Last year I put together a list of my favourite releases from that year in the EX-YU region, and it became one of the most-read things on the site. So here’s the 2026 edition: halfway through the year, ten albums and a handful of EPs that have genuinely stuck with me.
The region produces a lot of interesting music that doesn’t always get serious coverage, in English, and sometimes even locally. Critics here tend to gravitate toward established names and commercial releases; the underground and experimental end of things gets ignored. This list is an attempt to correct that, slightly.
Everything here is on Bandcamp; links are provided. If something catches your eye, check it out!
10. Osorno โ ###
Osorno is the second release from noise rock band, ###, which is supposedly pronounced by hitting a random object three times. They lurk in an intersection of noise rock, heavy psych, and electronics. The record is entirely instrumental, a strength or a limitation depending on your tolerance for guitar-led abstraction. In any case, the guitars are the centrepiece: chugging, distorted, riff-heavy, occasionally hypnotic, with electronic textures woven in.
The drums sit back in the mix more than they should, which flattens some of the heavier moments, but the record finds its footing when it commits to the slow burn. Malo smrti joลก nikome nije ลกteti is the standout โ a track that earns its crescendo, building from near-silence into something claustrophobic. A few moments recall Daliborovo granje’s dense, meditative approach to Balkan folk-infused psychedelic rock.
Full review coming soon…
9. Intention, Intensity, Shuffle โ Rok Zalokar Zhlehtet
A โmeditative, playful, and unpredictable sonic journeyโ, Zhlehtet draw on their spiritual jazz, improv, and electronic music backgrounds to craft a musical diary spanning years of concerts, performances, and shared creativity. Coming in at over 180 minutes, the quartet has assembled something that rewards dipping into rather than listening to front to back.
The standout is End of an Era, fifteen minutes that begin as a free-jazz meditation before slowly descending into glitchy electronics and claustrophobic droning. The drumming becomes more insistent, the whole thing building into something closer to post-rock than jazz before dissolving again. Itโs an intense journey and fully worthwhile.
8. Goat At Sunset โ Petrale
Petrale come from Mlini, a village on the Dalmatian coast, which feels like an unlikely home for one of Croatia’s more distinctive black metal acts. Goat at Sunset is full of dissonant guitars and growling vocals, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere with a certain sophistication that sets it apart from standard black metal fare.
The guitars are the most interesting element here: technical and occasionally proggy. The drumming matches โ heavy and intense but precise, with breaks that open the sound up. It doesn’t hit as hard or as viscerally as some metal releases in this vein, but it’s still devilish, precise, and clearly crafted from a diverse range of influences.
Elevated Crosses for Everyone to See (Goat) is probably the strongest single statement. Dorsal Horn runs close, with the longer, more progressive tracks also rewarding patience
Full review coming soon…
7. Ununani โ Klinika Denisa Kataneca
Ununani โ a word meaning something like being soothed to sleep like a child โ is Klinika’s darkest record yet: illness, death, and the weight of existing in the world told through Denis Katanec’s characteristically intimate, unsettling lens. The cover art shows woodland animals carrying a hunter’s funeral, a motif borrowed from 19th-century Austrian children’s books that reportedly inspired Mahler’s First Symphony funeral march. It sets the tone accurately.
The album arrives with the weight of expectation after Jada Jada and Kao Zao Kor set a high bar; hence, Klinika’s return after a difficult two years away was one of the more anticipated regional releases of 2026. The record is good, featuring the usual combination of folk, indie rock and alt rock, but it doesn’t quite clear that bar.
The opening stretch meanders after the solid opener Faliฤni trombon. Mrtva krv and Kornjaฤa feel slow to ignite, and lead single Lava pod remains the album’s weakest moment โ too bright and too polished for a band whose strength has always been the opposite. Regional critics have largely called this Klinika’s best work; I’m not quite there. Still, Da bi reฤ rekel is where things click into place, and Danya and ล kolica close the record with the pastoral melancholy that suits the band best.
Consistent rather than revelatory, but for a band of this quality, consistency is still worth your time.
Full review coming soon…
6. Bare, Unfolding โ Kaja Draksler Octet
Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler has built one of the most distinctive voices in European avant-garde jazz over the past decade, and Bare, Unfolding โ her third Octet record and follow-up to the excellent Out for Stars โ confirms that trajectory. The concept this time is Matsuo Basho’s haiku: meditative, minimalist, stripped to essentials, and the music follows suit.
It can be demanding listening with its abstract, experimental, and occasionally oblique style, but it rewards patience. Come See is the centrepiece, a 12-minute epic that moves through avant-folk and jazz before opening into a genuinely beautiful choral vocal section that earns every minute of listening. Skylark follows in a more confrontational mode, beginning with a full free jazz breakdown โ piano, saxophone, drums colliding โ before finding its footing.
Draksler also weaves in Handel: Mai Fu and Plum are built around his arias, surfacing unexpectedly amid the abstraction. Limited to 180 vinyl copies; the digital version is on Bandcamp and worth your time.
