🔗 Share this article

The two singles released to date by the group Ashnymph resist simple labeling: their own description of their music as “subconscioussion” doesn’t offer many clues. Their initial track Saltspreader blended a pounding industrial rhythm – member Will Wiffen has sometimes been seen on stage sporting a shirt that displays the emblem of the trailblazing band Godflesh – with old-school electronic keys and a guitar line that vaguely recalls the enduring garage rock anthem I Wanna Be Your Dog, before transforming into a wall of disquieting noise. The planned result, the band has indicated, was to suggest road trips, “the grinding circulation of vehicles all day long over vast spans … orange lights at night”.

The subsequent track, Mr Invisible, occupies a space between club music and experimental rock. For one thing, the track’s rhythm, layers of hypnotic electronics, and singing that comes either psychedelically smeared or hypnotically looped in a way that evokes Dubnobasswithmyheadman-era Underworld all indicate the dance space. Conversely, its intense performance-style shifts, near-anarchic character and overdrive – “making everything sound crunchy is a long-term goal,” Wiffen has said – set it apart as undeniably a band creation rather than a solitary home producer. They've gigged around the independent music circuit in south London for a short time, “any spot with loud speakers”.

But each is thrilling and unique – from one another and other current music – to prompt questions about the band's future direction. No matter what it is, on the basis of these two singles, it’s unlikely to be boring.

This Week’s Best New Tracks

Dry Cleaning – Hit My Head All Day
“I simply must have experiences”​, Florence Shaw decides on the group's captivating comeback, but over six minutes – with breath sounds keeping rhythm – you feel that she can’t work out why.

Danny L Harle's Azimuth featuring Caroline Polachek
Merging gothic intensity to the height of trance music – including the line “and I ask the rain” – Azimuth hints at dusting off your best Cyberdog wear and heading south west to rave, stat.

Robyn's Acne Studios mix
Robyn's composition for the the fashion brand's latest show hints at her next record, including Soulwax-worthy grinding guitar, Benny Benassi-style thrust and the verse “my body’s a spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive”.

Like That by Jordana
Listeners adored her record Lively Premonition last year and the US singer-songwriter keeps displaying her remarkable skill with choruses as she sings about a futile crush.

Molly Nilsson's Get a Life
The solo Swedish pop act dropped the record Amateur this week, and this track from it is extraordinary: a electronic guitar part thrusts forward rapidly as Nilsson demands we take control of life.

Artemas – Superstar
Post explorations of tired relationships on his smash I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its overlooked mixtape Yustyna, the British-Cypriot star is wretchedly in thrall to his current partner amid pulsating coldwave production.

Jennifer Walton's Miss America
Off an impressive first record, a crushed synth hymnal about Walton discovering her dad had died in an transit lodge, mapping the strange setting in tender incantations: “Shopping plaza, illegal trade, anxiety episodes.”