Sonic Coordinators

Different Noises 132

A comprehensive journey through some of the best new underground music out there. The underlying message is to challenge convention and do something no-one has done before.

AUDIO

PLAYLIST

• Newt - Acetoned ¹

• Ecce Shnak - Katy’s Wart ²

• Gnod - Shadow Mirror ³

• The Junta - Bullet Train ⁴

• Jah Wobble and Jon Klein - Fading Away ⁵

• Nevaris - Ninth Sun (Live) ⁶

• Tombstones In Their Eyes - You Never Have To Love Me ⁷

• Pan•American - Death Cleaning ⁸

• Julia Hülsmann Octet - Hora Azul ⁹

• Leila Bordreuil + Kali Malone - Intersecting Planes II ¹⁰

• Christopher Shultis - Circlings ¹¹

• Stephanie Lamprea and Alistair MacDonald - Creation Myth 1 ¹²

• Zack Browning - Cosmic Changes ¹³

• Ben Sidran - We The People ¹⁴

• The Go-Betweens - German Farmhouse (Larry Crane Rough Mix)¹⁵

• Clare Moore - User Friendly ¹⁶

• Auster Boys - The Iso Principle/Perichoresis/Slivers 2026 ¹⁷

• The Junta - Ergonomic (Ergomaniac Remix) ¹⁸

• Mark Snarski - I’ll Keep It As Safe As I Can ¹⁹

• Salem Trials - Sticks n Stones ²⁰

• 2 Lost Souls - Sinking/Step Forward/The Better Man ²¹

• The Parasite - Bitter Tears ²²

• Moff Skellington - aspyn unsted fructum tote ²³

• Half Man Half Biscuit - Record Store Day ²⁴

NOTES

1. Italian band Newt. has released ‘Acetoned’, the single / video taken from their upcoming debut album ‘Voider’ which will be released on February 27, 2026 via Ostia Records. The sonic coordinates are rooted in the heart of the ‘90s, with references to Pixies, Melvins, Tad, Mudhoney, Nirvana, and Motorpsycho: a heterogeneous blend that holds together power and melodic tension, abrasiveness and immediacy, in the name of an analog, unfiltered aesthetic. To complete the picture, the album’s mastering was entrusted to Jack Endino (Nirvana, Mudhoney), an iconic name from that era. With the conviction that 1993 was the last truly happy year and that ‘Aliens’ remains an unsurpassed pinnacle of cinema, with ‘Voider’, Newt. seek a balance between present and past, reworking a recognizable sonic heritage into a personal and contemporary form, capable of maintaining its expressive power intact.

2. Serving as a bridge towards their full-length album ‘Dandy Variances’ album, out later this year via Records, Man Records, NYC outfit Ecce Shnak deliberately revisit ‘Katy’s Wart’, a hidden gem originally released on their 2019 ‘Joke Oso’ album. Telling a visceral tale of justice, the new video introduces a cruel madman, who finally meets his end at the hands of five purple goddesses of righteous vengeance. The story is presented in two formats: as a three-minute ‘Animated Music Feelm Version’, and an immersive ten-minute ‘Extended Feelm Version’ with a dramatic backstory that builds tension and context, centered on a well-dressed maniac lacking basic human dignity, whose harmful acts finally trigger a cosmic intervention. The heroic twin sisters, played by Rachael Rae Robertson and Rebecca Robertson, ultimately fend him off with the help of otherworldly agents of chaotic justice. In a supernatural animated turning point, five spirits are conjured to deliver him a dose of instant karma. A blistering indictment of bigotry and cruelty, this surreal narrative was brought to life through a collaboration with some of the industry’s most innovative creative minds. The project’s striking visual identity is the work of the production-direction team of Hollye Bynum and Sam Owens, as well as the band’s own David Roush. The eery and mind-boggling animation was crafted by the industry titans at Titmouse Productions.

