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XLR MAG

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On the calendar

· Trade shows and launch events, this week's stories from each corner of the industry, and what its press is covering.

On view

This week, from that corner the newest stories from the corner of the industry you picked

The wire their own posts, translated

How records get made in 2026 from the industry's own reports

Sources

Fetched every six hours, linked to the original

About

Three pins, and nearly every signal in this business passes through them.

The magazine is named after the cable: the microphone in the booth, the line to the desk, the DMX run that fires the lights. Studio, stage and rig share the same cable. Most magazines pick one of the three. This one covers all of it, because the people we read do too — the engineer mixing a record on Tuesday is on front of house by Saturday.

Around a hundred and sixty sources, in English, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Chinese and Italian: makers and their release notes, reviewers who put a hand on the thing, studios and touring crews, the producers and collectives surfacing this month and the scenes they came out of. Synths and modular, plugins and DAWs, guitars and drums, microphones, monitors, PA and lighting. What the trade is talking about is counted and plotted. The editor's letter has just started; it will find its rhythm.

For each story: a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link out. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the maker or the photographer. A German review appears in German and a Japanese one in Japanese, as the writer published it; the link goes to the original.

Nothing is sold on this site. When a link leads to a shop, it is the maker's shop, not ours.

Cover of Big Sur — Cover via the Cover Art Archive ↗

Album · out 2026.10.30

Big Sur

Big Red

XLR rating

—

Out of 10 · awaiting a listen by the desk

Press score

—

Not collected yet · the reviews we read are linked below

Spotify ↗Apple Music ↗Bandcamp ↗YouTube ↗

Nothing plays on this page · Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, YouTube open a search

Tracklist

01Nightmare—:—SGR
02Mission St.3:25SGR
03Isn't He Funny5:44SGR
04The Creek—:—SGR
05Man Bites Dog—:—SGR
06Not That Guy—:—SGR
07I Hurt You, You Hurt Me—:—SGR
08Big Sur Pt.1—:—SGR
09Big Sur Pt.2—:—SGR
10Lost (And Found)—:—SGR

10 tracks · Titles and lengths from MusicBrainz ↗ (CC0), checked 2026.10.28 · tracks: Skip · Good · On repeat, by the desk, after listening

The desk’s take

Awaiting a listen.

When someone on the desk has heard the whole record, they write a paragraph here and sign it

What the press said

10.28Big Red go with their gut on Big SurThe Line of Best Fit ↗
For a skeletal trio, Big Red certainly stretch past a song’s limitations of volume, time, and tone. Big Sur is a stirring, often thrilling rock record: love and anger tangled up in longing, captured…

Headlines and short excerpts from the stories we read, each linked to its source · more appear as the press publishes them

Stylesalternative rock

Style tags: MusicBrainz, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Release data: MusicBrainz ↗, matched from ListenBrainz new releases named in our headlines on 2026.10.28