Drill, hardcore punk and pop about snails: new artists for autumn
Bartees Strange
Bartees Strange, who combined a full-time job (which he only recently quit) with a stream of releases, is hard to pin down. The Ipswich-born, Washington DC-based artist has put out fizzy powerpop, lo-fi synth ballads, house-y electronica and an EP of National covers. What links them is songwriting quality and Strange’s rich voice. His forthcoming album, Live Forever, should be an eclectic treat. AP
Benee
Supalonely, the viral song that made Benee’s name, sits loosely in the current disco revival, albeit with one key difference. Its confident, shoulder-rolling strut doesn’t gird a tale of indomitable lust like Dua, Kylie or Jessie Ware, but being a lonely loser. It’s emblematic of the New Zealand breakout star’s comic charm, a tricky thing to pull off in song: recent single Snail is a love song sung from the perspective of … a snail, which turns out to be another adroit angle on outsiderness. Her two EPs to date reveal an artist who hasn’t settled on a sound yet, but whether she’s trying on neo-soul or softly cosmic synth-pop, her playfulness is giddily great. LS
Ana Roxanne
Raised in the Catholic church by south-east Asian immigrant parents in California, Ana Roxanne’s choral singing from her childhood seemed to feed into the washes of ambient vocal on her debut ~~~, the go-to zen music for the underground scene last year. Her voice emerges confidently out of that haze on her excellent forthcoming follow-up Because of a Flower, with clearer production, cleanly ruminative post-rock guitar studies and more structured songcraft: the astoundingly beautiful Camille sounds like Julianna Barwick covering Timmy Thomas. BBT
Millionz
In well under a year, this Birmingham drill MC has come from nowhere to tens of millions of streams. He first brought the natural, underrated musicality of the Brummie accent to bear on long freestyles full of very particular detail: tales of drugs, sex, and stolen cars elevated from cliche by nods to Megan from Love Island, weary judges, and hyperlocal Birmingham references such as the Mailbox and Perry Barr. These were strong, but his songcraft has broadened spectacularly on two key recent tracks: Billionz, with its cute chipmunk-pitched Mahalia sample, and the wildly anthemic Lagga, which has one of the best choruses in drill so far. BBT
Andrew Tuttle
Tuttle is by no means new: the Brisbane guitarist’s Bandcamp collects releases stretching back to 2009. But this year’s Alexandra has been his breakthrough, a beautifully resonant record of fingerpicked guitar, gently coaxed banjo motifs and interweaving pedal steel and twinkle-eyed synths just the right side of new age. (Fans of William Tyler will find a lot to like.) It melts between perspectives, one minute searching and solitary, then charmed by subtle detail, as if telescoping from the horizon to a beautiful patch of moss. It exudes balance, picked out in optimistic yet never saccharine major chords, not hurried nor formless – a balm for this period of reflection and uncertainty. LS
Amaarae
Amaarae’s forthcoming debut full-length project, The Angel You Don’t Know, is as potent and effervescent as a cloud of icing sugar: 15 tracks that elegantly metabolise the influences of a childhood spent in Accra, New Jersey, Atlanta and the Bronx, playing close attention to the pocketed rhythms of trap, southern rap’s fluidity, neighbouring Nigeria’s alté scene and the recent kaleidoscopic evolution of Black music in the UK. (She recently discovered that Kojey Radical is her cousin.) There’s a lot of hazy, easygoing gen Z pop, but little with this much impact. LS
Pa Salieu
The Slough-born, Gambia- and Coventry-raised rapper has been around the block in more ways than one: he recovered from a drive-by shooting to the head last year. But his tales of road life are far from grim and greyscale: bright, hip-swaying productions are coloured in with wit, preening confidence and gorgeous intonation. Two collaborations with BackRoad Gee, My Family and Party Popper, are among the UK’s best rap tracks all year, while solo cut Betty is infectiously sensual. We’re salivating for a forthcoming mixtape. BBT
Sprints
Quite how Dublin became such of hotbed of thrillingly noisy post-punk rock is an intriguing question, but Sprints are another great example: packed with screw-you power, relentless motorik rhythms and impressively large choruses, their single The Cheek/Kissing Practice roars out of the traps; their Spotify playlists feature not only contemporaries such as Fontaines DC and the Murder Capital but also the Jesus Lizard and Patti Smith, which makes sense. AP
Kaylee Elizabeth
