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6 Music's best albums of 2026 so far

To celebrate New Music Fix Week, BBC Radio 6 Music has compiled a list of 26 albums from 2026.

Featuring Boards of Canada, Kelela, Kim Gordon, Mandy, Indiana, Robyn, and more, this is 6 Music's list of essential albums to catch up on from the year so far.

This week 6 Music will be celebrating this year's biggest music stories, with sessions, interviews and mixes across the network. Listen live to 6 Music on Friday July 10th as we'll be playing our favourite new tracks of the year all day.

If you're looking to keep up with all the latest releases, New Music Fix brings you the best in new music every week. Get your daily fix of new music with Deb Grant and Nathan Shepherd Monday-Thursday 7-9pm, plus a weekly roundup of the best new albums with Matt Everitt on New Album Fix on BBC Sounds.

Scroll down to discover which albums we're highlighting from the year so far...

Angine de Poitrine - Vol. II

If you haven’t yet heard Angine de Poitrine, you’ve probably seen them: playful, nightmarish polka-dot figures, pogo-ing on stage, pointing their toes at pedals, wiggling their noses. The ascent of the French-Canadian band has been a bit of throwback to days when music tastes could be shaped by moments: a single televised performance; a breakthrough track that’s shared relentlessly. A viral session for Seattle station KEXP helped spread Angine’s name (and wiggly noses) far and wide - not just because of the dazzling stage get-up, but because of their craft. It’s something that can be appreciated on record just as much as repeat viewing on YouTube. Their ever-shifting, hyper-active noise rock is an act of human mastery, the kind it takes years - if not decades - to finesse. An adrenaline shot for experimental prog rock, Vol. II is testament to the fact that hard work reaps rewards.

Boards of Canada - Inferno

Inferno is pioneering electronic act Boards of Canada’s first album in 13 years, announced only a month before its release. This isn’t out of character for the enigmatic Scottish duo, Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin, who are brothers but only revealed that publicly in 2005, nearly 20 years after they started making music together in 1986. They rarely give interviews and had a seven-year hiatus before their previous album, so their first new record in over a decade was highly-anticipated. The ambient tracks layer mysterious samples - abstract speeches, whispered phrases - over moody, haunting, synth-driven instrumentals, and the whole thing has a feel of someone letting you in on a dark secret.

Chanel Beads - Your Day Will Come

There’s mischief in the air for Chanel Beads’ second album, right before you hit play - it carries the same album title, Your Day Will Come, as its predecessor. Take that, Google search engine optimisation! Using the same title also hints at a reinforced, foreboding message: your day will come, even if life feels rosy right now. The Shane Lavers-fronted group bring forward a sense that all is not as it seems. Even if the melodies of Song For The Messenger are neat, trim and near-euphoric, they are undercut by a tinny, constantly-shifting production style that sends you towards headier climes. At times it’s like listening to an early '90s grunge record through a fizzy drink can - which sounds frustrating on paper, but instead provides a strangely sweet experience.

Dove Ellis - Blizzard

Rising Galway indie-folk musician Thomas O’Donogue started releasing music under the moniker Dove Ellis at the end of 2025. With a tour support slot with Geese before the launch of his debut album Blizzard in December, there's no wonder this album had a major impact at the start of 2026. It’s a gem of an album, so well-formed and cohesive that it’s hard to believe he doesn’t have an extensive back catalogue preceding it. It feels masterful but also playful, jumping effortlessly between heart-rending introspection, uptempo folk instrumentals, and warm, triumphant, rock-tinged moments. His velvety tone and versatile vocal range have earned him comparisons with Jeff Buckley, Thom Yorke, and Jacob Alon, which bode well for a very exciting career to come.

ear - Rumspringa

New York duo ear met in 2024 and within a year of recording their first song on an iPhone, they had released their debut album, and swiftly followed it up in 2026 with their second, Rumspringa. Their soft, intimate vocal style, often sung in unison or in a shy call-and-response, doesn’t sound like it would fit with the triumphant, synth-driven beats that often take the foreground in their songs, but there’s something irresistible about this unique blend. Their tracks often feature samples of what sound like field recordings, with from speech to birdsong to foley-style sounds to squeals, which gives the feeling of watching snippets of someone’s home movie. The record feels personal, warm, and unusual, another step in carving out their signature sound.

