Alice Chater has pop music running through her veins. She’s all about big tunes, a big voice and big dance routines. Not only that, but she’s the only performer I know who brings a bath with her name on to gigs for the audience to sit in. Anyone who has followed Breaking More Waves for some time will know that this immediately endeared me to Alice; she takes the Breaking More Waves geeky obsession with pop stars in the tub to a whole new level. Having originally been discovered through singing covers on You Tube, Alice has now released a number of bona-fide-big-bangers accompanied by a bunch of videos that place her in the ‘extremely good pop star’ category from the word go. Whether she is stealing a Human League sample and dancing like a loon (on Hourglass) or writhing around on a spider web telling us all that her name is Alice (on Wonderland) its all pointing to Alice’s form of classic pop (think Britney, Lady Gaga, Madonna as reference points) stimulating the ears further in 2019. One to Watch for sure. Alice Chater - Hourglass (Video)
Here’s the next artist on the 2019 Ones to Watch list. It’s Lauran Hibberd. She's been a regular on Breaking More Waves since 2016 and I almost included her on this list last year, but it still felt a little too early. Now feels right. Why choose Lauran? It’s for one simple reason – this woman can write songs and then some. Every time I’ve seen her play (and those times have been numerous over the last 2 and half years) she’s never delivered the same set. “Don’t tell me stories – I’ll write songs about them,” Lauran says on her Facebook. Clearly people have been talking to her. She’s always banging out the new ones. But writing lots of songs is one thing – knowing which are the good ones is another – and Lauran knows. Tracks like the cartoonish and vibrant What Do Girls Want, the hyper energised shout along fizz of Call Shotgun and the scuzzy noise pop of Fun Like This are just 3 examples of Lauran’s ability. Maybe it’s because Lauran started writing songs in a folk-pop style with a more acoustic bent that she’s been able to develop the craft of putting words and music together in a form that works; and now she has translated that to her cheeky, sometimes ironic indie. Maybe she’s just a natural. But whatever it is Lauren is now one of the new indie queens of cool, stomping her way round the country supporting the likes of Eliza & The Bear and Jealous Of The Birds and massing streams on Spotify –Call Shotgun already has over 400,000 plays. What’s next for Lauran remains to be seen, but hopefully 2019 will see some of her own headline shows. If there are, take my advice. I’ve named her as One to Watch for 2019, so go and do just that and watch her when she plays a gig near you. Lauran Hibberd - What Do Girls Want?
Back in November 2017 I featured Pockets, the debut single from Leicester based 5-piece Easy Life, which was released through boutique label Chess Club. The first time I heard the song it was a must feature, it sounded so smoothly different to everything else out there. Now a year on, with the band having inked a deal with Island, I’m featuring them on my Ones to Watch list for 2019; and they’re still carving their own groove. Taking elements of jazz, soul, indie and hip-hop Easy Life make music that suits their name. Easy Life are chill. But not in a lazy way. Because Easy Life make cleverly constructed pop songs. They’ve got hooks, they’ve got vibes a plenty and when you listen, before you know it, you’ll find yourself nodding your head, closing your eyes and immersing yourself in a sound that bears very little resemblance to the place Easy Life come from. If anything, the sound of Easy Life is a road trip with the roof off along the highways of West Coast America. Having played the likes of Great Escape, Live At Leeds, Dot to Dot and Reading Festival last year, as well as their own headlining tour, Easy Life’s trajectory seems to be going in one direction only, and that’s upwards. If they can match the likes of Nightmares and Pockets in 2019 it will be a very good year for them and us. Easy Life - Pockets
“Australia’s way cooler answer to Phil Collins.” That’s how I described Melbourne’s Georgia Flipo, who goes under the name of G Flip, back in an introducing post in April 2018. OK, maybe that’s a disservice to the ex-Genesis man, who after all was responsible for In The Air Tonight, a song that if nothing else features one of the greatest air drumming opportunities in pop. But as far as singer / producer / drummers go Georgia is certainly ready to grab Phil’s crown off his baldy head. Having originally whacked the skins in a band called Empra, Georgia spent most of 2017 writing and creating music for her own solo project. She uploaded her debut About You to Triple J Unearthed and was caught almost off guard in a whirlwind of musical excitement when the track went viral. Before G Flip knew it she was playing SXSW, 2 shows at Brighton’s Great Escape and a gig in London supporting Pale Waves where she won the crowd over, with some people declaring on Twitter afterwards that she was the best support band they’d ever seen. About You (one of my favourite songs of 2018) was followed up with another pop gold earworm called Killing My Time and the future looked very bright for G Flip. However, since Killing My Time Georgia hasn’t rushed to push lots of tracks on line, playing a bit of a waiting game, hopefully getting the recordings and promotion of the next songs just right. From what I saw at the 2 Great Escape Shows and the Pale Waves support I’m very confident that Georgia does have the songs under her belt to deliver in 2019 – and that’s why she’s on this list of Ones to Watch. In the UK she has a show at the Garage in London lined up for next May and has also been confirmed for Reading and Leeds festivals.
