Ibibio Sound Machine - new album and UK & International Tour Dates.

Friday, September 11, 2026

Ibibio Sound Machine have released their 6th album, "Chopping Mountain", via Merge Records. They will be touring in the UK, Europe & Abu Dhabi from September 2026 to May 2027. Press release attached.

We have received the following press release;

bibio Sound Machine release their new album “Chopping Mountain”

Ibibio Sound Machine Release Sixth Album
Chopping Mountain
Out Now via Merge

Headline UK Tour Starts 2 October and finishes on 25 November in London at Islington Assembly Hall, with more dates for 2027 just announced!

Recent praise for Ibibio Sound Machine:

“an album that finds the sweet spot between cosmic jazz and gritty funk - The Times

“This collective is a vibing body, alive with Afrobeat, dub, electronica, basslines and horns, building an album so strikingly successful that it could take the band to a new level of popularity” - Songlines

“The London collective’s latest album distils their distinctive blend of afrobeat, disco, funk and post-punk into a vibrant set centred on connection, resistance and hope.” - i Paper

“Ibibio’s sixth album opens with gossamer spiritual jazz vibes but the group remain tightly wired to Africa rhythmic forces.” - UNCUT

“An expansive though deeply rooted collection of songs, which combine the textures of West African highlife with post-punk, Afrobeat, soul and electronic music.” - The Line of Best Fit

“The band’s vivacious live energy remains, and at times there’s an almost punk-like deviance of the rules, with Ibibio Sound Machine continuing to carve out their own lane.” - CLASH

“Picture Funkadelic, Fela Kuti, Hot Chip and A Certain Ratio piling into one joyous jam session” Sound of Violence

Today, Ibibio Sound Machine release their sixth album, Chopping Mountain, via Merge Records. Built through live jams, rhythmic experiments, and instinctive interplay, Chopping Mountain captures the band at their most connected and musically adventurous. From the euphoric disco rush of “When You Want to Dance” to the spiritual intensity of “Return to Sender,” the album is restless, expansive, and full of movement - another bold step forward for a band who have always refused to stand still.

At the heart of new single, and title-track, “Chopping Mountain” is a message of collective power and the belief that even the smallest action can eventually bring about monumental change.

Eno Williams explains: “Whether you are a humble pebble standing in front of a mountain or the mountain itself, remember that the power of a thrown pebble making a ripple in the lake will one day topple the mountain in front of it!”

It’s a statement of resistance, perseverance and hope, “Chopping Mountain” distils the spirit of the album into one powerful image.

At its centre is the unmistakable presence of Eno Williams - a once-in-a-generation frontwoman whose call to both the dancefloor and a better tomorrow is impossible to resist. Around her, Max Grunhard (saxophone, keyboards), Alfred Bannerman (guitar), PK Ambrose (bass, keyboards), Joseph Amoako (drums), Afla Sackey (percussion), Scott Bayliss (trumpet, keyboards), and Tony Hayden (trombone, synth) form a remarkably intuitive unit, their unity shaping the band’s distinctive, ever-shifting sound.

Recorded primarily at the band’s own Vanguard Studios in South London, Chopping Mountain is the first Ibibio Sound Machine album produced by band member Max Grunhard since 2019’s Doko Mien. Following the Hot Chip-produced Electricity and the darker, club-focused Pull the Rope, the new record opens up the band’s sound once again while drawing strength and inspiration from their roots, moving between the earthy textures of classic West African highlife, post-punk, Afrobeat, soul, and electronic music.

Continuing the collaborative approach first explored on Pull the Rope, many of the songs on Chopping Mountain began life in the rehearsal room, locking into a groove, an instrument, or a lyric before growing into something larger. The result is a record that pulls together the many threads of Ibibio Sound Machine’s world while pushing them somewhere new: a vibrant, physical, and forward-looking album with joy, connection, and collective energy at its heart.

Last week, Ibibio Sound Machine announced that they will be bringing that joy to even more countries in the coming year, adding 2027 UK and EU headline dates in Berlin, Paris, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Manchester, and beyond.

