A month down, and so far 2026 doesn’t seem that much different from any other from this decade so far. In United Kingdom, Reform edge closer to power while Labour continues to stutter and handle the leadership like a wet piece of soap. And it could be worse. Across the Atlantic and, well, where do you start? The ICE surge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, further evidence that science fiction as a genre no longer exists. The dystopian world, now upon us.
Honestly, I’ve never felt more frightened. Disillusionment, now swallowed up by fear, and I’m sure many others across the world feel the same, as it continues to burn, centred on an economic framework designed where only very few prosper. It makes belting away at the keyboard, rabbiting on about things like music feel like a ridiculous, futile task.
But here we are, so in an attempt to lift the gloom, January saw some excellent experimental releases drop. Led by Craven Faults (interview here) and Nightingale Floor (more about that here), the year in music at least has started off strong. As always, our first Weirdo Rippers of the year consists of new releases that dovetail with some that slipped through the net at the backend of 2025. (And there were plenty of good ones, too.)
In conjunction with our twenty-first edition of WR, as an exclusive, be the first to watch the below video for the lead track, Seythonyx, taken from Coaxial’s excellent new release, Redux Media.
Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore: Tragic Magic
InFiné
Having featured on Julianna Barwick’s 2020 LP, Healing is a Miracle, Mary Lattimore continues her quest in collaboration with a stirring release alongside one of the true leaders in experimental music.
Recorded in one week at the Philharmonie de Paris where Barwick and Lattimore had access to a cache of instruments, Tragic Magic is intoxicating, framing a sense of time and place, as the duo transport their audience to beautifully exotic climes.
There’s an inner spirit to these compositions. Something earthy and fantastical, and just by looking at the artwork, it tells a story of where the endpoint is. It’s what you’d expect from such crucial voices in ambient composition, and on Tragic Magic, Barwick and Lattimore deliver something that will grow even more powerful with time.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Catharæ, Trem 77: Dreams of the Mediterranéant
Adventurous Music
A collaboration between Marseille’s Catharæ and Bristol’s Trem 77, Dreams of the Méditerranéant was written and composed in one hour on a Casio CT770.
And the results are wonderful, with a series of compositions that radiate, sooth and drone. The pair meet somewhere between secluded corners and open space; their respective creative environments, coalescing as they provide a subtle form of catharsis.
Dreams of the Méditerranéant frames the best parts of life. Soundscapes that are sun-drenched as the pair place you in a landscape of peace; a rare commodity these days, but through sound it can be achieved. And here, Catharæ and Trem 77 provide it.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Charles-Eric Charrier: Un
Off
Veteran French avant-gardist, Charles-Eric Charrier, is the architect of one of the more incongruous releases in this latest Weirdo Rippers edition.
Un covers the French landscape wider than most. There’s everything here from piano wanderings to rich acoustic compositions that flit from making you want to listen to These New Puritans one minute, Yann Tiersen the next. It’s an obscure line to draw from one point to the next, but such as the reach of Charrier’s pieces, it’s an all-encompassing affair.
It’s the kind of art made with little concern for anyone else. Charrier, completely in his own lane, and on Un no one else strays within it.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Coaxial: Redux Media
Cruel Nature Records / COJU Records / Enongenic Noise
Benjamin J. Heal is no stranger around these parts, with his previous releases via the noise-rock escapades, Cowman, and, in particular, the beautiful slowcore of The Lost Letters, leaving indelible marks.
As Coaxial, Heal pivots sharp with his latest under the banner, Redux Media. A three-part mind-bending system that travels past the future, Heal’s grided, motorik beats form a sonic freeway where the destination is unknown.
Those enveloped in Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score catalogue will find something here. However, it’s the bass weight that sets Coaxial apart on Redux Media. Get this on a good sound system before waiting to hear it all gloriously unravel.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
D.C. Cross: Open Guitar (Volume One)
Self-released
Following a solid 2025 which include a run of shows in support of Ed Kuepper, Australia’s D.C. Cross rounded out 2025 with a beautiful collection of acoustic guitar sketches, Open Guitar (Volume One).
