Ibibio Sound Machine - Chopping Mountain

Ibibio Sound Machine have always made music where borders disappear. On Chopping Mountain, Afrobeat, highlife, disco, post-punk, and electronics collide with the effortless energy of a band playing together in the room.

Released in 2026 on Merge Records, Chopping Mountain is the London collective’s sixth full-length album and follows 2024’s darker, club-oriented Pull the Rope. It also marks the return of founding member Max Grunhard to the producer’s chair for the first time since 2019’s Doko Mien, bringing the focus back toward the chemistry between Grunhard, vocalist Eno Williams, and the sprawling ensemble around them.

That chemistry is immediately apparent. Horns, percussion, elastic basslines, synthesizers, guitars, and electronic rhythms constantly overlap without crowding one another. “Concept of Love” turns a deceptively simple question into luminous Afro-disco, while “Love” draws from highlife and “Return to Sender” introduces a tougher electronic pulse. The album’s rhythms invite movement, but beneath them lies a broader concern with love, unity, resistance, and finding connection in an increasingly fractured world.

Williams remains the gravitational center. Singing across English and Ibibio, she can move from commanding to playful to deeply reflective while the band shifts around her. The arrangements similarly resist settling into any single category. West African funk and disco sit alongside synth-driven electro, psychedelic textures, post-punk sharpness, and contemporary club production, continuing the cross-cultural conversation that has defined Ibibio Sound Machine from the beginning.

There’s also a looseness to Chopping Mountain that distinguishes it from its immediate predecessors. After the Hot Chip-produced Electricity and Ross Orton-produced Pull the Rope, returning production duties to Grunhard gives the record the feeling of music developing organically from the ensemble itself.

Vibrant without becoming lightweight and politically conscious without sacrificing joy, Chopping Mountain is Ibibio Sound Machine doing what they do best: turning disparate musical languages into one irresistible, communal pulse.