Exploring the Jackhammer Sound and Dancefloor Alt-Rock of the Band Ashnymph and the Week's Top New Tracks

Based in London and Brighton
For fans of Underworld, MGMT, Animal Collective
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The pair of releases shared to date by the group Ashnymph are hard to categorise: their own description of the sound as “subconscioussion” doesn’t offer many clues. Debut Saltspreader blended a pounding industrial rhythm – guitarist Will Wiffen has occasionally been spotted on stage in a tee that displays the emblem of industrial metal pioneers Godflesh – with retro-style synths and a riff that partly brings to mind the Stooges’ garage rock perennial I Wanna Be Your Dog, before dissolving into a barrier of unsettling sound. Its intended effect, the trio have suggested, was to suggest road trips, “the grinding circulation of vehicles around the clock over vast spans … nighttime orange glows”.

The subsequent track, the song Mr Invisible, occupies a space between dance music and experimental rock. For one thing, the track’s rhythm, multiple entrancing electronic parts, and vocals that arrive either trippily blurred or hypnotically looped in a way that brings back the classic Underworld album era all suggest the club floor. Conversely, its powerful concert-like energy, brink-of-disorder feel and distortion – “achieving a crunchy texture is a personal mission,” Wiffen has said – mark it out as clearly a group effort rather than a lone electronic artist. They've gigged around the self-made music community of south London for a short time, “any venue that cranks the volume”.

But both are exciting and different enough – from each other and other current music – to prompt questions about the band's future direction. Regardless of the form, on the strength of these tracks, it’s unlikely to be boring.

This Week’s Best New Tracks

Hit My Head All Day by Dry Cleaning
“I really require adventures”​, vocalist Florence Shaw states on their enchanting new track, but over six minutes – with breath sounds keeping rhythm – you perceive that the motive eludes her.

Danny L Harle – Azimuth (ft Caroline Polachek)
Merging gothic intensity to the height of trance music – including the line “and I ask the rain” – the track implies digging out your Cyberdog attire and making your way to a rave, stat.

Robyn – Acne Studios mix
Robyn’s soundtrack for the the fashion brand's latest show teases her upcoming ninth album, including gritty guitars reminiscent of Soulwax, Benny Benassi-style thrust and the verse “my body’s a spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive”.

Jordana – Like That
Listeners adored her record Lively Premonition last year and the American artist continues to show off her impressive hook-crafting ability as she sings about a futile crush.

Molly Nilsson – Get a Life
The independent Swedish artist released her latest album Amateur this week, and this track from it is remarkable: a synth-guitar melody jerks forward at hardcore punk pace as the singer urges we take control of life.

Artemas' Superstar
Following tales of weary romance on his megahit I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its underrated parent mixtape Yustyna, the British-Cypriot star is wretchedly in thrall to his current partner amid icy synth-driven sound.

Jennifer Walton – Miss America
Off an impressive first record, a delicate electronic ballad about Walton learning of her father’s death in an airport hotel, tracing her uncanny surroundings in softly sung lines: “Retail area, shady transaction, nervous fits.”

Bonnie Lopez
Bonnie Lopez

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