Poem 1 - Ana Roxanne (2026)

The Week That Has Been

I’ve made a point this year of not letting this be a new releases blog that ends up with me just talking about what I found this week in the new music Friday churn. While I think that tactic has kept my choices wide-ranging and interesting, it’s also put a serious kink in my love of cruising the new releases every Friday.

So for at least a couple of weeks, I’m sticking to 2026 releases that have left an impression on me.

• Genghis Tron’s cybergrind
• Backwoodz Studios’ Fatboi Sharif and Child Actor collab
• Twisted Teens’ swampy garage rock
• chill and inventive instrumental music from FS Blumm
• Ylva Ceder’s warm blanket of ambient texture
• the ever-restless and ever fearless Vince Staples

Ana Roxanne

There’s been a lot what I call “concentration music” lately but I think I’d been overcompensating and not listening to as much of it lately. I actually thought before I starte this today that maybe I should find something more upbeat.

I would have done myself a massive disservice if I had: this is a monolith of sheer beauty.

Ana Roxanne is a vocalist as much as a composer and poet. While the compositions are slow to build and full of space and stillness, her vocals only add to the effect.

If there’s a criticism, it’s only that the high quality of the songs and the recording make it hard to distinguish among them. But it’s uniformly gorgeous throughout, so it’s hard to complain.