Killing Moon’s Ones To Watch 2016

See that there? That’s a work of art that is. Took us a whole 30 minutes to source all of the relevant assets (which is music industry-speak for bits and/or bobs) to create this masterpiece – not including the hour’s worth of pondering that also went into what we’re planning on calling our artwork genesis – with all the skill of a surgeon plied into Microsoft Paint. Thank us later. For we have a fair number of artists that have cropped up on our radar one way or another this year to place in the coveted position that is the Killing Moon’s Ones To Watch for 2016. We usually take this opportunity to belly-ache about how hard everything has been for us; how heroic we are for putting up with everyone’s shash; and some other stuff. We realise, now that we are firmly entrenched in our 30’s whereby we are supposed to be all wise and whatnot, that we have spent most of this year reflecting on the past so now is the time to look forward to embracing the future that we feel we’ve quite neatly (not to mention precariously at several instances) set up for ourselves and a bunch of others. It’s going to be fun. We will however take the time to formally thank certain individuals who have helped us navigate a rather convoluted year and get through to the other side in way better shape than we started it:

– Iida Hellgren – thank you for your patience, love, and counsel. We are your number one fan.

– Our Board Of Directors – Cara Dattani, Ben Soep, Chris Duncan, Jon Mac, Jeremy Lloyd, Ally McCrae, Heather Campbell, Tom Lovett, Ashok Dhillon, Arjun Dhillon, Rhi Jones, Maiju Rahkama, Jamie Draper, Henry Brill. Thanks for listening and not judging (too much).

– The Greenland Street crew – we were so lucky to end up in an office space brim-full of some of the most friendly and supportive people we’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. We never want to leave.

– The Killing Moon label and management family – thank you for sticking with us. 2016 is your year and we can’t wait to see you get what you’ve all worked so hard for.

– The small army of promoters, managers, publishers, artists, and other partners that we are lucky enough to work with – thanks for letting us interfere with your lives.

– Those who read the blog, buy/stream/illegally download the records, and/or come to the shows – none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for you. We’ve got so much good stuff for you next year.

– Last and by no means least – our family: thank you for picking us up when we don’t have the strength to go it alone; and for helping us realise that we don’t have to do everything ourselves all the time.

Alright. Enough with this emo pish. Ones To Watch 2016. Same deal applies – we have no idea whether or not these dudes and dudettes will go on to have extreme commercial success. Quite frankly in our humble opinion they deserve to, but this is purely from an editorial standpoint in terms of highlighting artists that we would like to hear and see loads more from in the coming 12 months. None of the below are engaged with us in a commercial sense – which doesn’t mean we haven’t already attempted or will attempt to in the future – and do not appear in either an ascending or descending order despite what our chosen imagery and layout might suggest.

Let’s do this.

Barns Courtney

Saw this guy play atop a Nando’s brand activation at Bestival on the Isle Of Wight. A perfect voice to suit perfect chicken. His manager allowed us to get involved with the rider following a magnificent (if not awkwardly positioned) acoustic performance, so really there is very little here that we don’t feel is brilliant about this guy.

Ben Hobbs

All-round nice bloke and handsome devil steps out from behind the production desk and/or topline features game and into the spotlight as a performing artist in his own right. Boys and girls across the land, including us, swoon to debut effort Sweet Enough which has already accumulated fifty million bajillion squillion plays on Spotify. We also think his chin could kill a guy.

LOYAL

Uncategorisable brilliance, and perhaps a welcome step away from a year that has been awash for the Future R’n’B wave. Its a bit more incisive. A bit sparkier. It is infinitely more interesting. We want to be friends with him/her/them real bad.

Cessna Deathwish

Royal Blood-approved (and indeed solicited, as far as we’re concerned anyway) gritted blues-rock. Campfires better start quaking in their metaphorical booties when they see these dudes stomping up. Yee, haa, and all of that. Beards optional, apparently.

Anna Straker

She is basically everything you want in a pop star, oozing more confidence in her young life and already-rather-lofty vocalist career than most people do in their entire lives. Also knows how to operate a drone, or at least has friends who do. Reportedly A&Rs have already started pawning their mothers in the hopes of getting involved.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe8IeTWy1J8]

St. Sleep

Chappies who have been hibernating for a thousand years – and spending that time honing their craft – finally unleashed their stuff on the world. The world listens to the tune of hundreds of thousands of streams. They then decide to play a gig. It is almost as if they’re going to be a real band or something, so you’d better watch out.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE1MCmt-mt4]

Noah Kin

Raps like grime (in the live sense, at least), blasts out like A$AP. We wouldn’t mind being him for a bit, basically, such is the undeniable force of cool that this guy has trained himself up to be. Finland rocks, and also raps apparently. His guitarist/hype man is also a real nice guy, and can also hold his liquor quite well.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWmfVFpBimQ]

A.CHAL

We’d be lying if we didn’t say we weren’t at least partially pleased that this guy exists purely in the hopes of one day people pronouncing our own name correctly without having to ask us incessantly. Also, he makes sublime electronic music, which is probably the main thing right?

LarzRanda

Henry Brill put us on to New Zealand’s answer to….anything that is unashamedly as cool as it is geeky. We can imagine Larz being amazing to her friends and destroying her enemies. We’d very much like to find ourselves on the former side of the fence there.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At1OoQRJ1ZU]

Sam Jordan & The Dead Boys

Vibrato-grit king of Brighton that is going to take your biggest insecurities and make you face them in musical form. In a very dark and broody way. That’ll be nice, won’t it?

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pKh6vVXiQE]

Smash Williams

Smash. Fucking. Williams. Never has nice handwriting in a pink background made so much sense.

Beach Season

We used to hate those novelty drumstick that light up all neon-ish when you tap it with something. Beach Season have somehow not only made this a real instrument, but also made us enjoy seeing it employed on the reg as well.

SAKES

Tropical vibes mashed with a menacing production twist. We pretty much know sweet FA about this lot. We guess that’s a large part of the appeal at this stage, but we’d love to get to know ’em better.

Lea Porcelain

Dark, moody post-punk bastards who like to mess around with synths. And we couldn’t love it more. We are super annoyed that a lot of our peers have managed to check these guys (know that we know they are guys), but that’s really the band’s fault for not playing more of them.

Beasts

Any friends of Lyger are friends of ours. Especially when they rock out this hard.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTK-9XM5Obg]

BONES

There’s sass, and then there’s this kind of attitude that would make the hardiest of hard-men shiver their goddamn timbers right down to their, uh, bones we guess. We pity the fool who fucks with these two. Also, they seem to be touring everywhere next year so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to test your might. But you’ll lose. You’ll lose real bad.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfQCtceE_y8]