The best music of autumn 2026: Johnny Marr, Phoebe Bridgers, Rachel Chinouriri and more
Irish noisemongers Gilla Band, shadowy producers Two Shell and lovable band the Big Moon have new records – plus there are tours from veterans such as Bob Dylan and Sex Pistols and newer trailblazers Kelela and EsDeeKid
Pop, rock and more
Gilla Band – Pugnello
It’s tempting to say that Ireland’s Gilla Band have quietly become one of the most innovative alt-rock bands around, but there’s absolutely nothing quiet about their music, which owes as much to extreme avant garde electronics as it does to punk. The two singles thus far released from Pugnello display no letup in the intensity of their approach: Placeholder might have been shoutier than Giraffe, but both deal in thrillingly intense sonics.
• Released 25 September
Johnny Marr – The Age of Everything
The former Smiths guitarist’s fifth solo album arrives hot on the heels of his appearance at Gorillaz’s lauded shows at Tottenham Hotspur’s ground. For a musician who once seemed an eternal sideman, Marr has made an impressive fist of his solo career: Top 10 albums, gigs bolstered by his willingness to sprinkle Smiths classics throughout. If the wheel is unlikely to be reinvented on The Age of Everything, he remains a rich and purposeful songwriter.
• Released 2 October
Two Shell – Infinite Now
The London electronic duo clearly prize their anonymity, or at least their ability to wrongfoot their audience: they’ve sent decoys to interviews and to DJ for Boiler Room; their last album, a remix collection, appeared for sale online then vanished without trace or explanation. This is diverting, but it’s ultimately the music that matters – and the four tracks already available from Infinite Now are brightly hued pop-dance that’s also somehow deeply weird, even unsettling. It’s a unique and fascinating space.
• Released 16 October
Rachel Chinouriri – I Think I Spoke Too Soon
The Guardian recently called Chinouriri “every pop star’s favourite UK pop star”: Sabrina Carpenter, Gracie Abrams, Olivia Rodrigo, Florence + the Machine and Wolf Alice have all selected her as a support act, a testament not just to the fact that she’s one of the few high-profile Black British female artists in alt-rock, but to the quality of what she does. Her second album, more synth-focused than her guitar-heavy debut, is understandably eagerly awaited.
• Released 16 October
J Cole
Like Kendrick Lamar, J Cole is a 21st-century rapper deeply rooted – both stylistically and thematically – in the genre’s past. He audibly prizes technical virtuosity as both a lyricist and MC and his most recent releases have been steeped in hip-hop history; he even promoted this year’s The Fall-Off by touring the US in a Honda Civic, selling CDs from the boot. Rumours abound that it is to be his last album: he’s worth catching live now, on the off-chance they’re right.
• Tour begins 19 October, O2 Arena, London
Ezra Furman
Furman’s most recent album, Goodbye Small Head, set unflinching self-examination to music that sounded like heartland US rock in the process of falling to pieces: a set of fantastic songs bolstered by a hint of chaos. A similar raucousness attends her live shows: she’s a sharp, funny, self-deprecating and genuinely charismatic presence, as anyone who’s heard her too-infrequent presence as a guest presenter on BBC Radio 6 Music can attest.
• Tour begins 20 October, Cottiers theatre, Glasgow
The Big Moon – Forever
London indie quartet the Big Moon are not a band that deals much in flash: their following is based on really good songs, and possibly the sense that they’re growing up alongside their audience. Debut album Love in the 4th Dimension was a scrappily exuberant celebration of youth; almost a decade later, the first single from Forever, Gravity, deals with picking up your child from nursery. It is, typically, excellent.
• Released 30 October
Kelela
Kelela set up camp in the far left field of R&B long ago. It’s 13 years since her debut mixtape Cut 4 Me, long enough for her to become an inspiration to a new generation of artists: there’s something telling about the fact that her recent album New Avatar featured a collaboration with PinkPantheress. Its sound is as unique and out-there as ever: jazz, shoegaze, goth-rock, funk, neo-soul and electronica are all part of its exciting stew.
