Today is Friday, February 6th, 2026, and you can now hear Oklahoma City noise-rock powerhouse Chat Pile’s two new studio tracks: the original titled “Masks,” and the other a burly reimagining of the early Nirvana song “Sifting.” The songs are from the band’s now sold-out, limited-edition 7” Sub Pop single announced late last year.
Physical media collectors don’t fret - you still have a chance to grab the tour-only version pressed on peach vinyl available at Chat Pile’s live shows. There is also a sick new collaborative logo T-shirt that is still available (7” Single and T-shirt, available while supplies last!).
Sub Pop is thrilled that Chat Pile graced us with these two massive songs, and we couldn’t be happier to add them to the list of greats who have released music for the label. The band kindly shared their perspective on this release, so we’ll let them elaborate further:
“It’s a true dream to put out a single on Sub Pop, and our new song ‘Masks’ hopefully honors the spirit of the mythical, sometimes mystical, city of Seattle. Thanks in part to the movie Hype, we have long been obsessed with Seattle, the American underground of the late ‘80s, and Sub Pop and their tools of world domination. Everything we learned about packaging Chat Pile, we learned from Sub Pop co-founders Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt.
“We wanted to cover a song from the early Sub Pop era, and something off Bleach seemed the obvious choice. Songs like ‘Paper Cuts,’ ‘Negative Creep,’ and especially ‘Sifting’ are fairly lateral to the type of sounds we make with Chat Pile. (Perhaps next time we’ll take on a TAD song!)
“To mark the occasion, we’ve also donated $3,000 to DREAM Action OK, a community-based organization that aims to empower our local immigrant community through advocacy and education to ensure justice for all immigrants. Learn more about DAOK here.
Thanks to Sub Pop for giving us the opportunity to put this single out - we hope you enjoy it.
“And most importantly, FUCK ICE!”
Chat Pile On Tour Thu. Aug. 06 - Ancora, PT - Sonic Blast Festival Sat. Aug. 08 - Katowice, PL - OFF Festival Fri. Aug. 14 - Col Du Lein, CH - Palp Festival Sat. Aug. 22 - Bristol, UK - Arctangent Festival
Sub Pop has snagged the acclaimed young musician Hayden Pedigo with an unorthodox recording contract. Among other things, this union will spawn a number of new albums, one of which Hayden is currently hard at work on.
In celebration of this news, Hayden is sharing the oddly specific details of his contractual agreement, along with tour dates and details of an upcoming NTS Live residency.
First, the agreement:
Hayden Pedigo and Sub Pop are ever so pleased to confirm that these terms were found mutually agreeable, and this agreement is now law.
Hayden Pedigo’s upcoming international live shows for 2026 include a headlining performance on Thursday, March 26th in Brooklyn, NY at St. John’s Lutheran Church, and festival appearances on Saturday, March 28th in Knoxville, TN at Big Ears Festival, and Thursday, April 9th-12th in The Hague, Netherlands at Rewire Festival.
Hayden Pedigo will also host a new, four-month-long residency titled Amarillo Highway With Hayden Pedigo on NTS Live beginning February 25th.
More on Hayden Pedigo… Hayden Pedigo: man, myth, master of disguise; un-picker, finger-picker, absurdist, perfectionist. The unorthodox contender for Amarillo City Council, subject of the film Kid Candidate, and creator of the acclaimed albums for Mexican Summer: Letting Go (2021), The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored (2023), and his latest release, I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away (2025).
He’s an innovator of the instrumental genre. A challenger of the stereotypical, son of a truck-stop preacher, he backs up a cherry red Silverado under his own smiling, Brylcreemed and Nudie-Suited billboard. His foot hesitates above the gas pedal as a cloud of dust rises. Where between beaming advert and disillusioned entertainer might his truest self lie? I’ll Be Waving…his intentionally maximalist, genre-resistant work of warped instrumental Americana – is an exclamation point at the end of an accidental trilogy of records. The album was selected for “Best Albums of 2025” lists from All Music, Nialler9, No Ripcord, PASTE, and Pitchfork. The latter says of the record in its “Best New Music” review, “On his most majestic and sincere record yet, the Texas guitarist plays with grace and power, evoking the gentle emptiness of the American West.”
2025 also saw the release of In The Earth Again, the well-received collaborative album with Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile, released on the Computer Students label. That album also saw year-end praise from the likes of Beats Per Minute, The Needle Drop, Treble Zine, and Stereogum, who called the album “…the two acts find a cohesive middle ground in this brutally dystopian guitar music, with Pedigo’s fingerpicking contrasting Raygun Busch’s seared vocals. The result almost feels like a southern gothic novel: devastating, vast, yet oddly warm all the same.”
