a full-bodied band capable of folding post-punk, avant-garde, and folk traditions into a live force of dynamic originality. At its heart, the record explores the strange poetry buried within the ordinary. Harris’s lyrics, steeped in literary detail and filmic atmosphere, draw from a fascination with the dark underbelly of the everyday and the contradictions of womanhood.

Harris explains, “A vital theme I’ve always wanted in Modern Woman is the idea of conflicting things, of the tender/harsh, loud/quiet and scrappy/polished. The style of everybody’s playing, drawing from a melting pot of influences, coming together to form something new.”

This interplay defines the album’s sound, delicate one moment, raw and untamed the next. Layers of violin and saxophone stretch across a foundation of propulsive drums and bass, creating something equally methodical and volatile. Harris’s lyrics remain rooted in the female experience; “I find it interesting to explore the rawer side of femininity that is often hidden; girlhood relationships and the complexities of female fixation and obsession.”

Modern Woman’s sound emerged from years of creative refinement. The band coalesced when Harris met violinist and composer David Denyer, who brought a background in experimental composition and textural sound work. Joined by Juan Brint-Gutiérrez on bass and saxophone and Adam Blackhurst on drums, the group forged a style that values the contrasting harsh edges of folk lyricism and noise that collides with melody. Working with producer Joel Burton (Naima Bock, Katy J Pearson, Vanishing Twin), they found a live immediacy that channels the raw intensity of their performances into a sound that is both rich and unpredictable.

‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ is a tender but confrontational collage of shifting tones and perspectives, of dream logic, fantasy, and lived experiences, guided by Harris’s voice; expressive, incantatory, and alive with curiosity, shaped by a long-standing admiration for vocalists like Björk, Sinéad O’Connor and Cat Power.

"Shards" continues the sonic exploration the trio began in 2023 with "Refract", which The New York Times praised for working “across medium and style, with composed elements and prepared loops.” "Shards" reflects a deepening and maturation of the group’s collaborative language, pushing further into the real-time design and construction of musical events.

"Ceiba is one of the best modern mainstream instrumental jazz records I’ve heard in years: gorgeous writing; flawless yet fearless playing; impeccably crafted from beginning to end.
 As an improvisor, Simon has that holy trinity: melody, feel and flow. And what a sound."
- Joshua Redman

Ceiba is vibraphonist and composer Simon Moullier’s sixth album as a leader and the third release with his quartet featuring Lex Korten on piano, Rick Rosato on bass, and Jongkuk Kim on drums. The album also includes guest percussionist Keita Ogawa on two tracks. Comprised entirely of original compositions, Ceiba reflects a continued deepening of the quartet’s collective language—shaped by trust and a shared sense of direction.
Developed through live performances and refined over time, the music reflects Moullier’s desire for the album to feel “grounded and honest, shaped by playing it live together.” Compositions draw inspiration from nature, place, and lineage, unfolding across a sequence of moods that move from spacious, reflective textures to rhythmically grounded pieces. Throughout the record, clarity and balance remain central, allowing the vibraphone’s resonance to interact organically with the quartet’s cohesive, song-centered approach.

‘life of mu’ is an album of music. It’s by mu tate.

It basks in a new dawn. The album sees our artist in songcraft mode, carving out form from the shadowy bedrock of dubbed out ambience that has come to characterise much of his previous work. It’s an expansion of his textural palette, undergirded by a newfound sense of structure and focus.

The skittering drums and loping bass on ‘world of’ and ‘no answer...’ bring sinew and muscle, an infusion of heft and propulsion to the free-flowing mercury at the heart of mu tate’s music. The weight is emotional, too: the release is broken up by three stories told by close friends, imbuing the album with an intimacy that speaks to its status as a true statement of intent. opener ‘world has ended for me many times and still began again in the morning’ and ‘shedding skin’ engage directly with change and transformation, a rarity in a musical ecosystem that chooses typically to eschew explicitness for enigma.

Long-time kindred spirit and collaborator Ben Bondy shows voice on ‘memory of a memory’, whose seductive guitars swirls lock in to dancefloor-conducive drum mechanics, while ‘heavyweight’ unlocks levitation within its slo-mo headbang. It’s pure flow state, music designed for body and heart and the ineffable spirit mediating the two.

‘life of mu’ is a fragmentary diary. It locates lasting meaning from fleeting impressions, the synaptic flicker of city lights seen from planes at nighttime. It’s hallucinatory but contemplative, choosing to take note, to evolve and concretise, rather than swim in dream and illusion.

Nadī arrives on Funky Adjacent with AKIKA, three bold tracks fusing dark and vibrant energy. Her focus on genre disobedience aligns seamlessly with our ‘funky adjacent’ ethos.

