With the full programme for Rewire 2026 now revealed, the festival’s 15th edition invites audiences to explore a wealth of recent releases from the artists performing across its most extensive line-up to date. These new releases provide a glimpse into the creativity and richness of artists that will take over Rewire’s stages this year, inviting listeners to encounter both intimate and expansive sound worlds, from solitary reflection to enveloping, multi-sensory experiences.
Nairobi-born, Berlin-based composer and producer Joseph Kamaru, known as KMRU, returns with his second release Kin (2026) on independent record label Editions Mego, following 2020’s acclaimed Peel. Emerging from early conversations with Peter Rehberg about a potential sequel, Kin evolved into a release that affirms its own sonic identity, blending Kamaru’s exploratory textures with echoes of his earlier work. At Rewire 2026, sound artist KMRU will appear alongside Nick Verstand to present their audiovisual collaboration As Nature – an ongoing study on field recording spectra.
McArthur (2026) was born from a chance encounter in Berlin between Franziska Aigner, aka FRANKIE, and the Dominican-American producer Kelman Duran in 2022. Sparked by a shared curiosity about each other’s practices, the collaboration evolved into a mercurial album of bright sine waves and brooding bass. FRANKIE’s celestial pop vocals give way to ethereal interludes of haunting electronic soundscapes and mournful electroacoustic instrumentation. Guided by a mutual affinity for the disjointed and the residual, McArthur unfolds as a ghostly narrative in which cryptic expressions of intimacy are drawn from the margins and cast into an icy, moon-soaked spotlight.
After over a decade of working together in the Arizona hip hop trio Injury Reserve, upon the untimely death of fellow MC and collaborator Stepa J Groggs, the remaining duo of MC RiTchie and producer Parker Corey decided to part with the moniker out of respect for Groggs. They now make music under the name By Storm. Their first release under this name, My Ghosts Go Ghost (2026), came out earlier this year to critical acclaim. Convectional percussion swirls with glimmering guitar samples as RiTchie's soft-spoken sermons pull listeners into By Storm's world of unconventional rap – dark yet tinged with hope. Grief clearly plays a part in this record; it is a contemplative and boundary-shifting release that is audaciously sensitive and deeply experimental at its core.
Lateral (2026) is a new triple-disc, twelve-track album from Amsterdam-based producer Mammo, bringing together all of his creative identities like Heaven Smile, A∞x, CoA-A, E35, Puddlerunner, and others, into one cohesive statement. Each disc has its own character: the first is lively and buoyant, the middle more driving and hard-edged, and the final moves into deeper, dreamier techno. Across the album, elements from his previous work emerge in the sound and structure, revealing the full range and distinct language of his music.
Joris Benjamins is the Amsterdam-based musician behind the Bby Eco moniker. Elemental and suburban in equal measure, Benjamins’s playful songs take on chimeric forms, moving between effervescent ambience and pop flourishes, as can be heard on his self-released new album Sky (i) (2026). Soaking the listener in shimmering textures and inventive melodies, Sky (i) refines his signature style of leftfield alt-pop and synthesised bedroom-ambient, delivering an immersive, experimental, and unmistakably melodic listening experience.
Loaded with tension and bold textural contrasts, Sam Slater’s third solo album, Lunng (2026), sees the British sound artist, composer, and engineer return to the wide-ranging influences that have shaped his career. From the extravagant distortion of 2000s metal to the otherworldly vocals of Maria W. Horn, stirring trombone swells, and warm saxophone lines from Andrew Bernstein, the album builds a dark, immersive sound world of swarming contradictions and cathartic noise. At Rewire 2026, Sam Slater will present Lunng in the form of an audiovisual show with video from director Lukas Feigelfeld, stage design by visual artist and lighting designer Theresa Baumgärtner, and accompanied by a cast of renowned musicians from the experimental music scene: Lucy Railton on cello, Maria W. Horn on vocals, Hillary Jeffrey on trombone, Petra Hermanova on vocals and autoharp, and Andrew Bernstein (from Horse Lords) on saxophone.
What started as a sample-based project – which used time stretching, pitch shifting, and other club music conventions to reimagine early vocal polyphony – XTC in the XIV soon transformed into a live vocal ensemble who play the voice as if it has been chopped and pasted and controlled by a sequencer. Their latest album, Salve Regina (2026), propels the ancient into the present: blending syllabic chants with intricate melodies and choral arrangements, they create a machinic-sounding yet deeply human interpretation of early and classical vocal music.
Tokyo-based band GEZAN deliver a relentless and shape-shifting statement on their latest album, I KNOW HOW NOW (2026). Conceived as “a playlist leading to a premonition,” the nine-track release fuses noise, punk, hardcore, and psychedelic rock into a hyperactive, kinetic mix full of boisterous drums, infectious guitars, and fluid, unpredictable vocals. Drawing on Japan’s experimental lineage from the psych-guitar swirls of Les Rallizes Dénudés to the chaotic energy of Boredoms, GEZAN channel these influences into cinematic post-rock builds, noisy interludes, and giddy alt-rock and punk riffs, crafting an album that distills their global experiences into a dynamic musical statement.
Tony Bontana is a Birmingham-based rapper, producer, and multi-instrumentalist who harbours a poet's mind, a comic's heart, and an endless capacity for genre-defying versatility. Tony Bontana has released prolifically in the last years, with an extensive discography including emotionally charged works like L’Humanité (2024), a tribute to his late mother, and its recently released successor My Name (2026). Channeling the resilience of Birmingham’s people without being explicitly about the city, and opening with a spoken-word intro from his friend Izzi, the album explores identity, heritage, and the weight of a name you don’t choose, blending abstract hip hop, punk, indie, soul, and post-hardcore influences into Bontana’s signature “splayed” style of rap.
Nairobi-born electronic producer Fredrick M Njau, aka Slikback, expands his dark and bass heavy sound on his latest release Eftiama Kiripha (2026), where modern club forms meet traditional African elements in intense brass driven compositions. Returning to Rewire Festival 2026 after impressive shows with Weirdcore and Aïsha Devi (as AKA HEX), he now presents Friction, a new live AV show featuring visuals from New York based artist Jacob Payne Barber, aka maltdisney, alongside light design and live video manipulation by Tasya.
The music of Montreal producer Kee Avil fuses guitar, voice, and electronics with avant-pop, glitch, and experimental folk sensibilities. Her latest album, Vapor (2026), released with NYC label NNA Tapes, releases song-by-song throughout 2026, unfolding bit by bit as a sound diary of sorts, with each one telling its own story. The album was created to capture fleeting moments of inspiration while they were still fresh, finishing each song quickly without trying to link them, letting each track stand on its own. Yet as it unfolds, the songs come together naturally, showing both the spontaneity of each idea and the full journey of the album’s creation.
KMRU, FRANKIE & Kelman Duran, By Storm, Mammo, Bby Eco, Sam Slater & guests, XTC in the XIV, GEZAN, Tony Bontana, Slikback, Kee Avil will be performing at Rewire 2026. A limited number of Thursday Passes still remain for those who would like to join for the festival’s opening programme on Thursday 9 April at Amare. Book tickets via rewirefestival.nl/tickets.