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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: Antony Szmierek – Decoding Birdsong

August 27

Antony Szmierek is a romantic. A believer in possibilities and positive outcomes, his is a voice that we need right now. Last year’s breakthrough debut Service Station at the End of the Universe was a dancefloor-centric

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Album Review: Antony Szmierek – Decoding Birdsong

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