A stacked Friday led by Chanel Beads’ new Jagjaguwar album Your Day Will Come, our Album of the Week. Yasiin Bey returns with an essential reissue. Irish artist Goldbug shares his self-titled debut and Galway garage-punk trio Shark School release their debut Selachimorpha via Strange Brew. Beth Orton drops The Ground Above, Gold Panda returns with Ton Up and Texas noise-rock legends Butthole Surfers deliver their first album in 25 years. Plus new full-lengths from Pearl & The Oysters, Alewya, M. Geddes Gengras,Nectar Woode, and an EP from Makeshift Art Bar.
Nialler9 keeps a rolling list of Irish album releases for 2026.
New Albums and Releases
New Albums + EPs
Album of the week:
Chanel Beads – Your Day Will Come (Jagjaguwar)
A new release under the Chanel Beads name from Shane Lavers, the New York-based artist whose smear-on-tape, indie-pop-meets-glitched-electronic work has been one of the more singular voices in contemporary American underground music. The album has the same title as his 2024 debut that gave us the highlight keeper of ‘Police Scanner’.
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Lavers’ approach pulls warm guitar tones, dub-adjacent space and emotionally direct songwriting into one disarming spindly and melodic whole, and Your Day Will Come feels like his most direct statement yet.
yasiin bey / Mos Def – The Ecstatic
I would deem this 2009 album the second best solo album of Mos Def’s career (now Yasiin Bey) after his seminal 1999 debut Black On Both Sides, and it arrived on Qobuz streaming for the first time ever this week.
When The Ecstatic was released it marked a return to form for the artist who was off making films and neglecting his rap career. The album features productions from Madlib, Oh No, J Dilla, The Neptunes, Preservation and Mr. Flash, a memorable turn from Slick Rick on ‘Auditorium’, Georgia Anne Muldrow on ‘Roses’ and his Black Star partner Talib Kweli on the Dilla-buttressed ‘History’.
If I was to take one song from this record, it would be the handclap and bass minimalist rap of ‘Quiet Dog Bit Hard’ which hits harder than most rap could dream of.
The Ecstatic is urgent and immediate – traversing sounds from around the globe centred on Madlib’s Indian-centred beats with a paranoia with the rapper moving through these varied beats with a consulate’s ease. Very much worth a reappraisal and relisten.
The album is streaming exclusively on Qobuz and available on vinyl. Bandcamp.
Alewya – Zero (Because Music)
The new album from Ethiopian-British artist Alewya, proper debut full-length from a singer, producer and visual artist who has spent the last few years building one of the more distinctive voices in UK alternative R&B. Alewya’s work pulls together North-East African rhythmic textures, club-adjacent electronic production and an unmistakable vocal presence, and Zero arrives with serious anticipation behind it.
Goldbug – Goldbug
The self-titled debut album from the Irish artist Goldbug, the moniker of Dublin-based Irish/French artist Danilo Ward, who was raised in a religious commune in rural Provence that informs his work, along with his music background as bassist in Dublin dream pop band Of All Living Things.
Swings & Roundabouts was co-produced with Chris W Ryan (NewDad, Just Mustard) and mastered by Heba Kadry (Bjork, Big Thief), with influences touching Slint, Battles and Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden.
Goldbug’s writing has consistently sat in a space where indie songcraft, lush production and a real emotional directness meet, and the debut album is the first chance to hear all of that thinking pulled into one cohesive statement.
Shark School – Selachimorpha (Strange Brew)
The debut album from Galway alt-garage-rock trio Shark School, out today via Strange Brew. The band have spent the last couple of years building a serious live following on the Irish circuit on the strength of their devastating, emotionally raw delivery, and the album is led by the searing single ‘5AM’ and ‘Don’t Trust A Man’ which brings metal power chords, abrasive industrial sounds to the fore.
One of the more urgent Irish guitar debuts of the year.
Beth Orton – The Ground Above
The new album from the British folk singer-songwriter Beth Orton, the follow-up to 2022’s much-loved Weather Alive. Orton has spent the last three decades building one of the most emotionally precise catalogues in British music, threading folk songwriting through electronic textures, jazz feel and a voice as instantly recognisable as anyone’s. The Ground Above arrives as another quietly essential entry in a career that has only deepened with time.
Nectar Woode – Naturally
The debut mixtape from London-based Ghanaian-British singer-songwriter Nectar Woode, who has been building a strong following on the strength of her warmly soulful, folk-leaning songwriting and her unmistakable voice. Naturally is the long-awaited first proper full-length statement from an artist who has consistently sounded like one of the more emotionally precise new voices in UK soul. Fans of SAULT will dig this one.
Butthole Surfers – After The Astronaut
The first album in 25 years from the Austin noise-rock institution Butthole Surfers, their first since 2001’s Weird Revolution. After The Astronaut was originally written in 1997 and 1998 when the Buttholes were surfer the wave of major label deals with their two albums ElectricLarryland and Independent Worm Saloon, but this followup was shelved by Capitol as they deemed it too uncommercial.