As we begin to enter the season of tip lists for the new year (Breaking More Waves always goes early with this – it makes it more fun for me afterwards to compare with all the others that are published in December and January) you can take an educated guess, based on past history, that many of the UK based lists, especially the industry ones, will be fairly London-centric. This is because much of the media and record industry is based there, so artists tend to gravitate to London, but also simply because of the sheer volumes of population of the country living in London; statistically it’s inevitably going to have more artists represented. This year is looking particularly good for South East London with Octavian highly likely to be featuring on those industry lists – he seems to tick all the right boxes, even if he doesn't tick mine, (if I’m wrong please pretend you never read this) and another possibility is Bermondsey's Flohio, a young MC who has featured on Breaking More Waves a number of times this year. However, irrespective of if Flohio finds herself on industry lists or not (nothing is guaranteed, this is just guesswork on my part and this year there seems to be no really obvious choices) she’s 100% here on the Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch 2019. It should come as no surprise to regular readers. I pretty much told you she was going to be on this list back in July (see the bottom line of this post – click here) Over the last few years Flohio (real name Funmi Ohiosumah) has collaborated with beat making duo God Colony, has been a finalist in the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition, endorsed by Naomi Cambell for Vogue as one of 10 Women Changing Our Future and played the likes of Great Escape, Lovebox and Latitude. What makes Flohio one of London’s most thrilling and fresh MCs is her incredibly quickfire, aggressively relentless yet cool delivery, combined with a mixture of industrial, trap, techno and hip-hop sounds that punch so hard they are almost overpowering. A great run of singles (Bands, Watchout, 10 More Rounds and Wild Yout) have paved the way to my rising excitement for Flohio, which has culminated in the recent Wild Youth EP. In late November and early December she heads out on her first small headline tour of the UK. She’s told us to watch out. Maybe we she be watching out for her. Flohio - Wild Yout (Video)
After a couple of bands it’s time to introduce the first of a large number of solo artists that feature on the 2019 Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch list and also the first American artist (overall the list is once again UK heavy because that’s where I’m based). Mikaela Straus is King Princess and appeared on Breaking More Waves back in April after she had impressed with the songs 1950 and Talia from her debut Make My Bed EP. 1950 has become a sizeable pop anthem this year - it reached number 17 in Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart and it has clocked up just over 150 million streams on Spotify, helped along the way with the support of Mark Ronson (Straus is signed to his newly formed Zelig label in the US) and Harry Styles tweeting out the lyrics of her songs, without reference, to his fans. As I pointed out in that April blog post, it’s easy to be cynical about the Styles tweets – Styles is on Columbia records and Zelig is an imprint of Columbia – but as a new artist you’re going to take all the breaks you can these days. 1950 and Talia have paved the way for King Princess to pick up a sizeable crowd of screaming girl fans – although perhaps not the same ones that Harry Styles had – her audience is a significantly LGBTI one. (1950 was inspired by Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, which was originally released under the pseudonym Claire Morgan as Highsmith didn’t want to be tagged as ‘a lesbian book writer’. It was later republished under the name Carol.) Most recent single Pussy Is God, co-written with her girlfriend and actress Amanda Stenberg will inevitably cement that fanbase further as will her version of the Perfume Genius song Queen, albeit at the moment it is only a live cover rather than a studio release. All of the songs from King Princess so far share one common strand; they are classy, modern, highly accessible pop tunes with all those classic ingredients of melody and hooks. Add to this the fact that King Princess can nail it live (watch her debut TV performance on Later With Jools Holland for the evidence of that by clicking here) and she was always going to be one of my Ones to Watch 2019 since that first post in April. King Princess rules. King Princess - 1950
