The second album of OVERLAYS (2026), ‘Unstable Mishaps’, has just been released (18 September 2026). For more information about how it was created, see OVERLAYS (2026) on Lugubrious 78 - About the Music. The first Track, ‘Held to Account for Hallucinations’, can be streamed below.
The first percussion / drum-only album of the Lugubrious 78 - DRUM AUTOMATISM SERIES (2026) has been released. Consisting of fourteen improvised, chopped, randomised, recompiled, discarded, and overlaid pieces, ‘Broken Streams of Consciousness (Drum Automatism, Vol. 1) is available to stream and download on Lugubrious 78.com, Subvert, Mirlo, and Bandcamp. More information about how it was created can be found at DRUM AUTOMATISM SERIES (2026). This is the first Lugubrious 78 release not available on streaming platforms as we contemplate our relationship with the (increasingly exploitative?) medium. The first track, ’Reflections on Instability', can be streamed below.
The third release in the ‘EMPTY CHAIRS SERIES' has been released (on 29 May 2026).
It is the first album of sixteen planned for 2026.
Written across many years, it consists of the usual psychological-political focus, complementing ‘THE TWELFTH OMINOUS ANXIETY’ and ‘REPEAT. BLINDLY.’ (both released in 2025), and draws on many of the characteristic Lugubrious 78 composition and performance approaches. It will be available on BANDCAMP and SUBVERT soon. Meanwhile, check out the words at SKETCHES OF MUSICAL THOUGHT - SONG LYRICS. See EMPTY CHAIRS SERIES (2025 - 2026) for more about the music.
It is not clear if this is a good idea. Or even whether it will happen. A considerable amount of irreverent exploration along four main themes:
Sketches of Musical Thought: A three-volume series of instrumental tracks, including work-in-progress sketches, instrumental versions of songs with words, and more of the same.
Overlays: A two-volume collection. One consists of the two albums released with words in 2025 ('The Twelfth Ominous Anxiety' and 'Repeat. Blindly.') dropped on top of each other. The other takes 'Mishaps from History' and 'Subtle Antimusic' and does basically the same. What happens to the musical interactions and meanings when the context of the music is dramatically altered through abrupt, blatant combinations of that music? Do they become unlistenable? Do they offer something new? Is it just a grift, spamming the music world with empty nothingness? Focus on the real-time noise of multiple thoughts. See OVERLAYS (2026) for more details.
Drum Automatism: Two albums of drum improvisations recorded over a few months, in which the multitrack recordings have been reorganised following the principles developed for the next theme (see Lugubrious 78 - DRUM AUTOMATISM SERIES (2026) for details). Microscale overlays. Are there any other albums solely of drums? Talent and quality as shaped by a highly conforming musical world?
Chop. Randomise. Recompile. Discard. (C.R.R.D.): An eight-volume series that takes the roughly 374 minutes of all releases from 2024 and 2025 and applies the core compositional concept of C.R.R.D. (see Lugubrious 78 - CHOP. RANDOMISE. RECOMPILE. DISCARD. (2026) for details). What happens? A meditation on algorithmic music? A lazy approach to composition? More spamming? Fragmenting into unfamiliar forms? Grotesque self-plagiarism? Aleatory joy in an era of banal form.
To offset these (largely) instrumental offerings, the first of this year's releases consists of the usual psychological-political musings, capturing songs written over the last thirty years (see Lugubrious 78 - EMPTY CHAIRS SERIES (2025 - 2026) for details). To make everything profoundly unbearable, an accompanying text is being prepared that captures a multitude of meaningless musical musings from the beginnings of Lugubrious 78. An exploration of the evolution of ideas or a culmination of years of pretension heated in the timidity of a fictional recording studio (sorry Tzara!). This may see the light of day. It may not.
A busy few months to round out the year, with the following scheduled releases:
'Repeat. Blindly.' (28th October 2025) provides another exploration of self and world with an alternative rock / experimental leaning.
‘Study in D’ (28th November 2025) takes an electronic and orchestral look at changing time signatures and tempos.
‘Subtle Antimusic’ (31st December 2025) presents a series of reworked and newly recorded instrumentals exploring the meaning behind what constitutes Subtle Antimusic (hint: it isn't anti music at all…)
Lugubrious 78 recently joined Subvert as a Founding Artist. Currently positioned as A Collectively Owned Bandcamp Successor, Subvert is “collectively owned, stewarded, and controlled by its community, with 100% of its founding ownership reserved for its artists, community, and workers. We’re building a platform that has artists’ interests, collective ownership, and democratic governance hardwired in its very DNA.”
No doubt this is a welcome and necessary intervention in an industry that seems stacked against the interests of independent artists.
Continuing the tradition of layering tracks / projects on top of each other and then chopping them up and randomizing them, two projects have just begun:
Taking the soon to be released ‘Study in D’ (28th November 2025) and producing Unchopped / Chopped (working title) by combining the tracks ‘Desperate’ and ‘Disparate’, chopping by bars using the original time signatures, and recombining in a new order.
Combining the previously released ‘The Twelfth Ominous Anxiety’ (28th March 2025) and the soon to be released 'Repeat. Blindly.' (28th October 2025) in numerical order, chopping by bars using a set tempo, and recombining in a new order.