Happy New Year! Today, we begin to introduce you to the new acts that will excite us over the next twelve months. We will run a series of Sound of 2025 pieces throughout January. Here are our first selection, these are emerging acts who have yet to release a full-length album.
UCHE YARA
22 year- old Austrian-born, Berlin-based artist UCHE YARA has been stretching musical boundaries and sonic dimensions over the last eighteen months with a string of vibrant releases.
Last year’s ‘SASHA (wake up!)’ vibrates with side-stepping tribal beats, chanted refrains and riven with unmissable energy that’s redolent of the likes of M.I.A.‘SASHA (wake up!)’ vividly depicts UCHE YARA’s expansive musical confidence and knack for crafting genre-hopping pop music.
She has more than one string to her bow too ‘SOPHIE’ is an inventive and hooky slab of sound that reveals its wares on repeated plays. Inhabiting a short-fused, self-absolving scorned lover frustrated at the actions chosen by his former paramour.
Recently she released an excellent new five-track EP ‘honey,’ introducing a completely new feeling to her universe: that of positive melancholy. The intimate nostalgic lead track ‘honey come find me’, is rich with unctuous melodrama, rustling with jazz undercurrents, a singular reverb-coated guitar shuffling beneath, whilst YARA’s fascinating lower register is intense and pungent, and reminds one of Sarah Vaughan or Nina Simone. It was born out of a feeling of summer melancholy and is strongly inspired by the kitschy, romantic atmosphere that UCHE found in the music of the Carpenters. It’s a slowly drawn bath of a song that submerges you in its daydreaming summer of sadness. (Bill Cummings)
Korda Korder
Korda Korder are a brand new duo in the End of the Trail stable, I managed to catch them at the Fierce Panda Christmas Party, along with Sir Steve Lamacq and John Kennedy, in a basement in Shoreditch and their ethereal noir pop enchanted everyone. Have been fortunate to hear some of their demos and it’s just as affecting as the solitary single so far ‘What Have You Done‘. The Hastings duo are surrounding themselves with just enough mystique to intrigue and keep it interesting. There’s rumours of a label bidding war. Keep your eyes and ears peeled. (Jim Auton)
Clara Mann
A calm voice in an ever increasingly manic and violent world, Clara Mann’s delicate and vulnerable delivery is soothing and engaging. The whole atmosphere and recording reminds me of Lizzie Reid, the enunciation and crystal clear delivery is hypnotic.
There have been three singles from the incoming debut LP Rift; The Track of the Week ‘Stadiums’ and the following ‘Till I Come Around’ and ‘Remember Me (Train Song)’ both as breathtaking as the one before. This is the kind of music you want to hear in a church, in Wrexham, in about May time. Get on it Andy. (Jim Auton)
slate
The Welsh quartet released their debut EP Deathless in 2024. They are a band I had been desperate to see live since hearing their astonishing debut single ‘Tabernacl’ in the summer of 2023. It finally happened at Left of the Dial in Rotterdam in October. slate are very much their own thing, gothic and dramatic whilst thrilling and exhilarating. They create atmospheres within their songs which are given the space to breathe naturally. Their live performance, particularly of charismatic front man Jack Shephard, was breathtaking in Rotterdam, and I remain desperate to see them live again in 2025. (Julia Mason)
Brògeal
Falkirk’s Brògeal are folk punks whose year included supporting the likes of Paolo Nutini and The Wolfetones as well as headline tours throughout the UK and Ireland. This builds on their previous monthly residency at Glasgow McChuil’s where they honed their craft as well as invited other young Scottish bands to play on the same bill. Comparisons to The Pogues are inevitable but Brògeal bring their own flavour. The 5-piece released their second EP in 2024 and are poised to have a break-though year in 2025. They bring the craic both in their music and their performance. Another band who are hopeful for an album in the not too distance future. (Julia Mason)
Adjustments
Adjustments play noisy pop with vulnerable lyrics, syrupy hooks and gravelly guitars that will make your heart sing and ears ring in equal measure. This is the Manchester-based trio (with roots in Cardiff and Bradford) debut release, the AA single, Bendy A /Who You Want, came out in September. They say “both songs are honest and confrontational – they reflect the heat and hurt of the arguments we have with ourselves and the people we care about.”
‘Bendy A’ is particularly brilliant, opening up like a flower, it simmers on nagging riffs and artful rhythmic percussion that slithers decoratively across the track, while the hypnotic and multi-faceted vocals of Tara Gabriella Engelhardt, shift as swiftly as the weather systems we have been buffeted with this week, one minute calm the next minute brooding and whipping in.
“Sorry I was so angry/ One minute I hate you and then I love you madly” she sings plaintively in the aftermath of an argument, as the rolling moods swing in and out, it reminds me of early Cate Le Bon or even elements of Slint or Horse Party. Very promising and magnetic, it’s a track that shows a prodigious depth of songwriting. (Bill Cummings)
House of Protection
The duo blasted out the blocks in 2024, releasing their first singles, debut EP and performing live for the first time, in Los Angeles and London. Connecting as members of FEVER 333 Stephen Harrison and Aric Improta struck out on their own, and immediately made an impact. ‘It’s Supposed To Hurt’ was a debut single impossible to ignore, the first to be taken from their debut EP Galore which was unleashed onto the world in September. Unsurprisingly they are already announced for Download Festival for 2025, and I can guarantee that will be the first of many appearances this year. (Julia Mason)
Cliffords
Ireland has been home to some of the best new acts to emerge over recent years and on the evidence of their superlative releases so far, Cork five-piece Cliffords might just be the next name to conjure with.
Lead by Iona Lynch whose vocals are a thing of awe-inspiring wonder, while Harry Menton adds widescreen guitars. They are joined by trumpet player Gavin Dawkins, drummer Dan Ryan, and Locon O’Toole on keys. Lynch and Ryan have known each other since their school days.
With epic songs that vividly depict the agonies and ecstasies of coming of age, with healthy amounts of self-reflection and awareness.
Their EP Strawberry Scented released last April is excellent, portraying a band who sound way beyond their years, with an ear for melody, cinematic backdrops and an emotional heft with the power to stir the heart. One can hear echoes of early Wolf Alice, elements of the ability of American artists like Sharon Van Etten and Phoebe Bridgers to produce indie rock infused with emotional epiphanies that manage to transcend the genre and the kind of emotional power and poetic storytelling that follows in the Irish lineage of artists like Sinead O’Connor. (Bill Cummings)
