Which bands and artists do we think you'll be hearing lots of in the next 12 months? Music journalist Bella Todd has already selected five of her top tips for the coming year and here are her next six...
Lunice
This Canadian B-boy found a following with his dance YouTube videos and is now cutting it as a hip hop/club producer specialising in soul-strafed, rap-led club bangers (including remixes for Big Dada) that also share more than a passing acquaintance with Warp-style electronica. In summer 2010, his showmanship shone through when he stood in for Mike Slott during Scots label Lucky Me’s Sonar showcase – and generally supersized it.
Pariah
By day a 22-year-old Scottish English literature student, by night a remixer for the likes of Ellie Goulding and The XX. Arthur Cayzer – aka Pariah – has released several slinky house-cum-2step tracks on the legendary Belgian electronic music label R&S. He got his first MacBook Pro after hearing Burial, but claims minimalist composer Arvo Part to be as much of an influence. And light, nimble treatments are certainly his speciality, whether he’s sampling vintage R&B vocals, channeling the rhythms of UK garage or mirroring the spectral electro of look-a-like James Blake.
http://www.myspace.com/pariahbeats
Tokimonsta
A member of Flying Lotus’s ultra-hip Brainfeeder collective, Jennifer Lee is an LA-born producer of Korean heritage who's bringing a new sentimentality to exploratory electronic music. With a grounding in classical piano, she makes chilled instrumental hip hop that’s at once complexly constructed yet cutely melodic – and likes to do so in the middle of the night, hence the title of her recent debut album, Midnight Men (Listen Up). It’s all about the layers of texture, from string-strafed melodies to elastic synths and skittering beats. Who said girls are afraid of twiddly knobs?
http://www.myspace.com/tokibeats
Villa Nah
If Heaven 17’s recent nostalgia tour is anything to go by, there’s a big potential audience for Villa Nah’s 80s styled electro-pop, all sweet detachment, cold romanticism and expert melodic hooks (just listen to Ways To Be). So it can only be the fact the duo hail from Finland that has kept debut album Origin, released on Keys Of Life in May, from doing a La Roux. The moody overcoats-in-snow press shots are firmly in place. All that’s left is for Villah Nah to float insouciantly up the charts.
Warpaint
LA’s seductively lethargic all-female four-piece are as contagious as slowcore art rock gets, with chiming guitars, smouldering melodies and echoey vocals that make Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval sound like an energy drink junkie. And if the likes of The XX (who the band have provided tour support for) can win the Mercury, then Warpaint’s debut album, The Fool, released in Autumn 2010 on Rough Trade, is likely to be lapping darkly away at the public consciousness for a long time to come. A recommendation from the late Heath Ledger doesn’t hurt either.
Yuck
Early support slots with Dinosaur Jr and Teenage Fanclub tell you exactly where to file this multi-international five-piece. With members from Japan, New Jersey and London (two of whom used to be in hotly-tipped schoolyard upstarts Cajun Dance Party, one of whom was recruited via a kibbutz in the Israeli desert), Yuck do sluggish grunge and starry-eyed shoegaze that will please anyone mourning the loss of Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous in 2010. They also play as stripped-down side project Yu(c)k, and will release their debut album on Fat Possum and Pharmacy records in February.
For more music news, head over to our music and culture page
Comments
Add a comment