Exploring this Jackhammer Noise and Dancefloor Alt-Rock of the Band Ashnymph and the Week's Best Fresh Music

Originating in London and Brighton
If you enjoy Underworld, MGMT, Animal Collective
Up next A new EP planned for 2026, currently without a title

The two singles shared up to now by Ashnymph are hard to categorise: their own description of the sound as “subconscioussion” doesn’t offer many clues. Debut Saltspreader combined a heavy mechanical drumming – guitarist Will Wiffen has at times appeared on stage sporting a 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 Stooges’ garage rock perennial I Wanna Be Your Dog, before dissolving into a wall of disquieting noise. The planned result, the trio have suggested, was to evoke motorway travel, “the grinding circulation of vehicles all day long over huge distances … orange lights at night”.

The subsequent track, Mr Invisible, falls between nightclub tunes and unconventional alternative rock. For one thing, the track’s rhythm, strata of mesmerizing synths, and singing that comes either trippily blurred or spellbindingly cyclical in a way that evokes the classic Underworld album era all point towards the club floor. Alternatively, its intense performance-style shifts, near-anarchic character and distortion – “achieving a crunchy texture is a long-term goal,” Wiffen has said – mark it out as clearly a group effort rather than a lone electronic artist. They've gigged around the self-made music community of south London for under a year, “anywhere that will turn the PA up loud”.

But both are exciting and different enough – from each other and other current music – to prompt questions about the band's future direction. Whatever it is, on the basis of these two singles, it’s unlikely to be boring.

The Week's Fresh Highlights

Dry Cleaning – Hit My Head All Day
“I absolutely need experiences”​, singer Florence Shaw declares on her band’s beguiling return, but over six minutes – with breath sounds keeping rhythm – you feel that she can’t work out why.

Danny L Harle – Azimuth (ft Caroline Polachek)
Combining Evanescence's dark flair to classic 90s trance – even the words “and I ask the rain” – Azimuth hints at reviving your rave outfits and heading south west to rave, immediately.

Acne Studios mix by Robyn
The music by Robyn for the Acne Studios' spring/summer 2026 presentation teases her upcoming ninth album, including Soulwax-worthy grinding guitar, energetic beats like Benny Benassi and the verse “my body’s a spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive”.

Jordana – Like That
Critics praised her album Lively Premonition last year and the US singer-songwriter continues to show off her impressive hook-crafting ability as she laments her latest hopeless infatuation.

Molly Nilsson – Get a Life
The independent Swedish artist dropped the record Amateur this week, and this track from it is incredible: a synthetic guitar line thrusts forward rapidly as the singer urges we take control of life.

Artemas' Superstar
Post explorations of tired relationships on his smash I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its overlooked mixtape Yustyna, the UK-Cypriot artist is completely captivated by his current partner amid pulsating coldwave production.

Jennifer Walton's Miss America
Taken from a notable debut album, a delicate electronic ballad about Walton learning of her father’s death in an airport hotel, tracing her uncanny surroundings in gentle refrains: “Shopping plaza, illegal trade, anxiety episodes.”

Megan Shepherd
Megan Shepherd

A tech enthusiast and digital strategist with a passion for innovation and creative problem-solving.