Best New Artists of the Month (September)

This month was an exhausting one. It's understandable why the insane 6ix9ine courtroom drama is currently dominating conversation in the music world, but it's a sad reflection of the times. Plus, it has made social media unbearable. Overall, a pretty shitty month—a 6 out of 10 at best—but there's still time, and these last days of September have potential. Kick off the final stretch of the month by checking out some of our favorite artists on the rise.

Master Peace, a 20-year-old newcomer from South London, is determined to stand out. Influenced by bands like Oasis and Coldplay, he’s foregoing trendy sounds for simple production and undeniable hooks.

His marketing strategy is equally unique—over the past year, Master Peace toured with Bakar and Connie Constance, sold out his own headline shows, and even played Reading and Leeds Festival before ever releasing solo music. With nothing to his discography other than a few feature verses, his electric live performances around the UK were enough to build a fan base that knows his unreleased tracks by name and sings the words back to him at shows.

“The reason why I didn’t drop music is because I felt like there was no rush,” he says. “When the time was right, I knew people would be more excited and ready for it if I built it right.” It’s why the response to his first official single—“Night Time,” produced by fellow London artist kadiata—was so strong. In the days following its release, fans promoted the song online, and it continues to get love from radio stations, magazines, even Skepta. Master Peace plans to put out more music in October.

There's yet another exciting new wave of talent bubbling up in Atlanta right now, moving beyond trap and taking rap in unique and compelling directions. Wesson's output is currently confined to SoundCloud, but the variety of ideas, flows, beats, and styles on display is enough to mark him out as an essential rising artist.

It's been a while since he released new music, but the last three tracks all have almost endless replay value and show a different side of Wesson. "Dirty Dan" is the most in-your-face of the three, with an effortless flow over haunted house of a beat while "22" and "Let's Ride Our Heelies to the Cosmos" show Wesson's control of melody and ability to hold attention over slow, dreamy production. His upcoming music is sounding great too, so keep a close eye on Wesson for the rest of 2019 and beyond.

Montreal-based band Chiiild had one of the year's strongest debut singles so far with "Count Me Out." First releases don't normally come as such fully formed and skillfully executed songs, but Chiiild has been developing their self-proclaimed "synthetic soul" for years, working behind the scenes with acts like Diplo, Skrillex, and Usher. They're gearing up to finally release their first project at the end of 2019, and they've already set the tone. 

Chiiild's experience in the electronic, R&B, and pop worlds makes sense given their sleek arrangements, but influences like D'Angelo, Tame Impala, Pink Floyd, and Marvin Gaye yield a soulful, dynamic sophistication. In both "Count Me Out" and follow-up single "Back To Life," trippy effects and otherworldly vocals swirl within beautiful strings, crisp drums, and a mesmerizing combination of lush layers and empty space.

"Margaret's Hymn," the debut single from Los Angeles-based artist Deborah's Child, is a trip. It starts off with rapping over a lethargic beat before snapping into a sing-along chorus suited for a fuck-you anthem. From there, layers of bouncing keys and gentle melodies catch fire with potent attitude and lo-fi sensibilities. It's a disorienting hodgepodge of a song, but it's one we can't stop going back to. Based off this introduction, it's impossible to predict where Deborah's Child might take things next, but if the next experiment is as odd and audacious as "Margaret's Hymn," we're here for it.

"The melodies come natural to me but I try to be very sensitive to how they influence the bigger picture of the song," Deborah's Child says. "I love to mess with people’s expectations. It’s like, 'I know you can get into this, but what if we go here?'"

On her upcoming EP, she explains, "The EP is a collage of all the people I’ve been—child, adult, and the weird ones in between. It’s like all those people got together over the course of a few months and tried to make something big and loud and beautiful and hopefully enjoyable."

Illinois artist Jack Larsen confronts discomfort face first. Play a video of his at random and chances are you’ll catch his body multiplied, manipulated, or compressed—cheeks sliding against glass, legs bouncing on loop like an endless glitch. Growing up is pretty weird. By bottling it all up in euphoric psych-pop, Larsen has found impassioned support early, be it via Chicago college kids or fellow artists like Roy Blair. 

If you’re new to his music, “Spirit” might help explain the excitement. Jack’s latest release (the first glimpse at his first full-length, Mildew) taps into the soundtrack of teenage wasteland to make a real hair-raiser. In other words, there are good goosebumps and there are bad goosebumps and sometimes, like in the “Spirit” video, there are both.

Clouds roll over American splendor, sun shining down on gorgeous canyons, while Jack sprints across a dirt path as if his life depends on it. And that’s him in a nutshell: at once on cloud nine and fighting to be here. “It’s my life,” he sings over and over again on an older track “Angels.” For anyone who’s ever occupied this gray area, aware of the thin line between joy and something much worse, give this guy a shot. 

