Exploring the Jackhammer Noise and Dancefloor Alternative Rock of the Band Ashnymph and the Week's Top Fresh Music
Based in the UK cities of London and Brighton
Recommended if you like Underworld, MGMT, Animal Collective
Coming soon A new EP planned for 2026, currently without a title
The two singles put out to date by Ashnymph resist simple labeling: their own description of their work as “subconscioussion” provides few hints. Debut Saltspreader married a heavy mechanical drumming – member Will Wiffen has occasionally been spotted on stage in a tee that displays the emblem of industrial metal pioneers Godflesh – with retro-style synths and a riff that subtly echoes the classic Stooges track I Wanna Be Your Dog, before transforming into a mass of eerie audio. The planned result, the trio have suggested, was to conjure highway journeys, “the endless movement of vehicles 24-hours a day over vast spans … amber lights after dark”.
The next release, the song Mr Invisible, sits somewhere between club music and unconventional alternative rock. For one thing, the track’s rhythm, layers of hypnotic electronics, and lyrics that appear either trippily blurred or hypnotically looped in a way that brings back Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman period all indicate the dance space. Conversely, its intense performance-style shifts, edge-of-chaos quality and overdrive – “achieving a crunchy texture is a personal mission,” the musician stated – mark it out as very much the work of a band rather than a solitary home producer. They've gigged around the independent music circuit in south London for less than a year, “any spot with loud speakers”.
But each is thrilling and unique – mutually and contemporary releases – to make you wonder about what Ashnymph might do next. No matter what it is, on the evidence of Saltspreader and Mr Invisible, it’s unlikely to be boring.
This Week’s Best New Tracks
Dry Cleaning – Hit My Head All Day
“I absolutely need experiences”, Florence Shaw decides on the group's captivating comeback, but over six minutes – with breath sounds keeping rhythm – you feel that she's unsure of the reason.
Azimuth by Danny L Harle with Caroline Polachek
Welding Evanescence goth drama to classic 90s trance – including the line “and I ask the rain” – the track implies digging out your Cyberdog attire and making your way to a rave, right away.
Robyn – Acne Studios mix
The music by Robyn for the the fashion brand's latest show hints at her next record, including driving guitar parts à la Soulwax, pulsating rhythms in the Benassi vein and the lyrics “my body’s a spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive”.
Like That by Jordana
We loved her soft rock album Lively Premonition last year and the Stateside musician continues to show off her remarkable skill with choruses as she expresses unrequited feelings.
Molly Nilsson – Get a Life
The one-woman Swedish pop operation put out her new album Amateur this week, and this track from it is extraordinary: a electronic guitar part surges ahead with punk speed as Nilsson demands we seize the day.
Artemas – Superstar
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 hopelessly devoted to his current partner amid icy synth-driven sound.
Jennifer Walton's Miss America
Off an impressive first record, a soft synth lament about Walton discovering her dad had died in an hotel near an airport, describing her eerie environment in softly sung lines: “Shopping plaza, illegal trade, anxiety episodes.”