Fcukers - Ö

Fcukers cut their teeth selling out buzzy gigs in New York, but their debut record Ö (pronounced "oo!") has one foot firmly in the UK. Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis' decidedly refined, kinetic take on dance-pop gives plenty of nods to jungle, drum'n'bass and UK garage across its heady 28 minutes. Released in spring via Ninja Tune and featuring exec production from Kenny Beats (Geese, IDLES), the album hops, lightly-footed, across a playground of 00s R&B, squeaky-clean pop and DJ breaks. It's the club, afters, and whatever comes next all rolled into one.

Foo Fighters - Your Favorite Toy

The beloved rock band’s twelfth album brings them firmly back to their rock star roots. The rawness of the sound is reminiscent of their early albums and you can imagine the high-energy tracks translating well to a live gig. “It’s almost like a setlist,” Grohl said in Foo Fighters’ Access All Areas interview for 6 Music’s Artist in Residence.
Recorded in frontman Dave Grohl’s home studio, and featuring backing vocals from his daughter Harper, and drums recorded on Harper's own drumset, it can’t help but have a personal feel. “I just feel like it’s our happy place,” Grohl continued. “It’s kind of that comfortable area where on other records we would stretch out instrumentally or try to push boundaries with arrangement and composition, but this one’s really simple and easy and fun to play.”

Gorillaz - The Mountain

The Mountain is a noteworthy shift in direction from virtual band Gorillaz, drawing on inspirations from recent travels around the world. It was partly recorded in India and much of the album’s sound is built around Indian classical instrumentation. Thematically it focuses on death, grief and the afterlife - band members Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett both experienced losses of people close to them during the making of the album - and even features posthumous samples of previous collaborators like Dennis Hopper, Bobby Womack and The Fall’s Mark E. Smith.

Honey Dijon - THE NIGHTLIFE

The Chicago-born DJ’s third album feels like an empowering, blissful night out with your friends. Every song is a collaboration, with artists like Jacob Lusk, METTE, Rochelle Jordan, and more lending their voices to the songs, but never overshadowing Dijon's urgent, versatile beats which always shine at the song's core. Above all, the record is an homage to a space where she has always felt safe. “For me, nightlife has always been a sanctuary, especially for queer people,” she told Nick Grimshaw. “Nightlife is not just something for entertainment, it’s self-expression, it’s how we find our tribe, so I wanted to do a celebration of that.”

James Blake - Trying Times

James Blake is a long-established name in the electronic space (both for his own music and his production work with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Frank Ocean, and Justin Vernon), and with every album he manages to do something different while staying true to his unique sound. Trying Times is a sumptuous, textured record which grapples with the state of the world we’re in, alongside how to hold on to long-term love. The album is executive produced by his partner Jameela Jamil and references to their relationship are threaded throughout. There are some beautiful love songs - in particular the single I Had A Dream She Took My Hand and title track Trying Times - but the work they put in to their partnership is maybe summed up best in his collaboration with Dave: “Staying in love / doesn’t just happen”.

Kelela - New Avatar

As soon as New York-based artist Kelela Mizanekristos (known mononymously as Kelela) started releasing music in 2013, her blend of electronic, alternative R&B gained her acclaim - and collaborations with the likes of Solange, Danny Brown and Kaytranada. She is accomplished in many genres, starting with her classical music roots at school, to performing in an indie band, to singing progressive metal, and so it’s no surprise to see her stepping outside of her current niche with her latest album New Avatar (out July 10th). With this record she is stepping into a more rock-inspired, guitar-driven sound than her previous solo work, but continuing to collaborate with electronic artists such as A.K. Paul and PinkPantheress.

