Even voorstellen - MONO Announces 13th Studio Album, ‘Snowdrop’

12/06 (temporary residence/konkurrent)

 “daphne” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljuK1PCi_A8
LIVE Feb 18, 2027 / BE Brussels / Le Botanique

Snowdrop is the band's first album made with Brad Wood (Touché Amore, The Smashing Pumpkins), following the passing of longtime collaborator and friend, Steve Albini.

Snowdrop is out June 12, 2026.

MONO's "Winter Daphne" Statement
"The language of flowers for the Winter Daphne is 'the final surge of life', 'glory' and 'eternity'.
In the looming moment of the final parting, life erupted with a sense of pride. Our shared memories surged back like a revolving lantern. Then, a stillness slowly arrived and you transformed into light, departing peacefully for heaven."
"Without exception, everyone will eventually depart this world and face the parting from their loved ones. Through this album, we wished to express our "eternal gratitude" to those precious people who walked alongside us on the journey of life. We believe this sentiment is the only thing capable of filling the void left in our hearts and easing the profound sorrow and pain of loss.
Every flower carries its own unique language. For this album, we incorporated the messages imbued in flowers given to those who have passed into the titles of our songs.

Our hope is that this album serves as a source of light and hope for those who have lost someone dear." – MONO

When MONO recorded their previous album, OATH, with longtime production partner and friend, Steve Albini in 2023, they never fathomed that it would be the final studio album they made together. Albini tragically died the following year, and that loss left an incalculable void in the lives of not just everyone who ever knew Steve, but everyone with an attachment to any of the thousands of records he helped bring into world over the past four decades. He brought a clarity to the chaos, and a selfless sense of service to art and artists that was unrivaled. On both a personal and practical level, the loss left MONO faced with profound grief and uncertainty. Albini had become a fundamental part of MONO’s unmistakable sound, and the thought of replacing him was daunting, to say the least. Enter: Brad Wood (Touché Amoré, The Smashing Pumpkins).

Chosen for both his familiarity with MONO’s creative and technical working process – as well as his decades-long friendship with Steve Albini – Brad Wood entered Albini’s storied Electrical Audio studios in September 2025 to record what would become Snowdrop. Once again working with Chicago-based conductor and orchestral musical director, Chad McCullough, MONO enlisted a 10-piece orchestra as well as an 8-piece choir for the eight massive pieces that make up Snowdrop. With the band performing and Wood recording in the same hallowed space where most of MONO’s records had been made in their quarter-century history, the songs on Snowdrop carry an extra weight. Mixed by Wood at his Seagrass home studio in Los Angeles, the album is equally intimate and enveloping.

Where there could easily be a pall hanging over Snowdrop, there is instead an extraordinary air of gratitude. Rather than steep in heartache, there is a poignant appreciation for the resonance of life well-spent with a dear friend – and the yearning for what may come. Snowdrop is the sound of a band turning shock and sadness into hope and wonder – and finding renewed focus in the freedom of unknowing.

TRACK LISTING:   

1. Snowdrop
2. Winter Daphne
3. Gerbera
4. Statice
5. Herdera
6. Shion
7. Bells of Ireland
8. Farewell to Spring
   
   LIVE 2025 Mono - Japanse vulkaanuitbarsting

Brosella Festival 2026 – van 03 juli t-m 05 juli 2026, Ossegempark, Brussel – Programma

Van 3 tot en met 5 juli wordt het Groentheater in het Ossegempark, vlak bij het Atomium, opnieuw het kloppend hart van het Brosella Festival. Met een uitgesproken en avontuurlijke line-up bevestigt het festival zijn rol als toonaangevend platform voor actuele jazz en urban etno, muziek die geworteld is in traditie maar resoluut vooruitkijkt.

De affiche brengt een twintigtal artiesten samen, waaronder Dhafer Youssef, Nneka, Cheikh Lô, Amaro Freitas, Joel Ross, Elina Duni & Rob Luft Quartet, Folk Bitch Trio, Greg Foat Trio en Adrian Younge. Daarnaast zorgen projecten zoals BXL x LDN Interplay III, Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, Bamako Express, MixMonk Supreme en Jaune Toujours voor een programma dat moeiteloos schakelt tussen continenten, stijlen en generaties. Internationale topartiesten delen het podium met opkomend talent, waarmee Brosella zich bevestigt als een nieuwsgierig, open en veeleisend festival.

Bert Schreurs, directeur van het festival: “Brosella presenteert geen genres, maar verhalen. Deze line-up toont hoe jazz en urban etno vandaag leven: internationaal, stedelijk en voortdurend in beweging.”