3. Now in their twentieth year of uncompromising and mind-bending music, Gnod return with Chronicles of Gnowt Vol. 1, the first of a planned trilogy, to be released via Rocket Recordings on 10th April. Vol.2 should arrive in October and Vol. 3 in early 2027. Preview is provided via the track “Shadow Mirror”. I am only interested in people engaged in a project of self-transformation,” Susan Sontag once remarked. Sontag never had the chance to work out how she felt about Gnod, given she sadly left this earthly realm in 2004. Yet Gnod’s now twenty year journey through spiritual and audial exploration has been nothing if not that. Driven by relentless curiosity, magpie irreverence and a fierce countercultural imperative, their project has always refused to acknowledge all or any rules and boundaries, internal or external. The latest adventure of this band may never have been intended to celebrate their two-decade anniversary, but as long-time Gnod member Paddy Shine notes, they don’t always have a lot of say in these matters –“I know that we didn’t plan it this way but perhaps it was always in the plan and we just didn’t know it,” he notes cryptically. “I guess what I’m saying is that the Gnod thing seems to have its own energy now and certain things tend to take care of themselves”. “We haven’t reflected too heavily on the twenty year mark and maybe we shouldn’t, but I’m glad we are marking it in true Gnod fashion by releasing too many albums” he laughs –indeed, what began as a trip into a residential studio setup in Hellfire Studios with producer John ‘Spud’ Murphy (Lankum, Black MIDI, Caroline) for six days resulted in more potent material than anyone bargained for. “Working with Spud was probably the best studio experience we’ve had,” Paddy notes. “He was open to all our ideas, facilitated them the best he could and always had great suggestions. The vibe was right and things just flowed”. The end result has been three studio albums to be released over the next year. “This trilogy revealed itself to us in the studio,” says Paddy. “We were hoping to get a good album out of the session and lo and behold we got three of the fuckers. It’s interesting that we did pretty much capture the full spectrum of the Gnod sound across all three”.

4. A new single from Salford’s very own Jean Michelle Jarre - a little more out there this time. Infectious grooving from Monty.

5. The iconic Jah Wobble has teamed up with guitarist Jon Klein on ‘Automated Paradise’, their third collaborative album and debut album as a duo with Dimple Discs. Out March 27th, this eight-track collection is previewed by the invigorating lead track ‘Fading Away’, a track that pulsates with motorik drive and the raw electrical tension of British post-punk and new wave, its shimmering progressive layers seemingly surging through the circuits of life itself. The pairing of post-punk legends Jah Wobble (Public Image Ltd.) and Jon Klein (Specimen, Siouxsie & The Banshees) is no coincidence. Initially combining forces on the ‘Metal Box – Rebuilt In Dub’ album, released in 2021, they continue to collaborate - both live and creating music in the studio.

6. Manhattan-based artist with the lead track from his forthcoming ‘SoundSession’ EP, a fruitful and soulful extended improvisation that also brings in Afro-Latin, dub and funk elements. ‘SoundSession’ follows the path Nevaris set out on with his debut album ‘Reverberations’, released in 2023 via M.O.D. Reloaded, earning praise from the one and only Carlos Santana as “a work of supreme creativity”. ‘SoundSession’ is the fourth collaboration between percussionist Agustín Nevaris, legendary bassist-producer Bill Laswell, and this particular lineup of musicians. The nine-piece ensemble involvd in this live studio recording includes DJ Logic, Jonathan Maron, Angel Rodriguez, Will Bernard, Peter Apfelbaum, Jojo Kuo, Lockatron and Matt Dickey.

7. LA psych-rock outfit Tombstones In Their Eyes present the single ‘You Never Have to Love Me’, occupying the uneasy space between collapse and clarity, tracing a moment where survival demands self-reckoning and the realization that repair begins from within. It is showcased by a superb layered and colour-rich video by Francesca Bonci, who earlier created videos for the singles ‘Under Dark Skies’ and Alive and Well’, dedicated to guitarist Paul Boutin, who recently lost his battle with cancer. The track is lifted from the band’s latest (and now acclaimed) album ‘Under Dark Skies’, released via Little Cloud Records (North America) and Shore Dive Records (UK and EU). Recorded and engineered by Paul Roessler (The Screamers, Nina Hagen, 45 Grave) at Kitten Robot Studios, which was co-produced by John Treanor and mastered by multi-platinum engineer Alex DeYoung at DeYoung Masters (Michael Jackson, BTS, Macy Gray, The Linda Lindas, TSOL). “’You Never Have to Love Me’ was written in September 2023 during a fertile period of writing. I was not doing well emotionally, and there was no intended meaning to the song as I wrote it. But as I look back on it now, this song seems to be about acknowledging my failures and attempting to find grace. The idea that “you never have to love me” is really about how I first need to love myself before I can attempt to make things right,” says John Treanor. “There are a lot of musicians on this track, with 3 guitar players, 6 people contributing vocals, 2 bass players and 1 drummer and 1 keyboard player. We split the bass parts as Joel was not longer going to be in the band and Nic was coming back in. I had them both do parts and we used some of each. Phil did an amazing outro guitar part that to me is a highlight of the song.”

