Recently on Dazed, we’ve talked to Brutalismus 3000 about ‘bad vibes’ their ‘toxic’ new album, affirmed Black joy at Fête de la Musique, and learned about Nepal’s biggest queer rave yet. We’ve also heard from rising rapper ERISTHEPLANET about putting the internet on wax, visited the Finnish rave beneath the midnight sun, and hosted a Dazed Mix from ASIANDOPEBOYS.

Six 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 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 second 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.

ABADIR, THE PRIMITIVIST

WHO: The Egyptian producer, sound designer, DJ and music critic rethinking the framing of electronic music.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: For decades now, it’s been common to hear electronic dance music discussed as futurism. Rami Abadir, aka ABADIR, sees things differently. Across his new EP, The Primitivist, reimagines modern club music inside an array of folkloric musical styles and techniques from Iraq, Kuwait, Syria and Palestine. Tracks like ‘Habban’ and ‘The Primitivist’ feel hypnotic and imbued with the weight of tradition. At the same time, they’re not relics of the past. As syncopated darbuka, khishba, and tsifteteli patterns intertwine with UK bass pressure and the heft of regional American club music, ABADIR takes us somewhere we should already have been.

FOR FANS OF: Slikback, Javier Estrada, Bergsonist.

CARLA DAL FORNO, CONFESSION

WHO: An Australian singer-songwriter using post-punk and dream-pop as a backdrop for obsession.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Four albums into her career as a solo artist, Confession finds Carla Dal Forno in the form of her life. Over a bed of chugging, dubby backbeats, Dal Forno sings in a gentle, candle-lit tone, draping her voice across expansive song landscapes like leaves falling in autumn. The album’s central theme is romantic obsession, and what it can do to the mind. Alternating between vocal tracks and short instrumentals, elements of Confession feel like a personal diary, or even a short arthouse film. It’s an unvarnished, messy, and beautiful album from a brave talent who shares with true generosity.

FOR FANS OF: Cate Le Bon, HTRK, Maxine Funke.

DEBIT, POTPOURRI

WHO: The Mexican-American producer, DJ, and academic mapping out pathways between techno and Guaracha music.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Listening to Potpourri, the fourth full-length project from NAAFI artist Debit, feels like existing between two states, or to evoke the title of the album’s third track, ‘2placesatonce’. In the past, her music has traversed two poles, ambient and club, as understood through a Latin lens. This time, her two places at once are US techno/house and Mexican guaracha. Fittingly, given the album’s title, the results unfold as non-repeating percussive structures moving around muscular machine beats and acid-soaked synths. Underscored by driving TR-303 basslines, tracks like ‘Assimilate’ shock and awe. Unpredictable and invigorating, Potpourri is the real deal.

FOR FANS OF: Jeff Mills, Skee Mask, Nick León.

HEAVEE, MAINFRAME

WHO: A Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist putting a dreamy, space-aged spin on ghetto house, juke, and footwork.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: After opening with a set of classic footwork motifs, stuttered vocals, skipping hyperspeed drums and a hefty distorted bounce, ‘What U Need’ by Heavee takes a left turn, collapsing into a soothing ocean of crystalline synthesisers. Welcome to the Mainframe EP. From there, the Hyperdub artist continues to explore his ideas about space, texture and depth, blending deep house, 2-step and VGM sensibilities into his soundworld. On ‘Chainsmoke’, Heavee teams up with DJ Manny and DJ Lucky for a smokers' anthem that doubles as a battle record for the footwork dance circle. He’s a juke/footwork original. There’s no question.

FOR FANS OF: Machinedrum, Eyeliner, DJ Swisha.

IVY KNIGHT, IRON MOUNTAIN

WHO: The Brooklyn, New York, singer-songwriter conjuring up desolate rural landscapes and the memories of eras gone by.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Rendered in the conventions of indie-folk, dream-pop and alt-country, Iron Mountain by Ivy Knight feels like a set of faded polaroids taken on a road trip through the American southwest. Amid a breezy bustle of clean guitar figures, banjos, rolling rhythms and fluttering incidentals, Knight sings in a languid style. Sitting somewhere between conversational and poetic, her songwriting tells stories that evoke dusty small-town streets, derelict dive bars, expansive desert vistas, and long, winding country roads in equal measure. But are these real memories, or the idealised, sepia-toned imaginings of a big city dreamer? Either way, enjoy the ride.

