Ones To Watch. It’s a funny old phrase, yet one that’s thrown around every inch of the media come the dawn of any new year. How many “Ones To Watch” actually come good and live up to the impossible expectation thrust upon them by ‘the man’? You only have to take a peak at any past BBC Sound of… list to realise that the whole idea of cherry picking choice acts is more about rose tinted zeitgeist than any actual prediction of an artists longevity and/or success.
The following 17 acts were hand-picked by The Line Of Best Fit editor Rich Thane in an attempt to not only point out where the musical landscape of 2011 could point towards but, and perhaps more importantly, showcase a selection of acts that define what this very website is all about. Put simply: the following picks excite and shake us to the very core; causing multiple sleepless nights and Last.fm scrobble counts to hit silly levels of repeated plays – it would be completely selfish of us to keep them to ourselves. We’re not predicting world wide domination, just the domination of your ears (and wallets).
With contributions from our ever increasing well of talented writers, the following merely scratches the surface at the potential levels of awesomeness that 2011 has the chops to deliver. We hope you find something you like. Enjoy.
Still Corners
The hallmark of any relationship that can stand the test of time is arguably based around one factor: trust. A little on the clichéd side? Perhaps. But without that key ingredient you’re oft left – ultimately – with a sense of existential doubt and paranoia. With trust, comes love and with love comes a sense of invincibility. It’s the most powerful emotion that we’re blessed with and one that smothers Still Corners music with a hue so soft and tender that upon listening you’re left trembling, giddy with butterflies. You know that feeling, right?
Still Corners know all about trust. You only have to watch them live to understand that. The way they orchestrate their individual instruments, teasing out dusty archaic sounds that are bolstered by the sweet heavenly tones of Tessa Murray is something to behold. Each delicate second augmented by sympathetic flourishes, executed with almost a sixth sense of knowingness about what each of the band are thinking. The orchestrator (and principal songwriter) Greg Hughes stands stage right – guiding his cohorts knowingly through a sea of reverb drenched mystery and wonder, accompanied flawlessly with romantic imagery that only adds to the grandeur.
A new relationship is something you have to invest your time into. Some come easier than others. In Still Corners case, it’s a case of diving in head first and allowing them – trusting them – to do right by you. Their music, so powerful, has the potential to be the only companion you’ll ever need. With a new single due out via Sub Pop immanently and no doubt a full length to follow – there’s no question that when the final flickers of 2011 cast their shadow in 12 months time, Still Corners’ flame will be burning as brightly as the sparks that light up their multi-faceted masterpieces.
- Rich Thane
Still Corners: ‘Endless Summer’
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Niki and The Dove
When it comes to forward thinking, off-kilter pop music, you’d be hard pushed to argue that anyone can do it better than Sweden nowadays. Taking some of 2010’s finest examples in the form of newly conceptual femme-fatale Robyn, whose release of an ambitious three albums over the course of a single year stood out as a brilliant new methodology for modern pop music, not forgetting The Knife’s collaborative opera project with Planningtorock and co. Solid proof that ambition within that effervescent scene of creatives is not only (seemingly) never ending but near always brilliant and thought provoking.
Luckily for all of those who are into such pomp and heart pounding anthemics, Niki and The Dove are another from this beautiful international mould that, even off the back of only a smattering of songs appearing online and a single UK live show, seem set to stride that same path with the same level of wonderfully eschewed aplomb.
Of course the similarities with those aforementioned names is going to be thrown around, but discounting the brilliance of the songs on offer for their own merits is completely foolish. Galloping through a myriad of styles – electronica, goth, Kate Bush histrionics – is bound to be a risky business, especially in a musical world so saturated with eccentric female vocal talent, but when someone comes along and achieves such immediate furore and fanfare, you know that something special is on the horizon. Lets just hope that this Scandinavian trend never ends.
