EMERGING ARTISTS YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO THIS MONTH
words by ANOUK WOUDT
editor ELIANA CASA
As new music constantly gets released, we know it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming to explore. Experimentalism is at its peak as production continues its technological expansion, paving the way for new types of sounds to perpetually emerge. We are at a point where the musical landscape is intensely ever-changing, which is both exciting and entirely overstimulating. To help you break through the noise, we’ve collected a few of our favourite new emerging artists that span across all realms of the music world. From dream-pop to ambient electronica, these musicians are each breaking down musical boundaries, crafting a style that is uniquely their own.
ALBA AKVAMA
image courtesy of ALBA AKVAMA
As part of the Copenhagen music boom, composer, producer and singer Alba Akvama is one of the smaller names to watch among her talented Danish peers, such as Elias Rønnenfelt, Fine, snuggle, and countless others. Continuing in the trend of putting Denmark at the centre of the underground music scene, her music pairs Nordic openness with raw emotional sincerity. Pouring her heart out in a mix of ballads and melodic melancholy, she reflects her progressive Copenhagen scene surroundings, while still bringing intercutting the landscape with something excitingly new. Her voice carries a soft warmth, pairing well against a symphony of guitar strums, piano keys and soft jazzy horns that combine to create a layered soundscape that immerses you entirely. Nonetheless, acoustic guitars dominate her sound, likening it to a modern experimentation of classic folk, especially with her soft lyrical accents.
OURI
image courtesy of OURI
French-Guinean born but Montreal-based, Ouri’s style feels like an ode to all extents of music, drifting throughout genres with the aid of orchestral instrumentation and electronic production. Her performance style is extremely engaging, swiftly entering into completely different ranges of sounds that weave together seamlessly. Classically trained in cello and harp, she manages to bring in this classical instrumentation into a more modern electronic context to create a very particular sound that breaks genre boundaries. With her latest album, Daisy Cutter (2025), she balances heartfelt vulnerability with dance-infused breakbeats that encapsulate the visceral longing for feeling that tends to define her musical purpose. Each song explores new compositions and feelings, creating a whirlwind of experiences singularly contained in one album.
BBY ECO
image via @bby.eco
Based in Amsterdam, Bby Eco is the alter ego of musician Joris Benjamins. His sound feels both ethereally ambient and playfully electronic, with the intent of making you feel like you’re floating through the skies. Hyperpop influences come to bloom with pitched vocals that swirl amid cascading synths and flickering sound effects, injecting liveliness into each song. With his latest release, Sky (i) – released in January 2026— he’s developed a style that feels uniquely cemented in his identity. Building on layers of swelling sounds, he creates a whole ecosystem for your ears to explore. Chirps, drips and bubbling chimes complement each other, enticingly inviting you on a journey to other non-Earth-borne lands. Nevertheless, there is an effervescent bliss that follows his music, even with his previous albums Grow! (2021) and O₂O (2023) even as he shifts to a more ambient sound– which he refers to as “eco-pop”, meaning for everyone (pop) but with that Bby Eco touch (eco.)
ACOPIA
image via BANDCAMP
The Australian dream-pop trio, known as Acopia, exist in a veil of shoegazy textures and poppy rhythms in the tried-and-true combination of guitar, bass and vocals. Made up of Melbourne-based musicians Kate Durman, Morgan Wright and Lachlan McGeehan, who were each producing solo music before, join forces to create a jangly pop that's laden with catchy hooks and dreamy lyrics. Despite influences from gritty shoegaze bands such as My Bloody Valentine, their music holds a lush joyfulness, rejecting the innate melancholy that tends to trail the genre. Their newest album, Blush Response (2025), expands on their dreamy downtempo style that simmers into a consciously intricate layered sound, blossoming a scenic flourish.
