In Strict Tempo, vol. 117: The Best of 2026 So Far
Hello and welcome to this week’s In Strict Tempo, which finds itself slap bang in the middle of a busy week in the world of music.
Soundcloud have recently purchased the Nina Protocol site, and are offering artists the chance to distribute their music via their platform instead. That seems about it really, there doesn’t seem to be any additional functionality, although users get a free Soundcloud account for a year. They’re also committing to preserving the editorial side of the site, but only as an archive.
Challenger DSP Subvert have launched their label focused offering - one big thing a lot of new music streaming/download platforms get wrong is that they only speak to artists, when it’s labels that ultimately own most of the catalogue - I digress. Subvert looks interesting, offering artists and labels ownership in the platform, which seems to be their USP, although in my opinion this complicates the running of it all somewhat. I’ll investigate more at a later date.
In reissue news, three things recently have caught my attention, with Numbers delving into the Chain Reaction back cat to give Hallucinator’s 1999 album Landlocked a fresh lease of life, Warp are putting out Aphex Twin’s Drukqs on vinyl again, including a £100 4LP boxset that apes the original release (there’s also a cheaper, ‘standard’ 4LP version), and Late Night Tales bringing Sasha & Digweed’s game-changing 1996 compilation Northern Exposure back to vinyl after 30 years. All three of these deserve deeper articles of their own, so look out for those in the forthcoming weeks.
Finally, Disco Pogo’s latest book has dropped, this time exploring the life and work of the Guvnor himself, Andrew Weatherall. It’s about three times the size of the previous Jockey Slut tribute that came out after his passing, and I’m only a few pages into it, but so far so good. You can revisit my tribute to Weatherall here too.
Anyway - anyone that tells you that music is all shit these days is speaking bollocks - there’s been some great albums released in 2026 so far, and I’ve decided to round up some favourites here. I’ve spoken about most of these before, but sometimes it’s nice to look back a while after release and see if they still stand up. So, in no particular order, here’s five of the best records of 2026 so far.
Boards of Canada - Inferno [Warp]
Does familiarity breed contempt? Not in this case no. Inferno dropped earlier this year, and most BoC fans were pleased there was no radical departure from what they knew. If anything, Inferno took their body of work so far, and bought it up to date, creating almost a ‘greatest hits’ of sorts. At the time, I (rather hyperbolically) said it might go down as one of the best albums of the 2020’s, and after numerous listens since I’m doubling down on that.
Tara Clerkin Trio - Somewhere Good (World of Echo)
This album showed more than anything that trying to pigeonhole records into genre is just a waste of time. It’s a bit of everything that’s good, bringing to mind groups like Broadcast, The Durutti Column, Seefeel, Massive Attack, Hydroplane and basically anything else that plays with never quite fitting in to any one place. There’s as much here for the jazz heads as there is for the pop heads and electronica heads, and in a more just world this would be massive. It should come as no surprise that an album that sounds like Somewhere Good should come out on the World of Echo label, not only London’s best record shop, but one of the most interesting labels releasing music right now.
Carla Dal Forno - Confession [Kallista]
When this came out I immediately went back through Carla’s back catalogue, listening to her evolution as an artist from her earliest solo releases on Blackest a decade ago to her most recent albums on her own Kallista label. This stands up as the strongest of all of them, but also stands on it’s own feet as a fantastic record in it’s own right. Again, it’s criminal that she doesn’t have a bigger audience, and if you’re unaware of her all I can say is please, please, please check this out. Buy a copy for yourself, buy a copy for your friends. You won’t regret it.
Morgan Buckley & Ben Donohow - Sworx [Wah Wah Wino]
Wah Wah Wino has been the hottest label around for some time now, and it really seems to be the only one in our little world that can sell titles out almost immediately. In that respect it feels a little unfair putting something with no mainstream digital release in a best of roundup (although they have recently added the digital files for purchase on Bandcamp). Anyway - sometimes a record hits that’s so ‘out there’ it almost gives new meaning to the term. Some records are weird for weirds sake, but fall apart under closer listens - this isn’t one of those, it actually seems to get better on each spin, and becomes more cohesive with each session. It took me a few listens to really get it, but now I do, it comes together in a way that makes perfect sense.
Cancer House - The Moth [Motion Ward]
Sonically speaking this is the darker cousin of the TCT and Carla Dal Forno releases, it could fit in alongside all of them, but equally it’s a way apart in it’s own world, doing it’s own thing. It’s another one of those records that really defies categorisation, and really that’s all a record needs to do to stand out - not fit in. It’s slow and stoned, without resorting to the familiar haze that these kinds of records often has. You know that brain surgery they do when you’re still awake? This is that. It’s what I imagine that sounds like. Unlike some of the other albums in this roundup this won’t be for everyone, but it’s well worth a listen, even if it doesn’t grab you right away. I guarantee you’ll go back to it at least once.