12 to watch in 2012

03 January 2012

Frank Ocean

As a member of worldbeating rap collective OFWGKTA, and the most prominent (and talented) guest on Jay-Z and Kanye’s ego-driven Watch The Throne record, 2011 was a banner year for 24-year-old Frank Ocean. Add a writing credit on Beyonce’s 4 album, and inclusion on the BBC Sound of 2012 long list, and the stars seem to be aligned for Ocean to reach critical mass in 2012. He has collaborations with rap legend Nas and Pharrell Williams in the pipeline as well as his own debut album, all of which are sure to put the soul vocalist firmly in the spotlight.

As is the case with a lot of overnight success stories, Ocean’s build has been slow and steady. Originally performing under his birth name Christopher Breaux, he signed a solo deal with Def Jam. However, he was a low priority artist for the label. As his mixtape nostalgia,ULTRA failed to make an initial impact (in no small part due to Ocean’s facetious meta-tagging of the mixtape as ‘bluegrass’ and ‘death metal’), his solo career stalled somewhat. A co-write on Justin Bieber’s My World EP helped fill his pockets and establish him as a talented songwriter, and the ultimately- stalled re-release of his mixtape (as nostalgia. LITE) saw the single Novacane [sic] scrap into the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100. Australia is still largely unaware of Ocean, but his potential for crossover is huge, considering his silky soulful vocals, his formidable writing skills and the amount of high-profile projects he is involved in.



Kreayshawn

Kreayshawn has ridden the zeitgeist in the most exceptional way. Alongside Odd Future, Drake and Nicki Minaj, she is appealing to a younger audience who clearly feel that rap music can be about more than middle-age men namechecking designer brands and boasting about sexual exploits with models. Street credibility is second to attitude in 2011, and as Kanye West and Jay-Z’s Watch The Throne aptly demonstrated, the gulf between their champagne-soaked lives and those on the street they (or at least Jay-Z) claim to represent couldn’t be larger. Enter a new guard of young rap artists full of freewheeling attitude, swagger and mouthy youthfulness, not to mention a savvy use of new media forms.

Kreayshawn arrived fully-formed last year with her mixtape Kittys X Choppas and an accompanying video clip for track Bumpin’ Bumpin’ which featured the then-21-year-old in a Flintstones hoodie repeating the seemingly-nonsensical lyrics “Rockin’ in the club, catch me on an elephant/ Young Kreayshawn grimy, but I feel so elegant.” The clip paved the way for her May 2011 single Gucci Gucci, which featured a chopped and screwed sample from Bumpin’ Bumpin’ and instantly set her no-nonsense stance, namechecking top fashion brands before declaring “the basic bitches wear that shit so I don’t even bother.” Throughout the clip Kreayshawn and friend Lil Debbie (who doesn’t utter a word, offering up robotically stoned dance moves) showcase a range of immaculately curated thrift-store outfits while drinking, smoking blunts and partying. Throw in cameos from Jasper Dolphin, Taco, and Left Brain of Odd Future and it was no surprise the clip received 2.5 million views in little over a fortnight. Columbia Records snapped her up and to date the video has had close to 27 million views. With a second single featuring Snoop Dogg due out any day, and an album, tentatively titled Life With Loopy, slated for a 2012 release, it’s safe to assume Kreayshawn will own 2012. As she claimed in Gucci Gucci, “I’ve got the swag and it’s pumping out my ovaries.”



Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey has been surrounded by a storm of media attention and controversy since the homespun clip to the beautifully ornate Video Games was uploaded to YouTube in August. In a mere three months, the New York singer- songwriter has been fawned over by tastemaker blogs, outed as a ‘fake’ purely due to her major label backing, and has weathered more comments about her lips than a 25-year-old girl should have to deal with. But it’s the DIY aesthetic and borrowed nostalgia of the Video Games clip that propelled Del Rey (real name Elizabeth Grant) into the spotlight, garnering almost 9 million views in three months. Her penchant for over-dramatised heartbreak, old-Hollywood fashion and Nancy Sinatra little-girl-lost vibes, combined with stock footage she found online, made Video Games one of the most intriguing discoveries of the year.