KLEIN
image via SPOTIFY
Hailing from South London, Klein’s sound has the special quality of immediately drawing you in, inviting you into an experimental landscape that is undeniably hers. Through audio sample manipulation and swelling metallic drones, each song features a blend of sounds that you’ve certainly never heard— at least not all at once. Though instrumentation and her production remain at the forefront of her music, she does infuse some songs with her soft, raw vocals, which mumble in scrappy harmonies perfectly fitting her DIY experimentalisms and serving as an integral part of her instrumental soundscape. Creating a field for all of her genre influences to play, she mashes rock, metal, R&B and electronica, creating a deeply surreal energy. Citing Brandy, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Soulja Boy and the reality TV show Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta as influences, her interests reflect the cultural mish-mash of her music.
REQUISIT
image via SPOTIFY
Creating music based on hypnotic loops and softened beats, Luke, under the pseudonym Requisit, creates intoxicating sounds that span styles ranging from moody dance-floor evenings to peaceful nights in. Based and raised in Queens, New York, his style reflects his environment, blending early R&B and hip hop with elements of a blossoming techno-electronic scene. With his last album, A Secret Third Thing, his sampling aptitude is at its peak with intercutting vocals that are pitched and screwed into delicate medleys and samples that sound as if they could have been lifted straight from the confines of a metaphorical botanical garden. Notes gleam with an overwhelming nostalgia through his use of vintage audio recordings that fade in and out of electro-arpeggios, echoing a longing sense of distance from a place all too familiar.
THE FEMCELS
image via @thef_mcels
Electronica meets indie girlhood in the best way with The Femcels. The London-based duo, made up of Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton, who debuted their first album, I Have to Get Hotter, earlier this year, have already made appearances performing with some of the biggest UK up-and-comers, like Fakemink, EsDeeKid and Bassvictim. But the latter comes as no surprise, since the two have been closely intertwined with the Bassvictim universe, with their album being produced by Ike Clateman and Gabriella’s past styling of Maria Manow— AKA the frontrunners of the electronic duo. Their music feels campy, kitchsy and always girly, reminiscent of The Teenagers and Le Tigre with a hint of The Mouldy Peaches. Stuck somewhere between twee cutsiness and feral screams, their sound is refreshingly chaotic, especially with their silly lyricism that perfectly embodies the trials and tribulations of Girl World. Irony follows the band’s entire identity, from their name—meaning female members of the involuntary celibate club that tends to terrorise Reddit—to their style. Performing in a funky clash of colours and patterns, with custom headresses—made by the talented Alfie Jackson—their vibe is a complete Tumblr-esque, sleazy jumble.
MOIN
image via toutpartout.be
Made up of band members Tom Halstead, Joe Andrews, and visionary percussionist Valentina Magaletti, Moin feels unabashedly poetic with monotone vocals set atop syncopated drum patterns and jazzy drawls. They exist in a genre of their own, merging the grittiness of alternative shoegaze and grunge rock with the precision of classical music instrumentation. Based in London, they are part of an ongoing rock revival on par with bar italia, though their sound definitely leans more into the experimental subgenre. Existing through layers of sounds carried from other genres, Moin’s sound results in a clash of cohesion and chaos. Their 2024 album, You Never End, perfectly encapsulates this style with asymmetrical compositions that tend to be wonky, but never in the negative sense— transporting you on a transcendent retreat from start to finish.
GRACE IVES
image via BANDCAMP
With her recent release, Girlfriend, Grace Ives has officially entered our pop princess rotation. After a three-year hiatus from music, she’s back and better than ever before. With newly bubblegum-pink hair and bold vocals, her sound immediately captures your attention, dragging you into her universe. The new album treads the boundaries of the entire human experience, making us want to scream, cry, laugh, dance and everything in between, all throughout the course of just over 36 minutes. Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, she brings the alternative New York scene to the heart of her music, mixed with a wistfulness that feels reminscent of teenage love-lorn daydreams. Building on the blocks of foremothers, Lana Del Rey and Lorde, her music expresses a cheeky vulnerability that expresses itself through belting ballads and arpeggiated synths. Coming to Amsterdam’s Paradiso on June 11th, it’s a show you do not want to miss, especially since it's in the more intimate upstairs room— so you can get up close and personal with a future pop darling, before she goes on tour opening for Olivia Rodrigo this fall.
