Discovering the Jackhammer Sound and Clubby Alternative Rock of the Band Ashnymph and the Week's Best New Tracks

The pair of releases released so far by the group Ashnymph resist simple labeling: their personal label of the sound as “subconscioussion” doesn’t offer many clues. Their initial track Saltspreader married a pounding industrial rhythm – bandmember Will Wiffen has sometimes been seen on stage wearing a T-shirt that features the symbol of industrial metal pioneers Godflesh – with vintage-sounding synthesisers and a guitar line that subtly echoes the Stooges’ garage rock perennial I Wanna Be Your Dog, before melting into a barrier of unsettling sound. The desired impact, the trio have suggested, was to evoke motorway travel, “the ceaseless flow of vehicles around the clock over huge distances … amber lights after dark”.

Its follow-up, the song Mr Invisible, falls between dance music and unconventional alternative rock. For one thing, the track’s rhythm, layers of hypnotic electronics, and lyrics that appear either psychedelically smeared or mesmerizingly repeated in a way that evokes Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman period all point towards the club floor. Conversely, its intense performance-style shifts, brink-of-disorder feel and overdrive – “achieving a crunchy texture is a lifelong ambition,” Wiffen noted – mark it out as clearly a group effort rather than a lone electronic artist. They've performed around the independent music circuit in south London for less than a year, “anywhere that will turn the PA up loud”.

But the two tracks are vibrant and distinct – from each other and contemporary releases – to spark curiosity about what Ashnymph might do next. Whatever it is, on the basis of these two singles, it’s probably not dull.

The Week's Fresh Highlights

Dry Cleaning's Hit My Head All Day
“I really require adventures”​, Florence Shaw decides on the group's captivating comeback, but over six minutes – with breath sounds keeping rhythm – you perceive that the motive eludes her.

Danny L Harle – Azimuth (ft Caroline Polachek)
Welding Evanescence goth drama to the height of trance music – even the words “and I ask the rain” – the track implies digging out your Cyberdog attire and heading south west to rave, right away.

Robyn – Acne Studios mix
The music by Robyn for the Swedish designer’s SS26 show previews her TBA ninth album, including gritty guitars reminiscent of Soulwax, pulsating rhythms in the Benassi vein and the verse “my body’s a spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive”.

Jordana's Like That
Critics praised her record Lively Premonition last year and the American artist further demonstrates her remarkable skill with choruses as she sings about a futile crush.

Molly Nilsson's Get a Life
The independent Swedish artist dropped the record Amateur this week, and this song is remarkable: a electronic guitar part surges ahead with punk speed as Nilsson insists we grab life by the scruff of the neck.

Artemas – Superstar
After documenting jaded love and sex on his hit single I Like the Way You Kiss Me and its overlooked mixtape Yustyna, the UK-Cypriot artist is hopelessly devoted to his latest lover amid driving coldwave beats.

Jennifer Walton – Miss America
From one of the year’s standout debuts, a delicate electronic ballad about Walton discovering her dad had died in an airport hotel, describing her eerie environment in softly sung lines: “Strip mall, drug deal, panic attacks.”