Will any of these shiny new acts feature on our best album lists at the end of 2011? Don't be surprised if they do. Here's a heads-up, by JIM CARROLL, LAUREN MURPHY, SINEAD GLEESON, TONY CLAYTON LEA and BRIAN BOYD
JAMES BLAKE
THE LOW-DOWN For many, James Blake's version of Feist's The Limit to Your Lovewas their first introduction to his work. It was spooky, ethereal and otherworldly, as a voice akin to Mark Hollis from Talk Talk made nice with a soundbed of slow-motion post-dubstep weirdness. It certainly didn't sound like anything else around. But dubstep connoisseurs were already wise to the 22-year-old Londoner, a producer who only started making music in the past few years while at Goldsmiths College in London. A couple of brilliant EPs – check out The Bells Sketch, CMYK or Klavierwerkereleases for the full score on Blake – and collaborations with Mount Kimbie were what alerted many to his skills as a vocalist and producer. In 2011 Blake will release his debut album (February) and roll out his live show. You can expect many to swoon to his soulful, minimal electronica, perfectly pitched sense of musical drama and powerful, evocative voice.
SOUNDBITE “If you like The xx, you’re going to like this”
MONA
THE LOW-DOWN If it’s swaggering, barnstorming anthems you’re after, you’ve come to the right place. Hell, Mona even snarl like world-beaters (or four lads who’ve taken styling and grooming tips from Larry Mullen jnr and Glasvegas). From Dayton, Ohio, and based in Nashville, Tennessee, they are in pole position as the year begins.
Reasons to be cheerful: Mona make rock anthems that already seem tailor-made for big rooms and stadiums. These anthems have big guitars, passionate vocals, oodles of self-confidence and a nagging sense that you’ve heard nothing yet.
Reasons to be fearful? They have a frontman called Nick Brown who walks a fine line between cockiness and arrogance. Ohio music writers got plenty of guffaws out of his claim a few years ago that he would be “bigger than Bono”. Well, as long as he pays his taxes.
SOUNDBITE “Time for Kings of Leon to abdicate”
ANNA CALVI
THE LOW-DOWN Pat-on-the-back time: one of the first media sources to rave about Anna Calvi was The Ticket. Last February we were swayed by tunes that came packaged with a tang of old-school mystery, a dollop of cinematic sass and a huge appreciation for the blues – qualities that never go out of fashion. Since then, she has signed to Domino, spent much of 2010 perfecting her sound and enjoyed lavish praise from Brian Eno and Nick Cave. Her debut single, Jezebel, a beautiful display of Calvi’s art-rock sensibilities, confirmed all the early expectation, while her live show, which most recently saw her supporting Grinderman and Interpol, is something to be reckoned with. The self-titled debut album is due for release in January, followed by her first proper Irish show (Dublin’s Workman’s Club on February 23rd). She’s also one of the acts to appear on the next season of Other Voices.
SOUNDBITE “Nina Simone + PJ Harvey = Anna Calvi”
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FACTORY FLOOR
Pulsating, post-punk grooves, metallic underworld disco and thundering noise.
CLOCK OPERA
Quirky sonics and strong songs from London-based indie-electronica dudes
SEA OF BEES
Highly addictive, beautiful folky pop.
BERRI FARLEY
THE LOW-DOWN You just don't get that fantastic Tamla Motown sound any more, but there's something about the pop swing that underpins Farley's music that has you wondering if Berry Gordy has been producing. She's got a great blues voice, which she puts over ska-inflected rhythms to really joyous effect. From south London, Farley writes all her own material, and already her lyrical prowess is becoming a talking point. With this amount of raw talent she can delve into any genre she wants and still sound superb. It would be unfair to label her the new Amy or Lily but there really is something wondrous going on here. Radio will love her.
SOUNDBITE "Like Amy after rehab or Florence after a Smash Hits makeover"
BROTHER
THE LOW-DOWN After Mona, Slough four-piece Brother will be the big new rock band of next year. They have been all the talk of the indie underground for a few months now and were getting stupid money offers from labels even before they had their own website up and running. They specialise in a type of 1960s garage rock leavened with indie pop touches. Listening to them, it's clear that this is a young band who were brought up on a diet of Britpop, but they've given that genre a good kicking and added in some fresh ingredients. I saw them play live in a dingy club a while back and they were damn near the finished product. And they're a bit gobby too – which always helps.