Caldicot, Monmouthshire, Wales’ finest, The Bug Club, will release Every Single Muscle, their incredible new album on CD/LP/all DSPs worldwide on Friday, May 29th, from Sub Pop. The 18-track longplayer features today’s first single, “Watching the Omnibus,” along with approximately 17 other tight, anxious, and engaging garage-punk numbers like “Yours (If You Want Me),” “A Good Day for Dying,” “Make It Count,” and “My Uncle Warren Drives a Passat.” Every Single Muscle was produced and mixed by Tom Rees at Rat Trap Studios in Cardiff, Wales, and mastered by Mikey Young.
Every Single Muscle is available to preorder now on CD/LP/all DSPs from Sub Pop. LP preorders from megamart.subpop.com in North America, Mega Mart Europe in the UK + EU, and your local record store, will receive the limited Loser Edition opaque blue (NA) and blue vinyl (UK/EU)(all vinyl color editions whilst stock lasts!). Every Single Muscle also features what is likely the band’s most BONKERS cover art to date, illustrated by Ross Willmett.
The Bug Club has also announced headlining UK dates for May and June 2026, plus a May 23rd support slot opening for Super Furry Animals in London. Additional live dates will be announced soon.
Sat. May 09 - Wrexham, UK - The Rockin’ Chair Sat. May 23 - London, UK - Brixton Academy* Mon. Jun. 01- Norwich, UK - Arts Centre Tue. Jun. 02 - Brighton, Uk - Concorde 2 Wed. Jun. 03 - Bristol, UK - The Lantern Thu. Jun. 04 - Liverpool, UK - Hangar 34 Fri. Jun. 05 - Leeds, UK - Project House Sat. Jun. 06 - Barry, UK - Memo Arts Centre * supporting Super Furry Animals
More on The Bug Club’s Every Single Muscle:
The Bug Club are back with a new album. It’s been a whole eleven months since their last. Where have they been?
Every Single Muscle, the band’s fifth LP, arrives 29th May 2026 via Sub Pop, making it a hat-trick for the Welsh duo and their esteemed Seattle-based patrons. Since Very Human Features, which emerged in June of 2025, the non-stop tour has seen the BBC 6 Music and KEXP favourites ping-pong across the Atlantic like they used to the Severn Bridge. Various festival slots in the summer kept them from having any sort of holiday - who needs one when you live in Wales anyway? - until it was time to head back to the writing room.
So that answers that first question. Not that you’d have otherwise known. Ever self-effacing, songwriters Sam (guitar, vocals) and Tilly (bass, vocals) go as far as to claim that they’ve been sitting around “doing nothing at all” during track “It’s Our Manager David.” That’s clearly a lie. Every Single Muscle gets off to a full-throttle, chugging start with “Miss Wales 2012,” referencing a competition both Tilly and Sam have actually won. Dead serious. It’s the first of many sub-two-minute tracks on the album, setting the tone for The Bug Club’s punkiest offering yet and recalling both the short, sharp snaps of their very first singles and the grunt of recent releases. So packed is the album with wall-to-wall riffs and lyrical hooks rammed into tight confines that Sam actually asks permission to squeeze in a solo during second track “A Good Day for Dying.” He’s given two seconds.
Not that we’re short-changed, though, because Sam asks again later on and is granted more. Across eighteen tunes there’s enough classic Sam/Tilly guitar interplay to satisfy even the most vociferous Bug Club club member and firmly refute the band’s own claim that they are only “just about technically proficient on our instruments.” “Full Range of Motion” has a choppy rhythm that sits atop drummer Tom’s tight beat and serves to remind us all of Minutemen, for a minute. “Make It Count” brings sweet melody and call and response, while “All My Clothes Fell Off” allows for a slower paced ballad that builds to a crescendo that would not be out of place in the world of classic rock. “Cut to Black” combines a Sparks-esque falsetto and Tilly’s melodic bass playing with a rhythm something close-ish to what Klaus Dinger used to do for Neu! And closer “My Uncle Warren Drives a Passat” sees them doing a bit of a left turn and swapping out guitars for keys. This record’s an exercise in efficient maximalism - the musical equivalent of your dad packing the car for a holiday. Bring what you like; space is tight but they’ll get it in there somehow.