Using three main guitars (a vintage Yamaha, a $12 unbranded flea-market guitar, and a hand-crafted luthier-made Opus acoustic), Cross reaches for the vastlands with these recordings. Many of which feel like they were captured in one take.
There’s an openness to these recordings informed by his immediate surroundings. Having been lucky enough to visit Australia recently myself, Open Guitar (Volume One) was one of the few releases that made perfect sense at the time, making it an album that will forever remain close to the heart.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Geologist: Can I Get A Pack of Camel Lights?
Drag City
Brian Weitz has always been Animal Collective’s secret weapon, and following his 2025 collaboration alongside D.S. in A Shaw Deal, the esteemed gadget wrangler returns with his first solo LP under the Geologist banner, Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?
This is some trip. From Turkish hash dens to abandoned canyons in the middle of nowhere, the scope of this record is worldwide. It calls upon the same mindfuckery that Emil Amos presented to world with Zone Black, but here there’s something a little more ramshackle.
Drop the needle and let all the influences flood from the speakers. From the echoes of krautrock and chemical enhanced prog to the meditations sparked by the best kind of psychedelia, on Can I Get a Pack of Camel Lights?, Weitz engineers the kind of record where colours and sounds collide.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Haruhi Kobayashi: Maybe You Should Talk To Someone
Monastral
Arguably the most underappreciated experimental label on the planet, Monastral kick start their year with a mind-bender by way of Chicago-based Japanese artist, Haruhi Kobayashi.
Kobayashi is an experimentalist in every sense, and Maybe You Should Talk to Someone exemplifies this. The Tokyo-born artist first released music eight years ago as a teen J-pop singer-songwriter, and from here, she takes these ideas and warps them through pulsating drones, crisp textures and subtle vibration, intersecting electro-pop with the avant-garde.
Like fellow labelmate Paige Alice Naylor and Lebanese artist, Maud Zeinoun, Kobayashi leads the line of a new generation of experimentalists where parameters simply don’t exist. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, assuredly abstract, and beautifully borderless.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Low Buzz: Drifters
Self-released
One of the many experimentalists tucked away in their own corner of Internet land, British ambient pusher, Low Buzz, creates the kind of sonic voyage ripe for these times.
Drifters being his latest escapade in what is abstract piano and guitar-based composition that slows down time. Informed by the break-neck speed of the everyday, through this lovely sound bath, Low Buzz gives us a gentle reminder that retreating into your own corner isn’t such a bad idea.
Inspired by old film and the earlier touchstones of the ambient movement (see loscil), the Low Buzz experience is one that more should be delving into. Starting with Drifters.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Melondruie: Despair
Cruel Nature Records
Constantly entrenched in the new music landscape, Seattle’s melondruie begins the year by pivoting with a seasonal record in Despair.
While the melondruie experience is always evolving, in many ways, Despair encapsulates the artist’s work at large, if you capture it at the right angle. There’s plenty of contrast Despair that mirrors the variety of emotions experienced throughout the day during this time of year.
Not just via season but through current circumstances, too. The world is fucked up, and through sonic exploration, melondruie paints an accurate picture of it on Despair. A good starting point for those yet to delve into their extensive body of work.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Snakeskin Interview: “We always find the best way to move forward”
Mitternacht: Heavy Entertainment
Self-released
The project of Wirral-based experimentalist Jonny Davis Le Brun, the Rongorongo member returns with his third full-length release this decade with Heavy Entertainment.
No one Mitternacht release is the same, and following the sun-drenched sounds of Bask (2020) and the environmental-inspired The Snake (2021), Heavy Entertainment retreats into new corners. Namely the loft, where these compositions were conceived. The result? Everything from sprawling techhouse best consumed somewhere between Berghain and a sunbed overlooking the Mediterranean.
There’s no point in Thom Yorke following up ANIMA, because this is essentially the point where he should have gone. In what is yet another change in pace and direction for the Merseyside producer, undoubtedly there will be a few more before this decade ends.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Modern Silent Cinema: The Man Who Stopped and Stared at the Clouds
Self-released
In December, New York DIY lifer, Cullen Gallagher, released three long-players which largely consisted of past recordings. The pick, the score to the 2022 film, The Man Who Stopped and Stared at the Clouds.
