// Part 3

Prides

Hot on the heels of the success of CHVRCHES, glaswegian synth-pop three-piece Prides came racing out of the blocks in 2014 with their fantastic debut EP “The Seeds You Sow“. However, the highlight of their year was when they got the opportunity to perform at the 2014 Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony in Glasgow with their excellent single “Messiah“.

Since then they have further endeared themselves to the pop community by releasing a ‘mixtape‘ of covers that included the likes of Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Sam Smith, Ella Henderson, and Iggy Azalea. We have heard on a radio interview that the blokes are working hard on a forthcoming album that we can expect in early 2015, which is very exciting.

BØRNS

BØRNS (aka Garrett Borns) is an artist who originally hails from Michigan, but has since taken up residence in the Eastern hills of LA. We aren’t exaggerating when we say that you can tell where he currently resides from the sound of his music – it’s warm, bright, and full of life.

After releasing the mightily impressive “Candy” EP, he has been earmarked by some major institutions such as Spotify as an artist to watch in 2015, and we certainly don’t disagree.

Kygo

If there’s an artist who probably doesn’t deserve to be on this list for the right reasons then it’s Kygo, who had one of the most impressive years out of any artist on the planet. The 23 year-old Norwegian exploded into our consciousness last year thanks to his immediately recognisable sound and his penchant for expertly remixing traditionally downtempo songs.

Sony won the huge battle to secure his name, and we heard his first original track “Firestone” at the tail end of 2014 (which was surprisingly underwhelming). Should he worry? Nope. The kid is putting up listener numbers on SoundCloud that would make Drake shake in his boots. It’s little to no time before he is an established household name.

Kloë

We’ve practically only just met Kloë as she recently just uploaded “Grip” (produced by Lewis Gardiner of Prides), but even so we think the 18 year-old Glaswegian has some major talent. It’s always interesting to see what direction an artist will go when you get a limited base of music to judge from, so we look forward to hearing which producers she will be linking up with in the future.

Dornik

Maintaining his 2x Jai Paul ratio of releasing two singles per year, Dornik has been teasing us with releasing a larger body of work for quite some time now. Hopefully he is working that quality over quantity approach, but even so we hope that we can hear a little more from this talented bloke in 2015.

Nimmo

What’s fairly rare these days? Girl/girl duos. We absolutely love hearing them, and that includes Nimmo (Prev Nimmo & the Gauntletts – who have been around for a while now). The girls came crashing into 2014 with their catchy single “Jaded“,  and released another synth heavy single called “Others” via Kitsune Maison a couple of months ago.

2015 could be the year of the breakthrough.

The Hics

5-piece Electronica & Soul group The Hics have piqued our attention with a number of high quality releases over the past few years, but we feel like things could be coming to a head in 2015. We’ve already heard the impressive “Tangle” EP back in Summer 2013, so the London based band are due to give us some new material soon.

We hope so anyway at least.

Jax Jones

We already know that rising producer Jax Jones was heavily involved with the tropical production on Duke Dumont’s  single “I Got U“, but since then he has dropped a number of rather impressive solo singles that have caught our ears.

Whether it’s from the tropical steel drum vibes on “Go Deep“, or the 90s rave anthem “Luv Like This“, we can tell that Jax will be an artist to watch in 2015.

Kacy Hill

Kacy Hill was a part time model and backup dancer on Kanye’s “Yeezus” tour prior to her focusing on her music career, and she’s currently coming off the release of her debut single, “Experience”. She has reportedly signed to GOOD Music since then, which could either signal the birth of her career or the death of it (depending on which angle you look at this from).

All we know is that would would like to hear more where this came from.

Selah Sue

Selah Sue previously teamed up with J. Cole for a single, but in 2014 we saw her join forces with Childish Gambino for a new impressive release called “Together“. We are expecting a brand new album called “REASON” from the Belgian pop princess in 2015, and although she is well known on the European continent, it could be an ocean-crossing popularity boost for her if done right.

Let’s wait and see.