China's Best Music in 2026 (So Far)

Jake Newby is the author of the Concrete Avalanche Substack, which covers the best music coming out of China. If you enjoy this playlist, check out Jake’s sets from 2025, 2024, and 2023, as well as his Chinese shoegaze feature. Tracklist: 1. ‘Undercurrent’ — Pu Poo Platter — from Undercurrent 2. ‘忧郁干杯乐园’ — the three mice — from where is my mice? 3. ‘错过的提醒’ — Lygort Quartet — from Through Voodoo Light to Shore of Tomorrow 4. ‘B1’ — gogoj aka Sheng Jie + Deng Boyu — from HEH 5. ‘心的傾訴 Jürêk tolƣawe (Unbosom Myself)’ —Mamer — from Bar xatteƣem, Bar ⱪayƣem (All the Joys, All the Pains) 6. ‘没东西可掏 The Well Is Dry’ — Zhang 'NoNo' Xingchan 张醒婵 — from Catch My Boomerang 7. ‘Gaia’s Breath’ — Wu Zhuoling 吴卓玲 — from Uncharted II 8. ‘the one sounds like sweet trip’ — Cassette Player Romance — from Meaning of Home 9. ‘黑天鵝(feat. LukeDaPlaya)’ — Guo Yinan 鍋一楠 and Yuan 猿 — from The Vortex Reconstruction Experiment 10. ‘Extinguished City’ — DEADTREES — from New World 11. ‘让我飞吧’ — Lie 劣 — from Landfill For more information on each of these artists, check out the full write-up on Substack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices