Race To The Top

Different Noises 133

A new album from Hugo Race is always something to celebrate and he is in fine form on his latest, which kicks off the playlist. As for the rest, a selection of contrasting styles - starts loud, goes contemporary composition, gets ambient, features some current obsessions and then gets noisy again.

AUDIO

PLAYLIST

• Hugo Race Fatalists - Against The World ¹

• 2 Lost Souls - Unfunky ²

• Neon Crabs - Crisis On Infinite Crabs ³

• Bleak Squad - A Suitcase In Berlin ⁴

• Satellite Inn - Faded By Time ⁵

• The Ex-Bombers - In Music City ⁶

• FÄHM - Ruby ⁷

• Laclan X Morris - Illusionaires ⁸

• This House - Out in the Westlands ⁹

• Barbican Quartet - Enigma Variations Op.36 Nimrod ¹⁰

• Mativetsky Amiri Pagé - Metamorphose ¹¹

• Hannah Marshall - Peasantry (Except) ¹²

• Meredith Bates - 3rd incantation (binding) ¹³

• Anne Efternøler, Maria Laurette Friis, Johanna Borchert - A bitter comfort for no-one & me ¹⁴

• shrube - Flat Battery ¹⁵

• The Green Apple Sea - Dark Kid Episode 5 (Big Heart) ¹⁶

• The Go-Betweens - He Lives My Life (Larry Crane Rough Mix) ¹⁷

• Agent Starling - The Charm ¹⁸

• Half Man Half Biscuit - I’m Going Out Of My Mind Trying To Get Into Yours ¹⁹

• 2 Lost Souls - The Real Thing ²⁰

• Clare Moore - Parchman Farm ²¹

• Elkeyes - Thalassaphobia ²²

• Mark Snarski - I’ve Got A Bullet In My Heart And Fifteen Minutes To Tell You That I Love You ²³

• Moff Skellington - o me little peters gone to sea ²⁴

• Salem Trials - Impressed ²⁵

• Neon Crabs - Near To My Eye ²⁶

• The Parasite - Dreaming Out Of The Slow Lane ²⁷

• 2 Lost Souls - These Days ²⁸

• Aye Mammoth - Aetherium ²⁹

• Mad Professor - Africa 1983 Dub ³⁰

NOTES

1. I Made It All Up For You (2026) - “In his 40-year career, Hugo Race has lived a thousand lives and played the role of songwriter, producer, musician, performer, head of a record label (Helixed). His music went from folk to lounge, from “trance industrial blues” to psychedelia, from world music to electronics. Starting from post-punk Melbourne in the 1980s, he took fascinating paths that led him from Africa to Turkey, from Berlin to Romagna…”. Hugo Race returns after highly successful collaborative albums with Michelangelo Russo (100 Years), The Church frontman Steve Kilbey (Speed of the Stars) and Gianni Maraccolo (The Vigil, winner of the prestigious Premio Ciampi) with I Made It All Up For You, an epic album with his Italian band Fatalists - existential song-writing framed by the band’s signature fusion of roots music, electronica, Italian soundtracks and desert rock.

2. Unfunky (2026) - another EP in the 12 set series being released fortnightly via Half Edge Records

3. This Puppy Can See A Frog (2026) - Neon Crabs is the transatlantic project of Andy Goz (York, UK) on instrumentation and production with Matt Nauseous (Dallas, Texas) on lyrics and vocals, who have been collaborating since 2021. Both artists are involved with multiple long-running projects, including Neon Kittens (who expand the line-up on this release), The Legless Crabs, Occult Character, and Salem Trials, collectively releasing dozens of albums and singles across various labels and Bandcamp. Neon Crabs officially debuted in 2025 with the mini-album Make Things Better? on Half-Edge Records, followed by Drop It On Ya on Metal Postcard Records. This Puppy Can See A Frog, marks Neon Crabs’ first physical release. Sonically, Neon Crabs draw on the raw energy of Iggy and the Stooges, post-punk, and ’90s noise rock, distilling those influences into a fiercely DIY sound marked by manic intensity and a style that tends to divide opinion.

4. Black & White (2026) - Following the release of ‘Strange Love’; an album and (super-natural) group that seemingly appeared out of nowhere this year, Bleak Squad (Adalita / Mick Turner / Mick Harvey / Marty Brown) with their swift follow up, in form of a two track 7” - released by Poison City. Sometimes in life you have to make tough choices. And so it was with these two tracks ‘Black & White’ and ‘A Suitcase in Berlin’. Recorded during the sessions for ‘Strange Love’ they were both just as equally loved as the other tracks - but there’s only so many minutes of music one can fit on a record and album track orders are mysterious beasts, and one popped out that sadly hadn’t included these two songs. ‘A Suitcase in Berlin’ is Bleak Squads version of an old Marlene Dietrich song: ‘Ich Hab’ Noch Einen Koffer in Berlin’. Translated and arranged by Mick Harvey and actually the second version of it that Mick has recorded.

