Exploring this Jackhammer Sound and Dancefloor Alt-Rock of the Band Ashnymph and This Week's Top New Tracks

Based in the UK cities of London and Brighton
If you enjoy Underworld, MGMT, Animal Collective
Coming soon A new EP planned for 2026, currently without a title

Both tracks shared so far by Ashnymph are hard to categorise: their own description of their work as “subconscioussion” doesn’t offer many clues. Their initial track Saltspreader married a jackhammer industrial beat – bandmember Will Wiffen has sometimes been seen on stage in a tee that bears the logo of industrial metal pioneers Godflesh – with vintage-sounding synthesisers and a guitar riff that subtly echoes the classic Stooges track I Wanna Be Your Dog, before transforming into a barrier of unsettling sound. The planned result, the group has mentioned, was to evoke motorway travel, “the grinding circulation of vehicles all day long over huge distances … nighttime orange glows”.

The next release, the song Mr Invisible, falls between club music 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 recalls Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman period all suggest the club floor. Alternatively, its forceful live-sounding dynamics, brink-of-disorder feel and distortion – “getting that crisp distortion is a long-term goal,” Wiffen has said – mark it out as undeniably a band creation rather than a lone electronic artist. They've performed around the independent music circuit in south London for a short time, “any spot with loud speakers”.

But both are exciting and different enough – from one another and anything else around at the moment – to make you wonder about what Ashnymph might do next. No matter what it is, on the basis of these two singles, it’s unlikely to be boring.

The Week's Fresh Highlights

Hit My Head All Day by Dry Cleaning
“I simply must have experiences”​, singer Florence Shaw declares on her band’s beguiling return, but over six minutes – with exhales setting the pace – you perceive that the motive eludes her.

Danny L Harle's Azimuth featuring Caroline Polachek
Merging gothic intensity to peak 90s trance – right down to the lyric “and I ask the rain” – Azimuth suggests reviving your rave outfits and heading south west to rave, stat.

Robyn's Acne Studios mix
Robyn's composition for the Swedish designer’s SS26 show teases her upcoming ninth album, including driving guitar parts à la Soulwax, Benny Benassi-style thrust and the verse “my body’s a spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive”.

Jordana – Like That
Critics praised her soft rock album Lively Premonition last year and the US singer-songwriter continues to show off her stunning facility for chorus writing as she laments her latest hopeless infatuation.

Get a Life by Molly Nilsson
The independent Swedish artist released her latest album Amateur this week, and this track from it is extraordinary: a synthetic guitar line surges ahead with punk speed as the singer urges we seize the day.

Artemas' Superstar
After documenting jaded love and sex on his smash I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its accompanying release Yustyna, the UK-Cypriot artist is wretchedly in thrall to his new flame amid driving coldwave beats.

Jennifer Walton's Miss America
Taken from a notable debut album, a soft synth lament about Walton learning of her father’s death in an hotel near an airport, mapping the strange setting in gentle refrains: “Retail area, shady transaction, nervous fits.”

Chelsea Bauer
Chelsea Bauer

Tech enthusiast and writer passionate about emerging technologies and their impact on society.