- Will Grant
Niki and The Dove: ‘Mother Protect’
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Echo Lake
Good, well-produced and straightforward pop songs offer themselves to you on a plate, apple in mouth and – to stretch the metaphor way past its breaking point – come glazed with expensive ingredients. Echo Lake prefer to make you work to discover the creamy centre of their songs – you have to chew your way through a production that is so lo-fi it borders on the cancerous, and shove aside the generous helpings of e-hype that has been heaped on them before playing a single gig (and when they did start playing live, that hype only got more intense).
After being not much more than a bedroom pop experiment being conducted by main songwriter Thom, the project has developed into a “proper” band, with an emotional pull and an intensity reminiscent of, for lack of a less obvious comparison, The Jesus & Mary Chain. They have got the songs – gorgeous yet gloriously dirty shoegaze pop – and the look – polaroid, fresh-faced Uniqlo models – to make sure that they continue to tickle people’s musical tastebuds before being promoted to national radio playlists, magazine covers and “Sound of 2011″ lists… oh wait.
Echo Lake release their debut EP Young Silence through No Pain In Pop early 2011.
- Matthias Scherer
Photo credit: Sebastien Dehesdin
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Prizes
With any luck, 2010 will be the year that chillwave lived and died. Please, no more washed-out, faux-electropop, pseudo-80s bedroom singles. Please?
London’s Prizes (aka Hari Ashurst) risks being lumped in with the glo-fi no-hopers. The understated, sample-based aesthetic seems to bear many of the genres hallmarks. Yet there the comparisons end. The brace of songs Prizes has so far snuck out certainly hark back to the ‘80s – but instead of fondling the corpse of synthpop they embrace the bombast, the bittersweet glee, and above all the choruses that made that decade so great.
‘Canada’ is the standout track here. An incorrigible earworm based around twin vocal samples and an undeniably Foals-esque guitar line, the track demonstrates the pop sensibilities that bode so well for Prizes.
Above all, Prizes is fun. There is a sense of self-awareness in his output that seems beautifully at odds with the unmitigated self-indulgence demonstrated by so many of 2010’s bedroom musicians. In the great cycle of resurgences, perhaps 2011 will be the year that choruses return. Here’s hoping.
- Josh Hall
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James Blake
Already a star in rarefied but influential circles – basically any with a critical mass of music journalists – James Blake is edging towards the mainstream with a place on the BBC’s Sound of 2011 longlist and a series of increasingly acclaimed releases. He’s pegged as a dubstep producer, but his rapidly evolving sound resists pigeonholing; with elements of glitch and techno and helpings of real soul keeping him fluid and kicking up fascinating results. In 2010 alone, EPs CMYK and Klavierwerke proved Blake was as capable of challenging grey matter as filling floors and could create the type of oblique melody that rewards sustained listening.
Recent single, a cover of Feist’s ‘Limit To Your Love’, suggests the young Londoner is happy to surrender to commerce, but that belies the weirdness he can bring to a straight ballad – head-spinning bass reverberations unsettling his surprisingly impressive vocal. We can expect to hear much more of that voice, giving an extra edge to an imminent debut album that already promises plenty of thrills.
- Matthew Horton
James Blake: ‘Limit To Your Love’
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Korallreven
So far, a little has gone a long way for Korallreven. If they were never heard of again, they’d leave three classic tracks that you’d return to every year when the days turn longer and less dark. Their name means Coral Reef in Swedish, and really that’s all you need to know of how they sound.
They boast a truly formidable pop pedigree. Daniel Tjader of The Radio Dept. forms half of the band (alongside New York based, Sweden born Marcus Joons), Victoria Bergsman provides vocals on at least three album tracks, and Studio’s Dan Lissvik and CFCF are among their many remixers. Tentatively releasing only three singles since May 2009 and on two of the most deliciously sumptuous record labels (Service and Acéphale) – Korallreven truly are masters of their own destiny.
Although with the chill in the air it’s hard to think of warmer climes, the forthcoming album – due for completion early this year – could be 2011′s summer soundtrack. Dive in.
