2026 #pop

Driven by a sense of urgency and organic momentum, Voronet Blue is an emerging band formed in Coimbra in 2023. Featuring Beatriz on vocals, Zé and Bernas on guitars, Leo on bass and Diogo on drums, the band builds it sound around dense sonic walls that strike a delicate balance between weight and restraint.

Their debut EP, The Chariot, is a five-track release that marks the first chapter of the band’s musical journey. Moving between raw intensity and more atmospheric moments, the EP explores the space between heaviness and vulnerability, drawing from influences such as alternative rock, post-punk and shoegaze. Distorted guitars, layered textures and shifting dynamics shape a record that embraces different sides of the band’s sound without losing its core identity throughout.

from spotify

“Tapped into a well of influence that includes both The Fall and Pere Ubu and more modern No Wave-esque post-punkers Lithics and Protomartyr.” - Queen City Sounds & Art

Charm School is the latest project from multi-hyphenate artist Andrew Sellers and longtime collaborators Matt Filip & Drew English, along with a rotating cast of co-conspirators. Influence wise think 70s Post-Punk & No Wave mixed with 90s Post-Rock and you’ll be close.

Originally from Louisville, KY, Sellers has paid his dues in both the NYC and LA DIY music scenes, co-founding The Body Actualized Center in Bushwick and helping run the DIY venue Basic Flowers in Downtown LA.

Charm School’s newest EP “Schadenfreude Ploy” (out February 20th) picks up where their last LP “Debt Forever” left off — with further musings on humanity’s collectively tortured psyche and the many confounding implications of living in today’s technocratic hellscape.

If there is any message in the record it’s that reality is becoming increasingly blurred with something we don’t have the words for yet. “Schadenfreude Ploy” is out NOW. †

from spotify

O pseudónimo do produtor de eletrónica britânico Archie Fairhurst.
Cria música inspirada na técnica de colagem visual de Romare Bearden, aplicando um conceito semelhante de sampling (mistura de amostras de discos antigos de jazz, blues e soul).

As Romare, Archie Fairhurst’s working practice is rooted in collage, building vivid new forms out of existing material. Playful and immediate, but also deeply researched and compelling, his albums and performances reaching back to 2012 unfurl as a patchwork of inspirations and obsessive lines of enquiry made up of a global panoply of source material. The clue is in the name – Fairhurst called himself Romare in tribute to Romare Bearden, the lauded American multi-disciplinary artist most renowned for his incisive collages. In Bearden’s process Fairhurst saw a way to approach the infinite pool of electronic music production, channeling his wealth of music knowledge into creating music from existing sonic material and bedding themes into his juxtapositions for a more considered approach to sampling.

from spotify

Brokenchord is the moniker for Lithuanian electronic producer Ernestas Kausylas. He has released singles on Bristol based Black Acre Records, including a 7″ on subsidiary label Team Acre, and contributed a short exclusive mix for Radio One’s Mary Anne Hobbs in 2010. He received acclaim for his remix of Radiohead’s ‘Give Up The Ghost’ and has been included in the band’s Dead Air Space blog Office Chart.

Billy Fuller
Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter known for his work with Beak> and collaborations with Robert Plant, Baxter Dury, and more.

Typo loving misfits Formal Sppeedwear produce angular, wonky indie pop that playfully eschews pattern and structure. Quite frankly, they’re a glorious mess, but one that has design at its centre. Across their debut album’s 12 tracks, the Stoke-on-Trent trio turn post-punk, synth-pop and avant-garde experimentation into something playful, restless and surprisingly danceable. It’s music that sounds carefully constructed and slightly out of control at exactly the same time. They are oxymoronic, disorientating, and delightful in equal measure, but it’s also an annoying record. The frantic immediacy of Punch Card is also partially its downfall as there’s no respite from their quirky onslaught which can often get too much.

Formal Sppeedwear’s 2024 self-titled EP introduced a band indebted to the sounds of Japan, DEVO, and Speaking in Tongues-era Talking Heads with elastic basslines, Bowie-esque cut-up technique lyrics, all undercut with a ferocious groove. Punch Card takes those same ingredients and gives them considerably more room to mutate and breathe. Rather than settling into a single aesthetic and rhythm, the album keeps shifting its centre of gravity – sometimes pleasingly, often frustratingly. A familiar groove can suddenly acquire an awkward guitar figure; a pop melody might be interrupted by some obtuse electronic texture; a seemingly straightforward song can veer somewhere considerably more peculiar. It’ll keep you on your toes, for sure, as each song vies for your focus like an attention starved child.

from beatsperminute.com