A recent signing to Spacebomb, home of Matthew E White and Natalie Prass, Kaylee Elizabeth has plied her trade in duo the Native Sibling, alongside her brother Ryan. Her debut solo single Passing Through is stark and beautiful, acoustic finger-picking adorned with feedback and backwards guitar, its tempo shifting, her voice betraying a period studying traditional folk singing in Ireland. It’s a tantalising prospect for an album. AP
Ela Minus
On her forthcoming debut album, Acts of Rebellion, the Colombian-born, Brooklyn-based producer makes her presence felt with buzzing hardware, caustic acid and intimidatingly shadowy atmospherics, electrified by her unsettling knack for melody. Yet her message is subtler, her seditious intimations of revolution glowering through the murk: “We’re afraid we’ll run out of time to stand up for our rights,” she states, the seductive beat stressing the urgency of getting on with exactly that. LS
Pottery
Welcome to Bobby’s Motel, the debut album by Montreal art-rock quintet Pottery packs a lot into its 40 minutes: itchy, Talking Heads-esque post-punk funk, surf guitar, krautrock, psychedelia, faintly theatrical-sounding vocals, a hint of chaotic garage rock. Tracks bleed into each other; there’s clearly some kind of concept behind it but whatever it is remains imponderable. The manic, propulsive energy behind the whole thing, however, is self-evident and pretty compelling. AP
Black Phoebe
Rather than bicker or attempt a really big jigsaw puzzle, married couple Mark Lanegan and Shelley Brian have clearly spent the pandemic on creative pursuits – albeit rather doom-laden ones. This new project also features members of Lanegan’s band, drawing on Joy Division, Nitzer Ebb, breakbeat hardcore and other strobe-friendly touchstones for songs full of dark poetry and portentous moods. BBT
Eluera
Likely to transform from a cult concern to a huge pop star, the Australian singer’s singles to date – Good When We Fight, Good Girl and Moderation – fruitfully mine an intelligent pop vein of post-Lorde, post-Billie Eilish songwriting, without surrendering her own identity to her influences. She’s a little sunnier in her approach than either, while the disco string-laced Moderation sounds like a hit. AP
Nova Twins
Amy Love and Georgia South have thus far piqued the interest of Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, Little Simz and Iggy Pop. Understandably so: pitched between punk, metal, and a particularly raw in-your-face brand of electronica, the racket they make is righteously pissed off and hugely engaging, as evidenced by debut album Who Are the Girls? They’ve also curated Voices for the Unheard, a fantastic Spotify playlist of “POC alternative artists”. AP
Year of the Knife
If you’re carrying psychic saddlebags full of angst picked up while trudging through the shitstorm of 2020, let this Delaware straight-edge quintet take the load off. High-speed hardcore punk aggression fuses with death metal heaviness on superb debut album Internal Incarceration, with producer Kurt Ballou – guitarist with Converge – making every tom-tom pop and power chord throb. You may not get to vent in a circle pit, but this is so brilliantly realised that it opens up your head instead. BBT
Dua Saleh
Sudan-born Saleh made headlines when they released the song Body Cast in response to the death of George Floyd this summer, although they originally wrote it following the deaths of Jamar Clark and Philando Castille in Minneapolis: “County ain’t shit / They got bodies on the line,” they sang over a raw, ominous beat. It catalysed a moment and introduced many to an experimental pop artist whose work explores the expansiveness of the body way beyond violence: deep, throbbing desire on Umbrellar; swaggering queerness on Hellbound. They make you feel it, too, in lurching, overpowering industrial pop. LS
Annika Rose
The Los Angeles teenager’s brand of pop lurches sleekly between distinct sounds, the effect like a camera let loose on its dolly. This auteurish unpredictability is mirrored in Rose’s vocal style, which turns on a dime from composure to rising panic (at strangling gendered expectations, on Naive) or indignation (on Bittersweet). Best of all is Butterflies, luxuriously woozy disco needled by Rose’s blasts of paranoia. LS
For Those I Love
Whether it’s Grian Chatten and James McGovern of Fontaines DC and the Murder Capital, Sinead O Brien, or power-balladeer Dermot Kennedy, having so many Irish accents right now in pop has been so refreshing – and a powerful new one arrives in David Balfe, AKA For Those I Love. His debut single I Have a Love, a tribute to a dead friend, is reminiscent of the Streets’ night bus poetry, and tracks from an album later in the year nod to other moodily rave-adjacent artists such as Massive Attack, Mount Kimbie and Burial. BBT
• Hear a playlist featuring tracks from our tipped artists (minus Black Phoebe, who are available on Bandcamp). Spotify users, click below; Apple Music users, click here.