Kelsey Lu - So Help Me God

The announcement of Kelsey Lu’s follow up to their 2019 debut Blood was a very welcome surprise following a long hiatus. In the meantime they have composed soundtracks for the A24 film Earth Mama and the Netflix documentary Daughters but fans have been awaiting a new solo project, and Lu has been taking the time to make it perfect. “So Help Me God was built slowly and intentionally across seven years of transformation,” Lu said in a statement, and this beautiful album certainly feels like a cohesive, purposeful collection of pieces. Lu is classically trained, having learned piano, violin and cello from the age of six, and those instruments are filtered throughout the record, with swirling strings and gentle piano rhythms accompanying Lu’s ethereal, soulful vocals, which can’t help but take centre stage.

Kim Gordon - PLAY ME

Decades after co-founding the hugely influential Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon remains one of rock's most restless and uncompromising voices. PLAY ME, her third solo album with producer Justin Raisen, follows 2024's experimental trap-influenced record The Collective with something equally unruly. There's some traces of trip-hop, industrial noise and heavy bass, as Gordon delivers barbed and deadpan commentary on topics such as AI, the tech world and what plagues humanity as a whole these days. Dave Grohl guests on drums and, at under 30 minutes, it's a record that's compact, urgent and funny at the same time.

Lauren Auder - Whole World As Vigil

This is only the second studio album from British-French singer-songwriter Lauren Auder, but she has been cementing her place in underground electronic music for more than a decade. Her production skills have seen her work with the likes of Jeshi, Slowthai, and Caroline Polachek, and tour with Christine and the Queens before the release of her debut album. Her expansive electro-pop sound has been described as baroque pop, referencing her skill for orchestration and interest in classical music, citing composer Maurice Duruflé as one of her biggest influences. Slipping between roaring rock riffs, warm experimental pop, soft piano-driven ballads, and distorted, industrial-inspired samples (such as lead single Praxis, which is built around a sample of a power drill cutting through metal), Whole World As Vigil is a versatile album showcasing Auder’s considerable musical skill.

Lime Garden - Maybe Not Tonight

Brighton’s Lime Garden play a tight-knit, high-energy form of synth-laden indie - or what they term “wonk-pop”. After their 2024 debut, second album Maybe Not Tonight loosely follows the arc of a big night-out: from the giddy optimism of pre-drinks to the unexpected, raw chaos that follows. “At the beginning of the album you're getting ready... you get to the middle of the record and it's like, 'Yeah, this is lit!'” drummer and co-producer Annabel Whittle recently said. “But then you start thinking you can see your ex... so then you walk home and feel awful... and you're lying in bed just thinking: 'Why did I even bother?' And that's the album.” Bringing together Elastica's sharp edges, LCD Soundsystem’s dancefloor euphoria and new-rave’s DIY energy, alongside the gleefully chaotic spirit of influences like Charli XCX and Lily Allen, it’s a record that sums up what it’s like being in your twenties.

Mandy, Indiana - URGH

Buoyed by the reception to their 2023 debut i’ve seen a way, Manchester via Berlin group Mandy, Indiana decided to dial up every notch of their bone-shaking, industrial noise for a follow up. On URGH, they incorporate techno throbs, bravely personal lyricism and a thrilling tapestry of samples. Valentine Caulfield's vocals - mostly delivered in French - act like brief reminders that you're still semi-conscious, caught up a merry-go-round of abrasive catharsis and speaker-shedding thuds. It's a thrill to witness live, too, as evidenced at this year's 6 Music Festival.

