Given the thriving nature of the experimental space, it feels strange that this is only our second Weirdo Rippers of 2026. We’ve toyed with the idea of making the feature a more regular occurrence, but it’s a balancing act. Content overload is never something we’ll adhere to, and so far this year, most will notice a slight reduction in our weekly schedule.
Due to several factors, this is by design, and we will continue to present the site this way. This is despite the growing external pressures of scattergun requests that feed into the transactional nature of a modern day world. This space doesn’t exist for that, and we’ll always try to combat it.
Trying to whittle down our latest edition to under 25 releases has probably contributed to the delay in letting this out into the wilderness. The new release schedule, comprising of a deluge of new sounds and ideas that it’s impossible to be across all of it.
And that’s not the hardest part of this feature and others like it. Trying to figure out an intro to bore you all with, often the greatest task. I mean, what’s changed other than things becoming progressively that much worse? A world seemingly beyond parody. But for those who are still harbouring some optimism, we can at least be thankful that the experimental space across the new music landscape remains the most fertile.
And following the likes of new releases from Pan-American, Tashi Dorji, Cleared, Rafael Anton Irisarri and Winterwood, here’s what else has lead the line over the past couple of months.
João Alegria: O Meu Desígnio é Obscuro
Adventurous Music
João Alegria moves outside of the paradigm on his latest release, O Meu Desígnio é Obscuro – the first of two albums in this feature via the excellent Adventurous Music.
Consisting of electric guitar and field recordings, the experimentalist deliberately moves beyond conventional song structures towards the bleakest corners. Think Tashi Dorji wresting with The Dead C, however there’s no droning undercurrents that fuck with your internal organs here. It’s more of a starkness in slow motion.
Which makes O Meu Desígnio é Obscuro ripe for features like this. It’s composition that sits outside the circle, which effectively is what experimentalism is all about. On O Meu Desígnio é Obscuro, Alegria doesn’t stretch the boundaries, he’s forever operating beyond them.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Brass Clouds, Fog Net & Volcanic Pinnacles: Dive 2: Sonoluminescence
Bathysphere Records
Los Angeles label, Bathysphere, never miss, and their latest release is like a compilation that encompasses everything in their world.
Dive 2: Sonoluminescence is a sonic exploration between label mainstays, Brass Clouds, Fog Net and Volcanic Pinnacles. A smattering of wandering jazz and open-sourced ambience that guides you to peaceful milieus.
A label spoken of throughout these pages, for those new to the world of Bathysphere, what Brass Clouds, Fog Net and Volcanic Pinnacles offer on Dive 2: Sonoluminescence is something of a taster of the label’s accomplishments over the past two years.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Demetrio Cecchitelli & Stefan Christoff: Andare Oltre
Oscarson
Stefan Christoff is one of the most beautiful pianists plying their trade in underground music. Via the many collaborations where he has featured alongside the likes of Aidan Baker, Nour Sokhon, Sam Shalabi and, more recently, Ben Brown, the Montreal-based composer returns alongside Italian experimentalist, Demetrio Cecchitelli.
Andare Oltre sees both artists meet for an ambient soundtrack that moves through the decay of inner cities. Buildings that are the last vestiges of an old world as gentrification consumes, providing inspiration to these pieces.
It’s weighty yet weightless, brought about by Christoff’s emotive style across the ivories, and alongside Cecchitelli who provides the subtle textures and embellishments, Andare Oltre is something that bathes you in beauty.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Stuart Cook: Weightless Heavy Ideas Fall Curiously
Frosti
Bristol experimentalist, Stuart Cook, returns for his debut cut on Thomas Ragsdale’s Frosti label, and what an inclusion it is.
Weightless Heavy Ideas Fall Curiously comes as advertised. Cook’s fascination with modular synths, extending beyond his previous solo releases as well as his endeavours in Capac, as the gadget wrangler occupies new space – namely the cinema where these pieces seem tailored for, making this new alliance with Frosti a fitting one.
