Artists You Need To Hear About Right Now
Four unmissable artists, all in one place. The team at Slow Motion Panic Masters has more incredible musicians for you all to pay attention to right now, or regret missing out on some of the most exciting music the world has to offer.
But first, make sure to follow our spotify playlist with the link below and tune in to hear a regularly updating stream of sensational underground appreciation:
ANI GLASS - CARDIFF, WALES
It’s difficult not to be patriotic about my homeland. Wales is a beautiful place and, if I’ve dedicated the last five years of my life to anything, it’s been the relentless promotion of our small nation to people around the world. We’re a land of full of daffodils, determination, and rugby but, more than anything, we’re singers.
Ani Glass is a musician that represents everything Wales is proud of. One of an increasingly impressive roster of Welsh language artists to emerge in recent years, her blend of electro-pop and ethereal vocal perfection is both unique and utterly unmissable. Winning the 2020 Albwm Cymraeg y Flwyddyn for her debut solo LP ‘Mirores’, Glass has enjoyed some critical recognition but, in my opinion, not nearly enough. In a musical environment that has flourished for Welsh language musicians in recent years, Glass' bright, bouncy tunes already stand at the precipice. There are few musicians capable of reproducing her fusion of unabashed Welsh-ness and the beauty of her sonic palettes. Amidst this musical revolution she is, quite frankly, essential.
- BEN WHEADON (@wheadsauce)
WOOM - LONDON, UK
There’s plenty to be envious of when listening to choral band WOOM. How do these four voices arrive at those lush, rich vocals? How do they complement each other so well? How do they make their cover songs so original, as though they wrote them themselves, as though all the emotions and lyrical confessions are their stories to tell? You’d be forgiven for thinking no one can rework Outkast and do them justice, but 'Prototype/Limit To Your Love' is a song reincarnated. They breathe life and wonder back into music we may have forgotten about, unveiling new meanings. Their powerful rendition of Angel Olsen’s 'Unfucktheworld' is another highlight, reconstructing feelings of loss, heartbreak, and loneliness so beautifully that I constantly find myself in awe of its brilliance.
However, WOOM is not all covers and reworks. Their EP Into The Rest features an original composition entitled 'Walk', a brave and honest account of losing and rediscovering oneself. The mixing is superb: less is certainly more, and Tom Carmichael does an incredible job at making you dependent on the vocals, building them up so effectively that, when they’re taken away, you feel completely lost. The song’s ending both terrifies and exhilarates me: this is music you need to listen to. And I mean really listen to. Sit down with a cup of tea, pop in your headphones, and let WOOM’s mystical, dreamy vocals whisk you off into another time and space. We have so much to look forward to with these four voices, and this is only the beginning.
- OLIVE ANNALISE (@oliveannalise)
KAM-BU - LONDON, UK
It’s hard to name a rapper in the British underground with more potential than KAM-BU. His most recent release, ‘Black on Black’, made our subterranean list for February 2021 thanks to its cinematic ambition and revolutionary message, anthologising the Windrush generation and simultaneously thinking through methods of empowering his own.
But the great thing about KAM-BU is that he's no one-hit-wonder; in fact, he is consistently this good. Since his first official single release (‘Butterfly Kick’) in 2018 and an extremely underrated appearance at Boiler Room Festival in 2019, he’s moved from strength to strength with every new release and feature. His 2020 EP Moments S01 sees him exercising his deep cadence over three snappy tracks, but 2021 has brought on a considerable shift towards embracing the ever-present dark undertones in his sound. Where ‘Black on Black’ is empowering and expansive, KAM-BU's January release ‘Are You On?’ is gritty and muscular, with Leon Vynehall’s esoteric production deploying short, clipped jazz interludes. The scattered lighting of a black and white accompanying video provides further evidence of a remarkable attention to detail from the part of this artist and his team. KAM-BU's aesthetic, coupled with cold blooded lyricism and unparalleled breath control, signal an artist ready to burst into the next stratosphere. With an EP due to release in the (hopefully) near future, KAM-BU could be about to blow up. Big time.
- FIN COUSINS (@fincousins)
JACKIE COHEN - LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
In Venn diagram of everything I care about, Jackie Cohen sits right in the middle. Stitching together my adoration for Stevie Nicks, Courtney Barnett, and Kate Bollinger, Cohen caught my attention as a singer/songwriter perfectly suited to become my next new favourite artist. Her music exudes this calm sense of fun, like laid-back-George-Harrison fun. But at the same time, comparisons to the idols of Fiona Apple and Joanna Newsom don’t seem out of the question. Her versatility in general is breathtaking. First, Cohen's 2018 two-part EP Tacoma Night Terror demonstrates an incredible variety of sounds. From the beautifully lo-fi ‘Bold’ to the overflowing generosity of ‘Make U Sick’s instrumentation, Cohen tries her hand at an assortment of approaches, and she nails every. Single. One.
But it’s her 2019 LP, ‘Zagg’, that demands the most attention. It’s downright criminal that such a project remains on the fringes. Lyrically, sonically, ambitiously; this is a record of inimitable charm and intention. It is thirty minutes of overflowing imagination, somewhere vaguely between The Lemon Twigs and Adrienne Lenker, and it’s perfect. Seriously. Stop reading this and go listen to Jackie Cohen. She deserves the world.
- BEN WHEADON (@wheadsauce)
Olive Annalise is a music production student from Bristol whose interests include poetry, sound design and film. In her spare time, she indulges in wine mom humor and enjoys telling people she can speak French, although her Duolingo owl would disagree.
Fin Cousins is a postgraduate literature student studying at Kings College, London. He loves sport, music and writing and he is still waiting for Love Island to accept his application. He also made our logo.
This article was edited by Ainhoa Santos Goicoechea (pronounced "I-know-ah"), a culturally confused Creative Writing postgraduate student from the Basque Country, Spain. She is passionate about film, music and politics, and she should probably know more than she does about all three.
Thanks for reading! Slow Motion Panic Masters is a music, arts and culture blog created and edited by Ben Wheadon, a literature student and musician based at the University of Oxford. He is also a Fleet Foxes shill.
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