Ahead of their appearance at Rewire 2025, we asked The Hague duo Able Noise to craft a list of recent favourite releases that inspired them over the last calendar year. Able Noise, or Alex Andropoulos and George Knegtel, craft experimental warble-core with guitar and drums. Their album High Tide (2024) blends noise, texture, and melody into vivid, haunting songs. Using voice, cassette tapes, and unconventional techniques, their intimate sound feels like overhearing a private conversation. Before their appearance at Rewire 2025, Able Noise were invited to prepare a selection of favourite music that inspired them in the past year, which happens to include some Rewire 2025 artists such as Ex-Easter Island Head and Yellow Swans, and Rewire 2024 alum Rafael Toral and Dialect.
Rafael Toral – Spectral Evolution
“Spectral Evolution came out early in 2024, but only became familiar to us in these past months. It happens quite rarely that you listen to a piece of music that you are immediately struck by, but this is what happened on the first listen of this album. It felt special to experience that instant connection to music again, in this case through a meticulously crafted sonic world of harmony, texture, and feedback. It sparked a deep curiosity to learn everything there was to know about the piece and Toral’s view on music in general, in particular about experimentation as an attitude in regards to music material, it being about a constant feedback of listening and adapting, embracing and exploring the margins of error in music performance. This is quite a freeing perspective that we both strongly connect to. It was therefore no big surprise how resonant his live performance was when we saw him this year.”
Ex-Easter Island Head – Norther
“Ex-Easter Island Head, first and foremost, must be one of our favorite live bands currently. Their solemn stage presence, the transparency of how they go about their sonic exploration (something very important to us), and the power of the music is truly unique and awe inspiring. Since the inclusion of Andrew (creating music on his own as Dialect), the band have expanded their music from it originally being very mechanical and technically impressive, to also deeply emotionally abrasive. The album is simply the high resolution documentation of this impressive and beautiful music, exploring every element of their minimalist set up without ever repeating themselves.”
Rezzett – Puddings
“Just a really koul, analog, glitchy dance EP that was released by duo Rezzett. It is probably one of the releases Alex has listened to the most since it came out, with tracks inspiring a really specific eerie mood, rather representative of how he’s felt for a big chunk of the year. It is a perfect example of the sound and aesthetic truly unique to electronic music that resonates with us, creating soundscapes that can’t be made with our instrumentation.”
Gastr del Sol – We Have Dozens of Titles
“This choice is arguably a risky one as it makes it clear what a huge influence Gastr del Sol have been on our music, or rather on our approach to music making. They were one of those acts that exemplified how free you could be with sound and composition, as long as it was done consciously and intelligently. For example hearing them use a kettle in a piece so musically and beautifully was mind blowing. So, any further material to be heard and that shines light on their approach is indispensable. The compilation is extremely them, relatively different from the structure and narratives of all their albums due to the nature of it being a collection of separate pieces, yet still incredibly beautiful, unique and inspiring.”
Yellow Swans - Out of Practice
“I personally have always had a keen interest and love for noise music due to its abrasive immersive qualities, though the examples I have liked have always been within very specific criteria, it needing to retain a musical and melodic character, and it being hypnotic as well as volatile. Yellow swans are of the few examples I have of such music, and their latest double release is an extremely good example of it. It is what they do and always have done, but excellently and sonically very relevant, breaking past the novelty of simply a reunion album. I am also really excited to see them live at Rewire.”
Harry Gorski-Brown – Durt Dronemaker after Dreamboats
“GLARC are the Glasgow tape label that put out our first album back in 2020. Apart from being the sweetest people on the planet, they release eclectically picked examples of very beautiful and very odd music, the only seeming connecting line through all releases being how left field they are (GLARC started in order to have Still House Plants finally release recorded music!). Maybe their finest example is Harry Gorski-Brown’s debut release, compiling traditional Scottish folk songs he has revitalised and inflated with heavily processed bagpipes, a favourite example of auto-tuned vocals and impressive production. The result is somewhat transcendental by fusing beautiful human folk with impossibly greater-than-life soundscapes.”
Dialect – Atlas of Green
“Arguably unfair as he has already received indirect praise for performing with Ex-Easter Island Head, but Andrew's solo project as Dialect does fit alongside his band's release in our hearts and ears, though very different. A glitchy collage of homemade sounds and soundscapes meticulously woven together to create impossible worlds. What is really unique and compelling to us is, although sample-driven (all samples of his own creation), the album sounds as if it is played live off of some type of mechanical piano, each key strung to the instrument the sample is created from, weaving all the sounds together as if pulled into the same room, creating very organic sounding compositions of both tiny and huge sounds peacefully coexisting. It feels like the album is also very representative of the current spirit of the UK, this nostalgia for an exciting future is now never achievable (we've been reading a lot of Mark Fisher).”
Bòsc – Bòsc
“In the great surge of modern folk revival taking place all over Europe, it's somewhat hard to describe why some examples resonate and feel extremely relevant, while others feel as if they fall a bit short and flat, without much life within them. One example of contemporary folk that stood out to both of us instantly as a perfect example of folk revitalised, relevant, and beautiful was the French female folk five-piece Bòsc that we shared a bill with at a festival in the south of France over the summer. Using purely traditional instrumentation of their homeland south of France, they play a mix of traditional songs and modern compositions played in ways hinting to their origins while also bent in peculiar ways through avant-garde and arguably even punk sensibilities. The concert was an incredibly moving manifestation of the wine, grass, sun, and comradery that was the weekend we were invited to play at, and their debut album was the perfect documentation of that spirit.”
Jeff Parker ETA IVtet – The Way Out of Easy
“Simply a very pleasant and enjoyable album, one to easily put on and listen to in all sorts of contexts, with it always remaining as intended, a perfect groove album. On a nerdy production level, it is also interesting to know it was recorded with only one meticulously placed microphone per instrument to not interfere with the performance or experience of the audience during the concert these recordings came from. It hints at sounds stemming from Jeff Parker's Tortoise toil, the juxtaposition of rhythms and interwoven melodies landing perfectly in place, though much more stripped and straight with a great deal of very fluid improvisation structured around solid chunks of composition. The sound and aesthetic is that of very homely warm jazz, though used to create solid groove post-rock.”
Still House Plants – If I don’t make it, I love u
“This album functions as one of the examples used against the statement “rock music is dead” as, although made with instrumentation dating back a century, it feels extremely fresh, alive, and relevant. With minor but very specific tweaks, Still House Plants managed to polish their sound to be the tiniest bit more digestible to the average listener than previous releases, for it to suddenly explode in the ears and minds of the public, catapulting them very high up on the list of great alternative rock acts. Although they have been honing their sound for years, If I don’t make it, I love u was that push the world needed to realise how unique and powerful Still House Plants have always been. Simple but great riffs combined with bone-crunching rhythms that get the blood pumping are written ingeniously together, supporting the very powerful and unique voice which is Still House Plants. Apart from the music, the production is also (seemingly) very simple and extremely good, the drum sound being really incredible.”
Able Noise will perform at Rewire 2025. Keep an eye out for our next round of artist announcements just around the corner! Book tickets via rewirefestival.nl/tickets