Fancy a whiskey? Try Qoniak instead. The Swiss duo—Vincent Membrez on vintage analog machines and Lionel Friedli with otherworldly drums—distills an organic, polymorphic sound all its own. Their debut, Sentient Beings, features guests Joy Frempong (vocals) and Flo Stoffner (guitar). An unidentified sonic object, Sentient Beings fuses Qoniak’s wild, avant-leaning textures with Frempong’s luminous vocals and Stoffner’s astral guitar landscapes. Together they sidestep genre lines and launch an intense trip to a parallel world—imagine Yoda and Spock on LSD, locked in an unrestrained game of Pong.