Full review coming soon…
5. ะะตะท ะฝะธะบะพะณะพ ะดะฐ ัะดัะธั / Bez nikogo da udriลก โ ะะปะตะผะฑะธะบ / Alembic
Alembic are a Skopje duo consisting of Iva Damjanovski on vocals, synth and theremin, and Viktor Tanaskovski on guitar and clarinet. Their second album is genuinely difficult to pin down, with progressive post-rock being the nearest shorthand, but ะะตะท ะฝะธะบะพะณะพ ะดะฐ ัะดัะธั pulls freely from Balkan folk, electronic, jazz, art rock, and occasional metal-adjacent intensity, usually within the same track.
The formula is consistent: long, slow builds toward some kind of release, sometimes a choral vocal swell, sometimes an instrumental crescendo, sometimes both. The second track is the early highlight โ a relentless build that erupts into an insanely fast metal guitar riff running alongside a folky banjo, a combination that has no right to be as exhilarating as it is. The fourth track is the album’s centrepiece: a more recognisable rock groove, choral vocals, post-punk roots showing through all the progressive abstraction. At its core, it still sounds like the emerging Skopje underground, which is the best thing you can say about it.
Full review coming soon…
4. Nocturnal Consolations โ Iztok Koren & Raphael Rogiลski
Released in March 2026, Nocturnal Consolations brings together two of the regionโs most distinctive experimental voices: Raphael Rogiลski and Iztok Koren. Both artists had already left a strong impression with their 2025 releases โ Rogiลski through Bura, a reinterpretation of Serbian folk traditions, and Koren as part of ล irom, whose In the Wind of Night stood as one of the most immersive records of the year.
Here, they meet on more abstract ground, constructing a quiet, exploratory record built on texture, space, and subtle interplay between instruments.
The album unfolds as a kind of pastoral soundscape. Across banjo, guembri, kalimba, harmonium, analog synths, and Rogiลskiโs electric guitar, the duo create a constantly shifting palette of tones that feel both ancient and forward-looking. Thereโs a strong sense of intention behind the minimalism โ not emptiness, but space carefully carved out for each sound to resonate.
3. Meja โ Katalena
Katalenaโs Meja immediately caught my attention with its album cover: a warm photograph of a car traversing a rain-soaked hill road. It struck me with a sense of melancholy and displacement that the music would then spend forty minutes elaborating on. The concept is the western Slovenian border, a region defined by the paradox of separation and connection, and this geographical premise is fascinating to see realised in sound.
For me, itโs in the quieter moments that Katalena truly excel. Kadore is a heartfelt track with gentle guitar, softly sung vocals, and an atmosphere that recalls Twin Peaks in its balance of melancholy, eeriness and fragile hope. Plovi mi, plovi channels the mythical quality of Sedmina and Dunja Knebl, that sense of an old tale being told in an enchanted forest, but with more adventurous instrumentation underneath.
2. FUCK LIFE โ Suplexx
FUCK LIFE is the debut record from the Belgrade outfit, Suplexx. It consists of ten hardcore tracks that filter raw aggression through sludge metal, industrial noise, electronic, and emo. The tagline is VIOLENCE=ELEGANCE, and they mean it.
What makes the band interesting, before you even hear the record, is their origin story. The members draw from indie, shoegaze and DJ backgrounds, with a frontman who moonlights as drummer for post-punk outfit Sv. Pseta. Suplexx is a band that sounds like nothing else currently coming out of Belgrade, and the concerts, judging by their Instagram, look genuinely unhinged.
1. ะะพะปะตะผะฐัะฐ ะฒะพะดะฐ / Golemata voda โ ะะพะปะตะผะฐัะฐ ะฒะพะดะฐ / Golemata voda
On their self-titled debut, Golemata Voda lean into a lingering kind of nostalgia. Through a melancholic, Midwest emo-leaning sound, childhood is sifted into fragments โ emotions that are either quietly carried or pushed forward with post-hardcore urgency across ten consistently strong tracks.
Musically, the record sits in a space that feels both familiar and distinct within the regional scene. There are clear traces of Midwest emo, shoegaze, and post-punk, but theyโre absorbed into something more immediate and personal. The result moves fluidly between weight and atmosphere without losing cohesion.
There are echoes of Lufthansa in the underlying tension and sense of disillusionment โ not surprising, given that Martin Dลพorlev was involved in the production โ but where Lufthansa often feel more direct and tightly structured, Golemata Voda are looser, more diffuse, and more inward-facing. Together, these releases point toward a compelling moment in the emerging Skopje scene.
While its influences are clearly felt, the band shows a strong sense of direction in how they shape them. For a debut, Golemata Voda is remarkably assured โ a cohesive, emotionally resonant record that balances atmosphere and intensity with a clear identity. It stands out as one of the more compelling releases in the regional underground this year.