Akika is a tradition of giving charity and thanks after a baby is born in Islam. With the AKIKA EP, Nadī aims to give thanks and appreciation, and provide blessings and wishes for a good future.

Dub Train is a leftfield, chugging roller driven by a woozy bassline and a loose-limbed rhythm, threading together conga and djembe drums, techno-dancehall motifs and flashes of hoover synth. Sparse passages give way to roaring eruptions, as the track unfolds like a journey in motion: with the hiss of a train pulling into a station, punctuated by the sharp crack of a can opening along the ride.

Pineapple Punch is built around arresting basslines shaped in a studio session between Nadī and Iyaalu. Anchored by a unifying pad, the track weaves together the beat of a talking drum with mesmerising vocals, flutes and crisp shakers, while sinister, detuned synths flicker at the edges. The result is a hypnotic and heady piece of cross-cultural fusion, crafted firmly for movement.

Birdsong delivers an off-kilter groove laced with warped bird calls. A weighty, UK-rooted bassline pushes through grimy claps, trailed by echoing chirps and low-end wobble. Playful yet rugged, it finds a sweet spot between light and grit.

Nadī (meaning river in Sanskrit) embodies a free-flowing sound. A key figure in the UK underground’s South Asian electronic scene, she has festured alongside the DAYTIMERS collective in Crack, DJ Mag and Vogue India, and played DJ sets in Europe, India, Japan and Bangkok.

The Endless Dance is the first collaborative album from Northern Irish producer and composer Hannah Peel and Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang. The record is grounded in the strength of ancient concepts, but comes alive with the joy and freedom of play as together, Peel and Wang travel through the 24 solar terms of the Chinese calendar with a cornucopia of sound in tow – synths and prepared piano alongside traditional and unconventional percussion.

Both genre-defying, storied artists in their own right, Peel and Wang met while working on Manchester Collective’s 2023 album NEON. Wang was struck by Peel’s titular composition; a speculative portrait of the noise and lights of Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. Peel’s uncanny ability to evoke the atmosphere of a city she had never been to led the pair to collaborate on a series of performances, beginning with a fully improvised show at Kings Place in London, June 2023. They immediately began to map out a new, imagined space through sound. “In our heads, it was a place that neither of us had been to,” explains Peel. Perhaps this is somewhere no-one has been to before. “We wanted to create a different type of world through imagination,” she adds. The artistic freedom and chemistry of these performances led to The Endless Dance, something of a permanent record of their shared musical landscape, informed by the flora and fauna that emerge and retreat through the seasons.

The album is collaged together from recordings made over five days at legendary rural studio Real World, a setting which aligned with the duo’s inspiration from the natural world. With their intentions set and shared musical language already established, Peel and Wang created sounds without self-consciousness, locking into tones and rhythms that felt fun and energetic. Opening track ‘Wild Geese Arrive’ is based around a marimba warm-up that Wang didn’t even know was being recorded. The interweaving polyrhythms of ‘Tiger Sex’ are joined by a sample of Peel’s echoing voice encouraging Wang to keep going. Even Peel’s hiccups were recorded and sampled on ‘Wild Geese Arrive’. Peel and Wang were encouraged to utilise these humorous, human moments by producer Mike Lindsay [LUMP, Tunng, Guy Garvey, Jon Hopkins] who brought a new level of energy and creativity to the record as he was given free rein to try out ideas. “Mike loves elements that are nuanced, like breath or the noises in a room,” says Peel, who highlights Lindsay's organic sensibility towards the work. “It was important to find a producer who could pull together something human and connected, that you could dance to, or you could put on while traveling to new destinations.”

Peel used a Prophet-6 synth for arpeggiated and chordal synth patterns, a Lyra-8 for oscillating delays, a Moog Sound Studio Trio for beats and pulses and screws placed in between strings of a grand piano. Wang echoed the varying timbres of Peel’s electronics using her suite of traditional Chinese instruments – from water percussion to temple bells – alongside some unusual additions, like rice bowls from her kitchen and even a jawbone instrument, which can be heard on ‘Mantis vs. Horse’. On ‘Awaken The Insects’, Wang’s voice is a key percussive element, rapping in a rhythmic duet with bamboo clappers called Kuai Ban (快板). She sounds angry and defiant, but she’s actually reciting a tongue-twister she learnt as a child. “As soon as I showed it to my Chinese friends, they could not stop laughing,” says Wang. “It's just so silly, and I didn’t know I could do it.” Tongue twisters have a long tradition in Chinese comedic and performing arts (曲艺), and both artists credit this strong sense of play to the supportive relief of working with a fellow female artist, free of the competitive expectations of patriarchy.