8. Pan•American, the musical project of Mark Nelson, announces a return with a new album titled Fly The Ocean In A Silver Plane out on kranky March 20th. Commenting on the album, he says, “Having experienced the arrival of my children, the decline and departure of my parents, and the many years of venturing out and returning home in my own life, travel feels like the perfect tropology to consider the mysteries we inhabit. The music on this record is a reflection of journeys and travel. The real world kind and the metaphorical ones as well. Having experienced the arrival of my children, the decline and departure of my parents, and the many years of venturing out and returning home in my own life, travel feels like the perfect tropology to consider the mysteries we inhabit. Travel and its impressions, rituals, superstitions - the possibilities and risk - all open up onto the landscape of our biggest questions, fear and wonder. The songs on Fly the Ocean In A Silver Plane were recorded at home over the last couple years. I played electric guitar, rubber bridge acoustic guitar, Ableton Live and an Electron Digitone synth. My friend Mallory Linnehan aka Chelsea Bridge contributed beautiful violin and vocals to a couple of the songs. We recorded those performances on a summer afternoon in Chicago at the Not Not space with the windows open”.

9. After the acclaimed run of quartet recordings from Not Far From Here (2019), The Next Door (2022) to Under The Surface (2025), German pianist Julia Hülsmann has decided to alter the narrative and up the ante with a newly formed octet of instrumentalists and vocalists. On While I Was Away Julia combines the line-up of a classical trio (violin, cello, piano) with a common jazz piano trio and invites three singers to join in for a program of adventurous originals, an individual take on Ani DiFranco’s 1999 hit “Up Up…” and a breezy Brazilian tune by songwriters Zélia Fonsesca and Rosanna Tavares. The music is often combined with lyrics of renown writers, for instance Emily Dickinson, Margaret Artwood and E.E. Cummings. A wide pallet of musical connotations unfolds, as Brazilian dance, musical-like storytelling, chamber music dynamics and passages of dense, free improvisation colour a fluorescent picture of a fierce ensemble. The musicians of Julia’s octet are: Eva Klesse, Eva Kruse, Susanne Paul, Héloïse Lefebvre, Michael Schiefel, Aline Frazão and Live Maria Roggen.

10. Cellist Leila Bordreuil and organist Kali Malone announce their collaborative album, Music For Intersecting Planes, due via Ideologic Organ on 20th March and produced in collaboration with La Becque Editions. Recorded at night by candlelight in the Temple of La Tour-de-Peilz, Music for Intersecting Planes captures the immediacy of sound in space. Leila and Kali join in a work of austere, ritualistic presence, where the granularity of air, the vibration of strings, feedback, and subdued sine waves intersect in sculptural form. Minimal in means yet expansive in effect, the music slowly unfolds like beads on a thread, punctuated by silence and deep breaths. Bellows whistle within feathered string harmonics, interference patterns pulsate throughout the chapel, and the environment itself becomes part of the composition, with ringing church bells and motorcycles passing in the distance. Performed live in single takes, the music balances patience and intensity, composure and chance. The collaboration reveals new terrain: more tonal and composed than Bordreuil’s work, more textural and raw than Malone’s. Music for Intersecting Planes is both severe and tender, an elemental convergence of cello and organ that resonates with the timeless intrigue of acoustic phenomena.

11. Forests have inspired composers from Schubert to Messiaen, but Christopher Shultis takes it one step further with Waldmusik, a sonic chronicle of fourteen years of walking and listening. This cycle of compositions traces a personal and artistic evolution sparked by solitary walks in woodlands and mountains across the globe. The genesis of Waldmusik dates to a 2003 residency in Taos, New Mexico, where its core idea—”walking in woods / listening … / what I hear”—became a lifelong creative mantra. The album documents Shultis’s transformation as his daily practice of “sauntering,” inspired by Henry David Thoreau, quieted his mind and allowed the sounds of the natural world to become the music itself. “Waldmusik is not just a collection of pieces; it is a document of my journey to a place where I could truly listen,” says Shultis. “The woods of New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Korea, and Germany were where I learned to listen. This album is the sound of what I heard there.” The album offers a rich trail of acoustic and electroacoustic music, featuring an international cast of performers. The journey begins with “Circlings” (2010), a work for the Gyeonggi Gayageum Ensemble, electronics, and percussion, built from field recordings in South Korean temples and mountains.

