The Sanctuary Gazette

German-Swiss synthpop duo Purwien & Kowa, based in Dortmund, releases its sixth studio album, Sechs, on October 23, 2026 on the label Town and Towers. Produced by Olaf Wollschläger, the record has eleven tracks and comes out digitally and on CD via Bandcamp.

Among the songs are “Italo-disco in San Francisco”, in German and English versions, and “Hinter Glas”. Christian Purwien sings throughout the album, and Thomas Kowa joins him on “Me and My Synthex”.

Two tracks come from former bands. “Hinter Glas” was written by Andreas Sippel and Christian Purwien for Second Decay, where Purwien previously played. “Eyes of Aragon” was written by Thomas Kowa for his former band No Comment.

The two musicians also form Heldautomat, whose album Zwischen den Lichtern comes out the same week. “Hinter Glas” and “Italo-disco in San Francisco” were released as singles ahead of the album.

Darkways, a darkwave band from Barcelona, is releasing the single Undone on 23 October 2026. The release comes out on the band's own label, which is also called Darkways.

The band draws on post-punk and on the sound of synthesizers, with influences from rock and metal as well.

The coldwave project Mareux releases the single Cadillac Casket on October 23, 2026 on Revolution Records.

Mareux is the stage name of Los Angeles-based musician and producer Aryan Ashtiani. Earlier releases include “Cold Summer” and “the Perfect Girl”. His work is rooted in dark wave, post-punk, gothic rock and electronic music.

Scheitan releases the single In the Dead of Night on October 23, 2026, on the band's own label.

The band comes from Luleå, Sweden, and revolves around Pierre Törnkvist (vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, programming). Producer Göran Norman, bassist Andreas Johansson and Lotta Hogberg (vocals) have also played alongside them.

After the album Nemesis in 1999, Scheitan took a break before returning in 2023 with three singles: Lost in time, Fire at dawn and a cover of White Wedding by Billy Idol.

The Masqs release the album From Chicago with Pain on October 23, 2026, on their own label.

It features eight tracks: I Promise, In the City, Dancing with the Dead, Anything / Everything, Eres, Nasty, Without You and, as a bonus, Demons.

Poor Advice is the debut album by Basht., a post-punk band from Dublin. It is produced by Ali Chant, who has worked with Yard Act, King Hannah and PJ Harvey, among others. According to OndaRock, the record blends alternative rock, gothic shadows and grunge tensions, alternating between tense anticipation and sudden bursts of guitar. The singer is Jack Leavey.

The lyrics take aim at inherited certainties. “Perfume” and “Superchurch” address Ireland’s Catholic heritage, “Terror TV” targets media overexposure, and “Kids Vs Guns” is dedicated to the Palestinian tragedy. “Dive” opens the album, “Keira Knightley” deals with an emotional shipwreck, and “Moth” evokes the fear of the other. “Vermillion Reptilian” and “Circadia” broaden the sonic landscape.

The title track closes the album on the possibility of still resisting.

The Last Heir of Bradbury Manor, Michael Mizov’s first novel, was published on September 29, 2026 by Three Dragons Press. The 347-page gothic horror novel is available in hardcover, paperback and digital formats. Ginger Nuts of Horror publishes an interview with the author.

The story is set in Yorkshire in 1919. After her brother’s death in the Great War, nineteen-year-old Lottie Bradbury is called back to the family manor she had hoped never to see again. The gardener dies on the front steps, and his son arrives with a theory about the house. Mizov wanted a manor that seems to watch and to be hungry.

Based in New Jersey, Mizov has made short films under the name of his small studio, Brain Salad Productions, including the superhero parody Stuporhero, completed in 2019. He also founded the app company Sinecure Industries. In the interview, he talks about a 33,000-word outline, a title that suggested a romance, and a copy of Pet Sematary he read as a child.

Enter Vengeance by Weldon Burge was published in May 2026 by Smart Rhino Publications, the company the author runs after decades as a professional editor. The book is a paranormal crime novel: a millionaire suspected of killing his wife is strangled in his locked and guarded room. Detective Rex Justison and the medium Alicia Masters hunt a killer who answers to no human law.

In an interview with Ginger Nuts of Horror, Burge explains that he first conceived his antagonist, the Fury Tisiphone, as a voice: the telephone thus becomes the instrument of fear. He then gave her chapters of her own, and believes that showing her savoring a coffee heightened the unease rather than softening it.

The working title was A Wild Kind of Justice, after a phrase by Francis Bacon, before reading Joseph Campbell steered him toward mythological vengeance. Burge says he prefers the word antagonist to villain for Tisiphone, and mentions a sequel in which he would return in more detail to the scene of the imprisoned boy.

David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison and Chris Frantz have announced Talking Heads: New Feeling, a book that traces the band’s history through first-hand accounts, unseen documents and archives. Published by Abrams Books, it will be released on May 18, 2027, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of Talking Heads: 77, the debut album released in 1977.

Each of the four has written an essay. The volume also gathers original handwritten manuscripts of songs such as “Psycho Killer” and “Life During Wartime”, sketches for covers, private photos and behind-the-scenes images from Stop Making Sense, the 1984 film by Jonathan Demme. Jerry Harrison says that some of the photos had not left their archives in more than forty years.

Lorde, Debbie Harry, Jeff Bridges and Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard contribute to the book. The four musicians presented the project in a video shared on the publisher’s social networks. They had reappeared together in September 2023 at the Toronto festival, for the restored version of Stop Making Sense.