ESSENTIAL RELEASES Essential Releases, January 16, 2026 By Bandcamp Daily Staff · January 16, 2026
What the Bandcamp Daily editors are listening to right now.
Courtney Marie Andrews
Phoenix, Arizona
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00:10 / 00:58
Phoenix, Arizona
I’m starting off the new year with some tried-and-true: a female singer-songwriter in the business of contemporary Americana (not all change has to come at once, right?). Courtney Marie Davidson’s latest is an album at the crossroads of endings and new beginnings, forged in the fire of white-hot limerence and s…
ESSENTIAL RELEASES Essential Releases, January 16, 2026 By Bandcamp Daily Staff · January 16, 2026
What the Bandcamp Daily editors are listening to right now.
Courtney Marie Andrews
Phoenix, Arizona
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00:10 / 00:58
Phoenix, Arizona
I’m starting off the new year with some tried-and-true: a female singer-songwriter in the business of contemporary Americana (not all change has to come at once, right?). Courtney Marie Davidson’s latest is an album at the crossroads of endings and new beginnings, forged in the fire of white-hot limerence and shaped by the steel-toed grief of loss. Kicking off *Valentine *with a tacit acceptance of life’s L’s on the psych-folk incantation “Pendulum,” “Keeper” and “Cons and Clowns” tell of an audacious kind of love that is earnest and all-consuming. Lines like hazy Polaroid pictures—“Morning breath, kissing on the carpet/ Paint your chest to the sound of Debussy”—take on a lavender warmth in Davidson’s high, clear voice. “Little Picture of a Butterfly,” Davidson’s post-mortem of a failed relationship, is a true showcase of her songwriting chops but also of her sonic exploration. Lyrics like, “Used to think we were meant to be/ Used to believe in make-believe” and “Guess I should’ve known better/ Guess I’m throwin’ out that sweater” shudder with as much resonance as the raga-like synths which couch them. During the mesmerizing flute solo that bridges the song’s final verse you can actually hear the *space *of the studio that it was recorded in—live, to tape. It’s an expansive sound for an unflinchingly honest yet measured work of songwriting. *Valentine *is a Nashville veteran arriving at their full artistic powers.
–Stephanie Barclay
DakhaBrakha
Київ, Ukraine
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00:10 / 00:58
Київ, Ukraine
Originating as an avant-garde theater project in 2014, DakhaBrakha are a four-piece ensemble from Kyiv, Ukraine who’ve gained international renown thanks to a little something they call “ethno chaos,” filtering elements of R&B, soul, pop, choral, and ambient music through the dialects, instruments, and folk traditions unique to their home country. They were garnering considerable momentum at the time of Russia’s invasion; I’m talking stints at Glastonbury and SXSW, performances at the Kennedy Center, two NPR Tiny Desk performances, not to mention the Shevchenko National Prize, which is the highest possible honors for any Ukranian artist. Quietly released on Christmas Day, Ptakh is the first new DakhaBrakha album in five years, and it’s some of their best work yet—triumphant, thought-provoking fusion music galvanized by resistance. Everywhere you look, it’s an international mish-mash; electric guitars and synths bleed into goblet drums, tablas, zgaleykas, and accordions, while traditional group chants are juxtaposed with deadpanned trip-hop (see “Dytyatochko,” which sounds like Massive Attack’s Southeastern European cousin). That no two songs are even remotely alike keeps predictability permanently out of reach, without ever sacrificing accessibility, which is particularly impressive given the potential language barrier. They’re a national treasure, all right, and we’re thrilled to have them back.