- Neil Major
Korallreven: ‘Loved-Up (Nhessingtons Remix)’
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Twin Sister
It’s easy to be cynical about the emergence of another Brooklyn band promising delicate vocals, lo-fi aesthetics and a shedload of blogosphere hype, but Twin Sister truly deserve all the plaudits. Their first EP Vampires With Dreaming Kids is essentially a collection of remastered demos, yet it’s more vital than most albums this writer heard in all of 2010. ‘Dry Hump’’s lilting gorgeousness and ‘Ginger’’s reverb-drench splendor would both shame far more established bands, but it’s ‘I Want A House’ that marks them out as something truly special. Lullaby-like in its simplicity, it’s the kind of song Beach House would produce if they had any groove; delicate, un-ostententatious, and an utter delight.
Follow-up EP Color Your Life continues in the same impressive vein; ‘Lady Daydream’ sounds like a lost Stars classic, ‘All Around And Away We Go’ like a 70′s disco hit performed under a haze of marujana. Andrea Estella’s breathless, fragile vocal delivery is a key element of their charm, but unlike many of her peers she isn’t the be-all and end-all of the band’s appeal. Whilst their sound is a perfect fit for the current woozy dream-pop zeitgeist, it’s also difficult to pigeonhole them into a specific genre – they’re able to flit between traditional 3-minute indie-pop fare to meandering, spaced-out drones with ease.
Fingers crossed Twin Sister are able to sustain this ecleticism without a drop in quality for their first full-length release. Let’s hope they can live up to their immense potential.
- Adam Elmahdi
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Star Slinger
Darren Williams (aka Star Slinger) pretty much gives away his instant appeal purely through the opening lines of his MySpace page: “I like the eighties, Sweden, dusty records, synthesisers, hip-hop, Henry Rollins, curvy exotic women and solitary animals.” Unsurprisingly as a result, his songs are more fun than anything should have a licence to be. His recent remix of Deerhunter’s ‘Helicopter’ is about 23 times as funky as world music guru Diplo’s glitzy version of the same track, and his latest two songs (available, like pretty much everything he’s recorded in the last year, on his soundcloud page) show him at his most danceable and give further proof of his in-depth knowledge of long-forgotten funk singles. As a contrast you might want to listen to his 12” LP (released last summer) which is a lovely collection of instrumental hip-hop jams in the mould of revered beatmaker Onra.
With a forthcoming single released via fledgling 7″ label Double Denim coupled with a massive US tour lined up for February, we’ve got a hunch the big breakthrough might just follow suit.
- Matthias Scherer
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Suuns
Any Secretly Canadian signee needs to have a great deal of ambition, and as demonstrated by their debut Zeroes QC (out last year in the US, this month for the UK), Suuns aren’t exactly lacking. Embarking on a UK tour in February, their tight, brash wall of sound will be thrown upon expectant audiences for a good thirty minutes. Whilst a song like ‘Gaze’ goes all out to knock you off your feet, more experimental, synth-led efforts – ‘Arena’ for example – add a psychotic, twisted section to the band’s outlook as a whole. Their Liars-esque ethos of experimentation-above-cohesiveness might get them into trouble in the beginning, but you can see Suuns as a band with a five-album-plan of sorts; they’ll undoubtedly develop into something more fascinating, album by album, eventually producing something with immeasurable quality and – you guessed it – ambition.
- Jamie Milton
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Porcelain Raft
Naturally, with the increased amount of music thrust upon us on a day to day basis there inevitably comes a higher turnover of artists we become emotionally attached to. Some acts can capture the imagination for a day and never be listened to again. Anyone who heard Porcelain Raft’s ‘Tip Of Your Tongue’ early in 2010 will have felt something altogether alien in the modern era – a track that keeps willing you to come back to it, pleasure increasing with each re-play, something close to an infatuation. The trick is that Porcelain Raft manages to mix a stunningly technical set-up with a bizarre confidence in his own fragility.