On to the words, because with these guys those are important. While Very Human Features did an excellent job of pointing at everyday things and highlighting their absurdity, on Every Single Muscle The Bug Club look more closely at themselves. Not so much in an introspective way, though. More in a way an alien might probe a captive specimen on an intergalactic gurney. Horror movies get their “body” subgenre, now garage rock albums get theirs too. Self-interested in an entirely new sense of the term, the human form and condition is prodded and inspected from every angle throughout the course of the album. “Look Like Me” sees them singing about their own appearance, while on “How Can We Be Friends” they are preoccupied with others’. “Every Single Muscle” itemises organs as if they belong on a shopping list, and both “Make It Count” and “Pretty as a Magazine” bemoan the fact people don’t know what to do with their own bodies. Altogether, we get a sense of surreal detachment from the self that sets up the ever-present ennui-laden humour; the last song sees Sam announce he’s “bored of being human.” The Bug Club seem almost suspicious of the concept of being a person - as if they’ve woken up in a costume they didn’t want to put on and cannot take off.
Initially comprising the songwriting core of Sam Willmett (vocals/guitar) and Tilly Harris (vocals/bass) with Dan Matthew (drums), The Bug Club started plying their trade in 2016. They were signed by UK label Bingo Records in Autumn 2020 and first single “We Don’t Need Room for Lovin” was released in February 2021, followed by EP Launching Moondream One. It quickly established The Bug Club as the tongue-in-cheek and live-focused antidote to the previous year’s penned-in pandemic drudgery. BBC 6 Music’s Marc Riley was an early champion.
Pure Particles followed, whose vinyl release included a board game brimming with cult references. Fed up with the conventional approach they then released “Intelectuals”: a standalone track that was actually a five-track “song suite” like some kind of streaming-model-snubbing, Telecaster-bashing answer to Bach. Highbrow musos took a lyrical beating for the ages. Second standalone release “Two Beauties” marked release number two for 2022 and built up to the appearance of debut album Green Dream in F# by October. The following January they decided to pull their fingers out, get some disguises and support themselves on tour as Mr Anyway’s Holey Spirits. A live album documented this, then they got abstract with titles and put out the picture disc Picture This! By the autumn of 2023 it was time for forty-seven track, poetry-infused double album Rare Birds: Hour of Song.
During a trip to America they caught the eye of Sub Pop, just in time to get them on board to serve up a beefy slab of garage-punk on On the Inner Workings of the System, gaining an appropriately beefed-up stateside following in the process. The partnership proved fruitful, and with Sup Pop firmly in The Bug Club club they got cracking on Very Human Features. Is three the magic number? Probably not. But Every Single Muscle - number three for The Bug Club and Sub Pop - certainly comes close enough to convince your average strange human person that it might be.
The Bug Club Every Single Muscle
Tracklisting: 1. Miss Wales 2012 2. A Good Day for Dying 3. Make It Count 4. Cut to Black 5. Full Range of Motion 6. Pretty as a Magazine 7. Look Like Me 8. How Can We Be Friends 9. Every Single Muscle 10. Shiny and Wet 11. Semi-Automatic 12. In My Short Life 13. Watching the Omnibus 14. It’s Our Manager David 15. Yours (If You Want Me) 16. All My Clothes Fell Off 17. Third Best Friend 18. My Uncle Warren Drives a Passat
SUNN O))) share the new track “Butch’s Guns,” another standout from the band’s forthcoming eponymous album. The new song is available today on all streaming services.
Also today, SUNN O))) is announcing new summer headlining shows in the EU and UK beginning Tuesday, June 23rd in Zurich, CH at Rote Fabrik and currently running through Monday, July 6th + Tuesday, July 7th in Berlin, DE for a two-night stand at Silent Green Bentonhalle. The tour will include stops in Belgium (Antwerp), the Netherlands (Amsterdam), Germany (Köln), and the UK (Bristol, Brighton, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, and London). Additional live dates to be announced soon.
Tickets for these June and July shows go on sale Friday, February 20th at 10 am CET. Please find a current list of dates below.
SUNN O))) recently added shows to the band’s upcoming 2026 North American headline tour in support of the album. The tour will now include stops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Denver, Boise, Seattle, and Portland (OR). Tickets for the shows below are on sale now.
