Ones To Watch 2018 - Summary and Playlist

With the 2018 Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch posts now complete, I’m wrapping things up with the full list of 10 artists selected and an accompanying spotify playlist which you can find by clicking here or stream below. It has one song from each of the acts selected.

Whilst posting about these artists I’ve had a couple of comments made from readers about balance and how the selections were all mainly female and I’d just like to address this. First, so what? It’s the music that I'm concerned about not the artists sex. Secondly that statement is actually incorrect. Yes, 9 of the 10 artists I have selected have a female vocalist (when I introduced the posts here I noted that because of my tastes, the list wouldn’t be balanced in that way) but there were 31 musicians of which 16 were male and 15 were female. So in terms of that demographic the list was pretty much balanced - although this was more from luck than any judgement.

Thank you to everyone who engaged with these posts this year. Whilst Breaking More Waves is written mainly for my own entertainment, the Ones to Watch posts are very much for others. Amongst my (real life) friend group some of my friends, who know I'm obsessed with music will often ask me ‘what are the latest new acts we should be listening out for then?’ My Ones to Watch list is essentially my online response to that real-life question. 

Here’s a summary of the 10 artists chosen and a playlist featuring 1 song by each act.

1. Sigrid
2. Jade Bird
3. Superorganism
4. The Blinders
5. Pale Waves
6. Grace Carter
7. Off Bloom
8. Confidence Man
9. Pink Kink
10. Maisie Peters

I'll be updating the Breaking More Waves monthly playlist at the end of this month as per usual, but it won't include the Ones to Watch posts only the other new music that I have uploaded in November. If you want to follow the monthly Breaking More Waves playlist you can find that by clicking on this link.

Ones To Watch 2017 - #7 Off Bloom

Mette Mortensen, Alex Flockhart and Mads Christensen are Off Bloom from Denmark. They make rampant spikey modern electronic pop music and they are the seventh of Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch 2018. They’re also one of just two acts on this list that hasn’t featured on Breaking More Waves before (the other being #4 The Blinders)

Rather like Danish pop counterpart MØ Off Bloom stand out from the pop crowd because of their attitude. Live lead singer Mette takes the front person role very seriously – her energy is addictive – more rock ‘n’ roll / punk than what you might expect of someone fronting a electronic pop band. 

Off Bloom are also the second act on this list that have recently supported Dua Lipa and they have also played shows with Breaking More Waves favourites Fickle Friends. 

Having originally formed in 2015 Off Bloom first came to a lot of people’s attention with the video for their song Love To Hate It, but even better is the song Falcon Eye – a bona fide banger which probably deserves a rerelease as the band’s profile increases. The trio’s most recent output is the Lover Like Me EP which helps continue their trajectory. Off Bloom describe it as an EP “about love, sex, frustration, intoxication and of course loyalty.” 

Expect them to be challenging MØ as the rulers of Danish power pop very soon.

Off Bloom - Falcon Eye (Video)



Off Bloom - Rockefella (Fuck That To Be Honest)