Recently on Dazed, we’ve looked at how a Venezuelan pop band became political exiles, met the sound of New York adolescence, and explored the UK underground’s new identity crisis. We’ve also explored the story behind The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’ video, asked Kim Gordon what to read, listen to and watch, and hosted a Dazed Mix by Evissimax.

Three months into the year, and we’re still in a mad world. Despite the uncertainties that colour the day-to-day realities of many, music continues to offer the potential for shared communal spaces and to serve as a source of collective solace. The global music community continues to face ongoing economic challenges related to touring, releasing, and promoting music, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Expert difficulty level settings be damned, new and under-discussed talents from the world of underground music will always continue to use connection and craft to find their way.

For the first edition of our 2026 quarterly roundup, we continue to reflect on and acknowledge musicians, artists, producers, and DJs from around the globe, all with strong communities, real visions, and important statements to make. Here are ten essential Q1 releases, all available on Bandcamp.

SCRATCHCLART, STOP MAKING EDITS VOL.1

WHO: The London producer-DJ-broadcaster maverick turning out dance-tempo covers of classics that shuffle to a different groove.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: If you know him from his NTS radio shows, DJ sets, or productions, you know Scratcha DVA, aka Scratchclart, always has a strong point of view. Circa 2026, he’d like the DJ scene to stop making edits. Leading by example, he’s created Stop Making Edits Vol. 1, a collection of covers of classic soul, R&B and dance records reimagined for today. One of the highlights is his syncopated version of Minnie Riperton’s slow jam classic “Inside my love“ featuring Calista Kazuko & Paris Cesvette. Scratchclart’s squad-heavy remake of “I am the Black Gold of the Sun“ is a wonder as well.

FOR FANS OF: EL-B, 4Hero, Minnie Riperton.

JULIANNA BARWICK & MARY LATTIMORE, TRAGIC MAGIC

WHO: Two celebrated American musicians, a harpist and a keyboardist/singer of wordless songs, making magic together in Paris.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Recorded over nine days with harp, vocals and an array of vintage analogue synthesisers, Tragic Magic is a testament to the musical telepathy at the heart of Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore’s friendship. Longtime collaborators, Barwick and Lattimore have honed their instinctual understanding of each other over tours and recording sessions. When they lock in, as I witnessed live once at the Dark Mofo festival in Hobart, Australia, they reach into the sublime. Arriving in France after the 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles, they transformed their feelings of loss into catharsis. The album’s title is a perfect fit. Tragic Magic indeed.

FOR FANS OF: Vangelis, Nala Sinephro, Ennio Morricone

MON ROVÎA, BLOODLINE

WHO: A contemporary Afro-Appalachian folk singer-songwriter and instrumentalist bringing people together.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: When Mon Rovîa sings, you can feel the whole atmosphere relaxing around you. Hushed, intimate, and inviting, yet somehow endlessly expansive, his ambient folk and country sensibilities are a calming balm in troubling times. A Liberian refugee who was raised in the Caribbean and East Tennessee by his adopted family, he makes music that explores the relationship between West Africa and Appalachia. Bloodline is his finest moment yet. Here, he shows off a rare but hard-won level of empathy that feels inspiring and needed right now. Standout songs include ‘Black Cauldon’, ‘Heavy Foot’ and the title track.

FOR FANS OF: Fleet Foxes, Anjimile, Annahstasia.

SY3, SLEEPWALKER

WHO: Three Chinese-American artists who found common ground in Los Angeles over music and cinema.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: SY3 (pronounced ‘sigh’) is the group project of Kelly Guan, aka Jia Pet (vocals), Alex Ho (keyboards, saxophone) and Phil Cho (guitar, bass). After bonding over Hong Kong’s Y2K cinema new wave, Faye Wong and Zhou Xun’s downtempo pop experiments, and Japanese producer Yoshinori Sunahara’s Lovebeat album, they landed on a neon-lit ambient pop sensibility. There’s something of the old on Sleepwalker, but even as they evoke a melange of cantopop, R&B and 90s digital dub dance records, SY3 keep looking for new ways in sound. Released through Music From Memory, Sleepwalker feels like one of 2026’s sleeper hits.

FOR FANS OF: Tomoko Aran, Inrain, Nite Jewel.

