That was the month that was - October 2026

A long overdue monthly update with a taste of the over 100 new tracks added to the Weekly Dose playlist over the last month or two. The sheer amount of brilliant new music coming out at the moment often leads me to abandon an update as I get distracted by yet more shiny new things.

Subscribe to the ‘Weekly Dose’ playlist HERE or join MLD on Substack for irregular musical delights.
The playlist’s now on Qobuz, along with Apple, Deezer, Youtube, Amazon, Tidal and Spotify.

LYNX CANE featuring ffflo_0, Ellis Evason, Kid Lightning…and more

This was supposed to be an update looking forward to catching Lynx Cane live in my neighbourhood at the ‘Retropxssy’ night along with a loose collective of like-minded artists who often appear on each others records and gig together. Sadly I not only failed to post in time but I ‘entered the portal’/ arrived at the venue too late and my excited question, ‘What time is Lynx Cane’s new ‘supergroup’ on?’ was answered with, ‘you missed them, they played first’ 🙁 ).

Hopefully I’ll catch Lynx Cane, Ace Conway, CJS2k, and JoeJas, aka ‘FL Boys’ another time but Cane has a deluxe version of last years superb “Hymns In Vienna” EP coming out and a new single ‘Euros’ to promote it.
Cane says: “It’s all about the cost of living crisis, and just being flat broke. So broke you can’t even get cookies, and I like cookies.”
At the Retropxssy gig on Saturday a fairly young crowd needed little encouragement to join in a chant of ‘F**K LANDLORDS’ started by ‘headliner’ Gao The Arsonist, whose year had been derailed by eviction.
And on ‘Euros’ Lynx Cane intones the chorus in a deep velvety voice with a hint of Roots Manuva and Chali 2Na, ‘I need money, can’t survive in my gully‘.

Cane’s ‘Euros’ features fflo_0, Ellis Evason, Leïla, KIMBERLXY, Wave Noir & Kid Lightning and many of the same artists can be found on the new album by Ellis Evason, ‘Volume one’. A highlight of which ‘Clay Pigeons’ features Kid Lightning’.

Retropxssy – Do It Better

Saturday’s event was named after Retropxssy, an alt-electro rapper come singer who imbued the night with a wonderful sense of fun and anything goes punk attitude. You’d struggle to find a happier crowd than the sweaty joyful bunch who squeezed into Pulse Studios, a recording space round the back of a fancy jeans factory come fine dining establishment in Blackhorse Road, Walthamstow.
Frequent collaborator and friend, JoeJas was also an effervescent presence, joining acts on stage, as well as donning a knitted mask to perform his quirky inventive mix of punk, rap and rnb.
Retropxssy moved the party to the moshpit, abandoning what was nominally the ‘stage’ end of the room, to be surrounded by the crowd, performer and audience feeding off the excitement and energy of each other. She worked the room, laying on the floor, prowling and deploying the old ‘sit down – stand up’ routine with aplomb. Recent re-release ‘Do It Better’ was a particular standout with its twitchy urgent electronic beat perfectly suiting Retropxssy’s braggadocios flow. Despite being the coolest video ever filmed on what looks like Redbridge roundabout, the track only has just over a thousand views on YouTube. Come on people…do it better!

THE STUDIO SYSTEM – ORDINARY LIFE

in an ordinary life
in this ordinary life
this extraordinary life

‘Perpetual Motion’ is the second album by The Studio System, with music and production by Andrew Bashford-Squires, and lyrics and vocals by David Shah (Luxembourg, the Soft Close-Ups)

“The album might appeal to fans of Tindersticks, Erik Satie, Mercury Rev, Will Oldham, Weyes Blood, The Dears, Nadia Reid, Mick Karn, Baxter Dury, Michael Nyman, Durutti Column, Marianne Faithfull, Pulp, Nadine Shah, Nick Cave… you get the general idea.

We hope you’ll give this record a spin. Talking of things that go round and round, Wikipedia defines perpetual motion as “continuous movement that goes on forever without any outside power. A true perpetual motion machine is impossible. It breaks the core laws of physics, because friction and energy loss always slow things down and stop them.” The idea very much had a moment in the 1980s, and for a while, as a child, it fascinated me”.