As outlets like Complex and Pitchfork attempted to demystify the pop star, it emerged that she had signed with Interscope recently, after years of attempting to crack the music business. From this point, the apparent voyeurism of Video Games was replaced with the feeling that we’d all been duped; the endearing Hollywood stylisation now seemed constructed, as did the DIY clip. Of course, the truth isn’t so black and white; Del Rey edited the video herself prior to signing with Interscope, and although photos emerged of her from three years ago sans-Sinatra-meets-trailer-trash styling, it was hardly a label-driven overhaul. Blue Jeans (released as a double-A side with Video Games) continues the same Twin Peaks-meets-old cinema aesthetics, with echoes of Kate Bush, Enya, Nancy Sinatra and numerous other artists that dabble in dazed dreamscapes. With an album, dramatically titled Born To Die, due in the first few months of 2012, expect Lana Del Rey to be one of the most successful artists in the world this time next year.



Husky

Wolves are out, owls are long gone, the Age of the Husky is here. The brainchild of the excellently-named and well-bearded Husky Fawenda, Melbourne foursome Husky have needed a well-bound organiser this year. Their debut album Forever So, released in October this year, was recorded in their very own self-built, backyard studio and mixed in LA by Noah Georgeson (The Strokes, Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart). After scoring widespread support on Triple J and community radio for singles History’s Door and Dark Sea, Triple J put a friendly paw up to present a sold-out national tour to promote the album, which hit every state and territory through October and November to many husky-voiced screaming fans.

After winning a Triple J Unearthed Push Over Festival comp in February and nabbing a Featured Artist spot in March, Husky counted themselves among the nominees for this year’s J Award for Unearthed Artist Of The Year alongside San Cisco, Lanie Lane and Emma Louise, just missing out to Brisbane’s Ball Park Music. The foursome have nabbed themselves some incredible support slots this year, sharing the stage with Gotye, Kimbra, Noah and the Whale, Devendra Banhart and equally adorable newcomers Jinja Safari. Husky have a big ol’ start to 2012 on the agenda, booked in for four months of festivals from Peat’s Ridge to Laneway Festival, A Day On The Green and West Coast Blues and Roots. They’ll support Laura Marling somewhere in between, a spot held by ARIA dominators Boy and Bear just last year.



San Cisco

San Cisco sure know how to celebrate the end of high school, forgoing schoolies and tottering off to support The Grates instead. The Fremantle indie-poppers gathered all those techniques learnt in Extension 1 Music and can pump out a damn good single. Their radio-friendly five-track debut EP Golden Revolver saw many a spin on Triple J, taking out the spot for fourth most- played song on air from an Australian band. The tune was also picked up across the seas, closer to their namesake in the US, where radio stations gave the single a good plugging. San Cisco’s self-released second single Awkward, taken from their second EP, was recorded with Melbourne producer Steven Schram (Little Red, Little Birdy, Not-So-Little Cat Empire). The palatable tune peaked at #1 on the TMN Alternative Airplay Chart, with a sound Vulture Magazine described as “more infectious than polio.”

San Cisco have seen considerable support from Triple J, nominated for this year’s J Award for Unearthed Artist Of The Year alongside Lanie Lane, Husky and Emma Louise. Along with festival slots at Big Day Out, Laneway Festival, Groovin’ The Moo, Fuse Festival and Bigsound this year, San Cisco snagged some sweet support spots along the way, following the likes of The Grates, Architecture In Helsinki, Kimbra and Jebediah around the country. San Cisco will be seeing in the New Year on stage at Peats Ridge Festival, alongside the likes of Gotye, Xavier Rudd and Dum Dum Girls. ATARS be damned!



King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Radio announcers are falling over themselves to say the name right. Who is this King Gizzard and what exactly is his relationship to the so-called Lizard Wizard? The seven psych-lovin’ lads from Victoria, known for their debaucherous, bang-up-fun live show, have hair longer than you and smiles twice as wide. With their debut EP Anglesea prompting many a backyard shindig, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are well on the way into your vocabulary. The Carlton/Anglesea surf-rockers are sporting a shiny new distribution deal with Shock Entertainment that will see their second EP Willoughby’s Beach on shelves December 16.