North America, March/April 2026 Mon. Mar. 30 - San Francisco, CA - Regency Ballroom Tue. Mar. 31 - Los Angeles, CA - The United Theater on Broadway Wed. Apr. 01 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren Fri. Apr. 03 - Dallas, TX - Trees Lounge Sat. Apr. 04 - Austin, TX - Emo’s Sun. Apr. 05 - Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall Mon. Apr. 06 - New Orleans, LA - Civic Theatre Tue. Apr. 07 - Atlanta, GA - The Goat Farm Thu. Apr. 09 - Columbus, OH - The Bluestone Fri. Apr. 10 - Washington, DC - The Lincoln Theatre Sat. Apr. 11 - Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer Sun. Apr. 12 - New York, NY - The Town Hall Mon. Apr. 13 - Montreal, QC - Le National Tue. Apr. 14 - Toronto, ON - 131 McCormack Thu. Apr. 16 - Chicago, IL - Salt Shed Sat. Apr. 18 - Iowa City, IA - Englert Theatre Sun. Apr. 19 - Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room Mon. Apr. 20 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre Wed. Apr. 22 - Boise, ID - Shrine Social Club Fri. Apr. 24 - Seattle, WA - Showbox (So Do) Sat. Apr. 25 - Portland, OR - Roseland
UK/EU, June/July 2026 - Just Announced Tue. Jun. 23 - Zurich, CH - Rote Fabrik Wed. Jun. 24 - Antwerp, BE - Trix Thu. Jun. 25 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso Fri. Jun. 26 - Koln, DE - Essigfabrik Sun. Jun. 28 - Bristol, UK - Prospect Building Mon. Jun. 29 - Brighton, UK - Corn Exchange Tue. Jun. 30 - Liverpool, UK - The Dome Wed. Jul. 01 - Leeds, UK - Project House Leeds Thu. Jul. 02 - Birmingham, UK - O2 Institute Fri. Jul. 03 - London, UK - Troxy Mon. Jul. 06 - Berlin, DE - Silent Green Betonhalle Tue. Jul. 07 - Berlin, DE - Silent Green Betonhalle
The albumSUNN O)))will be released Friday, April 3rd, 2026, and is available for preorder now on CD/2xLP/all DSPs worldwide from Sub Pop. LP preorders through the North American Sub Pop Mega Mart will receive the limited Loser edition on opaque bluevinyl; preorders through Mega Mart Europe will receive the Loser Edition on oxblood vinyl (UK/EU) with reversed cover art. The Loser Editions will also be available at your local record store. And, while supplies last, two new T-shirts (long and short sleeve) and a baseball hat (US-only) are available.
SUNN O))) was co-produced & mixed by the band and Brad Wood (Hum, Tar, Sunny Day Real Estate, Liz Phair), and was recorded at Bear Creek Studios in Woodinville, Washington, January 2025.
Framing the album visually are two paintings by the late American artist Mark Rothko - one on the front cover and one on the back cover, with the art reversed for UK & European pressings. The CD and LP package also includes expansive liner notes by author Robert Macfarlane, whose 2025 novel Is a River Alive? is among the many sources of inspiration for the album. And, illustrations by French artist Elodie Lesourd are featured on the inner LP sleeves and accompanying album merch.
sunn O))) S/T
Tracklisting: 1. XXANN 2. Does Anyone Hear Like Venom? 3. Butch’s Guns 4 Mindrolling 5. Everett Moses 6. Glory Black
“This album is potent yet delicate, waterbaby’s voice serene, almost angelic.” - [COVER STORY] NME
On Friday, March 6th, waterbaby will release her debut full-length, Memory Be a Blade, on CD/LP/DSPs worldwide from Sub Pop. The 8-track long player features the songs “Amiss”, “Beck n Call”, and the album’s title track, which The New York Times says, “With its gentle percussion, trembling strings and sweet, cooed harmonies, the song has the intimate, handmade quality of a scrapbook.”
Today, you can hear Memory Be a Blade’s newest offering, the blissful electro-acoustic track, “Clay (feat. ttoh)”, and by watching its official video, directed by waterbaby and Levi Axene.
waterbaby has confirmed new UK & EU headline dates for 2026 in support of Memory Be a Blade. These shows will begin on March 19th in Gothenburg, Sweden, along with dates in Stockholm, London, Paris, and Berlin. Additional live shows to be announced soon. See below for a current list of shows.