–Zoe Camp
Will Epstein
Woodstock, New York
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00:10 / 00:58
Woodstock, New York
A whimsical yet seriously crafted singer-songwriter record from Will Epstein (High Water) unabashedly reaches back to the 1970s for sonic and lyrical inspiration with the result being an appealing and accessible melding of indie rock and soft rock packed with warm vintage sounds and only a few honker lyrics that we will choose to ignore as they stem from an overabundance of earnestness, which is never bad and should never be criticized. In a collection of 11 writerly songs, all recorded in the artist’s home studio with live singing and minimal overdubs, Epstein works hard at zeroing in on the smallest, most intricate details, constructing narrative vignettes that range from the routinely absurd (a song about doing the dishes) to the tragic (a funeral scene), and coloring in the edges with an array of kaleidoscopic sounds like organs, saxophones, a Wurlitzer, and synths. A lovely record overflowing with good feeling from an artist trying something new.
– Mariana Timony
HIfIklub & Alain Johannes
UK
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00:10 / 00:58
UK
Since their inception, a little more than five years ago, the excellent UK label Library of the Occult has been synonymous with ominous, synthwave-adjacent music that could easily serve as the soundtrack to a particularly suspenseful ’70s giallo movie. (Hell, a chunk of their releases actually are imaginary horror-movie soundtracks.) By that metric, the fact that they became the home for the 25th (!) record from French quartet Hifiklub is something of a surprise. The album, which reunites the band with collaborator Alain Johannes, is built not on sawing synths but on wandering, celestial guitar, falling just to the left of post-rock—post-rock without the crescendos, if you will. And yet the throughline is the sense of unease. Across 14 darkly beautiful tracks, Hifiklub and Johannes create a world suffused in shadow, with melodic guitar lines weaving gently and slowly atop atmospheric textures and thrumming bass. There’s a distinct feeling of tension running through each song, as if it may at any moment explode with sound. But mercifully, it never does; instead, the suspense is teased out again and again as the album slowly hypnotizes you.
—J. Edward Keyes
MIRA新伝統
Mexico City, Mexico
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00:10 / 00:58
Mexico City, Mexico
In their work as MIRA新伝統, Honami Higuchi and Raphael Leray combine music with elements of theater and visual art for a final product that operates on multiple levels at once. It’s heady stuff, so much so that I’d rather let the duo speak for themselves about the complex ideas behind their music rather than bungle it by attempting to summarize (which I almost certainly would). The good news is that you can enjoy the music first without diving into the ideas behind it; Higuchi and Leray create a beautifully eerie sound world full of synths that slope and rattle and pop and ghostly vocals that drift forlornly across the top. The drums, when they appear, stutter and trip forward rather than pulse in time, making songs like “Thesmophoria” feel as much like machine language as dismantled club tracks. The vocals, when they appear, only add to the disorientation; in “Circus in Town,” Leray speak-sings verses like “Watch out, here come the clowns” in a deep baritone, sounding like Ian Curtis in a duet with a Simon that’s fritzing out. If you’ll forgive me a little floweriness: There’s something almost bioluminescent about Mythoplaxy: weird glowing tendrils of pink and green waving against a dark skyline, gradually entangling you.
—J. Edward Keyes
The Protomen
Nashville, Tennessee
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00:10 / 00:58
Nashville, Tennessee
If rock operas are guitar music’s answer to movies, minus the camera, then the Protomen are undoubtedly Terrence Malick. To know them is to love them, and to love them is to endure comically long gaps between mainline projects, tolerating their fickle creative whims at all cost. These Nashville titans, who built their career off absurdly ambitious concept albums themed around classic video games, science fiction, and ’80s AOR, have kept fans waiting 17 whole years for the final “chapter, which they finally announced last fall; it was 2025’s most pre-ordered album. Unlike Mr. Malick, though, the Protomen managed to pilot their hype train over the finish line, and the finished product more than justifies the wait. Crosswiring the fabulist prog of Yes and Genesis to the roaring flamboyance of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, it rachets up the narrative stakes and sonic spectacle in equal measures. Dystopian plot beats starring Mega Man characters, arrangements with the grandeur of polish Broadway-tier set pieces, dramatic violins and Iron Maiden-y riffs constantly raining down from overhead—for those who prefer their prog narratively dense, compositionally intricate, and unashamedly nerdy, you’re in for one hell of a show.