First single Black Tooth and follow-up Dead Beat already pricked the ears of Triple J’s Dom Alessio, who dubbed the band “a tour de force of reverberated rock’n’roll.” The group then found themselves Triple J Unearthed Featured Artist in August this year, stacking multiple counts of airtime on Triple J. Australia is quickly taking a liking to the lads from the Great Ocean Road. The sun-drenched garage rockers found themselves recently nominated for Best New Talent at The Age’s high- profile EG Awards alongside Kimbra, Lanie Lane, Royal Headache and Husky. The septet are set to get toes-a-tappin’ when they open Meredith Festival on December 9, warming up the stage for the likes of Grinderman, Cut Copy, Kurt Vile And The Violators, and Mudhoney. KGATLW are well on their way to having a significant 2012, kicking off by cranking their amps to ‘Lizard’ when they hit the stage for the Melbourne Big Day Out in January.



Azealia Banks

As a La Guardia High School of Performing Arts graduate, Azealia Banks joined Liza Minelli, Al Pacino and Nicki Minaj in the most prestigious New York alumni mailing list before dabbling in musical theatre. But, quashing any theatre-nerd stereotypes forever, the 20-year-old Harlem native then posted a free download of her track 212 online last September; it features casually upfront, syncopated rhymes about sex in the Manhattan area code (“What’s your dick like, homie, what are you into?” she purrs, a little while after the memorable opening hook “I guess that cunt gettin’ eaten” grabs your attention) over a thumping electrohouse beat that makes it dancefloor-ready, if not exactly radio-friendly. The badass, sex-positive message (recalling Missy Elliott’s ladylike lecherousness) is delivered in Banks’ versatile voice, slipping easily between a party-holler chorus, slinky bridge and a distinctive flow that will appeal to listeners on both sides of the pond as it skips nimbly between jump-rope street rhythms and a hint of grime- tinged patois.

Despite the usual tiresome comparisons to Minaj and MIA, Banks seems set to help put the redundant “female rapper” tag to bed – she’s a rapper, plain and simple, only with a cheeky tomboy vibe and killer voice to boot. Award- winning producer Paul Epworth (Florence & The Machine, Adele, Primal Scream) is already collaborating with Banks in London on her debut album while her YouTube clip for 212 will clock over 1.5 million views by the time you finish reading this sentence. She promised Pitchfork in a recent interview that the album would feature not just pumping 212-style tracks but “rap-bitch shit” and “winter wonderland R&B that’s kind of like Aaliyah.”



Jonti

Jonti’s sound severely lacks mainstream appeal, which is exactly why we think he will dominate the electronic music scene over the coming months. Gaining his chops in Sydney in 2008 under the moniker Danimals (then Djanimals), the South African native was picked up by Mark Ronson after entering a Tooheys-run competition to record in New York. Then came his next brush with fame; Jonti began releasing his dizzying loops and valorised sound polyps under his real name - in order to avoid legal action from a yoghurt company! His entirely self-created debut record Twirligig might just be one of the only debuts of its kind not to inadvertently reference Passion Pit or Battles. But if you had to box up the experimental burps of psychedelia, then he would fit somewhere between The Beach Boys’ SMiLE Sessions (without the requests for hash and vegetable-chewing samples) and Panda Bear.

Since relocating to L.A. and signing to hip hop producer Peanut Butter Wolf’s iconic label Stones Throw (Mistletone in Australia) Jonti has made more connections than a Meccano set. He’s recorded with Santigold and Odd Future’s Hodgy Beats, been tweet-championed by ?uestlove and befriended the mastermind behind Flying Lotus. His slot at Laneway festival next year will no doubt keep the echoes of praise volleying between the U.S. and Australia.



Mac Miller

There’s a new kid on the block. He goes by the name of Mac Miller. He wears caps, has tats and loves to slap a video up on YouTube. He’s built a massive (Twitter) following for his modern brand of white college boy rap. As a result of his unique niche and incredible ability to activate fans through social networks, Miller saw his independent debut album hit #1 in the US. The album, Blue Slide Park, moved close 150,000 units in its first week alone. That makes it the first independently distributed debut to top the Billboard chart since 1995. For those playing at home, the last album to match that feat was Tha Dogg Pound’s Dogg Food.