12. The five transcendental works on the album Ecstatic Visions forge a deep connection between Stephanie Lamprea’s visceral vocal presence and the live electronics of composer Alistair MacDonald, playing with how the voice is embodied or liberated by technology. Sourcing texts from 12th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen and proto-feminist poet Juana Inés de la Cruz to AI-generated narratives, the album places historical visionaries and modern technology side by side as sacred oracles. The album’s program is a curated exploration of feminine vocality, technology, and creation myths. It includes:

• Angélica Negrón’s atmospheric Letras para cantar, a sensual setting of poetry by 17th century nun from New Spain, Juana Inés de la Cruz.

• Alistair MacDonald’s immersive Ecstatic Visions, commissioned for the Glasgow Cathedral Festival. It forges Lamprea’s voice with the sound of the cathedral’s great bell and Hildegard von Bingen’s writings on gemstones and visions, creating a series of kaleidoscopic, multi-channel illusions.

• Wende Bartley’s Ellipsis maps the three phases of the moon (waxing, full, and waning), in association with three archetypes of woman (virgin, mother, and crone).

• Eric Chasalow’s The Fury of Beautiful Bones, a powerful setting of Anne Sexton’s raw confessional poetry, where the electronic part stretches the voice into impossible, resonant shapes.

• Robert Laidlow’s (featured is the first of them) Post-Singularity Songs, a monodrama featuring a creation myth co-authored with ChatGPT. The work blends Laidlow’s writing with poetry by Emily Dickinson and John Donne, and text from a specially created poetry-generating AI, exploring themes of dust, death, and free will in a digital universe.

13. Across decades of creative exploration, composer Zack Browning has shaped a singular musical language—one that fuses the refined architectures of art music with the visceral pulse of pop. What began as two distinct paths, one as a classically trained trumpeter and the other as a pop pianist, converged in the mid-1980s when Browning reached a decisive artistic turning point: a commitment to composing music that, in the spirit of Herbert Brün, “makes the composer necessary.” From that moment, he developed a personal compositional system rooted in the Flying Star System of feng shui and planetary magic squares, sources of structure and inspiration for the eight works on this album. These compositions use birth dates, historical moments, and cultural events, transforming them into musical structures that shape melodic gestures, harmonic fields, and rhythmic vitality. Each piece feels simultaneously contemporary classical and pop-inspired—music forged with energy derived from mathematics, mythologies, and the human stories that animate our world. Rock Galaxy chosen track Cosmic Changes (2022), was written for MEMO Duo, channels the Five Element Theory, merging the energies of Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, and Metal with the magic squares of their corresponding planets. In Mercury Music (2021, rev. 2025), the birth date of Rosa Parks intertwines with the founding date of the Confederate States and the magic square of Mercury, shaping a powerful meditation on history and social change.

14. A timely reminder of the strange times we live in. Originally on a 2024 album , at the time Sidran said “Over the course of 55 years of making records I have done my best to avoid being political in my songwriting. My particular area of expertise tends to point toward the human condition. I was once even referred to as “the world’s first existentialist rapper” (by The Times of London). But you know what they say about how the personal is political. Despite all my best efforts, I have noticed a particular political thread running through many of the songs from my most recent albums. So I compiled a playlist - a collection of songs from the last handful of my releases that are particularly resonant in this election season. I called it Ballads for the Ballots.”

FEATURED RELEASES - descriptions in prior shows

15. G Stands for Go-Betweens Vol 3.

16. The Third Woman

17. Perichoresis - all of the tracks from the new EP

18. The B-Side of the new single

19. I Like To Leave A Place As If I Never Stayed

20. Tell EP

21. Sinking EP - part of the ongoing series of 12 new fortnightly releases

22. Dreams

23. Portrait of a Humble Tribe

24. All Azimov And No Fresh Air