The Endless Dance certainly represents a step-change from the duo’s shared classical backgrounds – but their knowledge and training is also the foundation of its freewheeling audacity, giving them the confidence to trust their instincts. In the music’s instrumentation and form, they drew from Wang’s training in both Chinese and Western musical systems. “The Western world has an orchestral system, but in ancient China instruments were categorised by the material they're made out of: metal, earth, skin, bamboo, very connected to nature,” she explains. “The West has a 12-note system, but Chinese scales are ongoing, so it’s one but also infinite notes. We were influenced by these two sound systems and how the cultures behind them blend together.” On the languid ‘Limit of Heat’, bending synth tones and bubbling water percussion meander freely, juxtaposed with the grounding notes of a grand piano. The duo are joined by Hyelim Kim on Daegeum, a Korean flute with “colourful overtones on every note”.

The sessions were also rooted in the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, which emphasises the importance of harmony and intuition. “We appreciate and value what we're doing in the moment – this is very Taoism,” says Wang. “We don't worry about the result, we don't stress about so much preparation. We don't resolve the chords; we let them go on and on, letting them flow, and letting nature guide us.” This state is embodied in the free-flowing movements of ‘Mantis vs Horse’, a supremely danceable melee of clip-clopping percussion and arpeggiated synth that grows and develops with organic wonder; and on ‘Thunder Begins to Soften’, a relaxed rumble of beats and wobbling notes – the sound of organisms powering down and conserving energy so they can start up again. As with the Chinese calendar, The Endless Dance is intended as a never-ending cycle of sound, in tune with the rhythms of nature and human life.

The duo see their different cultural perspectives as a strength. Track to track, The Endless Dance is unpredictable and unexpected, which is in part due to the genuine curiosity and outside perspectives that each player brought to the sessions. “I am so familiar with Chinese heritage, but I don't see how it can present in electronics, for instance,” says Wang. “Hannah comes in with that direction, to imagine what the sounds could be together.” The characterful richness of the album stems from the commonalities they found in the sessions. “We both come from cultures where story is really important,” explains Peel. “The attention to detail comes from telling a story, and one note can set that off in a different direction.” The Endless Dance is a major work from two accomplished, singular artists – but it’s also the sound of mutual curiosity and shared fun, or as Wang puts it: “Two women talking in totally different languages that had a wonderful chat.”

Presenting the remarkable second album by the Chinese musician, DJ and creative chef Yu Su. An evolution from her 2021 debut LP and two track single released last year, Foundry radiates a fresh, fully-fledged and far-reaching sound.

The nucleus of Foundry began with material penned for live performance at MUTEK in 2025, alongside a move to London which brought about new shifts in perspective. Searching for a style that was true both to her roots and progression as an artist, Yu ventured in a post-orientalist direction, and came upon a language of ‘in-between music’.

Mixing the eclectic influence of her DJ sets with genre-defying collaborators and newfound taste for minimal and ambient techno, a dusky, dub-inflected character began to emerge. This broad palette reiterates Yu’s prior form in making connections across disciplines, which have not only consisted of music, but also multisensory endeavors which incorporate taste and smell.

With cover art featuring hammered metalwork by the artist Brendan Ratzlaff, for Yu the foundry represents a nexus of creation; a shared workspace where collaborators combined their materials and skills. With the input of Seefeel, Dip In The Pool, and Memotone, together their broad spectrum of aural elements underwent a chemical transformation, and were forged into something new.

Well-designed, ergonomic yet occasionally amorphous, the effect is that of meticulous freedom, both controlled and free flowing. Using immersive sound design, Yu creates inspiring spaces to revel in, which are warm yet steeped in shadow, with flashes of silvery light.

Featuring Yu in with duet Miyako Koda of cult Japanese art pop duo Dip In The Pool, the record kicks off in swirling but poised fashion with ‘A Jewel’. The dusky, reverberant underwater minimalism of ‘Sunless’ follows, which features British composer Memotone, and was influenced by Chris Marker’s 1983 film Sans Soleil.

The dubby, sunkissed affirmation on ‘Cul De Sac’ leads to the thumping acid stomp of ‘Foundry’, and onto the hazy glow of ‘One Place After Another’, featuring lauded soundheads Seefeel, where Yu’s voice is joined by Sarah Peacock’s, alongside Mark Clifford’s seductively gauzy fuzz guitar.

Venturing into more ominous territory is the liminal ambient dub of ‘Wanli’, followed by the rich textured flutter of ‘Os Cionn’, which translates from Gaelic as ‘above’. The album ends with the reflective, processional pulse of ‘Ripe Fruits’, which was inspired by Frederic Leighton’s 1892 oil painting The Garden of the Hesperides.

The LP’s visual was art directed by Lucas Dupuy, whose approach perfectly encapsulates Yu’s spatial sonics: “We both think in layers”, she comments. “Not linear layering, but horizontal layering, like weaving metallic threads, where a bigger picture of a grainy sphere will occur at the end.”

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