SHY ONE, MALI

WHO: The London selector, broadcaster and DJ who draws on the past, while imagining new futures for club music.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Like Scratchclart, Shy One is one of those musical figures who always has a clear point of view. When she isn’t sharing it via her NTS radio shows and DJ sets, it comes through in her work as a producer. Her new album, Mali, is a personal history of a lifetime spent in the UK’s grime, broken beat, house and R&B scenes. Released by Touching Bass, it also reaches out to the music she feels an affinity with in the US, Africa and the Caribbean. When she teams up with vocalists like Private Joy and George Riley, the results speak for themselves.

FOR FANS OF: Kaidi Tatham, Silhouette Brown, Wookie.

HASJI, PAHŪ

WHO: Aotearoa New Zealand’s first, and perhaps only, gorge music producer.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Made under a Gorge Public License (GPL), Gorge is a style of music with roots in Nepal, India and Japan. It follows three rules: Use toms, call it Gorge, don’t call it art. Pahū is the second project from Hasji, a Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-based Gorge musician. Across 7 tracks, Hasji uses the Māori slit gong, other taonga puoro (traditional Māori instruments), synthesised noises, nature recordings and human voices to reflect on environmental damage through a blur of eerie, technonaturalistic beatscapes and ambient expeditions. ‘2b Real’ featuring Urtica Ferox is a staggering example of rhythmic dream-pop. Out now through Noa Records.

FOR FANS OF: Foodman, Wrack, KMRU.

DAGMAR ZUNIGA, IN FILTH YOUR MYSTERY IS KINGDOM / FAR SMILE PEASANT IN YELLOW MUSIC

WHO: The Nicaraguan-American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer who unlocked her sound in Norway, Greece and Georgia.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Every aspect of Dagmar Zuniga’s music, from her elegant guitar work to her ethereal voice and hazy production choices, is impressionistic and transportive. If we’re lucky, a singer-songwriter like this comes along every half-decade, seemingly emerging out of nowhere, while somehow channelling everywhere. After spending a year as a lo-fi gem in the digital underground, Zuniga is now sharing in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music with a wider audience via a range of reissues through AD 93. From the opening notes of “Even God Gets Stuck In Devotion” (featuring Austyn Wohlers), this is the good stuff.

FOR FANS OF: Karen Dalton, L’Rain, Grouper.

SHANE PARISH, AUTECHRE GUITAR

WHO: A cult American guitarist covering one of the UK’s electronica greats in a vividly expressive fingerstyle.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Shane Parish is a guitarist, composer, improviser and interpreter from Athens, Georgia. When he isn’t playing fingerstyle solo, he leads the avant-rock band Ahleuchatistas and plays in the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet. With Autechre Guitar, he builds on his 2024 album Repertoire, which included songs by Alice Coltrane, Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin, with a full set of guitar interpretations of songs from UK IDM leaders Autechre’s ‘90s discography. Apparently, the first time Parish attempted to transcribe an Autechre song for guitar was over twenty years ago. Sometimes, it's all about the timing. And with Autechre Guitar, he’s right on time.

FOR FANS OF: Autechre, Ayane Shino, Jonathan Bockelmann.

LAUREL HALO, MIDNIGHT ZONE

WHO: The Los Angeles-based musician, DJ, and record label boss turning her hand to film scores.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: For her second time around as a film composer, Laurel Halo, a journeywoman producer, DJ and musician who has turned her hand to lo-fi synth pop, abstract techno and modern classical, heads under the sea. Midnight Zone is the soundtrack to visual artist and filmmaker Julian Charrière’s aquatic exploration of the same name. Following a Fresnel lighthouse lens, the film traces a descent into one of Earth’s last untouched ecosystems, the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone. Working with a Montage 8 Synthesiser, a Yamaha TransAcoustic piano, violin, viola da gamba, and ocean recordings, Halo takes us deep into the abyss as well.

FOR FANS OF: Nurse with Wound, Thomas Köner, John Luther Adams.

FLORENCE SINCLAIR, ALL OF A SUDDEN

WHO: A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Florence Sinclair’s All Of A Sudden EP feels like a dream within a dream. Built from endless samples, production, and vocal signifiers, they weave a rich tapestry of rap, dream-pop, indie rock, and electronica. By letting the ghosts of the ‘90s and 2000s haunt a set of songs that feel like a late-night walk through empty inner city streets under misty conditions, they land on a sensibility that’s addictively listenable, revealing new depths and details with every repeat play. All Of A Sudden’s spectral centrepiece, “family affair” suggests Florence Sinclair could take their sound anywhere. They probably will. 

FOR FANS OF: Dean Blunt, Loraine James, Space Afrika.