I’m writing this in the middle of an apartment I’ve barely spent any time in, sitting on the hardwood floor with the late-December sun pooling around the legs of the shitty wooden coffee table I found on the street years ago. The walls are empty and my stuff is crammed into six or so cardboard boxes, ready to be schlepped to my new apartment. New Year’s Eve is often – famously – a chance to slow down and reflect on the changes that the past year has wrought. In my case, I’m staring at the dusty imprints of where my paintings and photos were on the white, landlord-special wall. I’m looking at the fragments of tape scattered on the floor where boxes were assembled. I’m also thinking about the new apartment, and how I wish there were dotted lines already scrawled on the wall where I should place my paintings, books or furniture. It would be so nice to peek just slightly behind the curtain and see what life will look like in the new year. Where things should go. Where the plants will survive the best and which sections of my wall my neighbor will drill and hammer into at 8am on New Year’s Day (I hope he’s reading this!). But like the start of any new year, I like to peer ahead to some of the records we can expect in the new 12 months to get a topographical sense of what it’ll at least sound like. Here at Northern Transmissions, we have a few that we’re eyeing for 2026.
The question hovering over everything, of course, is whether My Bloody Valentine will finally release another album. Kevin Shields & Co. have been teasing one for years, and the rumor mill shows no signs of slowing as we head into 2026. One can hope. In the meantime, there’s no shortage of volume on the horizon: California punk outfit Joyce Manor will release I Used To Go To This Bar via Epitaph on January 30 (that’s this month—wee!!). Sky Ferreira is once again rumored to release her long (long, long, long) awaited Masochism, while Sleaford Mods will drop their 13th (!!!) studio album, The Demise of Planet X, via Rough Trade on January 16. Dry Cleaning return with their Cate Le Bon–produced third LP Secret Love on January 9 via 4AD, and New Zealand alt-pop darlings Youmi Zouma round out the month with No Love Lost to Kindness on January 30. Check out our full list below, and peek behind the curtain just a little.
Artists were looking forward to seeing in 2026
GORILLAZ:
Lana Del Rey:
Grimes:
The Shins:
Ratboys:
My Bloody Valentine:
Bill Callahan:
Mandy Indiana:
Westside Cowboy:
Brian Wilson:
Charli xcx:
Words by Conor Rooney
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source northerntransmissions.com ’