Peaches - No Lube So Rude

You may know Canadian electro-punk legend Peaches (a.k.a. Merill Nister) best because of her 2006 song Boys Wanna Be Her, which has been widely used in television, film and advertising for its iconic riff and catchy chorus. Peaches has made a name for herself since the 90s via her raunchy, explicit lyrics exploring gender identity, politics and brazen sexuality. Her first album in 11 years, No Lube So Rude doesn’t hold back on celebrating joyful filthiness, sexual empowerment as you age, and the LGBTQ+ community. Album track Not In Your Mouth None Of Your Business was written as an anthem for queer and trans people, and encapsulates Peaches’ determination and ethos on so many levels, as she declares as the start of the song: “You will never take away our pride.”

Robyn - SEXISTENTIAL

Sweden’s alt-pop icon Robyn’s ninth album follows an eight-year hiatus. Her electronic synth-pop sound is so instantly recognisable that many songs - particularly lead singles Dopamine and Talk To Me - give the warm familiar feeling of songs that you’ve known and loved for years. But Robyn still takes new directions with the album, most notably in her vocal performance on title track Sexistential - a portmanteau which began as an in-joke but grew to fit the direction of the album. Sexistential is a house/rap track about her experiences with IVF and single motherhood, a brilliantly unusual genre choice to explore such underrepresented topics. More than 30 years after her first album, Robyn continues to break new ground - and even create new words.

Rostam - American Stories

Since his departure from Vampire Weekend back in 2016, Rostam Batmanglij has quietly become one of music’s most sought-after collaborators. He's worked on Frank Ocean's Blonde, Solange's A Seat at the Table, Haim's Women in Music Pt. III, and has further collabed with Clairo, Samia, Remi Wolf and more. On his third solo album, he brings a conceptuality to his own music that he perhaps hasn't before. Born in Washington DC to Iranian parents, American Stories sets his dual heritage side by side, playing out on the record through Persian rhythms merging with sun-drenched Americana, or Middle Eastern strings veering into country-folk. The results are both intimate and quietly poignant, a record that asks - in Rostam's own words - “What makes music American? Who gets to be American?”.

Sassy 009 - Dreamer+

Oslo’s Sunniva Lindgård has been releasing music under the Sassy 009 moniker for close to a decade. But following the departure of her two bandmates, the project has found new life as a solo venture. Since then, Lindgård has quietly become one of Scandinavia’s most intriguing musical voices - sharpening her sound on the buoyant, dance-pop-leaning Heart Ego before pushing further into new territory with the dynamic and layered Dreamer+.

The result is her most ambitious and fully realised work yet. Built around a dream-like fictional narrative, the record pulls together modern club music, ambient textures, trip-hop and atmospheric pop, shaping it into something unique and striking. It’s a restless album that constantly reshapes expectations. Lindgård’s voice - manipulated, layered, captivating throughout - brings to mind the likes of 070 Shake and Tirzah. Blood Orange guests, too, on a record that isn’t to be slept on.

Show Me The Body - Alone Tonight

Show Me The Body are back with their first album in four years, and their fourth record overall. The New York post-hardcore outfit follow up the critically acclaimed Trouble the Water with Alone Tonight, partly conceived in a basement studio before being recorded with producers Klas Åhlund (Robyn, Ghost) and Kenneth Blume III (Geese, Fcukers). Frontman Julian Cashwan Pratt explains how working with Åhlund in particular shaped the record: "There's certain parts of our music that are distinctly Show Me The Body. And he was like, 'those parts only your band could do? You should just do that all the time. All the parts that sound like everybody else, you should just do less.'" Lead single Dance In The USA is crunchy and urgent, while No God is equally relentless.

