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

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

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About

XLR is a magazine, a radar and a diary about music gear and the making of music — for the people who make records and put on shows, wherever they do it.

The name is the three-pin connector that every signal in the business passes through: the microphone on stage and in the booth, the line to the desk, the DMX cable that runs the lights. Studio, stage and lighting rig share it, and so does this magazine. Every few hours XLR collects what the makers shipped, what the reviewers heard, what the studios and the touring crews are doing, which producers and collectives are surfacing and what they are saying — synths and modular, plugins and DAWs, guitars and drums, microphones, monitors, PA and lights, the rooms and the people — from a few hundred sources in English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and more, then plots what is moving. The editor writes a letter every few days. Nothing is sold here; when a link leads to a shop, that is the maker's shop, not ours.

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Beats Per MinuteScenes

Album Review: Formal Sppeedwear – Punch Card

September 16

Typo loving misfits Formal Sppeedwear produce angular, wonky indie pop that playfully eschews pattern and structure. Quite frankly, they’re a glorious mess, but one that has design at its centre. Across their debut album

Read at Beats Per Minute ↗

ScenesBig Ears Festival announces 2027 lineup: Thundercat, Weyes Blood, Natalie Merchant, Norah Jones, Jeff Tweedy, Oneohtrix Point Never Beats Per Minute

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Album Review: Formal Sppeedwear – Punch Card

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