While his album hasn’t gained much attention in Australia since its early November release in the US and Canada, Miller is bound to get a foot in the door in Australia one way or another. In the immediate future, it will be with the help of Cobra Starship. The group behind the recent Top 5 ARIA and TMN Hot 100 single, You Make Me Feel have just serviced radio with a new single, Middle Finger, which features a verse from Mac. It’s as catchy as you’d expect and should do just fine on both the ARIA and airplay charts. Australia might just have a place for Mac in the Gym Class Heroes and Travie McCoy pigeonhole when it comes to radio play.



The Rubens

When you grow up in a tiny town, you have to make your own fun. For the three Margin brothers of Menangle, this meant recruiting childhood friend Scott Baldwin and forming a blues/soul band, which references the sounds of acts like The Black Keys, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix without veering into pastiche. In an interview with Triple J the band laid out their situation, stating: “As far as we know, we are the only band in Menangle, and we’re pretty sure no one knows or cares that we are in a band. Menangle is ten minutes down the road from a larger town called Camden, there’s pubs and restaurants there but not really a music scene.” This isolation meant the four would travel to Sydney most weekends in order to play shows.

Triple J have taken a large interest in the band, crowning their Unearthed winners and placing them on the recent Homebake bill – an honour previously bestowed on Boy & Bear, who managed to capitalise on this early kickstart with a sweep of the ARIA awards this year. Following on from Homebake, the band are planning a trip to New York in January to record their debut album with noted producer David Kahen, whose impressive credits boast Paul McCartney, The Strokes and Regina Spektor. A March 2012 release is planned, and with the active support of Australia’s youth broadcaster, expect to see The Rubens everywhere in 2012.



Timomatic

According to the press releases, Timomatic is a star in the making. And you know what? They might just be spot on. Although it might seem like Timomatic is a fresh-to-the-scene actor, entertainer, singer, songwriter, dancer, choreographer and general gentleman, he has in fact already made his mark on the Australian public. In the past Timomatic has made appearances on So You Think You Can Dance, he performed as a lead in Fame The Musical and, of course, he was a finalist in Australia’s Got Talent 2011, just to name a few of his ventures.

Timomatic has just started scribbling the next chapter of his career, with the help of Sony Music. His debut single with Sony, Set It Off, has already started to really take off at radio. Set It Off debuted on the TMN Hot 100 last week at a respectable #59, notably above a new Good Charlotte single. With a sound that a number of punters have likened to Marvin Priest (remembering that Marvin Priest’s Own This Club peaked inside the Top 5 for airplay) and a relentless schedule of television, radio, online and press promotion ahead, both Set It Off and Timomatic should do just fine.





Royal Headache

Longtime Sydney favourites Royal Headache are that rare band who have developed into one of the most critically acclaimed and fan- beloved acts in Australia in the most organic, old-fashioned way. There’s no angle, no spin, no gushing reviews from friends of the band who happen to work at hipster fashion mags; no matter which way you look at it, this is a band who have gotten so far already purely on their own merits. Nor are these objective merits, related to things like musicianship and originality of vision. Rather, everything about Royal Headache seems to go straight to the heart of why people listen to pop music. Upon the release of the self-titled debut this year on Sydney indie label RIP Society, critics struggled to explain why they loved this band so much, only for most to revert to one basic argument: “It’s just so good.”

That said, a huge part of the appeal is that frontman Shogun may be in possession of the perfect rock voice – the impassioned white-boy party soul of John Lennon’s throat- shredding Twist & Shout performance coupled with a soaring, deceptively artless-sounding sharehouse thrash. His performance gives the wonderfully-scrappyw playing of his bandmates a nuance and subtle emotional balance not commonly associated with their chosen style – they call up the straitjacketed urban frustration of The Replacements, the shy shuffle of sixties high-school love ballads and the pleading masculinity of Cold Chisel at their vulnerable best, all through a casually lo-fi lens that sends it into your ears as a fully- formed garage classic.

They’ve already played punker watershed festival Gonerfest in Memphis and scored praise from Pitchfork, but they can’t shake the unpretentious, for-the-love-of-it vibe that clings to them like perfectly-worn-in jeans, and nor can any amount of online hype, radio high-rotation or critical adoration stomp on their credibility.