SOUNDBITE "Post-Britpop guitar rock in search of a stadium"
FILMS OF COLOUR
THE LOW-DOWN Windswept guitar pop-rock has a fine lineage but has been out of favour for a good while now. Films of Colour give it a fresh lick of paint and turn the tuneful melancholia and poignancy up to 11. Commendably not feeling the need to rethread the usual influences (Velvet Underground, Iggy and The Stooges etc), there's a brightness of sound here that could be the missing link between A-Ha and Echo and the Bunnymen. This isn't music made for the indie ghetto – there's a sprawling ambition at play here and if they can get a few singles away they will be unstoppable.
SOUNDBITE "Emo meets British indie – their videos will be interesting"
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BALAM ALCAB
Brian Eno meets Aphex Twin.
IO ECHO
A Californian Siouxsie Sioux.
PETE LAWRIE
The new David Gray.
LE CORPS MINCE DE FRANCOISE
THE LOW-DOWN Despite the French name, this duo hail from Helsinki. That peculiarity bleeds through to their music, too: sisters Emma and Mia Kemppainen make electro-hip-pop that bleeps, chugs and spurts from the speakers with a vivid energy. They released top single
Something Golden on Kitsunélast year, and after their recent deal with Heavenly Records you can expect to hear more very soon. Vibrant new single
Gandhi(available for free download from their MySpace) references everything from Happy Mondays'
Kinky Afroto M.I.A.'s
Galang, and is a fine taster for debut album
Love Nature, due in February. Oh, and their name means "The skinny body of Françoise", for you non-francophones.
SOUNDBITE "Salt 'N' Pepa meets CSS"
ESBEN THE WITCH
THE LOW-DOWN Do we need another group of moody young twentysomethings who are flagrantly in thrall to bands such as The Cure, Ride and Siouxsie and the Banshees? When they're as good as Esben the Witch, then the answer is yes, we do. Named after a Danish fairy tale about an altruistic young man, there's a spark about this female-fronted Brighton-based trio that burns fiercer and steadier than many of their disposable contemporaries. They impressed Matador Records so much that the well-respected label made the band their first British signing in more than five years. With singles as brilliant as brooding slowburner
Lucia, at the
Precipice,it's not hard to see why. Layers of cascading guitar and drums swathe their mystical, echoed shoegaze. Album
Violet Criesis out at the end of January.
SOUNDBITE "What The xx might sound like if they'd been raised on My Bloody Valentine"
CHAPEL CLUB
THE LOWDOWN This London band have been knocking around for a few years, since guitarist Michael Hibbert corralled a group of like-minded musical soulmates. They've already released several singles, but it's only in recent months that the juggernaut's revs have sounded loudly outside the UK. That's largely thanks to a hugely impressive turn on the recent season of
Later with Jools Holland, where their song
Surfacing– which plucks lyrics from
Dream a Little Dream of Me– sounded intense and incendiary in singer Lewis Bowman's capable hands. The difference between Chapel Club and the relentless wave of young guitar bands is that these guys have the songs as well as the firepower. And okay, yes – there's a definite thread of 1980s indie stitching them together, but that's no bad thing. Watch out for Paul Epworth-produced debut album Palace in the coming weeks.
SOUNDBITE "Indie-rock that effortlessly marries smooth, forceful crooning with epic choruses"
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SPECTRALS
Dreamy 1960s pop, surf-rock and doo-wop played by young Leeds man Louis Jones.
TRANSFER
Polished modern indie rock from San Diego with quirky twists on psychedelia and classic rock’n’roll.
DJANGO DJANGO
Quietly vibrant, quasi-arty indie scufflings from Glasgow-formed quartet. Debut album imminent.
FLORRIE
THE LOW-DOWN Florrie is a 21-year-old Bristol gal with a percussive heart. Drumming since the age of seven, she combines it with vocals, but is more mainstream pop than Caribou. Her first single,
Call 911, was remixed by French disco king Fred Falke. Eectronic duo Kitsuné are big fans. Collaborations and remixes have raised her profile, and German DJ Moguai worked on
Come Back to Mine, but there's no coat-tailing here – she writes all her own music. When not being Florrie solo, she is an experienced studio engineer and the house drummer for Brian Higgins's
Xenomania(she drummed on recent albums by Girls Aloud, Cher and Pet Shop Boys). Her self-belief isn't in doubt, nor are her motivations – she posts all her music for free on her website, so download her Introduction EP as an, er, well, you know.
SOUNDBITE "McFlorrie"
THE VACCINES
THE LOW-DOWN Britain has always reserved a well-amplified corner of its heart for indie guitar bands. The Vaccines' surf-pop-punk stance has seen them whispered about for months, despite only playing their first London gig in October. At the show, hundreds didn't get in the door, and the audience included famous fans such as Alex Kapranos and White Lies. Just six weeks later they were on
Later . . . with Jools Holland, bashing out their no-frills guitar licks on songs such as
Post Break-Up Sexand
If You Wanna. Their ardent pithiness is best experienced in the glorious 90 seconds that is
Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra). Singer Justin Young found himself a band that includes Freddie Cowan, brother of Tom from The Horrors after ditching his folksy past as Jay Jay Pistolet. He blamed "boredom" for the direction and pace of change, and hype around the band has accelerated. Expect to hear a lot of them and see comparisons – cautionary or otherwise – to Arctic Monkeys.
