Ibibio Sound Machine - Chopping Mountain [Indie Exclusive]

Six albums in, Ibibio Sound Machine have stopped being a novelty and become an institution. The London collective led by Eno Williams has spent a decade running Nigerian highlife and Ibibio folklore through post-punk guitars and analog synthesizers, and Chopping Mountain is their most direct statement of purpose yet — a record the band describes as an attempt to promote love, unity, and resistance through music.

It is also a homecoming of sorts. After the Hot Chip-produced Electricity in 2022 and Ross Orton's harder-edged Pull The Rope in 2024, Williams reunites here with Max Grunhard, the band's own saxophonist and the producer behind 2019's Doko Mien. The difference shows. The horns sit further forward, the rhythm section is given room to breathe, and Williams moves between English and Ibibio with the ease of someone no longer explaining herself to anyone.

"Burning In Lagos" opens with the band at a full sprint. "Concept Of Love" is the closest thing to a straight pop song they have written. "River Don't Rush" closes the record on something quieter and stranger, a reminder that underneath the party there has always been a storyteller.

Indie exclusive pressing on green smoke vinyl, out September 11, 2026 on Merge Records.