Nialler9 keeps a rolling list of Irish album releases for 2026.
New Albums and Releases
New Albums + EPs
Album of the week:
Kelela – new avatar
The long-awaited third album from Kelela, her first full-length since 2023’s Raven. Kelela has spent well over a decade building one of the most singular voices in contemporary R&B, threading club-adjacent production, ambient patience and emotionally direct writing through a body of work that has become steadily more essential with each release.
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new avatar is another top tier album from one of the great modern voices – this time pairing iced-cool synths with minimal beats and lots of grungy guitar texture – creating a whole new shoegaze R&B sound (with elements of witch house even? – Burial is getting mentions too), for that voice to do its significant business.
In case you haven’t guessed, Kelela possesses one of my favourite voices and new avatar is no different in terms of the quality she has displayed since the 2013 Cut 4 Me mixtape.
AK Paul features on ‘outta time’ too, bringing another distinct sound world – The Paul Institute to this character’s orbit, and Foushée guests on ‘new life forms’.
David Holmes – Trespasses (Original Score)
The soundtrack album from the Belfast-born composer David Holmes and Brian Irvine for the BBC adaptation of Louise Kennedy’s novel Trespasses, now available on Bandcamp on Holmes’ new label Dream Drama. Holmes’s score for the series won the 2026 Ivor Novello for Best Television Soundtrack, and it stands as another instalment in one of the most essential composer careers to come out of Ireland in recent decades.
Vocals on the record are by Róis and Cian Nugent plays acoustic guitar.
Baby Rose – YEARNALISM
The Washington DC Atlanta-based singer has one of the most arresting voices in contemporary R&B – deep, weathered, the definition of a proper soul voice – her 2024 EP collaboration with BadBadNotGood was a hit around these parts.
The new album YEARNALISM is a follow-up to 2023’s much-loved Through and Through. Rose’s voice is one of the most immediately recognisable in contemporary soul, deep and unhurried, and her writing has consistently paired that instrument with real emotional weight. One of the more warmly anticipated soul records of the summer.
Jack White – Frozen Charlotte
The new album from Jack White, the follow-up to 2024’s No Name. White has kept the release strategy that served him so well on No Name: minimum warning, maximum intent. Two years on from his surprise Third Man record shop drop of that album, Frozen Charlotte arrives with the same restless, garage-rooted directness that has defined his post-Stripes catalogue.
Allison Russell – In The Hour of Chaos
The new album from the Grammy-winning Canadian-American singer-songwriter Allison Russell, the follow-up to 2023’s much-loved The Returner and 2021’s Outside Child. Russell has become one of the essential voices in contemporary Americana and soul, threading her work with Our Native Daughters (alongside Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah and Leyla McCalla) into her solo writing with real emotional and political precision. In The Hour of Chaos arrives with the assumption that Russell will continue to be one of the most singular voices in her lane.
Fathers – Kenny Blume, Kiefer, Carrtoons, Nate Smith
The self-titled debut album from a genuine jazz-and-production supergroup: producer Kenny Beats (Kenneth Blume), keyboardist Kiefer, bassist CARRTOONS (Ben Carr) and drummer Nate Smith, out via Blue Note. Nate Smith originally assembled the core trio for his 2023 Montreal Jazz Festival residency, and further US and Japan touring built the chemistry. The record was tracked in 48 hours at Kenny Beats’ Putnam Hill studio in LA, using a custom-built console the group was ostensibly there to test. The results, led by the single ‘PEARL’, land in a sweet spot of hook-forward jazz-fusion, LP-jazz-adjacent grooves and beat-maker precision that could not really be made by any other four people.
Sad13 – 1331
The new album from Sadie Dupuis’s solo project Sad13, the follow-up to 2022’s Haunted Painting. Dupuis, best known as the frontperson of Speedy Ortiz, uses the Sad13 project to lean further into synth-led, hook-forward songwriting than Speedy Ortiz’s more guitar-heavy work.
Baby Smith – Lately, Love Is Dead
The debut album from the Berlin-based, Australian-born duo Ray Sonder and Saxon Gable aka Baby Smith features blend of indie-rock songcraft, 1960s psychedelia and touches of alt-pop production, has been slowly winning them a devoted following on the wider indieheads-and-Bandcamp underground, and Lately, Love Is Dead is the first full-length statement of what they can do. A promising debut worth catching at ground level.
Show Me the Body – Alone Together
The new album from the NYC hardcore trio Show Me the Body, one of the most confrontational and politically committed bands working in American heavy music. Their catalogue has always sat sideways from the hardcore mainstream, threading banjo, industrial noise and blown-out low end through their attack. Alone Together arrives with the assumption that Show Me the Body will continue to be one of the more essential live and recorded acts of their ilk.
Panda Bear and Sonic Boom – A ? of WHEN
The third collaborative album from Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox and Spacemen 3 co-founder Peter Kember, the follow-up to their 2022 record Reset and its 2024 dub companion Reset in Dub. The pairing has become a most rewarding creative partnership in modern indie music, threading sunlit ’60s pop reference points, Beach Boys-adjacent harmonic language and Sonic Boom’s spacious analogue production together into something entirely their own. A ? of WHEN continues that thread.
hackedepicciotto – LICHTUNG
The new album from the duo of Einstürzende Neubauten’s Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto, hackedepicciotto. The pair have been building a strong body of work at the meeting point of drone, noise, ambient and spoken word for years now, and LICHTUNG continues that catalogue. For fans of the wider Neubauten / German experimental lineage this remains essential territory.
Cat Power – The Greatest (20th Anniversary Edition)
A 20th anniversary reissue of Chan Marshall’s 2006 landmark The Greatest, one of the great American singer-songwriter records of that decade and a proper career-redefining moment for Marshall. The original featured the legendary Memphis Rhythm Band and was produced by Stuart Sikes, and the anniversary edition arrives as a chance to revisit a record that has only grown in stature since.
Also released this week
- A Place To Bury Strangers – Rare and Deadly
- Chuck Strangers – Glory of the King’s Hand
- Ellen Allien – New Life
- Finn Wolfhard – Fire From The Hip
- Future – The Real Me
- hackedepicciotto – LICHTUNG
- Holy Wave – i’m DADA
- Luke Haines – Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Busy
- Luluc – Sweet Thief
- Parts & Labor – Set of All Sets
- The Rolling Stones – Foreign Tongues
- Suki Waterhouse – Loveland
- The-Dream – Love/Hate II
- The Temper Trap – Sungazer
- Xiu Xiu – Eraserhead Xiu Xiu
- ZAINAB – Canal View EP
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.
