Ones to Watch 2021 #10 Skullcrusher

 

The final artist on Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch for 2021 list is one Helen Ballentine who goes by the artist name of Skullcrusher. As I (and quite possibly every other person who has written about her this year) noted on my Introducing post about her in May, whilst the name probably brings to mind some sort of violent doom metal band, the music of Skullcrusher is far from that. With a debut EP released in July and a follow up single Farm shared in October, this L.A based singer songwriter creates soft, spectral acoustic songs that cast their spell on you so subtly that you probably won’t even notice you’ve been caught up in them.

This is not just some winsome bedroom project that has no ambition to be heard however. Skullcrusher’s songs are being released via Secretly Canadian, a label with a good track record with artists such as Faye Webster and Jason Molina coming through them. If 2021 finds, at some point, artists touring again, expect to see Skullcrusher out on the road with possibly some shows in the UK as well.

Skullcrusher - Trace

Ones to Watch 2021 #9 Yard Act

 

As I intimated in a previous Ones to Watch 2021 post on Portsmouth group Hallan, this year I’m selecting two bands that broadly fit into the category of ‘sneering post-punk’ and that second band is Leeds four-piece Yard Act. Featuring members of Post War Glamour Girls and Menace Beach they first appeared in April 2020 with The Trapper’s Pelts Yard, throwing out social commentary that is scathingly caustic and hilarious in equal parts. 

Take Fixer Upper, a take on a fictional conversational with a neighbour where we get to meet Graham and his smug provincial second home owners view of the world: “I’m not from round here, but I am.” Satire can be hard to do in music, the results often sounding pompous and a bit too clever, but Yard Act seem to be getting it about right – Graham sounds like a real idiot - unfortunately we probably all know someone a bit like Graham.

The big question with such a small number of tracks out there is if Yard Act can maintain their momentum or will their somewhat Marmite ‘bloke talking over guitar riffs and grooves’ sound soon lead to them becoming a novelty themselves and run out of steam? Based on what has come so far I’m hoping for the former - Yard Act are offering something far more entertaining lyrically than a lot of artists out there at the moment.

Yard Act - Fixer Upper

Yard Act · Fixer Upper

Ones to Watch 2021 #8 Christy

 

The only male solo artist on Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch list for 2021 is Glasgow’s Christy O’Donnell. This twenty-something singer songwriter keeps things simple just going by the name Christy. That simplicity also flows through to his gorgeous songs. His debut EP Homegrown (released in August through Made Records) contains five of them. It’s a concept EP of sorts, following the lives of a family in one house in Glasgow from the 1920s to 2020s. 

There’s something very comforting about Christy’s sound – it’s easy to imagine his music cropping up on all of those Chill Out playlists. In fact a quick scan on Spotify shows that he already crops up on ‘Easy’, ‘Mellow Pop’ and ‘Your Coffee Break’. 

Christy is a former busker (why do I never hear buskers as good as this?) who has also appeared in the Disney drama Find Me In Paris but now he is focussed on music. If he can continue the excellence of his debut EP he will definitely be one to watch in 2021.

Christy - Pictures

Ones to Watch 2021 #7 Baby Queen

 

Baby she’s a queen. Baby Queen. Real name Bella Lathum. 

I first introduced Baby Queen to readers of Breaking More Waves this summer when she had just 2 tracks on line. Since then she’s released her debut EP and alongside Holly Humberstone’s (featured in an earlier One to Watch post) it has quickly become one of my favourite pop debut’s of 2020. 

The internet, narcissism, depression, obsessive love, sex and medication. This is the basis of that EP. Lyrically it’s very much a record of these times for dispirited twenty somethings. “I met a boy on the internet, now I can make him up inside my head,” she sings on Online Dating. “I get more likes when I don’t look like me; well fuck my life!” is a line from Pretty Girl Lie. And then there’s Medicine, the anti-depressant anthem of our times: “Thank god for my medicine, I feel so apathetic, when I take my medicine.”

But despite the somewhat depressing nature of the words, they lodge in your head and stick. If you like your pop a little edgy but still very accessible, Baby Queen could soon be your new right royal favourite. (And for regular readers – need I say anything about the fact that she’s already joined the musician in the bath club?)

Baby Queen - Internet Religion

Baby Queen - Pretty Girl Lie