“Mildew is a self-reflective, psychedelic pop album," he tells us. "I set out to make it sound as cinematic and immersive as possible—hoping to uniquely tell my story as a broken artist paralyzed by the fear of growing through my music and personal life. For me, 'Spirit' sets the tone as the album’s opener and helps guide the record in the experimental direction that I sought to create.”

Mildew is planned for an October release.

Comparing rising artists to more established ones can prove reductive at best and insulting at worst, but it’s not difficult to see why, upon even the most cursory search, Puma Blue has been name-dropped in relation to anyone from Frank Sinatra to King Krule. Those comparisons are understandable, but it’d be doing singer/songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Allen of South London an injustice to be limited to other artists’ names. From track to track, he effortlessly blends musical stylings, incorporating shoegaze, jazz, and blues influences into a sound all his own. He’s not a “new” artist by any means, but if any moment is his for the taking, it’s now. 

"I’ve spent most of 2019 writing my first album," he says, "splitting my time between London and Atlanta when I’ve not been on tour. Atlanta’s become a really special place for me, somewhere to isolate myself and write without distraction. Before the start of my first North American tour in March I put on a solo show very last minute at Eddie’s Attic because I’d always wanted to play it. We announced it with 10 days notice and I wasn’t even sure how many people would come through but it ended up being a really special night. I didn’t realize it was being recorded until the sound engineer handed me a USB stick when I came off-stage. The performance is really raw but I loved the intimacy of it and so we’re releasing the whole show on 12” for my upcoming tour.”

Claud's heartfelt pop songs dive deep into descriptions of heartbreak and unrequited love, and although the lyrics detail the specific experiences of a non-binary identifying young person, the results are widely relatable. The singer-songwriter grew up outside Chicago and is currently based in Brooklyn, and although their music has been loosely classified as bedroom pop, there's a sharpness to the writing and a polish to the production of songs like "Miss You" that is immediately impressive.

“I was so emo when I wrote ‘Miss You’,” Claud told Wonderland. “I made the song last year when I was in the midst of learning that moving to a new city is really hard and breakups are even harder. Everything was changing in my life and there were so many people that I just wanted to call and say ‘fuck, I miss you.’ I turned this energy into a song that feels like it’s moving really quickly passing you, just a quick moment in time of pure honesty and no poetic sugar coating.”

Claud's new EP Sideline Star is out October 25 and they're heading on a short US headlining tour in October.

The collaborative spirit is alive and well, and the latest hip-hop collective positioned for big things is 99 Neighbors. The group was founded by vocalists Sam Paulino and HANKNATIVE alongside producer Somba, and they've expanded the crew into a self-sustaining, eight-man team equipped to handle their own music-making, design, and photography.

99 Neighbors are from Vermont, but they're moving to Chicago soon to work on their next album. The group recently partnered with Pat Corcoran, Chance The Rapper's longtime manager, through a new venture between his company Nice Work and Warner Records. Between their own array of talents and the experience of their new team, 99 Neighbors seem to have all the pieces in place to make waves.

So far, the group has already shown a versatile approach, easily sliding between sounds and styles. "Ripstick" is a dark hard-hitter displaying their rap skills, and tracks like "Fuck No" and "Fake Pods" showcase depth in their songwriting and musicality.

"As we continue to release new music this fall, we’re excited to be moving to Chicago to work on the next album," 99 Neighbors explain via email. "It’s going to be awesome to get more settled in with our Nice Work team. The new collaborators and resources are going to bring a lot of opportunities to the music and the process and we couldn’t be more hyped to get working."

We first covered vōx on P&P back in 2015 after the Los Angeles-based, Minnesota native tweeted us a link to a song. We've been following the musician and visual artist ever since, from collaborations like a unique Kendrick Lamar cover she made with Dylan Brady to her 2017 EP I Was Born. Throughout, vōx (pronounced "wokes") has pushed boundaries with her sound, both in terms of the experimental production and the vocals, which are often layered into otherworldly choruses or heavy with effects.

Although vōx is far from a new artist, now feels like the right time to highlight her once again, as she signed with the label Arts & Crafts and has her first EP with them out in October. Her slow and steady climb is a testament to the power of hard work and building solid foundations, a welcome reminder in a time of viral moments and overnight stars.

Her latest song, "I've Never Been So Happy to Be Bleeding" is about, "being enough as a woman and looking at our bodies as empowering instead of weak," she says. "I wanted to flip the idea of bleeding (as a period) into wounds and the sharing of those wounds has a vulnerable strength."