The work of Mauro Remiddi, his live sets are a haze of live looping, distortion pedals and backing beat samples as he stands alone on the stage, mimicking the kind of depths his contemporaries could only dream of. So far, his songs have hinted at wildly different directions, all of them wonderfully and utterly exciting. For the moment, you’re still most likely to see him opening up shows rather than headlining – if 2011 is to make any sense whatsoever, there will be a swift reversal of that trend. Truly talented and several notches above most of his peers.
- Matthew Britton
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Vondelpark
We first heard about Vondelpark around May last year, popping up on blogs with his 2-step, psycho-pop visions of suburbia and his identity remaining in mystery. Moving to London only a few months ago, he’s still regarded as something of an enigma. Steering away from Myspace and Soundcloud to promote himself, instead he emails select bloggers mysterious messages with his tracks attached. Still remaining closely guarded even in an interview, it seems only to add to the foggy tone of his music.
Starting out, Vondelpark was merely a project in which he could make music for him and his friends to hang out to: “The music fits the time and mood quite well and I want to keep getting the colour right.” Must hear tracks include the hypnotic 2-step kaleidoscope ‘California Analog Dream’; ‘Jetlag’ with its R’n'B dubs smoothly pasted together, skimming like a motorboat over the open ocean and the sloth-paced beats of ‘Hippodrome’, accompanied with rattling guitar and stoner vocals which in turn conjure up warm, summer memories.
With these Lo-fi Californian references Vondelpark freely admits that, inspiration does indeed lie somewhere on a sunny beach: “I get a lot of inspiration from different countries. It makes me want to travel. To live harder”. These atmospheric soundscapes of suburbia beam with Californian sunshine; it’s fragile, beautiful and we’re itching to hear more.
- Alison King
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ANR
The buoyant, effervescent songs featured on ANR’s entrancing debut album Stay Kids seemingly could only have been crafted in the picturesque setting of South Beach. The tracks are all imbued with a sanguine ambiance that surely was affected by the plush surroundings of South Florida. John Hancock and Brian Robertson took that underlying spirit and set it to modern beats and melodies that stir the soul and soar effortlessly amidst layers of immaculate production. These songs all simmer delicately before reaching a glorious release of hopefulness and conviction, as the group fluently takes the listener along with them on this vibrant journey of discovery and reflection.
Stay Kids (out now via Something In Construction) is an eclectic mix of straight up club anthems and more pensive, brooding material, with Hancock’s steady vocals deftly adapting to whatever fresh strains Robertson can coax out of his keyboard, all of it blending seamlessly together on an album that really doesn’t have any filler. With elements of both the billowy psych-pop of Animal Collective (whom the duo has previously toured with), to a smoother-edged version of TV On The Radio that has clearly spent more time in the club than the streets, Awesome New Republic have created an album chock-full of invention and inspiration.
- Erik Thompson
ANR: ‘The Endless Field Of Mercury’
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Visions Of Trees
2010 was a very successful year in terms of innovative and inventive dance music. From Delorean to the continuation of the chillwave craze, the year was pretty great for all things hazy, dreamy and dancey. Enter Vision of Trees, who not only triumph in terms of traditional dance music but also bring something completely different to the fold.
Often fusing together a catchy synth-laden hook which build to create either hands-in-the-air anthems or blissed out pop perfection. Early examples of how great this band are include ‘Empty’, ‘Syncronised’, ‘Sometimes It Kills’ and the spectral and dizzying ‘Night Drips’. Visions of Trees are not only meticulous with their music but vocals from Sarah Atalar are both alluring and, at times, haunting. A mixture of woozy tropical dream-pop and trance music from maestro Joni Juden make Visions of Trees both unique and a highly intriguing proposition. With the combination of Sarah and Joni clearly oozing chemistry and creating some very special music, 2011 is sure to see a lot more Visons of Trees.