Ibibio Sound Machine on tour:

Sep 12 Reading, UK – Down at the Abbey
Oct 02 Bristol, UK – Lantern Hall *
Oct 03 Cardiff, UK – Clwb Ifor Bach *
Oct 07 Birmingham, UK – Hare & Hounds *
Oct 09 Dublin, IE – Button Factory *
Oct 10 Birkenhead, UK – Future Yard *
Oct 15 Brighton, UK – Concorde 2 +
Oct 16 Oxford, UK – Cowley Workers Social Club
Oct 22 Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK – Gosforth Civic Theatre
Oct 23 Edinburgh, UK – Liquid Rooms
Oct 24 Nottingham, UK – Rescue Rooms *
Oct 25 Whitby, UK – Musicport Festival
Nov 20 Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
Nov 21 Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
Nov 25 London, UK – Islington Assembly Hall

Jan 29 Abu Dhabi, AE – The Red Theatre, The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi

Feb 12 Berlin, DE – Gretchen
Apr 02 Bedford, UK – Esquires
Apr 03 Totnes, UK – The Totnes Civic Hall
Apr 09 Southampton, UK – Papillon
Apr 10 Falmouth, UK – The Cornish Bank
Apr 14 Paris, FR – Hasard Ludique
Apr 15 Antwerp, BE – Trix
Apr 18 Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso (Upstairs)
Apr 24 Norwich, UK – Norwich Arts Centre
May 14 Cambridge, UK – Junction 2
May 15 Guildford, UK – Boiler Room
May 20 York, UK – The Crescent
May 21 Glasgow, UK – Classic Grand
May 22 Manchester, UK – O2 Ritz

* w/ Ziyad Al-Samman
+ w/ AK/DK

More info about Ibibio Sound Machine and Chopping Mountain

Chopping Mountain, the new record by Ibibio Sound Machine (11 September via Merge), is the clearest rendering yet of the London collective’s longstanding mission to promote love, unity, and resistance through music. It is the band’s sixth full-length record, and the first to feature the band’s Max Grunhard as producer since 2019’s Doko Mien. Following their Hot Chip-produced breakthrough Electricity (2022) and the darker, clubbier inflection of the Ross Orton-produced Pull the Rope (2024), Chopping Mountain feels like it was pulled directly from the hearts and experiences of the Eno Williams and Grunhard-led band.

Williams, as always, is a siren. A once-in-a-generation frontwoman whose call, both to the dancefloor and for a better tomorrow, is impossible to resist. How she does it is a mystery. Take a song like “Return to Sender,” for instance. Inspired by a car accident in which she felt the steering wheel of her vehicle literally jump out of her hands, which she likened to “a spiritual attack by unseen forces”, the track is a sinewy, cathartic rager, a full-body workout and full-throated rejection of evil in multiple tongues, English and her native Ibibio.

She is, of course, hardly alone at the foot of Chopping Mountain. Ibibio Sound Machine, made up of Grunhard (saxophone, keyboards), Alfred Bannerman (guitar), PK Ambrose (bass, keyboards), Joseph Amoako (drums), Afla Sackey (percussion), Scott Baylis (trumpet, keyboards), and Tony Hayden (trombone, synth), are supernaturally tight, drawing on their roots and inspirations in highlife, disco, afrobeat, funk, post-punk, and electropop to build towering cathedrals of sound around her voice.

Continuing on the path they first charted on Pull the Rope, many of Chopping Mountain’s songs started out in jam sessions, locking in on a groove or an instrument or a lyric. “Give Me Peace,” featuring Dele Sosimi of Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80, found its way to bliss once the chant-sung lyrics “Give me peace, give me freedom, give me love with a kiss” tumbled out of Williams’ consciousness. The dub-inflected, breakbeat heavy soul that stirs to life beneath them - an entirely new sound for a band that has mastered blending a seemingly endless array of sounds - came naturally. “It’s about finding calm in a world that is trying to tear us down,” Williams and Grunhard explain. “Once we established that direction, the song seemed to write itself.”

This is, at its core, the spirit of Chopping Mountain. Against the backdrop of a dispiriting world, Ibibio Sound Machine remain hopeful, seekers of consciousness and connection. On tracks like “Concept of Love,” they are direct and earnest, sculpting an Afro-disco song around Williams’ repeated question of “What is your concept of love?” They have their theory (“When you love someone / Let them love you back”) but the song passes the idea from member to member with a thrilling guitar solo from Bannerman, to Baylis’ horn stings and via vocodors, and precision drumfills in a way that creates a space in which one can meditate on the answer or move through it. Exploring the concept further on “Love,” they deliver an ethereal slice of highlife.

This heady brew of disparate styles and points of origin melds and pulls itself apart across the whole of Chopping Mountain, its songs united in that they are the sharpest tools Ibibio Sound Machine can bring to bear in the present moment. They present the struggle for freedom as a communal one, in which even the smallest movement contributes to the end game. As Williams sings in the title track, “When pebble disturbs the water / Ripples over yonder / Force of a sling shot hits you / Chopping mountain rock asunder.” The work of liberation is long and difficult, but it is not without joy. Here is an album bursting with it.