From shamanic punks to a midnight wind in the Venetian winter: even if the music year 2023 does not turn out to be a grand cru, you will certainly not die of boredom. These six exciting newcomers are jostling each other for the gate of breakthrough.
MEY
For more than two years now, a platoon of Belgian R&B singers has been ready to blast and take on international allures. MEYY already has quite a few of those foreign letters of nobility in its pocket.
Charlotte Meyntjens, as her real name is, is not only a civil engineer but also an ingenious citizen of the world. The Belgian-Korean moved to London, has already made an appearance at the Texan showcase festival South by Southwest and went on tour with both Angèle and Oscar and the Wolf. That support act immediately led her past major arenas. This year she also ventures on her first European headliner tour with shows in Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, London and Brighton.
MEYY can make it great again in 2023. And if you don’t take our word for it, then maybe BBC Radio 1’s? She has since been embraced as a Future Artist by that British institute.
This promising artist will deliver a new mini album this year: we expect a lavishly produced mix of progressive pop and r&b, with a focus on ethereal soundscapes.
Listen to: ‘Blush’ now
Avalanche Kaito
Their music is labeled as ‘grrriot punk noise‘, but no matter how far-fetched such a musical label may sound, that label will stick to Avalanche Kaito.
Brussels noise rockers Benjamin Chaval (drums) and Nico Gitto (guitar) provide a pitch-dark background of raw post-punk and anarchist no wave. In doing so, they enter into an alliance with Kaito Winse: a charismatic griot from Burkina Faso. For the layman: griots have a very respected function in African culture. Every time a griot dies, it’s like a library burns down. After all, these folktales know thousands of stories by heart and use these fables and parables to close the gap between the past and the present.
With hypnotic vocals, percussion and flute, Winse takes on the gauntlet against a highly explosive pair of horses on guitar and drums. This results in shamanistic commotion in an urban jungle. A first tour took them to squats in Switzerland, Germany and France.
Their long-play debut followed last year, which was somewhat snowed under, but the avalanche danger certainly beckons with Avalanche Kaito, which 2023 wants to rumble into your subconscious with great force.
Luister tells us: ‘Sunguru’
Catherine Graindorge
“Graindorge’s music reminds me of chalices and old stones,” Iggy Pop once said of Catherine Graindorge on his radio show on BBC Radio 6. “Her songs creep over me like a mist, like winter in Venice, like a midnight wind.” He had wonderful words to spare for the Brussels violinist, who also previously collaborated with artists such as Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Mark Lanegan and Debbie Harry.
In September, Graindorge concocted a very impulsive EP with her fan Iggy Pop, The Dictator. They didn’t meet each other until later, so that’s why The Dictator sounds like a somewhat awkward but intense collaboration. That dark, psychedelic record can be read as a soundtrack with soundscapes that can tear open at any moment under the high tension of both.
Graindorge is therefore not a young spring chicken: the 50-year-old musician has been providing handyman services to all kinds of groups and projects for decades and since 2012 she has been making music under her own name. The back of the rock dinosaur Iggy – or is it the Great Iggtator? – however, now seems to be opening even more doors.
Listen to: ‘The Dictator’ now
LũpḁGangGang
Are you crazy about the stuff from STUFF. and the white-hot hellfire of Black Midi? Surely that works out just as well, especially now that it is Ghent collective STUFF. temporarily pull the plug from the group. The youngsters of LũpḁGangGang are already waiting in the wings with impatience to take over the relay baton.
Their roots may lie with a music camp in Dwerp, funk and covers at wedding parties, but such a nerdy past clearly does not stand in the way of an experimental present. On their second ep Urban Detox this very young Brussels quartet already experimented with such a colorful variety of sounds and colors that you get the feeling that it really can go in any direction.
Jazz and electronica as well as hip-hop and punk were thrown into the fray. So they seemed equally indebted to STUFF. as to Black Midi. But judging by their most recent single ‘Out the Light’ they seem to be carving out their very own niche in record time.
Listen to: ‘Out of the Light’ now
Frames
Nearly nine hundred promising bands signed up for De Nieuwe Lichting of 2021. Studio Brussel’s quest at the time resulted in a profit for Kids With Buns, The Haunted Youth and – yes – Ramkot. The first two immediately went on such a rampage that it seemed as if Ramkot was on a collision course with greater success. Not so. Our northern neighbors once pressed Ramkot so passionately against the milky bosom: the rock group received enormous acclaim at Dutch festivals such as Pinkpop and Paaspop, and above the border the halls are still filling up effortlessly for the Ghent rock trio.
But 2023 will be the year of the brutal truth. In February, five years after the band was founded, they present their long-awaited debut album and embark on another ambitious tour through Europe. In addition, we also heard rustling in the rock crop that there is still really fantastic news in the near future for the group. But on pain of a deadly ram against our heads, we must remain silent about this for the time being. Rest assured, dear reader: sometimes patience pays off.
Listen to: ‘I Can’t Slow Down’ now
GIVE IT
In fact, we might as well have tipped her as a seasoning for 2022 last year. Two years ago, ADJA won both the jury prize and the audience prize in the prestigious Sound Track competition for young talent in Flanders. But then, to be honest, it seemed more likely that Adja Fassa would sooner break through as a multidisciplinary theater maker. At the end of February, however, the Brussels girl will experience her musical baptism of fire under her first name.
Her debut EP is stylistically reminiscent of the spiritual neo-soul of Erykah Badu, the black empowerment of Solange and the velvety approach of Lianne La Havas. Not a bad club to join, we think.
Adja says she wants to investigate what spirituality means in this society, in the here and now. From an early age, Fassa always tried to understand the deeper layers within herself and others. She also traveled to India and Nepal in 2015 to delve into yoga and other practices focused on the subconscious. Upon her return to Belgium, she began to combine singing, theater and physical performance.
We usually prefer to tar and feather ourselves after the following description, but still: 2023 is a multifaceted musical centipede richer.
Listen to: ‘Told You So’ now
MEYY, Ramkot, Avalanche Kaito and Catherine Graindorge play at the showcase festival Eurosonic, which takes place from 18 to 21 January in Groningen.