Programma per dag
Vrijdag 3 juli opent het festival met een exclusieve avond rond Dhafer Youssef, een zeldzame kans om zijn hypnotiserende mix van jazz en Midden-Oosterse tradities live te ervaren.
Zaterdag 4 juli staat in het teken van de urban etno-scène: een energieke en dansbare dag waar Afrikaanse, Europese en diasporische invloeden samenkomen.
Zondag 5 juli is volledig gewijd aan jazz, van intieme akoestische sets tot hybride en grensverleggende vormen, met zowel gevestigde namen als nieuw talent.

Familieconcerten
Ook jonge bezoekers krijgen een volwaardige plek met vijf familieconcerten, in samenwerking met Jeunesses Musicales.

Toegankelijk en solidair
Met het ‘Pay-what-you-can’-principe blijft Brosella inzetten op een open festivalmodel: bezoekers kiezen zelf hun ticketprijs en dragen zo bij aan de toegankelijkheid van het festival voor iedereen.

Tickets en info: www.brosellafestival.be

Even voorstellen – Pond announce new album ‘terrestrials’

POND ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM TERRESTRIALS
OUT 19th JUNE (mangovision/konkurrent)

LISTEN/WATCH NEW SINGLE/VIDEO ‘TWO HANDS’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTf47abqECc

POND reveal news of their latest album Terrestrials, out on 19th June, on their own newly coined imprint Mangovision via Secretly Distribution, alongside a stream of headline dates in the US this July-September. Marking the announcement is their latest single and video ‘Two Hands’.

Speaking about the new single ‘Two Hands’, Nicholas Allbrook shares “This song is about when mining company Rio Tinto blew up Juukun Gorge in the Hammersley Range in Western Australia. They destroyed sacred rock shelters that were of the highest archaeological, cultural and spiritual significance. The rock shelters contained a cultural sequence spanning 46, 000 years that had been taken care of by the local Indigenous communities. I was wondering how the commentators around this country would've reacted if the shoe was on the other foot and someone had demolished the Vatican or Notre Dame or St. Paul’s because it was in the way of their corporate expansion. Anyway, its a little word of encouragement that you’ve got every right to be very fucking angry about this injustice.”


Ceremoniously distilling the forthcoming record’s intent into a playful caricature through ‘Two Hands’s music video, Allbrook continues, “The video was made by us and Sam Kristofski (with heaps of help from Tess Thompson, Kate Green and Christian Dillon). We filmed it in York and the Beverley Offroad Motorsports Association on one of the hottest days of the summer. Az was tough enough to wear full leathers the whole time. Endless thanks to him and Ry for fully embodying the soul of this video with their enduring passion for dust, rust, black cans, circlework and fucked up old motorcars.”

The group of Nick Allbrook, Jay Watson, Joe Ryan, Jamie Terry, and James Ireland, exist to create – the myriad of crossovers between their projects individually and the scene they first put on the map continues today – and that pursuit is set to persist forever no doubt. Yet for the first time in POND’s history, the recording process on their 11th was subject to a simple set of rules: No fuzz pedal. No ballads. No “Pink Floyd shit”.

Conceived from a place of reverence for a particularly potent epoch in Oz rock, Terrestrials mines the sound of open sky melancholia, heat haze sizzling on the plains and jangly pub backrooms that hits an eternally poignant nerve for anyone familiar with the sound, time and place. From there Terrestrials evolved and the idea of “Goths at the pub” became the record’s stylistic north star - iconic 80s Australiana being acid-washed with the eyeliner-stained post-punk of Sisters Of Mercy, Magazine and the like. “Would Goths like it?” “Could you have a beer to this?” If the answers were yes it was thrust into the mix.

Like much of the Pond catalogue, Terrestrials is a record of people and place, of exploring the identity of each, as well as where and how they intersect and interact. Extractive capitalism, power dynamics, inequality, indigenous incarceration, eccentric outcasts, fire and water, diesel and dust, unity and division, blood and bauxite, unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays - it’s all there. Terrestrials twitches with the desperation of people and planet on the brink, but ultimately bets on the beauty of both to prevail.

Earlier POND shared the title track to support across NME, CLASH, The Line of Best Fit, DORK and more remarking on the song’s “strutting, preening glam-rock/new wave energy”. Following on from the announcement of their US dates supporting Djo – the musical project of actor, producer, and songwriter Joe Keery, known for his work in Stranger Things and Fargo – POND today announce a stream of headline shows across the US this July-September and will also appear locally at Against the Grain Festivalin Brisbane in June, with more Australian shows to be announced. Pre-sale is available now with general tickets on sale from Friday 10 April @ 10am local via pond.band.