There’s a brooding minimalism on Weightless Heavy Ideas Fall Curiously, and it’s something of a first for Cook. A whirring from the world’s underbelly, where he exposes a darkness indicative of these times.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Drexler: Olympia-5
Sonder House
Under the alias of Drexler, if you can listen to Adrian Leung’s Olympia-5 without welling up, then you’re probably dead inside.
The London-based composer from Australia / Hong Kong wrote Olympia-5 in response to his father’s relapse with lymphoma, which left him in hospital care for over six months.
For Drexler, composing became a way to process the possibility of loss, and these 16 compositions mirror the emotional intensity such situations command. For those who have been in similar situations, Leung’s compositions on Olympia-5 resonate to the deepest parts of the soul. It’s a sadness that you can’t escape.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Laurel Halo: Midnight Zone (Original Soundtrack to the Film by Julian Charrière)
Awe
Laurel Halo makes minimalism seem immersive. How? Only she knows, and on the Midnight Zone (Original Soundtrack to the Film by Julian Charrière), the influential producer is at her absolute peak.
Imagine Kali Malone getting expansive in churches. That’s the kind of sound Halo provides throughout these compositions, which are like a cerebral sound bath where the drone radiates everything around you, and beyond.
It’s Laurel Halo at her all-encompassing best. Midnight Zone’s production, so vast and pure that it lifts these compositions into a new stratosphere. And one in the world of OST where Halo stands completely on her own. Simply put, there won’t be a better one composed all year.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Chihei Hatakeyama: Unconsciousness Silence
Constellation Tatsu
Chihei Hatakeyama continues the theme of the immersive experience. On his latest full-length release, Unconsciousness Silence, the producer is the purveyor of something that sounds like it’s been conceived in a glass box that somehow hangs in the clouds.
So translucent and far reaching, think Fennesz dabbling in post-rock. The soundwaves, lapping up to the corners of your mind as swelling drones hit like an endorphin rush.
It’s beautiful stuff, and another from Constellation Tatsu who, based on the evidence so far, are having a flagship year. Hatakeyama’s Unconsciousness Silence, the leading light from the label so far.
Out April 24. Pre-order here.
Marcelo Mallado: Ya no ataredece
Buh Records
Cusco-based experimentalist, Marcelo Mallado, makes his Buh Records debut with something that breaks through the walls that lead to the fourth world.
Ya no ataredece captures the humidity of Mallado’s native Peru, with the kind of heady soundscapes not a world away from ambient music’s touchstones. But with more grit, these long-form compositions are something inspired by the street level.
It’s this that is Ya no ataredece’s hallmark card. Experimentalism has a habit of being hemmed in by academia and the chin-stroking privilege. This isn’t that, though. Mallado captures something infinitely real here, to the point where you can feel the civic vitality coursing through his compositions.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Mere of Light: Heat of Ritual
Lighten Up Sounds
Mere of Light is the brainchild of New Orleans-based electro-acoustic harpist, Elise McCardle, who on her third album, Heat of Ritual, unveils a hothouse of ideas.
The harp being a focal point, McCardle dismantles so many traditional ideas throughout her compositions. At times mediative where all roads lead to the drone; at others, she infiltrating the landscapes of pop music and sound design.
It makes for something bravely original. Blurring the lines between the conventional and radical, McCardle creates something that stands on its own. And the more time spent with Heat of Ritual, the more it’s apparent that McCardle is methodically building her own, evolving world.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Mosaic Tapes: Diary#8
Sonic Dialogue
Mosaic Tapes is the project of a London artist whose best work has been achieved in the shadows. Diary#8 comes up on you slowly. A collage-based series of compositions that moves between sound worlds akin to the soundtrack of Iain Banks’ Transition.
There’s so much going on in these recordings that it’s hard to keep up from one track to the next. From echoes of Labradford to muted ambience of early Tim Hecker, it’s a rich tapestry of ambient-based sounds that you can’t help but play on a loop.
As their name suggests, Mosaic Tapes is the creator of multi-portals on Diary#8. A shimmering sound world that changes colours and shapes every time you listen to it. It’s some achievement.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Craven Faults Interview: “I always appreciated being in the background”
Nondi_: Nondi…
Planet Mu
Planet Mu have scoured the ends of the earth to give voice to the most innovative artists throughout the world, and Nondi_ is the latest.
