"Like Daft Punk or The Residents, the focus is shifted onto their music, as if they really landed on this planet with one purpose only: to change the face of rock as we know it."
With the unexpected breakthrough of Angine de Poitrine earlier this year, 2026 and the music it's given us, has just got that little bit weirder. Whilst we continue to see pop records dominate the charts, those looking for something a little more experimental have had their heads turned to masked figures wielding homemade microtonal instruments or are occupied intensively studying whether cult electronic duo Boards of Canada's latest can be described as a return to form.
This sort of absurdity, experimentalism and anonymity are far from new concepts in modern music; artists like MF DOOM, Burial, Daft Punk, Dean Blunt or The KLF have cultivated personas shrouded in mystery and alternative realities, amassing serious cult followings in the process. But what is it that makes these artists otherworldy? These are artists who operate in their own leagues, creating music which doesn’t feel real but is still staunchly authentic and a far cry from AI. These are artists compelling us to change our modern listening habits and dedicate ourselves to properly following their singular craft.
Find both Angine de Poitrine and Boards of Canada's latest records in our Albums of the Year So Far 2026 list.
Angine de Poitrine, Boards of Canada, Arca, Bjork, Sun Ra, Snapped Ankles, Aphex Twin, Grimes, Yves Tumor and Cocteau Twins. We take a deep dive into some of our favourite otherworldly artists, examining the story behind their cult appeal.
Angine de Poitrine
By adopting iconic polka-dotted personas, French-Canadian math-rock and microtonal duo Angine de Poitrine have rapidly amassed a devoted cult audience since releasing their first two albums between 2024 and 2026. The duo’s 2026 KEXP performance is pinpointed as the moment of viral explosion, the absurdity of their costumes and hybrid instruments capturing the attention and imagination of various generations of music lovers (although the audience of an ADP gig does feel overwhelmingly like an illuminati of ‘6 Music Dads’). Although the masked figures create an aesthetic so memorable; the DIY monochromatic outfits, conversing in a real ‘alien tongue’, never breaking from their extraterrestrial characters, the real power is how they utilise anonymity. Like Daft Punk or The Residents, the focus is shifted onto their music, as if they really landed on this planet with one purpose only: to change the face of rock as we know it.
Boards of Canada
Boards of Canada make music that sounds both comforting and unsettling, teetering between analogue warmth, pastoral beauty and apocalyptic carnage. The term ‘hauntalogical’ is commonly applied to describe BoC’s sound; their heavy use of sampling audio snippets from children's TV or media, old VHS tapes, or public service broadcasting, placing listeners deep into their own imagination, a surreal or liminal space that is certainly not living in the present tense. More than the music itself, Boards of Canada’s rabid online fanbase, a cult of committed redditers, feed into the duo’s cryptic and mysterious lore with their obsessive deep diving into the world of each album and the music’s liminal spaces. Capturing this darker cultural zeitgeist, Boards of Canada’s return in 2026 directly inspired director Kane Parsons, who chose Inferno track The World Becomes Flesh to play out during the end credits of A24 hit Backrooms, a movie exploring that feeling of liminality and otherness.
Arca
Metallic percussion, warped vocals, glitching electronics and abrasive noise are all trademarks of Arca's otherworldly textures, music that feels deeply physical and futuristic. The Venezuelan artist has built a world entirely of her own and there is a sense of mutation in everything she does, each track constantly transforming into something new. Out of her eleven studio albums, Arca's five part KiCk cycle represents her widest palette of sounds: cyber-reggaeton, IDM, avant-garde electronics, ambient soundscapes, and pop. Most significantly, the KiCk chapter marked her first public release as a trans woman, the name itself a metaphor for kicking against resistance or oppression, a spiritual journey which transcends the concept of self for a wider connection with the universe, or whatever else is actually out there.
In 2026, Arca announces XXXXX, the first direct follow-up to her KiCk series, her first full-length project in five years, arriving via XL Recordings. The 16-track album is described as darker, more aggressive and experimental, returning to the spirit of her boundary-pushing mixtapes, an extension of her artistic universe which operates by entirely its own rules.
Björk
Björk has built a singular artistic universe where nature, technology and mythology all intertwine. It is largely the Icelandic artist’s commitment to unconventional language which has reinforced her otherworldly identity; her vocals emphasise breaths, tongue clicks, and guttural croaks. The “Björkish” language is made up of non-lexical sounds and what might sound like plain gibberish, but there is never any doubt about the emotion conveyed. From the cyber-futurist aesthetic of Post, or the icy, celestial Vespertine to the ethereal, biomechanical fantasy of Fossora, Björk’s visual and musical output consistently feels futuristic yet ancient, inspiring a fiercely loyal following that values her originality and imagination, her ability to offer pure escapism. It’s hard not to believe that Björk has seen things which no one else has, a spirit who has lived a whole other lifetime offering us a glimpse into an alternate reality or life on another planet.