SOUNDBITE "Blistering buzzsaw guitars"
JESSIE J
THE LOW-DOWN Realising the surname Cornish doesn't ooze soul, this Essex girl ditched it for a J. And what a voice: the kind of bellows-lunged multi-octave range bitterly coveted by X Factor hopefuls. While the single
Do it Like a Dudehas a de rigueur sprinkling of Auto-Tune, she doesn't need embellishment. If proof of her vocal abilities were needed, check out the YouTube clips of her belting out numbers in bathrooms and her bedroom. She's a well-respected songwriter, having penned
Do it Like a Dudefor Rihanna before deciding to keep it, and having written for Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera. Her sound is a hybrid of soul, funk, grime and lung-busting ballads. She recently won the Brit Critics' Choice prize as the most likely newcomer to break through in 2011, and her debut album is out in March.
SOUNDBITE "Watch out Rihanna, Mariah and Beyoncé"
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MINKS
1980s synths. Modern tunes. Definitely not Super Furry Animals.
THE HEARTBREAKS
Seaside punk dandies.
KATY B
The next Ms Dynamite?
SPARK
THE LOW-DOWN Jessica Morgan is 18, is armed with a synth, a guitar and (in her own words) "hair as black as night, skin that's almost see-through, and blood red lips". Clearly, Morgan/Spark is not your usual newbie with the usual cultural reference points, and although she's still in her teens she packs an already considerable background. At 15, having previously excelled in an inter-college vocal competition, she came first in an Xfm busking contest. Between then and now she was busy honing the songs that will make up her debut album, which is due for release in the middle of 2011, and which is being produced by Starsmith, who has previously worked with Kylie, Cheryl Cole and Ellie Goulding.
The music, we hear you ask? Well, that's the really special thing about Spark. Her songs reference ever so slightly a mash-up between Kates Bush and Nash (and, for those old enough to remember, Lene Lovich), and what we've heard so far displays in big neon signs the words "catchy", "infectious" and "commercial".
SOUNDBITE "Bush-Nash mash-up"
HANNAH PEEL
THE LOW-DOWN With a strong Irish connection and a background in Irish traditional music, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Hannah Peel is just another winsome female singer-songwriter clinging feverishly to the past. Rather, Peel is tuned in to the benefits of what makes for good, contemporary nu-folk. Her debut album, Broken Wave, which is produced by Tunng's Mike Lyndsay, will be released at the end of January. It features string arrangements by Nitin Sawhney, and includes trumpet player Lizzie Jones (best known for adding burps and parps to the singular sounds of The Unthanks).
Credentials are in place, then, to ensure that a casually brilliant synthesis of Brit-folk and modern sensibilities (Peel digs Steve Reich and Brian Eno as much as Judee Sill and Sandy Denny) are captured in gorgeous, lovelorn and often breathtaking style. Indeed, Peel's own description of her music puts it into a neat little nutshell: "wonky folk pop." You have been advised.
SOUNDBITE "Nu-folk knees-up"
COCOPHONE
THE LOW-DOWN Coco who? This Irish duo (Freya Monks and Finian Divilly) has managed to maintain the sort of radio silence that does no one any favours. Yet due to exposure via quietly promoted gigs in and around Dublin, and winning a Becks Band of the Year competition last June, Cocophone have graduated from virtual non-starters to a proposition that you can start to shout about. What's initially on offer for 2011 is a debut EP, Special Offers, which was produced by Villagers' band member Tommy McLaughlin at his Donegal-based studio Attica Audio. A four-track affair, it features the kind of blissed-out, ambient and literate alt-folk you thought had disappeared forever. The duo term their music as "experimental folk", but that seems more a description of Freya and Finian themselves than the actual music, which, although doused in something-brilliantly-different, is strongly rooted in the familiar. Special Offers is available for download at cocophone.bandcamp.com
SOUNDBITE "Same old? Try Same new"
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THE CULTS
New York duo (Madeline Follin, Brian Oblivion) blend 1960s girl-pop with barbed, bleak lo-fi.
THE LOST BROTHERS
Irish duo get all Simon & Garfunkel on our collective ass
JESSICA LEE MAYFIELD
19-year-old Ohio singer releases her Dan Auerbach (Black Keys)-produced debut album, With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt.