Shy One - Mali

With the release of the (technically) self-titled album Mali, which is her given name, the London-based DJ, producer, and radio host Shy One crafts an intimate tapestry of the black British electronic music that has influenced her life. She melts the boundaries between house, broken beat, garage, and grime down into a record of remarkable warmth and subtlety. Where her early output channeled the raw, high-octane friction of London’s pirate radio legacy, Mali represents an intentional period of sonic decluttering and creative recalibration. Across the ten carefully arranged tracks, she pivots toward a more introspective, late-night vibe. The dancefloor impulse remains vital, but it is filtered through a smoky, unhurried lens that rewards solitary headphone contemplation as much as basement club movement. Almost an autobiography of her musical life, the album moves seamlessly between black British music genres of the last 30 years. The skill of Shy One’s production is on show in the fact that without relying on nostalgia, and never settling for too long within any one tradition, but instead drawing from each, she is able to create something deeply personal and quietly transportive.

Tara Clerkin Trio - Somewhere Good

Somewhere Good by the Bristol-based Tara Clerkin Trio is a beautifully hazy and hypnotic journey through ambient, jazz, dub, folk, and electronica that is resistant to definite categorisation. Whilst clearly born out of the Bristol hometown-sound of trip-hop, it defies some of its forebears' traditionally darker and drug-induced elements, in favour of a warmer, calmer, summer-evening-at-a-jazz-bar feel. This creates a nostalgic and easy listening experience, yet the emotional candidness of Clerkin’s vocal performance on tracks like Slow Island produces a satisfying tension and shows that under the sun-dappled surface this album is still formed by, and informed on, topics like displacement and gentrification. Much of Somewhere Good is spent drifting through soundscapes of samples intermingling with live instruments and electronics, and letting these elements build and morph at the trio’s own pace. This ever-evolving pace allows for the quiet urban contemplation only otherwise offered by a sleepy summer evening walk through a city, and affirms this album as a solid part of the uniquely British music tradition in the vein of Portishead, Broadcast, and Stereolab.

Tony Bontana - My Name

The sound of My Name, the latest project from Birmingham-born Tony Bontana, is warm and nostalgic yet confounding and disorienting. Much of that tension comes down to his sample use - what he terms his signature "splayed" sound. As Bontana puts it himself, it involves taking “a sample or a loop, and then processing it, degrading it to the point where it makes less sense”.

With influences ranging from Madlib to The Streets’ Mike Skinner, and credits alongside experimental rap figures like Lil B and Billy Woods, My Name is a collage of chopped loops, skittering beats and whatever Bontana feels like throwing into the mix. There’s warped soul on 'Soft Dreams', stretched-out Burial-esque electronica on 'Step 5' and ambient piano on the closing track. It's woozy, psychedelic and meditative - the Brummie MC delivering a stream-of-consciousness flow that invites comparisons to Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE - as he ruminates on identity, grief and more.

Wesley Joseph - Forever Ends Someday

Forever Ends Someday is rising Walsall musician Wesley Joseph’s debut album, but he has been honing his craft and building to this moment since he began releasing music in 2020. Over the years he’s picked up endorsements and collaborations from artists like Loyle Carner, and Jorja Smith - the latter of whom appears on this album as well alongside Danny Brown. In the gentle vocals and melodic production you can hear the influences of Frank Ocean, and across the tracklist he blends R&B, soul, hip-hop and electronic music to create a well-rounded rich sound. He’s also a trained filmmaker and has directed many of his own music videos, contributing to a clear creative vision across his work.

YHWH Nailgun - Magazine

Sometimes listening to New York-via-Philadelphia's YHWH Nailgun feels like stumbling disorientated through a broken-down carnival. Their music is dizzying, surprising and genre-blurring. Bewildering and beguiling in equal measure, but like a fairground itself, impossible to look away from.

Their latest record Magazine, out on influential UK label 4AD, is 10 songs but only 11 minutes in length, most tracks coming in at just under or just over the minute mark. The drums follow motorik post-punk rhythms, the guitars jag like post-hardcore, while vocalist Zack Borzone - whose lyrics draw on religious imagery and high-brow literary influences - drawls somewhere between art-rock and black-metal horrorcore. Each song is a short adrenaline shot in itself, and you never quite know where the album is going to lead you.