Discovering the Jackhammer Sound and Clubby Alternative Rock of the Band Ashnymph and This Week's Best New Tracks
Hailing from London and Brighton
Recommended if you like artists like Underworld, MGMT, or Animal Collective
On the horizon A new EP planned for 2026, currently without a title
Both tracks put out so far by the group Ashnymph defy easy classification: their own description of the sound as “subconscioussion” provides few hints. Their initial track Saltspreader blended a jackhammer industrial beat – member Will Wiffen has at times appeared on stage wearing a T-shirt that displays the emblem of Godflesh, icons of industrial metal – with old-school electronic keys and a riff that subtly echoes the enduring garage rock anthem I Wanna Be Your Dog, before transforming into a wall of disquieting noise. Its intended effect, the group has mentioned, was to conjure highway journeys, “the grinding circulation of vehicles around the clock over great lengths … orange lights at night”.
The next release, Mr Invisible, occupies a space between nightclub tunes and experimental rock. On one hand, the cut's tempo, multiple entrancing electronic parts, and lyrics that appear either psychedelically smeared or mesmerizingly repeated in a way that brings back Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman period all indicate the dance space. Alternatively, its intense performance-style shifts, near-anarchic character and distortion – “getting that crisp distortion is a personal mission,” Wiffen noted – mark it out as clearly a group effort rather than a lone electronic artist. They’ve been playing around the self-made music community of south London for less than a year, “any venue that cranks the volume”.
But both are exciting and different enough – mutually and anything else around at the moment – to make you wonder about what Ashnymph might do next. Regardless of the form, on the evidence of Saltspreader and Mr Invisible, it’s sure to be engaging.
The Week's Fresh Highlights
Dry Cleaning – Hit My Head All Day
“I absolutely need experiences”, Florence Shaw decides on their enchanting new track, but throughout the song's duration – with human breath marking time – you feel that she can’t work out why.
Danny L Harle's Azimuth featuring Caroline Polachek
Combining Evanescence's dark flair to peak 90s trance – including the line “and I ask the rain” – Azimuth suggests digging out your Cyberdog attire and heading south west to rave, immediately.
Acne Studios mix by Robyn
The music by Robyn for the Acne Studios' spring/summer 2026 presentation previews her TBA ninth album, including driving guitar parts à la Soulwax, pulsating rhythms in the Benassi vein and the verse “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 further demonstrates her impressive hook-crafting ability as she sings about a futile crush.
Molly Nilsson's Get a Life
The one-woman Swedish pop operation dropped the record Amateur this week, and this song is extraordinary: a electronic guitar part surges ahead with punk speed as Nilsson insists we grab life by the scruff of the neck.
Superstar by Artemas
Following tales of weary romance on his hit single I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its underrated parent mixtape Yustyna, the musician of mixed heritage is wretchedly in thrall to his new flame amid icy synth-driven sound.
Jennifer Walton's Miss America
From one of the year’s standout debuts, a soft synth lament about Walton discovering her dad had died in an transit lodge, describing her eerie environment in softly sung lines: “Retail area, shady transaction, nervous fits.”