In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Derek Walmsley celebrates the rich treasures of the independently-spirited region on the borders of France and Spain

“I guess it’s shadowy seen from an outside point of view,” says Mikel Acosta of Hegoa Diskak, an independent label repping the undervalued music of the Basque Country. ‘Shadowy’ was the term given to the scene by the London based experimental music writer Bradford Bailey, writing on the Sound Ohm website, but it stuck, and is now proudly quoted on the Hegoa Diskak Bandcamp page. “The history of the Basque Country is shadowy,” considers Acosta, who grew up in Irun on the Spanish-French border. “There’s elements of conflict, so there’s a lot of questions about what’s happened…

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After 45 years, JG Thirlwell has decided to bring his ever-evolving Foetus project to a close with an album that reflects on the past, while casting an uneasy eye on the present. Wesley Doyle waves goodbye

Photo by Dan Efram

Knowing when to stop is a much-undervalued attribute, particularly in the music industry. So rare is the artist who calls it a day – and doesn’t renege on the decision – they are exceptions that prove the rule. Syd Barrett, Mark Hollis, Meg White… Even rarer is knowing how to stop – David Bowie of course set the benchmark for career-concluding swan songs with 2016’s Blackstar. But fellow New York resident JG Thirlwell has made a similar creative choice with the release…

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Zu

Ferrum Sidereum

On their latest album, the hard driving Italian trio sound like they’re teetering on the edge of a cliff – but boy what a view there is when you start to fall with them

Ferrum Sidereum by ZU

The atmosphere on Zu’s new album is coarse. Synth and saxophone textures bleed so well with the rhythm section that they become indistinguishable from each other. The sound contrasts with the overall pillowing ambience, creating a looming sense of impending rain throughout. Form start to finish, Ferrum Sidereum makes for a mordant double album that lacerates its listeners with rough textures and unpredictable grooves.

Ferrum Sidereum (Latin for “cosmic iron”) is comprised mostly of sharp sax textures and brittle, treble-dominant drum production that contribute…

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aya, Valentina Magaletti, Skee Mask and more will play the Slovenian festival next month

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MENT has revealed the full lineup for the 12th edition of its annual festival.

The Ljubljana festival returns next month with four days of programming covering live and DJ performances, as well as talks and listening sessions. Palestinian hip hop duo Shabjdeed & Al Nather are due to play live, while aya will also present last year’s Hexed! LP live alongside visual artist MFO.

There will also be live sets from Valentina Magaletti, Holy Tongue, Ho99o9, Milan W. and Min Taka. DJ sets will come from Skee Mask, Polygonia and others.

MENT will take place from 18 to 21 February 2026. Find more information here.
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The company said it was “putting human creativity first” in enacting the policy

Bandcamp has formally introduced a new policy banning music and audio generated wholly or largely by AI from purchase on its platform.

Revealing the new rule in a post titled ‘Keeping Bandcamp Human’, the company said it was “putting human creativity first” in enacting its new policy. The use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or mimic their styles will be banned from the platform, which is in accordance with existing Bandcamp policies prohibiting impersonation and intellectual property infringement.

Content suspected of being AI-generated will be removed from the platform. Bandcamp has also encouraged users to report releases that appear to be wholly or substantially AI-generated.

Signing off on its…

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The new album follows 2024’s The Collective

Photo by Moni Haworth

Kim Gordon has shared details of her third solo album, PLAY ME.

Comprised of 12 tracks, the follow-up to 2024’s The Collective was influenced, Gordon said, by “the news”, adding: “We are in some kind of ‘post empire’ now, where people just disappear.”

Expanding further on PLAY ME, she said: “We wanted the songs to be short,” nodding to her work with continued collaborator Justin Raisen, who co-produced the album. “We wanted to do it really fast. It’s more focused, and maybe more confident. I always kind of work off rhythms, and I knew I wanted it to be even more beat-oriented than the last one. Justin really gets my voice and my…

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It’s due out next month through Barbieri’s own light-years label

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Caterina Barbieri and Bendik Giske have collaborated on a new EP, titled At Source.

Due to be released on Barbieri’s own light-years label, the four-track record brings together Barbieri’s modular synthesis with Giske’s saxophone-playing. The EP, Barbieri said in a statement, “reflects how natural the collaboration was, a meeting at the source which was spontaneous, graceful and natural.”

Barbieri and Giske first met when they performed at Kunsthaus Glarus in 2019, with the latter later contributing a rework of Barbieri’s ‘Fantas’ to the Editions Mego-released Fantas Variations in 2021. A collaborative artistic residency followed at Milan’s ICA in 2021, and Giske later joined Barbieri on tour for her series of light-years label shows where they…

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It marks the duo’s first full-length release since signing to Sub Pop in 2025

Photo by Charles Peterson

Sunn O))) have shared details of a self-titled new album.

Spanning six tracks, the new record marks the US duo’s first full-length release since signing to Sub Pop last year and follows recent maxi-single Eternity’s Pillars b/w Raise The Chalice & Reverential. The LP was co-produced and mixed by the band and Brad Wood at Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington a year ago.

Sunn O)))’s front and back covers feature paintings by the late American artist Mark Rothko, while the album’s liner notes have been penned by author Robert Macfarlane, whose 2025 novel Is A River Alive? is one of many sources of inspiration for the…

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Following last year’s comeback single ‘Dopamine’, the new record marks the Swedish artist’s first LP since signing with Young

Photo by Marili Andre

Robyn will release a new album this March.

Sexistential is the Swedish artist’s ninth full-length effort in all, and is her first since 2018’s Honey. After singing to Young last year, she remerged with the single ‘Dopamine’, which appears on the new album.

Spanning nine tracks, the album is, Robyn said in a statement, designed to sound “like a spaceship coming through the atmosphere at a really high speed and crash landing. That’s how I felt, like I’d had all these experiences searching too far out into space, and now I’m crashing back into myself.”

The LP was co-produced with longtime collaborator Klas Åhlund….

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Use music from the past to soothe the troubled 21st-century brow, says Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt, as he picks out his 13 favourite records

Photo courtesy of Gibson

Green Day, the Californian pop punk trio who formed in 1987 and who have been a stadium-sized phenomenon for most of this century, found serious success circa 1994 with Generation X anthems like ‘Basket Case’ and ‘Longview’ before stepping up a notch with the scathing political commentary of American Idiot a decade later. It’s no surprise, then, that when we speak to bassist Mike Dirnt about the state of the USA, he sounds profoundly exhausted. 

“It’s just sad,” he says. “It’s sad that there’s this playbook that the whole world is now running off…

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