On Nondi…, the Johnstown, Pennsylvania artist dispatches something akin to an NTS takeover. Straddling orbits between high-octane electronica, minimalism and footwork, the producer is creator of something that is a rainbow coalition of sound that gets the heart pumping.
Nondi… is for a time where you can meet adversity head on. Soundscapes that ceaselessly move against the tide, Nondi_’s open-sourced approach offers great possibilities. And ones that are sometimes beyond belief.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Paperclip Minimiser: Paperclip Minimiser
Peak Oil
The most exciting electronic producer to come out of Manchester since Andy Stott? Got your attention? Good, because you need this in your life.
The debut from the new alias of Manchester producer and Cong Burn label boss, John Howes, Paperclip Minimiser’s eponymous release takes you back to when music felt like it could change the world. Namely 2006, as Howes stitches together the kind of vibrant sounds on a variety of gadgets. (Namely the Nord Modular G2, Elektron Machinedrum, and Monomachine.)
Paperclip Minimiser feels like a place where maximalist producers like Rusty should have gone. That brief moment in history felt a little bit disposable, but what Howes creates here is something multi-dimensional that catapults you into the future.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Perpets: The Wire Shed
East Cape Calling
Perpets are the duo that features Zac Winterwood and Antony Milton who together released their first music under East Cape Calling with In the Wire Shed.
The duo utilise the shed, a historic building isolated on farmland located on the outer fringe of New Zealand’s Greytown in the Wairarapa District. And it’s here where the duo capture a series of beautiful field recordings that crystallise largely uninhabited space.
Like Old Saw and Henry Birdsey’s latest endeavours, this is rustic minimalism where its practitioners share their own everyday realities with the listener. And by doing this, what Winterwood and Milton achieve here underlines the beauty of nature and how most of us continue to neglect it for a world of instant gratification and doom scrolling brain rot. A world that needs far more of the peace that In the Wire Shed offers.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Picking / Gnarled Fingers: Picking / Gnarled Fingers
Cruel Nature Records
With dreadscapes that don’t just lift lift fur, instead tearing it right off, this is a visceral communication between Charlie Butler and Gnarled Fingers.
Under the Picking alias, Butler feverishly moves up and down he fretboard with the kind of screeching noisescapes that have you cowering into dark corners. Inspired by a habit of gnawing at finger nails, it’s an apt reflection.
Meanwhile Gnarled Fingers surges from the abyss, sounding like Sunn O))) on the anabolics. Heady stuff and together, this split is brutal noise that darkens the door. Enter through it at your peril.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Isabel Pine: Fables
Kranky
Kranky newcomer, Isabel Pine is yet another finding content in open space and the environment, mirroring it beautifully through sound.
On her kranky debut, Fables, the trained violinist uses minimalism to evoke sweeping, slow-motion drama that results in unhurried bliss. It’s composition to let wash over you, guiding you to the same fantastical places as Julianna Barwick.
Evocative and emotive in equal measure, Fables is one of the more understated releases across the experimental landscape so far this year. But in all its subtlety, Pine delivers one of the most radiant, too.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Linden Pomeroy: The Cat Sang Out
Ramble Records
No one brings primitive guitar like Ramble Records, and the return of Linden Pomeroy continues to see the Melbourne label as the leading lights in this space.
The U.K. devotional guitarist returns with The Cat Sang Out. The sister album to last year’s Other Downlands. And it’s more tangled beauty from the experimentalist where you can feel the locality steeped in these pieces.
Folk music in the U.K. has been hit and miss this decade, largely brought about by the lack of honesty in the music. Alongside James Blackshaw, Pomeroy waves the flag as high as any other up and down the country. The Cat Sang Out, another stellar collection.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Score Interview: “I aim to capture that good feeling when I’m making music”
Samsuo: Wait and See
Adventurous Music
Leipzig’s Adventurous Music are on a track for their best year yet, and with so many good releases so far, perhaps Samsuo is at the top of the tree.