BIKES IN SPACE – Electricity

New tune from Bikes In Space out now ‘Electricity’ – the joint project of @joekaptein and @jocrayford double-keyboards-improvised-space-junk-synth-jazz-experimental-groove ensemble. This tune a sneaky slice of kosmiche keyboard krautrock, plucked from a gig last year, featuring the wonderful @juliendyne on drums and percussion. From the upcoming album ‘Live On Planet Earth’, released later this year on Jandal.

PISS – blocking a scene you can’t remember

Noisy, genre-bending band PISS has shared an official video for “blocking a scene you can’t remember,” one of the standout tracks from their debut effort, you made me / skin on linen, which will be available on October 30th on LP/CD/CS/DSPs worldwide from Sub Pop and in Canada from Paper Bag Records.
“blocking a scene you can’t remember” is a devastating, climactic slow-core song about sexual abuse and its lasting impacts. The lyrics take the form of a monologue read by a girl in her room, rehearsing a long-overdue confrontation with a man from her past“. This official video was co-directed by PISS front-person Tay Zantingh & Nushi Sharma.
PISS play Moth Club in London this November.

Ross Simonini / Theme of Done Right

Ross Simonini’s Themes Vol. 1 & 2 presents a transcendent collection of cinematic, avant-pop compositions that were nearly lost to time. After wildfires destroyed Simonini’s home and studio in Altadena, the only surviving versions of these decade-in-the-making themes were unfinished WAV files saved on his Google Drive. These fully-formed yet liminal pieces showcase Simonini’s unique blend of orchestral instruments and voices, both organic and synthesized, creating an impressionistic soundscape that feels both nostalgic and otherworldly.

Hang Linton

Arriving today via Linton’s own Bat Feet Records, ‘the TOWER’ is an anti-war track built around breakbeats, distorted synths and a restless funk-punk groove. It follows a breakthrough year for the Leeds-based artist, which included a place on the NME 100 and a return to Supersonic Festival.

“‘the TOWER’ is calling out the revolving door of passive politicians that have graced our current times,” Linton says. “It’s a track for the people who are tired of feeling unheard and who oppose systems of oppression.”

“This is choose-your-fighter music. An opportunity to lock in and release the frustrations we hold at the apathy displayed by those in power towards human life.”

KiiKO

KiiKO is an electronic pop collaboration between Tokyo-born DJ Emmy Shigeta and Irish producer John McDowell (As Many as Possible)

Haruomi Hosono

Haruomi Hosono, the pioneering Japanese musician, producer, composer, and founding member of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Happy End, has “found his voice in a late career renaissance,” writes The Wire. His five-decade legacy continues to grow and attract new fans, and has been cited by an acclaimed list of artists, including Mac DeMarco, Cameron Winter, Ginger Root, Vampire Weekend, and Harry Styles. Shaped by mid-century American music, Hosono’s work now reverberates back through a new generation of Western artists—a remarkable circular exchange.

Yours Sincerely, his 23rd studio album and first collection of new music in over seven years, finds Hosono ever-pushing his exploratory songcraft: “I am now 78 years old, but from here on, I feel a growing curiosity toward the unknown music that my new self will create, while also embracing the music of my former self—as if I now carry two musical worlds within me.” Across arrangements that span tender psych-folk and bubbling avant-pop, Hosono contemplates the concept of a maternal force that envelops the Earth, “humanity’s understanding of the unconditional love possessed by those who give us life,” he says. Songs tap into a collective current, engaging the “deeply buried instincts—maternal compassion and mercy, things we rarely engage with in our daily lives.”

The work represents an artistic and subconscious shift. Several tracks feature female vocalists, such as “Note of Mothership”, a group-chanted expression of childlike wonder, “To a Wild Rose”, which delights with oceanside hums and prose, and on the elegant, marching “Figlio Perdute.” “This was a completely new approach for me,” he adds.

The unofficial title track, “Sincerely”, frames the legend in his signature mode, strumming, singing, playfully pondering the answer to a simple question. How do you express the Japanese ideas of omoiyari (compassion), jihi (??), or boseiai (???) in English? Hosono explains, “I searched, but no word felt quite right. Each came close, yet carried a slightly different nuance…I turned to a more familiar word often used to close a letter: ‘Sincerely.’”

“It is in this spirit that I offer this album to you—sincerely, from the heart.”