FOR FANS OF: Dagmar Zuniga, Dean Blunt, Cat Power.

JWORDS, SOUND THERAPY

WHO: A Brooklyn, New York producer and synth-builder bringing an ambient/new age touch to rap, footwork, techno, and midatlantic club music. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: In the past, JWords has crafted a mode of listening electronica that seems to capture the anxiety and isolation surrounding her generation. With Sound Therapy, however, she flips the script, choosing a cool, calm and collected approach over relitigating the traumas of yesteryear. The music, a mass of warm synths that feel like pink, fluffy clouds and unassuming yet confident machine beats, serves as a soft-focus backdrop for playful spoken-word raps that feel like mantras for the quietening of the mind. Across the album, guests like Nappy Nina and Kingsley Ibeneche join in, adding texture to JWords’ journey.

FOR FANS OF: Ibrahim Alfa Jnr, Photay, Shy One.

KARIM, LILA

WHO: The Moroccan musician imagining techno and Gnawa music as one and the same.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: In Morocco, practitioners of Gnawa, a West African spiritual music tradition, often take part in the lila (arabic for night), an all-night long rhythm ritual that generates a healing, trance state. Across his new album, fittingly titled Lila, Karim reimagines this tradition as a mostly drumless (but not percussionless) techno record. Over nine hypnotic tracks, he plays with texture, tension, bass and melody, building a proudly psychedelic nocturnal rhythm from the mysteries of modular synthesis. Spellbindly electric, listening to Lila is a genuine trip. It’s also a compelling reminder that as much as things change, they often stay the same.

FOR FANS OF: Orbital, Drexciya, Batu

ONRA, AFTER DARK

WHO: A French beatmaker, composer and DJ bringing a sleek R&B/modern soul sheen to late nights spent in big cities. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: After Dark by Onra is the sound of a longstanding beatmaker who continues to evolve into a compelling composer, producer and melodist. Essentially an instrumental record, the album blurs the line between programmed ‘80s machine beats, woozy, p-funk indebted synthesiser lines and bass lines that wouldn’t be out of place on an array of R&B and boogie records. On tracks like ‘Lap Of Luxury’ and ‘Ectasy’, he evokes the feeling of wandering through neon-lit megacity streets on rainy nights, serving up a comforting, cinematic mood that feels ideal for headphone listening or a slowly-paced car ride to nowhere.   

FOR FANS OF: Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, XL Middleton, Space Ghost.

SCHOOL FAIR, UNEXPECTED VIOLENCE

WHO: The misty alternative rock band turning heads from Dunedin to New York.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: There’s a sense of crisp countryside mornings, dimly lit alleyways and foggy cobbled streets running through Unexpected Violence, the third album from Aotearoa New Zealand’s School Fair. Rendered through a mix of post-punk, alternative rock and dream-pop, these songs balance menace with warm and mystery. Lyrically, most of Unexpected Violence is spoken word. Loaded with coded symbolism, unreliable narrators and veiled memories, songs like ‘Old Wound Open’ and ‘Sulphur City’ land somewhere between conversational and poetic. By the time the album ends with the reversed strings of ‘Chafed The Sensors’, the fog clears. Something special is going on here.

FOR FANS OF: Wire, Mark William Lewis, Kim Gordon.

YU SU, FOUNDRY

WHO: A Chinese musician, DJ and sometimes chef turning out genre-bending sounds in London.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING: Yu Su is one of those artists who connects the dots between everywhere and anywhere. Since starting out in Vancouver’s hazy 2010s house scene, she’s walked between worlds, making magic in China, Ibiza and London. On her second album, Foundry, Yu Su teams up with Dip In The Pool, Seefeel and Memotone for an acid-laced adventure through the sound worlds of ambient dub, atmospheric downtempo and dreamy, experimental house. Tracks like ‘Cul De Sac’ and ‘Os Cionn’ feel levitational. Elsewhere on the title track, she powers her mechanic rhythms up for peak-time on the floor. There’s many moods to Foundry.

FOR FANS OF: Basic Channel, John Hassell, Porter Ricks.