Diving into this Pounding Sound and Clubby Alt-Rock of the Band Ashnymph and This Week's Top Fresh Music

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

Both tracks shared so far by the group Ashnymph resist simple labeling: their personal label of the sound as “subconscioussion” doesn’t offer many clues. Their initial track Saltspreader married a pounding industrial rhythm – bandmember Will Wiffen has occasionally been spotted on stage sporting a shirt that bears the logo of Godflesh, icons of industrial metal – with old-school electronic keys and a guitar riff that vaguely recalls the Stooges’ garage rock perennial I Wanna Be Your Dog, before dissolving into a wall of disquieting noise. The planned result, the band has indicated, was to suggest road trips, “the ceaseless flow of vehicles all day long over huge distances … orange lights at night”.

Its follow-up, Mr Invisible, falls between club music and unconventional alternative rock. Firstly, the song's beat, layers of hypnotic electronics, and vocals that arrive either trippily blurred or spellbindingly cyclical in a way that brings back Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman period all suggest the dance space. Conversely, its intense performance-style shifts, brink-of-disorder feel and overdrive – “getting that crisp distortion is a lifelong ambition,” Wiffen noted – mark it out as undeniably a band creation rather than a lone electronic artist. They've gigged around the independent music circuit in south London for a short time, “any spot with loud speakers”.

But the two tracks are vibrant and distinct – from one another and anything else around at the moment – to make you wonder about what Ashnymph might do next. Whatever it is, on the strength of these tracks, it’s unlikely to be boring.

Top New Music This Week

Dry Cleaning – Hit My Head All Day
“I simply must have experiences”​, vocalist Florence Shaw states on her band’s beguiling return, but throughout the song's duration – with exhales setting the pace – you feel that she's unsure of the reason.

Azimuth by Danny L Harle with Caroline Polachek
Combining Evanescence's dark flair to the height of trance music – including the line “and I ask the rain” – the track implies digging out your Cyberdog attire and dancing the night away, immediately.

Acne Studios mix by Robyn
The music by Robyn for the Swedish designer’s SS26 show teases her upcoming ninth album, including Soulwax-worthy grinding guitar, pulsating rhythms in the Benassi vein and the verse “my body’s a spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive”.

Jordana's Like That
Critics praised her soft rock album Lively Premonition last year and the American artist keeps displaying her remarkable skill with choruses as she sings about a futile crush.

Molly Nilsson – Get a Life
The solo Swedish pop act put out her new album Amateur this week, and this song is extraordinary: a synthetic guitar line thrusts forward rapidly as Nilsson demands we take control of life.

Superstar by Artemas
Following tales of weary romance on his smash I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its accompanying release Yustyna, the British-Cypriot star is wretchedly in thrall to his new flame amid icy synth-driven sound.

Jennifer Walton – Miss America
Taken from a notable debut album, a crushed synth hymnal about Walton learning of her father’s death in an hotel near an airport, tracing her uncanny surroundings in softly sung lines: “Retail area, shady transaction, nervous fits.”

Tammy Smith
Tammy Smith

A passionate football journalist with over 10 years of experience covering Italian football and Serie B teams.