Thu. Mar. 19 Gothenburg, SE - Nefertiti Fri. Mar. 20 Lund, SE - Mejeriet Sat. Mar. 21 Linköping, SE - Babettes Sun. Apr. 12 Stockholm, SE - Södra Teatern Wed. Apr. 15 London, UK - The Lower Third Thu. Apr. 16 Paris, FR - Popup! Fri. Apr. 17 Rotterdam, NL - MOMO Sun. Apr. 19 Berlin, DE - Frannz
On waterbaby’s Memory Be a Blade, the Stockholm, Sweden-born singer-songwriter’s first album for Sub Pop, the nostalgia runs deep. Her follow-up to the acclaimed 2023 EP Foam, Memory… is darker, richer, and more personal than ever. She wanted her lyrics to dig deeper and evolve her writing forward, something she accomplishes stunningly across the eight-track project.
To spark inspiration for her new lyrics, waterbaby reflected on a past break-up. She had moved on and was seeing someone new while recording the album. But when the newer relationship ended, she witnessed how much the album took on a new meaning to reflect the heartbreak she hadn’t anticipated experiencing.
“Many of the songs came to mean very different things than what I had thought when writing them in the first place,” waterbaby admits.
In the two years following Foam, waterbaby and her primary collaborator, Marcus White, took their time to get the album right. They wrote and recorded around Stockholm, the south of Sweden, and even Los Angeles. As it took shape, however, waterbaby began to notice how much she would stiffen up behind the microphone. She admits she gets quite shy in the studio, opting for the familiarity of people like White to stay by her side. But in order to take her words and sound deeper, White encouraged her to improvise what she sang instead of writing it out ahead of time.
Her improvisations were paired with compositions that reflected waterbaby’s classical background. White played piano alongside his lush and ethereal arrangements of string and horn parts. Musicians like violinist Oliva Lundberg, cellists Filip Lundberg and Kristina Winiarski, saxophonist Sebastian Mattebo, trombonist Hannes Falk Junestav, and flutist Pelle Westlin round out the dreamy ensemble (read more at Sub Pop).
What people are saying about waterbaby: “An unguarded DIY R&B moment coming out of the Swedish capital.” - The FADER
“A real jewel, a thrilling and evocative slice of future-facing pop” - CLASH
“worth a few hundred plays.” - Loud and Quiet
“the Swedish artist’s knack for instant classics is no accident” - DIY
“waterbaby’s writing feels both fragile and fearless, cementing her status as one of alt-pop’s most quietly devastating new voices.” - Wonderland
“beautiful” - Notion
Memory Be a Blade is now available to preorder on CD/LP/all DSPs from Sub Pop. LPs purchased from megamart.subpop.com, MegaMart Europe in the UK + EU, and your local record store will receive the limited Loser Edition on Cosmic Berry (NA) and Pearl / Arctic (UK/EU) vinyl while supplies last.
waterbaby Memory Be a Blade
Track Listing: 1. Sink 2. Memory Be a Blade 3. Clay 4. Beck n Call 5. Minnie 6. Minnie Too 7. Amiss 8. Srs Ice
Today, Wolf Parade band member Spencer Krug is sharing a solo piano version of “I’ll Believe In Anything,” available on all DSPs worldwide from Sub Pop (and on Pronounced Kroog in Canada.) The song, from Wolf Parade’s Apologies To The Queen Mary, their beloved full-length debut, is earning the band a slew of new fans thanks to its prominent use in the steamy hit TV show Heated Rivalry (see February 9th Vulture interview).
On Spotify alone, the original recording of “I’ll Believe In Anything” has now reached 40 million streams to date, with 20 million of those amassed since the show’s premiere in late November. The show also helped grow the band’s listenership on the platform to over 2 million monthly listeners.
This tender version of the song originated last month during Spencer’s solo set at Unreal City Fest in Vancouver, BC at Russian Hall. The response to the performance on social media was fantastic, so he’s recorded the new rendering of the song at Risque Disque Records in Ladysmith, BC, for wider release.
Krug also has a headlining performance on June 5th in Vancouver, BC at St. James Hall. As for Wolf Parade, the band has scheduled some Canadian headlining shows for the March 11th through March 15th, 2026 timeframe. Additional dates will be announced very soon.
Please find a current list of dates below.
Wed. Mar. 11- St. Catharines, ON - Warehouse Thu. Mar. 12 - St. Catharines, ON - Warehouse Fri. Mar. 13 - Hamilton, ON - Bridgeworks Sat. Mar. 14 - Guelph, ON - Sonic Hall Sun. Mar. 15 - Guelph, ON - Sonic Hall
Spencer Krug “I’ll Believe In Anything (Piano Version)”
