> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.hwaelmag.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Tinder Ash :: New Beasts
- URL: https://www.hwaelmag.com/tinder-ash-new-beasts/
- Published: 2026-11-04T08:51:28.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-04T08:51:28.000Z
- Description: Experimental folk: Tsinder Ash’s tape of banjo, bowed lyres and synths.
- Author: Hwael Mag
- Tags: Album Reviews, 2026, Landscape, Folk, Pop

### The credits on *New Beasts* list one person on more than ten instruments: alto saxophone and clarinets, banjo and mandolin, two kinds of dulcimer, Celtic harp, tabla, a Juno 101.

---

*New Beasts* was released on 30 October 2026 by Cruel Nature Records, on cassette and digitally. Tsinder Ash, a musician and singer based in London, works between experimental folk and dark electronics, with records such as *Both the Wound and the Blade* (2020) behind them.

Avi Engel brings gudok and talharpa, bowed instruments from the Russian and Nordic traditions, and sings backing vocals. Martin McCarrick plays cello, Joe Davin electric bass and double bass. Jemma Freeman and Andy Becker play electric guitars, Becker also on synth, while Adam Matlock adds accordion and synth. Agon Branza has an additional production credit on “Trying”. Little of this is native to London, and all of it ends up on a tape by someone who lives there.

[New Beasts by Tsinder Ash](https://cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/new-beasts?ref=hwaelmag.com) 

“Vessel” is spare to the point of austerity, and there is a shade of Tim Buckley in the singing, an absorbed candour over a sound that carries dust. Fixed on the voice, it barely develops across its whole length.

“Trying” brushes against the post-rock of Bark Psychosis, the voice turning coroner. The instruments never settle into layered chamber pop. Each is asked first for what it naturally gives, and only then for a performance: on “Any Given Stone” the acoustic sound grows as rough as the strings that make it. The singing never needs to push, and Leonard Cohen is a fair reference. The spaces between voice and instruments stay open; a dissonance and a funeral-march tread are enough.

“Lower Creatures” is an old blues in which the phrasing, above all, gives each word its weight. The catharsis comes from the dryness of the playing. The music refuses to be a second lament beside the singing and becomes its sworn enemy, muffled and hypnotic.

More than ten instruments in one pair of hands, guests all around, and what holds *New Beasts* together is the voice: folk and blues singing without excess, a mature, resonant baritone that speaks more than it sings.

---