The U.K.-based experimentalist is the exponent of some stunning works on their latest, Wait and See. With soft voiceovers bubbling underneath the mix, it’s like a conversation that takes place between two different worlds.
Oscillating between warmth and disconnect, Samsuo rides the emotions we all feel during each passing day. A distance that becomes more and more apparent, and through bourgening, glacial-like sound textures, on Wait and See, Samsuo may have just made the record that is the perfect union between ambient and sound design.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Untethered: Phronesis
Self-released
The latest adventure that trumpeter Paul Giess takes us on is via his Untethered moniker on Phronesis.
Flanked by the mind-bending drummer, Grant Calvin Weston, and bassist Timothy Ragsdale, Untethered comes as advertised. Recorded at The Rotunda in West Philadelphia, this is 14 tracks where the trio dismantle the core principles of jazz. Total astral bliss as the trio dispense the kind of sounds that blow the mind.
The musicianship on offer here is next level, as tempo shifts undulate, turning on a dime that almost feels like something akin to an acid trip. It’s musicianship in the most dynamic form, revealing different things at each time of listening.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Ben Seretan & John Thayer: Sunbeam of No Illusion
AKP Recordings
There are sound baths and then there’s what Ben Seretan & John Thayer deliver with Sunbeam of No Illusion.
On their latest release, the New York duo have captured summer in a bottle. An orchestration of slow-motion, sunroof sway where every sound glitters. It’s for lush open fields to let the sun pour down and rest on your bones.
While this is certainly true, there’s also a spirituality that connects the mind, body and soul with these recordings.. It’s not hippified, though, instead the duo utilising the environment as a vessel. Out of all the releases in this latest WR edition, Sunbeam of No Illusion is the most captivating.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Joachim Spieth: Vestige
Affin Records
Another year, another adventure through new parts of Joachim Spieth’s sound world.
Following the German electronic architect’s various collaborations alongside blood brothers, Markus Guentner and zake, Vestige finds Spieth travelling through more portals.
On Vestige, dub pierces its way through the mix, taking ambient techno to the upper reaches. It’s hardly surprising that such watershed moments come from Spieth. This decade, he’s been the most consistent voice in this space, and it doesn’t change here.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Trem 77: Aepochs
Grape Mod Recs
Following their compelling release alongside Catharae earlier in the year, Bristol producer, Trem 77 goes it alone on Aepochs.
Like its artwork suggests, Aepochs is masterfully woven with threads that form the patchwork of life. With soundscapes that could be listened to in solitude, the greenroom or the dark corners of club land, Aepochs is a multi-purpose concern for all moods.
It’s the embodiment of the Trem 77 experience. From kranky to Kompakt and everything in between, it’s composition that everyone can relate to, encapsulating life and all walks of it.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Wahn: Echo Mist Light
Mahorka
Rennes, France producer, Wahn, explores electronica in devastating ways, and their latest, Echo Mist Light, the producer unveils their watershed moment.
This is dynamic stuff, with sub bass central to their ideas. It’s cerebral, ambient techno that hits with power and precision, rumbling with tonal ecstasy from the ground all the way through your body.
It’s all about the layers, of which there are so many. And with melodic weight carrying these tracks, alongside the likes of Joachim Spieth and Markus Guentner, Wahn has delivered one of the finest electronic releases so far this year with Echo Mist Light.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Worriedaboutsatan: No Knock No Doorbell
This Is It Forever
A fitting way to end this latest WR edition, in his twentieth year in operation under the worriedaboutsatan guise, it’s no surprise that Gavin Miler releases (you guessed it) his twentieth album!
No Knock No Doorbell sees the Yorkshire producer at the top of his game. All cut and thrust and multi-layered majesty, Miller melts post-rock into IDM in ways only he knows how.
It’s probably all been said about worriedaboutsatan but like his twentieth album in as many years, the timing of No Knock No Doorbell is somewhat frightening. Just look at the moniker itself – a scarily prescient snapshot as the world continues to crumble. And on that note until next time (if there is one).
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
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