JAMES K
image via @___pet___
Since her first release in 2013, singer and producer Jamie Krasner has slowly been forming her own niche in New York’s underground music scene. With her solo project, james K, she steps into her rightful spotlight, sweeping us into a spellbinding flurry of hazy dream-like synths, built upon stuttering reverb-drenched instrumentals. With her previous collaborations with artists Oli XL and Yves Tumor, her style falls within the same dream-pop vein, though subverted through a dance-imbued lens. Digital layers and textures come through her production that melt her soft vocals into her innovative soundscape. Her third and most recent release, Friend, builds on the pillowy atmosphere that has grown to mist over her work, mixing in elements of drum-n-bass and triphop that add a sense of rhythm that grounds the airy dreaminess that has become her sonic signature.
MALIBU
image via @malib9
Building ethereal soundscapes using reverbed vocals and resonating instrumentation, French producer and vocalist Malibu is making music that is one of a kind. Her sound has an almost church-like quality, building off hymnal chants with an ambience that hollowly echoes as if being played within the confines of an ancient religious temple. Cinematics overwhelm her sound, creating a score that takes you completely outside of yourself and into her own landscape. Water and wind flow throughout the musical layers, swelling with melodic strings and woodwinds to fully immerse you in this ethereal place that she has crafted. Starting from her contributions to the compilation album Mono No Aware in 2017, which features fellow up-and-comers james K, Oli XL and Yves Tumor, she has since created her own independent style in music, which culminates in her newest release Vanities (2025).
WEED420
image via BANDCAMP
Based in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, weed420 infuses its Latin American roots into its experimental electronic style, provoking a sound clash that culminates in a genre that can be defined as hyper-emo and dial-up dance. Made up of members DJ Juan, DJ Alvaro, Frowningato and Juan Zamora, the group was formed online in 2021, with the members not even meeting in person until 2025. Together, they combined their mutual musical passions, becoming a reflection of Venezuela’s lost youth generation amid a landscape of political turmoil. Elements of cloud rap buzz with reggaeton bass and chopped’n’screwed trap influences making hypnotising beats that are irresistibly danceable. Other songs lean more towards an ambient style, with looping synths that pair with spoken-word audio samples, layering softly before building into breakbeat textures that recall early Internet electronica.
PEACH
image via RESIDENT ADVISOR
Crafting music as both a DJ and a producer, Peach is a Canadian, London-based artist whose sets radiate a signature bubbly energy which has come to define her style. Reverbed beats meet with glittering and glistening sound effects, fusing to create something she calls “dancefloor forward technicolour tech house”, which absolutely embodies her specific genre of music. High-energy pulses throughout each song, creating groovy rhythms that just make you want to lose control on the dancefloor. Her debut EP, Galaxy Girl, distinctly expresses her love of music through an exploration of her sound and space within production. Tracks carry an inexhaustible lust for life inspired by genuine moments and connections that have followed the artist’s life, bringing whimsy into every composition.
ASTRID SONNE
image via @astridsonne
Currently based in London, Astrid Sonne is a Danish composer and singer who uses her background in classical music to channel her own melodic compositions that dabble in experimental and pop sounds. Her lyricism is integral to her sound, touching on personal and human issues with a heartfelt sincerity that allows you to enter and blissfully tour her thoughts. Basing her music in an electro-acoustic sound, each release pushes her experimentalism further, pulling ambient sounds that cut through bass-heavy beats, creating an angelic atmosphere for you to simmer into. With collaborations with Smerz, ML Buch and Fine, her style fits within the Scandinavian bubble while also bringing her own sound. Her latest album, Great Doubt (2024), expresses this through yearning introspections that lumber into a bittersweet mood that feels dramatic, yet restrained.