• Tour begins 4 November, O2 Academy Brixton, London
Noah Kahan
By far the most likable and gifted of the current crop of sad-boy acoustic troubadours – his autumn-hued music sounds like it has substantially more dirt under its fingernails than that of his peers – Kahan has neatly sidestepped the problem of having a huge hit that could, theoretically, overshadow everything else he does. Stick Season may have racked up nearly two billion streams on Spotify, but his recent album The Great Divide has remained stubbornly lodged around the Top 10 since release.
• Tour begins 5 November, OVO Hydro, Glasgow
Bob Dylan
You might have thought Dylan’s 2024 shows at the Royal Albert Hall carried a sense of farewell about them – an octogenarian artist adding a distinctly elegiac air to his renditions of It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue and Watching the River Flow. But it would appear that was a misinterpretation: two years on, the never-ending tour is still in full swing, and this particular leg of it takes in a five-night residency at the Royal Festival Hall.
• Tour begins 25 November, BIC, Bournemouth
Phoebe Bridgers
Phoebe Bridgers’ return as a solo artist – six years after her wildly acclaimed album Punisher – is understandably hotly anticipated: in the interim, her indie supergroup Boygenius won three Grammys, and she’s guested with everyone from post-punk band Shame to SZA. Her new album, Lost Weekend, has proved worth the wait: another set of heart-rending songs, haunted by the death of her father among other things, this time given a striking electronic makeover.
• Tour begins 26 November, Co-op Live, Manchester
EsDeeKid
Never let it be said that pop is predictable: before the arrival of EsDeeKid, who would have thought that a white rapper with a scouse accent would break the US, not a country much given to importing hip-hop artists from overseas? But his mixtape Rebel made the US Top 30; propelled by a deeply unexpected remix featuring actor Timothée Chalamet, so did the single 4 Raws. It would seem like a novelty but for the fact that EsDeeKid is really good at what he does, turning his accent to advantage as he rips through tales of snotty hedonism.
• Tour begins 3 December, Ovo Arena Wembley, London
HorsegiirL
As any fan of the musical Gypsy will tell you, You Gotta Get a Gimmick – and Berlin-based DJ/singer-songwriter HorsegiirL’s is more striking than most: she performs wearing a horse head mask, refuses to reveal her real identity and refers to her fans as “farmies”. It sounds stupid – it is stupid – but her debut album Nature Is Healing is genuinely great: electropop, hyperpop and a dash of new age pastiche to silence the neigh-sayers. And, one assumes, her live show is pretty visually diverting.
• 4 December, O2 Academy Brixton, London
Kehlani
By any metric, Kehlani has enjoyed an intriguing career: an attempt at TV talent show fame with the band PopLyfe; a period reduced to shoplifting to support themself; reinvention as an acclaimed R&B star, hugely commercially successful and impressively unbiddable. The intro to their recent eponymous album announced they had “no fear, no filter and no apologies”. What they do have is killer tunes in abundance.
• Tour begins 8 December, O2 Arena, London
Sex Pistols feat Frank Carter
It could – and possibly should – have been a disaster: replacing the most unique and iconic frontman in punk history is no small ask. And yet, the gigs the Sex Pistols have played with Carter on vocals have been rapturously received: perhaps because the former Gallows singer makes no attempt to imitate Johnny Rotten’s characteristic vocal style; perhaps because the songs from Never Mind the Bollocks are so good, they can handle reinterpretation.
• Tour begins 9 December, Edinburgh Corn Exchange
Global
Soumik Datta – Melodies in Slow Motion
Soumik Datta, maestro of Indian classical stringed instrument the sarod, releases his nature-inspired latest album, Melodies in Slow Motion. Developed during an eight-month journey across India where Datta compiled field recordings and workshopped music in local arts spaces, the resulting album mimics the frenzied dance of honeybees through polyrhythmic percussion on Waggle Dance, as well as featuring whispering field recordings on Mangroves and intricately overlaid sarod melodies on the classical harmonics of Fireflies. A masterclass in folk fusion.