Consisting of 11 largely acoustic-based pieces, there’s a wintry, windswept essence to these recordings, making them perfect to consume in this current freeze.
Oscillating between Jarmuschian weirdness and big-hearted melodies, it’s these range of emotions that make these recordings a must. A pick me up that untangles the mind-knots during these exceedingly grim times.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
David Moore: Graze the Bell
RVNG Intl.
Through the lens of Bing & Ruth and various collaborations, most recently alongside Steve Gunn (Let the Moon Be A Planet – 2023) and Cowboy Sadness (Selected Jambient Works, Vol. 1 – 2024), David Moore has forged the kind of path that sparkles.
Which is no surprise that the New York artist unveils something with the emotional pull of Graze the Bell. Nine piano-based compositions that frame a certain sort of melancholy, Moore sculptures the kind of pieces that will stay with you for years.
Not a world away from Bing & Ruth’s 2017 LP, No Home of the Mind, Graze the Bell feels more cerebral. A headphones endeavour, and despite its minimalism, Moore manages to present something beautifully immersive.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Lonely Planet: In Conversation with Michael Grigoni & Pan-American’s Mark Nelson
Pefkin: Unfurling
Morctapes
Under the Pefkin moniker, Sheffield-based experimentalist, Gayle Brogan, covers more new space across the Northern Britain terrains with her latest and fourth for Gent, Belgium label, Morc, in Unfurling.
With a mélange of instruments picked from her arsenal, Brogan creates the kind of ghostly folk drone made for these colder months. It’s a step back into more innocent times, as these compositions call to mind the environment and how central its role is to our inner-core. Consumerism, evaporated by sound.
The world of Pefkin forever shifts, which is indicative of life. No one moment is the same, and this mirrors the music of Pefkin. In the case of Unfurling, it’s Brogan’s most haunting and expansive release so far.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Shine Grooves: Free Waltz
Artificial Owl Recordings
For those who like their ambient composition up in the clouds, Shine Grooves’ Free Waltz is the ticket.
The project of Yekaterinburg, Russia’s Andrey Kurokhtin, Free Waltz finds the producer compiling tracks recorded between 2016 and 2024. While these lofty dreamscapes are tailormade for high altitudes, there just as much great companions for candlelight dinners if that’s your thing.
Either way, there’s a lounge-ambient vibe where Kurokhtin finds a node that leads to somewhere transcendental. Despite being recorded over eight years, there’s a seamlessness to Free Waltz, which dovetails nicely with so many releases within the ambient music enclave. Choose your fighter but make sure to take Shine Grooves along for the ride.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Sulk Rooms: Rewilding
Frosti
Not before finishing in our Top 50 Albums of 2025 with his Two Way Mirrors release Endure, Thomas Ragsdale ended the year with his latest Sulk Rooms long-player, Rewilding.
One of the many fine December releases that flew under the radar, Ragsdale capped off another stellar year, with a series of pulsating compositions designed to guide you all the way to the dancefloor.
It’s another beautiful journey through Ragsdale’s native Yorkshire, and alongside fellow county dwellers, Carven Faults and worriedaboutsatan, through sound, Ragsdale covers every blade of grass across it. Rewilding, another multi-dimensional journey that offers many possibilities.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
VROUW!: VOS
Rheinschallplatten
Another release from the backend of 2025, VROUW! are the Berlin-based noise act featuring Tavare’s Tristen Bakker (bass, voice) and Angela Muñoz (percussionist, voice), and alongside Agnė Auželytė (keyboard, voice), Kata Kovács (amplified objects, voice) and Lisa Simpson (synths, voice), the collective take noise to interesting places.
A melting pot of ideas inspired by the various disciplines and cultures from which they hail (not limited to Lithuania, Hungary, Canada and Spain), VROUW! intersect slowcore and psychedelia twisting it around the framework of noise and the avant-garde.
The results are subtlety pulverising. Bakker’s bass weight, the backbone to these recordings, and while VOS is the collective’s first serving, here’s hoping it’s just the start.
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[…] for a tree / chiaroscuro. In a similar vein to Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore’s recent collaboration release, both dovetail nicely with each […]