- Ian Greenhill
Visions Of Trees: ‘Solid Rainbows’
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Yuck
Ever since they piqued the attention of practically every music journo in the country with a couple of lo-fi recordings on their website at the start of 2010, Yuck have gone on to prove that they’ve really got what it takes to expand their cult following in 2011. Although they’re probably best known for the fuzzy youthful vitality that’s present in the likes of ‘The Wall’ and the Dinosaur Jr-esque ‘Georgia’, the surprisingly vulnerable and effortlessly simple Weakend EP proves that they’ve got much more than just distortion pedals up their flannel shirt sleeves.
On paper, Yuck have got it all – they’ve got a load of great tunes, they look good, and they’ve got an American drummer with an impressive ‘fro. But, most importantly, they don’t allow themselves to be bogged down or restricted by convention, and with their debut eponymous album out in February, 2011 could (hopefully) see the welcome return of lo-fi alt-pop to the mainstream.
- Sam Lee
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Seams
When Seams took up residence in Berlin earlier this year his thoughts flew to the tech/house/bass scenes that are the perennial musical nourishment for the city’s inhabitants and how they would gather influence upon his writing. However by the time of Tourist‘s release a rejection of these forms had taken place, leaving only a glancing imprint upon his work. Instead Tourist‘s real breakthrough comes in the confluence of sounds from the ethereal, atmospheric and ambient, to 2-step and dub and the burlesque beats of crunk and hip-hop; all convalescing around a swirling environment thick with the tumultuous throng and movement of Berlin.
Seams excels due to a great collusion between this built environment and an over-riding urge to experiment. Within his music you get this great feeling of the freedom of jazz, frozen over with the cold character of the electronic age. Thus, Seams becomes a sort of Sufjan Stevens of the bedroom artist multitude, unafraid to spread his musicality freely, but without ever losing his complimentary flow.
- Stephen Smith
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Banjo or Freakout
Alessio Natalizia (aka Banjo or Freakout) has been a certified ‘act to watch’ for at least two years. So why is 2011 likely to be the year when the fickle public finally decides whether to banjo or to freak out?
Since we ‘introduced’ Natalizia back in 2009 he’s released three cracking singles, two EPs, and a seemingly endless number of very chill remixes. What’s more he’s formed another great band (Walls), released their debut album through Kompakt, toured the country with Gold Panda, and still found time to release a mix CD every month.
Most importantly though, Natalizia’s music is getting better. His latest single ’105′ is a short, bitter-sweet, and understated little ditty which amply highlights Banjo or Freakout’s knack for combining aching acoustic ballads with just the right amount of airy shoegaze. The result is a song which sounds like it has been sung privately into a pillow while at the same time reverberated through the tight streets of East London.
Natalizia’s obvious talent for both songwriting and electronic production mean that the word ‘potential’ is something of an ominous weight on releases such as ’105′. As if every new song that fails to be a fully-realised, Lennon-baiting, masterpiece only adds to the load of expectation. Here’s hoping that the album to follow lightens that load.
- Ian Gordon
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Guards
Undoubtedly, in terms of music, 2010 was the year of nostalgia, with the glorified sense of reminiscing being encapsulated in many releases. Whether it be Phil Spector 60’s reverb or the grunge guitar lines of the 90’s there all being recycled for inspiration. Guards (aka Richie Follin) looks set to continue this trip down memory lane in 2011 with his self titled EP being a disarmingly brilliant mini-collection of simple but effective hook-heavy 50/60’s pop -rock songs. Albeit, thankfully, the final product isn’t as polished as one would expect. Take ‘Resolution of One’ – for all of its conventions there’s a contemporary rock edge thus abolishing the ‘dated’ tag. Lyrically, Follin is just as unique, whilst his misty-eyed contemporaries like Summer Camp see the past through a saccharine sepia-tinted lens, Richie clearly prefers the darker side of bygone times. ‘Trophy Queen’ tells the earnest tale of a femme fatale and ‘I See It Coming’ talks of impending dangers.
It’s these new approaches on already loved musical traits that will give this current musical renaissance a new lease of life and, with a full-length in the works, Guards look set to remind more music-lovers of the ‘golden age ’ of pop music.
- Antonio Rowe
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god, i love seams.