• Released 21 October Ammar Kalia
Manchester Collective – Constellations
This genre-spanning tour from the Manchester Collective string ensemble features guest performances and new works from west African griot percussionist Sidiki Dembélé and British folk violinist Rakhi Singh. An interpretation of Henry Purcell’s 17th-century baroque score for the comedic play The Old Bachelor is also programmed alongside the premiere of an Afrofuturist opera by composer Nwando Ebizie that seeks to draw the rhythmic connections between west Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. AK
• Tour 2-10 October
Jazz
EFG London jazz festival
The biggest event in the UK jazz calendar for more than three decades, the EFG London jazz festival returns for 10 days in November running A-list and new-talent gigs across the city. American vocal stars Lizz Wright and Melody Gardot, Cuban piano firebrand Roberto Fonseca, global-jazz trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf and east London new-talent spotters Church of Sound are on a huge bill – while cross-genre vocal gala Jazz Voice returns as the festival’s ever-popular opener.
• Various venues, London, 13-22 November John Fordham
Branford Marsalis and Dianne Reeves – Dedicated to You
Marking 100 years since the birth of boundary-breaking saxophonist John Coltrane, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and singer Dianne Reeves pay tribute to the jazz master by tackling one of his most popular works, the 1963 vocal duet album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. Supplanting Hartman’s resonant baritone for Reeves’s tender melodics and Coltrane’s supple lines for a more lively energy, Dedicated to You manages to find new ground in this decades-old selection of standards.
• Released 18 September AK
Classical
Lammermuir festival
Featuring more than 450 artists in almost a fortnight of performances, this ever-ambitious rural festival spans opera, chamber music, song, folk music, choral works and orchestral favourites. Highlights this year include a residency from acclaimed US pianist Jeremy Denk, who performs six Mozart piano concertos across three concerts with the Royal Northern Sinfonia – and an unprecedented opportunity to hear 100 tuba players in the UK premiere of Anthony Braxton’s Composition No 19.
• Venues across East Lothian, 8-20 September
Pygmalion and Raphaël Pichon perform Mozart
The French period-performance outfit acclaimed for its fresh, fiercely creative interpretations of centuries-old repertory returns to London in its 20th anniversary year. The choir and orchestra are joined by soloists including celebrated French soprano Sabine Devieilhe and must-see British baritone Huw Montague-Rendall for a programme focused on the vital musical legacy of the Baroque era. Mozart’s Great Mass in C Major takes centre-stage, alongside choral works by Bruckner, Mendelssohn and Schubert.
• Barbican Hall, London, 9 November
Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine
How best to celebrate the boundary-smashing 20th-century artist and activist Josephine Baker? In a performance that refuses to be pigeonholed, of course. Directed by Peter Sellars and featuring Grammy-winning US soprano Julia Bullock as Baker, this event – part-opera, part-song cycle, with nods to jazz, spirituals and music hall – sees Baker’s songs reimagined by composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey, with spoken interludes from the genre-bending poet Claudia Rankine.
• Barbican Hall, London, 20 October
Britten’s War Requiem
Commissioned for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral, which had been badly bombed in 1940, Britten’s response to the second world war was premiered by soloists from the UK, Germany and Russia – across the conflict’s divide. In this performance marking 50 years since the pacifist composer’s death, Russian soprano Irina Lungu, British tenor Andrew Staples and German baritone Christian Gerhaher star alongside the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and vast choral forces. Kazuki Yamada conducts.
• Coventry Cathedral, Coventry, 11 November
Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater
Three years since her death, this 2006 opera by the great Finnish composer receives its first full staging in the UK. Drawing on Saariaho’s experiences of motherhood and librettist Amin Maalouf’s work as a war correspondent, the opera is performed by English National Opera in a new English translation and is the first collaboration between ENO’s artistic director Annilese Miskimmon and incoming music director André de Ridder.
• Coliseum, London, 28 November-12 December