5. From Nowhere Revisited (2026) - In 2002, Satellite Inn were touring Italy as opening act and backing band for Robert Fisher, leader of Boston Americana legends Willard Grant Conspiracy. After a brief run of well-received shows with the band playing unreleased material, Robert was happy to lead the production of what should have been Satellite Inn’s new record, tentatively named From Nowhere. Robert and the band worked on four songs and the skeleton of an album was sent to North Carolina for approval. MoodFood Records went out of business and the band on lengthy hiatus, as well as the songs included in that demo. Fast-forward to 2024 and the band reconvenes to deliver a new album, Satellite Inn. Almost a decade since the sad death of Fisher, those lost songs reappear in a box of Satellite Inn’s unused master tapes. Satellite Inn are Stiv Cantarelli (guitar, vocals), Fabrizio Gramellini (bass), Antonio Perugini (drums, percussion)

6. In Music City (2026) - An absolute garage rock wrecking ball about unsavory happenings in Nashville. “It’s 2:11 of primal hooks, glam rock riffs, and a rhythm that can’t be stopped. The song is a tale as old as time: The bright lights bring us to the city, it nearly kills us, but once we get out, all we can think about is going back”.

7. Ruby (2025) - A local indie band from Newcastle NSW. Born out of the swamplands of Wallsend, Australia, FÄHM proudly deliver a cacophony of twisted tales in the Antipodean tradition. What began as a recording project in the back of a record store has since evolved into a fully-fledged live band. The track can only be described a musical journey through the fusion of Psychedelic Hillbilly Dirty Blues. The group is made up of Newcastle indie rock veterans: A gathering of likeminded demented souls seeking refuge in sound, a cacophony of twisted tales, accompanied by manic slide, aching violin and a thumping rhythm section. Their sound draws from classic influences like Tom Waits, The Beasts of Bourbon, The Scientists, The Gun Club, and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, all delivered with a fresh, authentic energy.

8. Illusionaires (2025) - Prolific songwriter, singer, and guitarist Lachlan Morris is a master purveyor of psych-tinged power pop. With his signature blend of intriguing retro elements and modern sensibilities, Lachlan creates a sound uniquely his own—one that resonates with both new listeners and longtime fans alike. His fifth LP, Illusionaires, is a stunning follow-up to the acclaimed Muscle Memory and Ouija Board Heartbreak Tambourine albums and was released on the 21st of November 2025. Illusionaires captures the band’s anachronistic flair for revival sounds mixed with sharp, suburban introspection—bittersweet hooks and blown-out power pop production at their finest.

9. Sofr Rains Will Come (2026) - this release merges poetry with post-rock, electronics, and experimental soundscapes wrapped in hypnotic rhythms, angular guitars, and vivid textures. Soft Rains is the second collaboration between G.W. Sok (from the legendary 70s Dutch punk band The Ex) and Spanish-born, Copenhagen-base electronic composer & improviser Ignacio Córdoba. Córdoba is a known for his cross-genre work in noise, jazz and electronic music. The pair are joined by Søren Høi - one of Denmark’s most inventive drummers, merging precision with unhinged creativity; and Kristian Tangvik brings his synthesizer work and improvisational sensibility from Copenhagen’s avant-garde scene. At its core, the record treats rhythm as architecture. Every instrument acts as percussion, each with its own colour and instability, orbiting around Høi’s asymmetric drumming and Sok’s unmistakable voice; songs that are repetitive yet constantly shifting, cycling through breaks and build-ups until the sound itself begins to disintegrate. Guitars scrape, synths pulse, and voices fall into noise. The thematic heart of the album lies in Sok’s lyrical meditations on politics, identity, relationships, and belonging.

10. Lux Intus (2026) - The highly acclaimed London-based Barbican Quartet, 1st prize winner of the 2022 ARD Music Competition, is one of the most sought-after young string quartets in Europe. Their new album Lux Intus (“Light Within”), invites listeners on a radiant journey through works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Rebecca Clarke, and Edward Elgar, culminating in a world premiere recording of a newly commissioned quartet by Sophia Jani. The album came out February 6, 2026 via Berlin Classics.

11. Metamorphose (2026) - Shawn Mativetsky (tabla), Amir Amiri (santur), and Sarah Pagé (processed harp) blend tradition and exploration with their first release. Experimental and traditional musics seem like strange bedfellows on the surface, but time and again one finds that the two fields have considerable overlap. With the new trio Mativetsky Amiri Pagé, there is precisely this blend of outlooks both individually and collectively. . Metamorphose incorporates aspects of Indian and Persian classical music and juxtaposes them with investigations of rhythm and colour in a hybrid sound that’s tough to pin down. It’s a singular vision that delves deep into the sound and mechanics of each player’s musical background, while leaving space for play and for all of these various threads to intertwine. Each of these three players is as nimble and adept as they are insightful, making for work that puts musicality above superficial displays of virtuosity. When rapid, invigorating passages emerge throughout these five collective creations, they serve to generate momentum and tension rather than foregrounding technique.

