Sonica Glasgow’s 2026 edition is built less like a conventional music festival and more like a route through the city’s listening spaces. Cryptic’s biennale returns from September 24th to October 4th, bringing more than 170 artists from 21 countries into an 11-day programme.
Sound, image and architecture
The official programme places audiovisual art, experimental music, installations and performance in the same frame. That makes Sonica a useful counterweight to the summer festival economy: lower on headline hierarchy, higher on encounters that need a room, a screen, a body or a building.
Among the listed works and events are Sonica Club with Loma Doom and DEBONAIR, NYX Live, pieces at The Listening House in Pollok House, and projects spread across multiple Glasgow venues.
The most interesting part is the scale of the curatorial claim. Sonica is not presenting electronic music as a single genre lane, but as an artistic method: a way to organise light, movement, voice, architecture and public attention.