Diving into the Pounding Sound and Dancefloor Alternative Rock of Ashnymph and the Week's Top Fresh Music
Originating in London and Brighton
Recommended if you like artists like Underworld, MGMT, or Animal Collective
On the horizon An as-yet-untitled EP, to be released in 2026
The pair of releases released so far by Ashnymph are hard to categorise: their personal label of their music as “subconscioussion” leaves listeners guessing. The first single Saltspreader combined a jackhammer industrial beat – guitarist Will Wiffen has sometimes been seen on stage sporting a shirt that features the symbol of industrial metal pioneers Godflesh – with retro-style synths and a guitar riff that subtly echoes the enduring garage rock anthem I Wanna Be Your Dog, before dissolving into a barrier of unsettling sound. The planned result, the trio have suggested, was to suggest road trips, “the endless movement of vehicles all day long over vast spans … nighttime orange glows”.
The subsequent track, the song Mr Invisible, sits somewhere between dance music and left-field alt-rock. Firstly, the song's beat, layers of hypnotic electronics, and singing that comes either trippily blurred or hypnotically looped in a way that recalls Dubnobasswithmyheadman-era Underworld all indicate the dancefloor. Alternatively, its forceful live-sounding dynamics, edge-of-chaos quality and fuzz – “achieving a crunchy texture is a lifelong ambition,” Wiffen has said – set it apart as undeniably a band creation rather than a lone electronic artist. They've performed 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 – mutually and anything else around at the moment – to spark curiosity about Ashnymph's upcoming moves. No matter what it is, on the basis of these two singles, it’s probably not dull.
The Week's Fresh Highlights
Hit My Head All Day by Dry Cleaning
“I really require adventures”​, vocalist Florence Shaw states on the group's captivating comeback, but throughout the song's duration – with exhales setting the pace – you get the sense that she can’t work out why.
Azimuth by Danny L Harle with Caroline Polachek
Combining Evanescence's dark flair to classic 90s trance – right down to the lyric “and I ask the rain” – Azimuth hints at reviving your rave outfits and dancing the night away, right away.
Robyn's Acne Studios mix
Robyn's composition for the the fashion brand's latest show hints at her next record, including gritty guitars reminiscent of Soulwax, Benny Benassi-style thrust and the words “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 Stateside musician further demonstrates her remarkable skill with choruses as she sings about a futile crush.
Get a Life by Molly Nilsson
The one-woman Swedish pop operation put out her new album Amateur this week, and this song is extraordinary: a electronic guitar part jerks forward at hardcore punk pace as Nilsson insists we take control of life.
Artemas' Superstar
Post explorations of tired relationships on his megahit I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its overlooked mixtape Yustyna, the British-Cypriot star is completely captivated by his current partner amid driving coldwave beats.
Miss America by Jennifer Walton
Taken from a notable debut album, a soft synth lament about Walton learning of her father’s death in an hotel near an airport, tracing her uncanny surroundings in tender incantations: “Retail area, shady transaction, nervous fits.”