12. Grazing (2026) This solo release captures cellist Hannah Marshall at her most immediate and expressive, presenting improvisations that pulse with presence and physicality. Her playing radiates warmth and curiosity, offering thoughtfully shaped improvisations that feel both spontaneous and deeply grounded. The two tracks on the release are long so I have provided an excerpt.

13. The Observer Effect (2026) - Since her 2020 release If Not Now, award-winning Canadian violinist, violist, composer and improviser Meredith Bates has been slowly but steadily building a catalogue of long-form solo recordings that pull the sound of her base instruments in unexpected directions. Her last record, the acclaimed Tesseract (2023) stretched over more than two hours with six individual pieces, and charted an exhaustive continuum between texture and tone, cohesion and dissolution, dissonance and euphony, all the while thwarting clear allegiances to genre. Her forthcoming follow-up The Observer Effect (out 13 March 2026 on a double CD and digitally from phonometrograph) is just as substantial, unfolding an expansive and elusive structure in a similar vein to its predecessors while venturing into new conceptual and sonic territory. With its nearly 140 minutes of music, The Observer Effect still manages to feel more welcoming and immediate compared to Tesseract’s dense alien landscapes, even if its grounded thematically by a similar sense of psychic turmoil.

14. We are. Profoundly. Predisposed. To drowning. (2026) - The music of this trio is an ongoing conversation between three women about life as it unfolds between artistic practice and daily routines. Compassioned conversations about being someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s partner, someone’s friend seamlessly float into the musical sphere, where words and emotions are transformed into pitches, harmonies, rhythms and artistic gestures.

15. Green Shrube aka T.O.W. (2026) - Shrube are Owen Spence and William Gray (Blokeacola). They first got talking at secondary school in the 1990s. Both members of Leeds’ favourites The Smokestacks in the naughty noughties, it appeared their ability to collaborate was over with William’s move to Hangzhou, China (coincidentally a twin city of Leeds, where Owen resides). But the pals reconnected and put out ‘Yellow’ Shrube (or Weird Rules) in 2023. This has now been followed by ‘Blue’ Shrube in 2026, featured on a previous Different Noises. ‘Green’ Shrube (TOW) sees the duo wotking with ex Smokestacks drummer Thomas Michaelson delivering something akin to Khruangbin meets Pink Floyd, albeit instrumental.

16. Dark Kid (2026) - The theme running through the episodes on the album “Dark Kid” is Stefan Prange’s not always easy childhood and adolescence. The fact that his stepfather nicknamed his father “Satan” only seems a bit strange in retrospect. The fact that his stepbrothers chained him to a stair railing with a bicycle lock when no one else felt like watching him might seem a bit cruel in hindsight. But for 10-year-old Prange, it was nothing out of the ordinary. When he tells these stories and sings lines like “I wasn’t afraid to die, I was just waiting to die,” it’s meant with the same pragmatic naiveté with which the protagonist, “Dark Kid,” accepts his surroundings. “Dark Kid” isn’t about making the audience feel childhood trauma or depression. It’s about transforming sadness into melancholy, bitterness into a shrug, anger into an outstretched hand. The resulting folk songs are so smooth and gentle, so utterly timeless. The term “indie” is only used because The Green Apple Sea have always played in small clubs, stoically carrying on. They were one of the first bands to make this distinctly American music here in Germany. Long before the hype and long after.

17. Another track from the extensive G Stands for Go-Betweens Vol 3 set which I am methodically working my way through. Robert Forster’s tale of misplaced identity from The Friends of Rachel Worth is one of his best tunes.

18. Surrealista Enigma Musica (2026) featured album

19. All Asimov And No Fresh Air (2025) featured album

20. Track 2 from the Unfunky EP

21. The Third Woman (2001) featured album - “Parchman Farm” or “Parchman Farm Blues” is a blues song first recorded by American Delta blues musician Bukka White in 1940. It is an autobiographical piece, in which White sings of his experience at the infamous Mississippi State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Parchman Farm. Mose Allison adapted it for his own “Parchman Farm” and “New Parchman”, which are among his most popular songs.

22. Elkeyes (2026) featured release

23. I Like To Leave A Place As If I Never Stayed (2025) featured album

24. Portrait of a Humble Tribe (2026) featured album

25. Tell (2026) - featured release

26. The Dead Internet Radio Sessions (2026) An EP released by Half Edge Records - music for a radio session that never happened - if only they had asked me nicely

27. Dreams (2026) featured album

28. The final track from the Unfunky EP

29. Weedian : The Best Releases of January 2026 (2026) They have moved from location based collections to this new “Best Releases” approach. The featured track is from a trio based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and is originally from their Universe EP.

30. Dub Me Crazy The Second Chapter : Beyond The Realms Of Dub (1982) - classic early 80s dub from Mr Fraser