The 2nd One to Watch for 2019 on Breaking More Waves is Another Sky. The band first appeared on Breaking More Waves back in March after I had become just a little obsessed with their debut track Forget Yourself and its accompanying surreal digital artwork video by artist Mikey Burey. At that point in time very little was known about them except that they formed at Goldsmiths College in London and had a small number of shows lined up over the summer. Since that time Another Sky have impressed me time and time again. First there was the powerful Avalanche, a song that showed a group with a social conscience that was prepared to bring some of the big issues of the day into their music, in this case toxic masculinity. They combined it with an impactful video (below) which garnered a positive response to every single person I showed it to. Then there was Chillers, a song that hit me on first listen: “Why worry about the weather or nuclear weapons when they can eat for free on a black card at Nandos?” sang lead vocalist Katrin providing a questioning voice about the self-centred times we live in. A tour support with Breaking More Waves favourite and regular Laurel followed, with Another Sky playing under minimal lighting and dry ice – the focus clearly being on the sound they were creating rather than what they looked like. Then suddenly there they were on the TV with a slot on Later With Jools. As the year closes it really feels like Another Sky has got out of first gear. The early part of 2019 will find the band heading out on a headline 20 date tour of the small venues of the UK. They’re probably hitting a town or city near you. Do try and catch them. They have certainly started out as one of the stand out new bands of 2018 and therefore have to be ones to watch for 2019. Another Sky - Forget Yourself
If the Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch list for 2019 was purely about picking artists that were going to be commercially successful, then choosing bands for the list would seem like a bad decision. A quick scroll down the Top 40 biggest selling albums of 2018 in the UK so far will show you just how badly bands are doing in terms of being sales big hitters, and more to the point, how out of fashion new bands are: Arctic Monkeys, Abba, Little Mix, Fleetwood Mac, Oasis and Snow Patrol are the only acts listed. But this list isn’t just about commercial success. It’s just about music that excites me. It’s why I’m starting my Ones to Watch 2019 posts with two new acts that are both bands. Both of them even use that most unfashionable of instruments; the guitar. One has already featured on the blog a number of times and the second, the first on this list of ten, I’ve featured just once, a few days ago. Fontaines DC are from Dublin City, Ireland and are one of the most electrifying new bands I’ve come across over 2018. They’ve got it. I would have called it the X-Factor, but that word has been so polluted now due to Mr Simon Cowell and company I can’t use that description without squirming. Fontaines DC are raw, slightly ramshackle and have an undeniable energy to their sound that is, to put it simply, bloody brilliant. Onstage they have a lead singer who possesses the characteristics of a caged pent-up animal unsure what to do with itself. They also have bags full of lyrics that are just ready to be shouted out by excited moshing fans at their gigs: “If you’re a rock star, porn star, it doesn’t matter what you are, get yourself a good car and get out of here,” from Boys In The Better Land is one of my favourites. It has a sense of escape that people can relate to whatever their position in life. Here’s some of the reference points that have already been thrown at them: The Fall, post-punk, Joy Division, The Vaccines, The Pogues, vintage rock ‘n’roll, Shame, The Blue Aeroplanes. You probably get an idea where they’re coming from with that. Apparently they're big Beach Boys fans as well, which probably isn't immediately obvious, but they do have that surf-rock sound to their songs. They’ve got a small handful of tunes on line so far, and every single one of them is a riot. They’ve been out on the road with Shame, and are also playing their own sold out shows in the UK this winter and some bigger gigs in April. Next year they’ll be playing SXSW in Austin Texas and touring with Idles in the US in May. Hopefully there will be an album as well. I expect them to create a storm wherever they go. The best band out of Ireland for some time. Fontaines D.C - Hurricane Laughter
