The Riga-based festival returns for two days this October with Gudrun Gut, aya and more in tow

Skaņu Mežs has revealed the first wave of acts playing its 2026 edition later this year.

The Riga festival returns to its usual home of Hanzas Perons for two days this October, and will this year take in sets from the likes of aya, Gudrun Gut and metal group Krallice.

Also confirmed to play are the trio Charlemagne Palestine, Oren Ambarchi & Daniel O’Sullivan; Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals; and the trio Michael Foster, Leila Bordreuil & Chris Corsano. More acts will be added to the bill in the coming months.

Revisit tQ’s round-up of seven key performances from last year’s Skaņu Mežs here.

Skaņu Mežs will take…

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‘Look How Far…’ features former Sleater-Kinney member Janet Weiss on drums

Modest Mouse have shared their first new song in five years, titled ‘Look How Far…’.

The track features former Sleater-Kinney and current Quasi member Janet Weiss on drums, and can be listened to below.

This marks the first release of new material from Modest Mouse since 2021 album The Golden Casket. During the interim period, they reissued Good News For People Who Love Bad News for its 20th anniversary in 2024, and toured extensively.

‘Look How Far…’ is out now on GP Records.

…

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The 33-track project is fully produced by New York rap collective Surf Gang

Photo by Ian Buosi

MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt are releasing a split LP, titled POMPEII // UTILITY.

The 33-track release is fully produced by New York-based rap collective Surf Gang, with whom MIKE and Earl Sweatshirt have both worked in the past. They’re lining up a number of live shows in support of the release, with an extensive run of dates scheduled across North America in June and July before they head to the UK and Europe in August and September.

Watch a video for the dual-lead single ‘Minty // Earth’ below.

POMPEII // UTILITY follows the two artist’s respective solo albums from 2025, with MIKE putting out Showbiz! and Earl…

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They’ve also confirmed one 2026 show, at Syd for Solen in Copenhagen

Photo by Alva Le Febvre

Iceage have shared their first new song in five years.

‘Star’ arrives alongside news of the band’s first live show in some years also, which will take place at Syd for Solen in their native Copenhagen on 14 August. Watch a video for the new track below.

Iceage’s last album, Seek Shelter, was released in 2021, while they also put out Shake The Feeling: Outtakes & Rarities 2015–2021, a collection of offcuts, in 2022. During the band’s downtime, frontman Elias Rønnenfelt has shared a pair of solo albums: 2024’s Heavy Glory and last year’s Speak Daggers.

‘Star’ is out now on Mexican Summer.
…

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On the release of We Are Together Again, the new, community-centred Bonnie “Prince” Billy album, Will Oldham speaks to Jude Rogers about 13 records spanning the many genres of music that are created, supported and celebrated in his home city of Louisville

Photo by Urban Wyatt

The first time I went to America, I went to Louisville, Kentucky, walking across the Big Four Bridge over the Ohio River, wandering around Germantown and Shelby Park, looking for Will Oldham. He was born there in 1970, and grew up around the sounds of hardcore, art punk and DIY. He sat obscured wearing a helmet on the cover of Slint’s debut album Tweez – and photographed the quarry-swimming cover to their follow-up, 1991’s post-rock-igniting Spiderland…

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Tanya Tagaq

Saputjiji

The award-winning Inuk throat singer and composer returns with her seventh album, as vital and terrifying as ever

Saputjiji by Tanya Tagaq

Twelve years have passed since Tanya Tagaq took a sledgehammer to the polite veneer of the Canadian music industry, winning the Polaris Music Prize and a Juno for Animism while forcing the mainstream to look unblinkingly at the nation’s mistreatment of its Indigenous people. In the intervening decade, the Inuk throat singer has expanded her reach across multiple platforms, becoming a cultural powerhouse whose voice has been sought out by HBO for True Detective, utilised in a Mission Impossible theme, and cemented in literature. Yet, as colonial powers continue to carve up the Arctic, eyeing the resources of a…

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The move comes after the music and sports management company’s founder and CEO stepped down after his appearance in the Epstein files

Music and sports talent and marketing company Wasserman Agency has rebranded to The·Team after its founder and former CEO, Casey Wasserman, was named in the Jeffrey Epstein files earlier this year.

The company is also currently in the process of being sold after severing all ties with Wasserman. Wasserman Agency’s original website now reroutes to a new URL and displays the message: “As of today [9 March], Wasserman is rebranding as The·Team and you can now find us at the.team. For 24 years, this company has been shaped by our work, our people and our unifying belief in the power of sports,…

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The 10-track LP is out on Thrill Jockey in June

Photo by Stacy Lee

BIG|BRAVE have a new album on the way, titled In Grief Or In Hope.

Spanning 10 tracks, the band’s 10th studio album follows last year’s OST, and saw longtime touring bassist Liam Andrews join guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie and guitarist Mathieu Ball in the studio for the first time for the recording.

In a statement, Wattie said: “I wanted to explore catchy, melodic phrasing weaved throughout the intensity of the instrumentation and droney chord changes. All that I could reflect on was grief and hope; death and life; cause and effect; shared experiences of being a human person.”

The band have shared a video for lead track ‘The Ineptitude For Mutual Discernment’, which you can…

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The terms of the deal will see the entertainment giant divest some of its venues and allow third-party ticketing companies to use Ticketmaster

Live Nation appears to have reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in relation to the latter’s antitrust lawsuit against the entertainment giant.

The suit, originally filed in 2024, claimed that Live Nation, parent company of Ticketmaster, has a market monopoly over the live events industry. The company owns around 460 venues globally, and at least 150 of those are located in the US. Its ticketing arm, Ticketmaster, also accounts for 80 percent of the primary ticketing market for major concert venues across the US.

The government’s suit aimed to break up the two companies and split…

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Applications for the UK Artist Touring Fund will be open from 11 to 20 March

A new fund has been established in the UK to provide financial support to touring artists.

The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) is behind the new initiative, dubbed the UK Artist Touring Fund, which is designed to support anyone who’s experienced financial problems from touring this year. Eligible artists will have access to up to £7,000, or a maximum of 40 percent of total tour expenditure.

The fund is open to artists of all genres, and individuals from marginalised communities are encouraged to appeal for support. Applications are open from 11 to 20 March.

To be eligible for financial support, UK-based artists must have performed shows before October 31 this…

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