First single
Pond - Terrestrials (Official Video)
LP TRACKLIST

Skyworks

Casuarina

Through The Heather

Two Hands

Roebuck Plains

The Fatal Shore

Tourmaline

Terrestrials

Personal Hell

Nashville (I’m Dying)

ABOUT POND
POND are one of the most versatile, inquisitive, and accomplished bands in the psychedelic rock vanguard. Made up of Nicholas Allbrook, Jay Watson, Joseph Ryan, James Ireland, and Jamie Terry, POND was formed in 2010 in Fremantle, Western Australia. However, it wasn’t until the release of their 2013 record Beard, Wives, Denim that POND went from a group of musicians and friends to an internationally touring band. Today, POND boasts an impressive catalog of recorded music, spanning ten critically-acclaimed albums. Since its beginnings, POND’s prowess in the live arena has also been well documented. Sharing the stage with artists such as Flaming Lips, Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys and more, they have also been on major festival lineups worldwide like Glastonbury, Coachella, Splendour in the Grass, and The Great Escape.

Even voorstellen - jozef van wissem - "this is my blood" (incunabulum records/konkurrent)

1.  What The Eternal Beginning Is 6.01

2. Praise Shall Sound From Shore To Shore,

     Until The Sun Shall Rise And Set No More 9.02

3. Concerning Our Saviours Silence 7.02
4. How You Must Enter Into Suffering 7.07
5. Remission 4.27
6. All You Do All You Bare 2.26

7.. What The Eternal End Is 4.13

Uit op 01 mei 2026

Jozef Van Wissem - Renaissance And Baroque Lutes, Electronics, Beats, Voice, Words

Bookending “This Is My Blood “ are two cinematic hypnotist slide lute pieces that evoke contemporary deserted landscapes. They were improvised and made for  “ Maquina”,  a film shot in the Colorado desert during a psychedelic trip by film maker Joaquim Pujol. The works on here, like the ecstatic second  piece invite a return to long form listening. They explore contemporary darkness and contemplate personal loss. There is solely one vocal piece, “ Remission”.

A worldwide concert tour of this material is slated for 2026/2027.
Since studying the lute in New York with Patrick O'Brien in the 1990s, Van Wissem has gone on to create works equally as rooted in classical Renaissance and Baroque forms of lute music, as contemporary sounds spanning drones, electronics and field recordings. Throw in some of his formative influences from the no wave and industrial scenes, alongside a dedicated approach to minimalism and this has resulted in Van Wissem producing distinct and singular work whose sound is often a marriage of opposites; meditative and intense, forward thinking but with a sense of the arcane. The Quietus has called him "probably the most famous lutenist in the world”.

Jozef Van Wissem is an avant-garde composer and lutenist who plays a unique all-black baroque lute. His timeless music is often described as hypnotic, minimal, and hauntingly atmospheric, merging beauty with a dark, meditative edge. His lyrics have a mythical Christian appeal, incorporating themes of love, faith, and the afterlife, often with a repetitive, mantra-like quality. Bridging classical traditions with modern sounds like drones, electronics, field recordings and voice.

He collaborates with filmmaker and musician Jim Jarmusch, including the award-winning soundtrack for Only Lovers Left Alive, for which Van Wissem won the Cannes Soundtrack Award in 2013. He also scored the Sims Medieval Video game ( 2011), Uncle Howard ( 2016) Land (2018), Irma Vep (2022), Queens (2023) and Un Prince (2024). He did a world tour in duo with Jarmusch in 2025 and their 5th record “ The Day The Angels Cried” was released.

Van Wissem tours extensively, performing in diverse venues from rock festivals to churches, and has worked with artists like Tilda Swinton and Zola Jesus. In 2019 he was commissioned by Cinematheque Francaise to score the silent horror film Nosferatu (1922). He released the soundtrack in 2022 on his own Incunabulum label. The New York Times wrote: Beginning with a solo played on the lute, his performance will incorporate electric guitar and distorted recordings of extinct birds, graduating from subtlety to gothic horror. “My soundtrack goes from silence to noise over the course of 90 minutes,” he said, culminating in “dense, slow death metal.” In 2024 Van Wissem did a sold out nationwide American tour with the film. A worldwide tour is slated for 2026/2027