Starting today at 11.30am GMT I will be publishing the Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch list for 2019. What the list is: 8 New(ish) artists that I predict will have a good musical year in 2019 either commercially, critically, or just releasing some fine music / playing some great shows (even if nobody else except me takes any notice). What’s ‘new’ is subject to debate, but each of the artists on this list won’t have got as far as releasing an album yet. A handful of singles and an EP or two is more likely. The artists featured have (mainly) all featured on Breaking More Waves before, although there may be the odd curveball. It's British biased. Because that’s where I’m based I tend to hear more new acts from there and get more opportunities to see those acts live. What the list isn’t: A complete list of artists that I think will be ‘big’ (some I hope will be, but others definitely won’t). Over the years of doing these Ones to Watch lists I’ve picked some artists who have gone on to be very commercially successful: Florence & The Machine, Lana Del Rey, Mumford & Sons, Ellie Goulding, Wolf Alice, Rag ‘n’ Bone Man, Charlix XCX, Haim, Chvrches etc. But in the same respect I’ve picked plenty who haven’t. Yet some of those who haven’t been commercially successful have still ended up on later album of the year lists of my own. An opportunity for you to tell me I’m wrong. Go and write your own f*cking list rather than wasting time slagging off someone else’s. An opportunity for you to tell me that you don’t like the idea of tip lists. Simple – if you don’t like them, don’t read them – let those of us who do like such simple pleasures enjoy them. It’s hardly like we’re murdering small children here. A tip list is not going to change the fabric of society, so why get worked up about it. Do something better with your life. An opportunity for you to tell me that I go too early with this and therefore I can’t have possibly considered the acts I’ve chosen properly. Again, this is my blog, not yours, so stop telling me what to do without any knowledge about the time constraints I have, plus please note I think about new music all bloody year, so trust me this list is very considered. When the rest of the list will be published: I’ll be publishing the first artist today at 11.30am on the blog and then will be posting 1 further act for the following 9 days at exactly 8am each day. Past Ones to Watch 2008-2017 Finally, here are all of the previous artists I’ve named on past Ones to Watch lists from the start of the blog in 2008. Come back at 11.30am today and every day after at 8am to see the 10 artists I’ve picked this year. Alabama Shakes, Alessi’s Ark, Alice Jemima, Aurora, Avec Sans, Banks, Beth Jeans Houghton, Billie Marten, Cabbage, Charli XCX, Chasing Grace, Chloe Black, Chloe Howl, Chvrches, Clare Maguire, Clock Opera, Coasts, Confidence Man, Curxes, Dave, Declan McKenna, Dot Rotten, D/R/U/G/S, Delphic, Elderbrook, Ellie Goulding, Eva Stone, Foxes, Florence & The Machine, Flyte, Gabrielle Aplin, George Ezra, Grace Carter, Haim, Hazel English, Holly Miranda, Hurts, Iyes, Jade Bird, James Blake, Jerry Williams, Joseph Salvat, Jungle, La Roux, Lana Del Rey, LANY, Lapsley, Laura Doggett, Laura Mvula, Let’s Buy Happiness, Lianne La Havas, Little Boots, Liv Dawson, Loyle Carner, Lucy Rose, Luke Sital-Singh, Maggie Rogers, Maisie Peters, Majik, Marina & The Diamonds, Mura Masa, Nao, Off Bloom, Outfit, Pale Waves, Passion Pit, Pink Kink, Pumarosa, Queen of Hearts, Rachel Sermanni, Rag ‘N’ Bone Man, Ren Harvieu, Ryn Weaver, Seinabo Sey, Savages, Seramic, Sigrid, Skint & Demoralised, Skott, Sofi Tukker, Sons & Lovers, Sophie Jamieson, Spark, Spector, Starsmith, Stornoway, Superorgansim, The Blinders, The Milk, The Night VI, The Shires, The Staves, The Vaccines, Tom Odell, Unicorn Kid, Valerie June, Visions Of Trees, White Lies, Willy Moon, Wolf Alice, Xylaroo, Yes Giantess, Zyra.