Sun Ra
Free jazz, avant-garde experimentation, electronic sounds, big-band arrangements and ancient Egyptian-inspired imagery, Sun Ra is a founder of Afrofuturism, a creative movement that combines Black culture with science fiction, technology, space, rewriting a history of oppression into something more celebratory and liberating.
Conducting the 'Sun Ra Arkestra', from the early 1950s to his death in 1993, Sun Ra led the band's immersive performances, filled with elaborate costumes, chanting, poetry and futuristic sounds that felt closer to a sci-fi ritual than a traditional jazz concert. The American bandleader's cosmic identity is so established that his real name is so rarely associated with him, his audience truly accepting him as a figure from another dimension. Space is the place.
Snapped Ankles
Humans, machines or woodland spirits, Snapped Ankles have always presented that they maintain the feral energy of the forest, as communicated by their frantic motorik rhythms and driving dance punk energy. Embracing ghillie-suit camouflage and the power of masked appearances long before Angine de Poitrine, the band’s strange, playful world-building has helped them cultivate an enthusiastic cult audience beyond traditional post-punk circles, but also with performance art fans, DIY collectives eager to immerse themselves in the band’s ecological themes and anti-capitalist world.
Aphex Twin
Richard D. James, better known as Aphex Twin, has not held back about his inclination to only take untravelled paths with creativity, as he explained to Pitchfork in a rare interview back in 2014, "The holy grail for a music fan, I think, is to hear music from another planet, which has not been influenced by us whatsoever. Or, even better, from lots of different planets." James’ Aphex Twin has transformed the face of modern electronic music, making both beautiful and abrasive music with an unsettling, surreal aesthetic. Distorted self-portraits, cryptic releases and very little social media or press coverage has made him an enigmatic figure, to the point where fans are inclined to believe, because of the music’s complexity, that there quite possibly is no man behind the machine, but something more than human. A completely unique creative dimension.
Grimes
Grimes combines science fiction, fantasy, internet culture and pop music into a highly personalised artistic mythology. Her sci-fi, cyberpunk aesthetic makes her music a natural fit for gaming universes, presenting alternate futures populated by digital beings and hybrid identities. Grimes cites the ethereal Kate Bush or early electronic and witch-house acts like Crystal Castles and Purity Ring as inspiration for her dark and witchy soundscapes. Grimes has set a template for artists like FKA Twigs, Arca, yeule or Jane Remover to blend the ethereal with electronic elements, a formula which continues to fascinate audiences seeking genre-fluid and genuinely experimental sounds. Otherworldly, yet enchanting and timeless, the perfect recipe for a cult following if there ever was one.
Yves Tumor
A world of theatrics and surrealism, Yves Tumor's makes music like a shapeshifting form that constantly mutates, moving between psychedelic rock, industrial noise, electronic pop, R&B, and punk with both beauty and chaos. Their visual world adds to a sense of alienness, a killer style that oozes the non-binary artist's androgynous punk sensuality, very much alike to Prince or Bowie; the zany energy of his Ziggy Stardust era is a fair comparison.
Seeing Yves live is only an extension of this otherworldly persona, emotionally intense and grungy for fans to scream along to but unpredictable and immersive enough to also leave them silently transfixed on Yves' hypnotic presence.
"I can be your baby in real life, sugar
I can live in your dreams"
Cocteau Twins
The appeal of etherealism really is universal, a dreamy, wistful aesthetic that gives off a tranquil and effortless presence that transcends modern, fast-paced trends. The Cocteau Twins created music that resembles dreams remembered imperfectly upon waking, shimmering guitars which identified the Scottish act as defining architects of the dream pop genre. Elizabeth Fraser's glossolalic vocals suggest emotions beyond direct expression, meaning listeners can project their own meaning, strengthening their attachment to these songs, cue the band's enduring cult status.
Future Cult Icons
Meet your next world-building obsessions rising from another planet...
Magdalena Bay, yeule, Jawnino, Deer park, KAVARI, Murex, Jane Remover, horsegiirL, Blawan, Two Shell, Pollyfromthedirt, Model/Actriz, Scaler and more.