It’s that time of year in music when thoughts turn to new blood and unfamiliar names. The BBC Sound of 2023 poll and the Brits’ Rising Star award have made a whole business out of recognising fresh talent, and both have deservedly been won this year by Flo — see below. Yet there’s a raft of other acts on major labels and beyond who are also on the verge of breaking through. Here are my picks for the coming year.
1. Bar Italia
A handful of festival appearances brought this London trio out from the shadows in summer 2022, leading to a lot of conjecture on who they actually are — and an indie-label bidding war. The guitar-driven music is languid to the point of catatonic, there are touches of the Cure and My Bloody Valentine in its hazy but melodic atmosphere, and the whole thing is appealingly understated and mysterious. They have connections with the soundtrack composer Mica Levi and the artist/rapper Dean Blunt — impeccable credentials for a band named after Soho’s favourite bohemian late-night hangout.
★ Key track Miracle Crush
2. Flo
Having met at Sylvia Young Theatre School in London, Stella Quaresma and Renée Downer hooked up with Jorja Douglas in 2020 after spotting her on Instagram and bonded over a shared love of slinky R&B and unapologetically cheesy pure pop. With the help of the producer MNEK they have come up with a charming and none too serious take on their favourite music, resulting in 2022’s debut single, Cardboard Box, an ultra-catchy kiss-off to low-quality boyfriends. The result is a girl band for our times, slick and professional but refreshingly irreverent — and they’ve just won the Brits’ Rising Star and BBC Sound of 2023 awards too.
★ Key track Cardboard Box
3. Nell Mescal
The 19-year-old younger sister of Normal People’s chain-wearing heart-throb Paul Mescal is a heartfelt singer-songwriter from Co Kildare in Ireland, blessed with sonorous, richly melodic tones and an ability to make lyrics feel like pages ripped from a teenage diary. Hence her debut single, Graduating, a big-voiced ballad about losing touch with old friends as you take a different path in life. There are shades of the American indie singer Phoebe Bridgers to Mescal’s confessional approach — possibly coincidental but her brother did formerly go out with Bridgers.
★ Key track Graduating
4. The Goa Express
Not, as the name suggests, a bunch of hippies discovering themselves in India, but five lads from the Yorkshire towns of Todmorden and Hebden Bridge who are reviving the spirit of the Stone Roses with a spirited, ultra-confident take on groove-driven psychedelic rock. In early 2020 they were building up hype as one of the most exciting new live bands in the country. Then the pandemic took the wind out of their sails, but also gave them a chance to tighten their sound. Now it looks set to be their year.
★ Key track Second Time
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5. Cat Burns
Burns, a Brit School graduate, was busking on the South Bank before the lockdown hit, which she used to build up a TikTok following and showcase Go, a seemingly straightforward, acoustic guitar-led break-up song with a rare ability to get under your skin. In January 2022 Go entered the charts at a modest 57; by the end of December it was among the top ten bestselling singles of the year. Meanwhile, a performance on Later . . . with Jools Holland of Free, a tale of coming out to her parents, showcased Burns as a modern-day Carole King, a singer-songwriter with a way of capturing intimate moments in a musically elegant fashion. The result is a singer who sounds like she’s in it for the long haul.
★ Key track Go
6. Bob Vylan
Somewhere between the Specials, Public Enemy and the Prodigy is this confusingly named London duo (singer/guitarist Bobby Vylan, drummer Bobbie Vylan), who are taking no prisoners in a punk/metal/hip-hop onslaught that has absolutely nothing to do with the Voice of His Generation who wrote Blowin’ in the Wind . . . except Bob Vylan do sound like the voice of their generation. Pretty Songs takes on racism by warning, “There’s no kumbaya to be found round here,” while New England portrays a proud but deluded patriot “driving around in a German car, stopping for lunch in a sushi bar”. Already a hit on the metal circuit, Bob Vylan’s direct action approach is suited to the increasingly heated mood of the times.
★ Key track Pretty Songs
7. English Teacher
Tight, rhythmic, funk-flecked art rock from Leeds, with the singer Lily Fontaine perfecting her bored spoken-word drawl on Good Grief (“Bring out your dead, make them a hashtag”), while going for deeper emotional resonance on Polyawkward and generally bringing a fresh and vibrant take on classic indie. If the musicality seems rather too sophisticated for the average twentysomething band, that’s because the four members met at Leeds Conservatoire and boast a rare combination of wry social comment and virtuosity.
★ Key track Good Grief
8. Joesef
Sweet-voiced soul from a 28-year-old Glaswegian who started by drunkenly going up for an open-mike slot in 2019 and, through word of mouth of its brilliance, sold out the legendary venue King Tut’s a couple of months later. Joesef’s gentle falsetto is at the heart of his appeal, as is his way of combining carefree Eighties-tinged jazz-funk and breezy listening with some weighty themes, delivered in a typically Glaswegian straight-talking fashion. The gossamer-light tale of utter despair It’s Been a Little Heavy Lately is the perfect example.
★ Key track The Sun Is Up Forever
9. Debbie
This south Londoner popped up on the latest album by Stormzy, who has called her “the Aretha Franklin of our time”; a bit much for a 23-year-old to live up to, perhaps, but listening to her soulful, expressive voice you do know what he means. A support slot for John Legend set Debbie on her path, which began in earnest after studying music technology in sixth form and took off after being signed to the US label Def Jam’s UK branch in 2021. It is Debbie Ehirim’s thoroughly English approach, her way of channelling the emotion of everyday problems, like overthinking or not knowing what to say at parties, that sets her apart from the big-voiced American soul divas.
★ Key track Cherry Wine
10. Automotion
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If the sculpted cheekbones and heavy eyebrows of the singer-guitarist Lennon look familiar, that’s because he is indeed the son of Liam Gallagher. But you’d be hard-pressed to find any similarity between Automotion’s moody, understated post-rock and Oasis’s beery anthems. The 2022 EP Ecstatic Oscillations brings to mind the twin-guitar interplay of Television, while the spoken-word moments take inspiration from William Burroughs and Charles Bukowski, and the instrumental connection between Gallagher, Jesse Hitchman (guitar), Luke Chinn-Joseph (bass) and Otis Eatwell-Hurst (drums) recalls Can, Mogwai and other builders of sonic cathedrals.
★ Key track Meeting at the Periphery