It’s with the kind of unpredictable, psychedelic, deeply weird record that only Butthole Surfers could possibly make. ‘’Imbuya’ was conceived and produced much like a fart after eating beans,” is the kind of thing this genuinely weird and alternative band say. There are none like em.
I occasionally revisit their classic tracks – ‘Who Was In My Room Last Night?’ , ‘Pepper’ (which was in regular rotation on Dave Fanning’s show on 2FM back in the day) and ‘Human Cannonball’ to name a few.
Gold Panda – Ton Up (Studio Barnhus)
The new album from Gold Panda, the follow-up to 2022’s The Work. Gold Panda has been one of the most reliably interesting voices in melodic, sample-led British electronic music for more than 15 years, his records always patient, beautifully assembled and quietly emotional. Ton Up is a collection of direct clubby bangers for once from Derwin Schlecker, as suggested by the label releasing it – Studio Barnhus.
“Eight rough-hewn dance tracks and two cozy little service-station interludes, all crafted with the robust determination of a producer who knows that 140 bpm is not so much a tempo as a way of life.”
Pearl & The Oysters – Monkey Mind (Stones Throw)
The new album from Paris-born, LA-based indie-pop duo Juliette Davis and Joachim Polack, the follow-up to 2024’s Coast 2 Coast. Monkey Mind is produced by Jonathan Rado (Father John Misty, Weyes Blood, Whitney) and continues the duo’s quietly singular run of soft-focus, sample-leaning psych-pop.
Joanne Robertson, Dean Blunt, Elias Rønnenfelt – ancnt grz ’22-25
In 2024, Dean Blunt and Joanne Robertson dropped their joint album Backstage Raver, with Iceage’s Elias Rønnenfelt guesting on ‘repeat offenders’. The three are now back together for a new album, semi-officially shared via MediaFire, with guest spots from A$AP Rocky,Vegyn, Jeremih, Wraith9, evilgiane and the Last Artful, Dodgr. It’s short at 14 minutes and someone shared it on Soundcloud.
M. Geddes Gengras – Guest List (Hausu Mountain)
The new album from the LA-based experimental composer and modular synth artist M. Geddes Gengras, landing on Chicago’s reliably outstanding Hausu Mountain. Gengras has spent more than a decade building a singular catalogue across ambient, kosmische, dub and modular electronic terrain, and Guest List is another instalment in that body of work.
TEED – DJ-Kicks (!K7)
A new entry in !K7’s long-running DJ-Kicks series, this one curated by Orlando Higginbottom’s Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. TEED has spent more than a decade building a singular pop-leaning corner of British dance music, and his DJ-Kicks is one of the more exciting instalments the series has had in a while, an open-eared mix that pulls in left-field club music alongside the kind of melody-led house TEED himself is so good at.
Makeshift Art Bar – Marionette EP (Heist or Hit)
The Belfast band Makeshift Art Bar arrived in early 2025 with the Lackluster Writing Makes Fundamental Reading EP, marking out their grunge noise vibe. Since then the band’s electronic influence, a la peers Chalk have grown on record along with a more sludgy industrial take on things.
The Marionette EP was produced by Gilla Band’s Dan Fox and the band say “texture, mood and sound design were the most important aspects of recording this EP. A lot of work went into generating synth sounds, processing drums and guitar tones, massively aided by Daniel Fox who engineered the EP and pushed us to experiment ourselves rather than doing it for us, which I’m sure he was equally capable of doing. Thematically, Marionette encompasses bleak attitudes and mindsets. Shining a light on struggle is vital to progress. Marionette isn’t supposed to read as self-loathing or preachy, rather it is an illustration of struggle, control and negativity without giving answers or solutions. We don’t find that interesting.”
Also released this week
- Bea Elmy Martin – Under The Yew (Vol 2)
- Brutalismus 3000 – Harmony
- Devonté Hynes – The Invite soundtrack
- Dan Deacon – Little Brother soundtrack
- Decius – Decius Trax – EP VII
- DJ Plead – Please
- E.Vax, Ratatat – Just Like Fire
- Facta – witness
- FaltyDL – Body Me
- Glen Hansard – Don+t Settle – Transmissions West
- Ibeyi – Offering
- Jack Garrett – The Tension Between
- Jjerome 87 (Joe Newman of Alt-J) – The Canyon
- LO’99 – Big Trip EP
- Muse – The WOW! Signal
- Pixies – Complete B-Sides (1988 – 1997)
- Rat Boy – Crash!
- Sari Lightman – The Way I Saw You
- Tasha – You Are Spring!
- Temples – Bliss Up
- The Vince Clarke Remixes – Remix | Remodel
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
