Music in 2026: Old And New

Indie electronic that nods to UK dance’s ’90s glory days.

When Kaskade and deadmau5 first partnered on their 2008 smash “I Remember,”—heralded by Rolling Stone as one of the top 100 dance music tracks of all time--the pair were leading names in the rapidly expanding electronic music scene that enraptured a generation of music lovers across America. 15 years later, the duo has formalized their occasional collaborations and long-running friendship into an official project, Kx5, with a self-titled album that carries on the genre-defining spirit of their early work with the additional excellence that comes from a decade and a half of studio and onstage experience for each. Those “different things” are evident in the evolving sound of Kx5 since the project was announced in March 2022 with the release of “Escape.” The debut single carried on the tradition of sleek melodic house music first heard on “I Remember” (and its follow-up “Move For Me”), securing significant Top 40 radio play and eventually becoming the #1 dance track of the year in 2022. However it was just the starting point for months of sonic exploration that resulted in tougher-sounding songs like “Alive” featuring The Moth & The Flame (TMTF), “Avalanche,” “Take Me High,” “When I Talk” with Elderbrook, and “Sacrifice” with SOFI TUKKER.
Kx5 has already established their ability to draw crowds as large as the biggest stars on the charts today. The duo’s first performance at Electric Daisy Carnival in May 2022 packed out the Circuit Grounds stage beyond capacity, while the pair’s December 2022 headlining gig at the iconic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum smashed records (the show broke records landing it as the largest single-day concert event headlined by an electronic music artist ever in North America per Pollstar with Billboard confirming Kx5 at the Coliseum as the biggest ticketed global headliner dance event of 2022), proving their popularity.

The trio’s long-awaited comeback is a paean to domestic bliss and a lament for Trump’s America, though it works better as the former

Hopelessness (stylized as HOPELESSNESS) is the upcoming debut solo album from Anohni, the lead singer of Antony and the Johnsons, to be released on May 6, 2016 on Secretly Canadian and Rough Trade Records. It features co-production by Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never.

Trying Times is James Blake’s seventh studio album and features British rapper Dave, and singer-songwriter Monica Martin. Written between Los Angeles and London, it’s a record about being in love whilst battling the limits of the self against a backdrop of global uncertainty. He explores the tension between intimacy and isolation, the pressure to curate and perform even as everything, inside and out, feels fragile and precarious. Themes of reflection, both literally and metaphorically, run through the record’s visual presentation, as Blake holds a mirror to the contradictions of modern connection - how we see ourselves, how we’re seen by others, and what gets lost in between. It’s about the disorienting loop of joy and dread: feeling safe in love, yet knowing the bubble could burst at any moment; struggling to stay present while global anxiety and private doubt pull you in different directions. A meditation on love, identity, and fragility in an age where the world feels balanced on a knife edge.

Spanish flamenco singer from Pozoblanco (Cordoba) born in 1994 and based in Barcelona.