Welcome to AP&R, where we highlight rising artists who are on their way to becoming your new favorite. Below, we’ve rounded up a handful of names from around the world who either just dropped music or have new music on the way very soon. These are the July up-and-comers, artists picked for their standout sound, from Philly folk-punk to NYC sludge-grunge.
Read more: 25 best albums of 2024 so far
Warm Human
“I’m not a poptimist. I’m a pop pessimist, and I like that. I like being able to bring actual sadness, not like therapy-speak sadness, but actual despair and anguish and self-hatred and all the things that I struggle with all the time into a pop record,” says Meredith Johnston. Through her indie project, Warm Human, she both exercises her Renaissance-woman skills as producer-songwriter-vocalist and exorcises relatable emotional turmoil, to a uniquely addictive beat. Announced last week, Warm Human’s debut album with Chicago’s Sooper Records, Hamartia, will arrive in October. While we wait for the 10-track LP, we’ll be drip-fed her sticky and delirious sound that’s somewhere between Portishead and Frou Frou, starting with the first single, “Love 2 Hate,” mixed by Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, the Linda Lindas), and its Marie Antoinette-themed video. Leaning into an electronic soundscape with a whiff of guitars, the track is the kind you’ll have on a loop from the first listen — whether you identify as a pop enjoyer or otherwise. With plenty of edge, an eye roll, and a wink, Warm Human is giving us gallows humor made for the complicated millennial as much as anyone eager to dance themselves clean. —Anna Zanes
Font
Font’s combustible, inescapable dance-punk best suits muggy nights and hazier memories. The Austin five-piece’s debut album, Strange Burden, came out earlier this month via Acrophase Records, where they drew from the same writing process as Talking Heads’ Remain in Light. By chiefly focusing on the rhythm section, then structuring and revising the songs, the band produced a batch of clamoring and intensely cathartic tunes that take on an even greater life live. “Hey Kekulé,” one of the album’s earliest tracks, demonstrates that brilliantly, all swirling energy and experimental absurdity that’s anchored by Thom Wadhill’s unmistakable yowl. After years of garnering attention in their hometown, which landed them opening slots and the main stage at this year’s ACL Festival, Font have been on the move. They completed a supporting tour for Yard Act on the West Coast earlier this year and just wrapped a co-headlining run with Lifeguard. —Neville Hardman
Lava La Rue
Lava La Rue makes songs whose references stretch galaxies. Their conceptual sci-fi album, STARFACE, released earlier this month, centers around a gender-fluid space alien sent to Earth to study humanity’s twisted self-destruction. But while there’s a foundation of psychedelia, R&B, and funk, La Rue never feels confined to that specific palette, incorporating jangle pop, club beats, hip-hop, spoken-word moments from Courtney Love, and beyond. “Making this album felt like making a movie,” they say. “It felt like I’d assembled a team that I’d wanted to assemble for ages.” Unmistakably indebted to David Bowie and Parliament-Funkadelic, whose ability to push boundaries to their brink has clearly shaped the West London-based artist, La Rue has distinguished themselves immeasurably — a true eclectic who’s committed to keeping their world strange and unpredictable. In addition to supporting Remi Wolf on a North American tour in September, they’ll headline two shows in LA and NYC. —Neville Hardman
Jigsaw Youth
Sludge-grunge group Jigsaw Youth have shattered more than a few stereotypes, not to mention glass ceilings, since their start. They’re women in punk, hailing from the “forgotten borough” of Staten Island, void of traditional venues — but both potential stumbling blocks have only taught them to lean into their genre’s DIY ethos to break through, bringing their brutal and seductive, distortion-heavy sound to skateparks, basements, and backyards. Having found each other on Tumblr, bonding over their shared idol, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and her motto, “all girls to the front,” they forged ahead, founding Jigsaw Youth in spite of whatever impositions of Staten Island catholic school might envelop the idea of a brash all-female band. Their sound is permeated by a ’90s influence audible beyond their riot grrrl mentality — heard in the thoughtful fusion of a smirking Courtney Love-like drawl, slurred and slipping in and out of baritone, with the thick, down-tuned half-time tempo of doom metal. Though SI’s suburban-angst-fueled punk scene has upheld them, in the last few years, they’ve toured nationally, played Rockville, had their name on Corey Tyalor’s solo tour, and continued to release music. This fall, the band will get back on the road, opening for Bob Vylan on a North American run. —Anna Zanes
duendita
First taking shape as a solo project, then turning into a revolving friends-and-family affair, duendita put out a joyous mix of jazz, soul, and R&B. The project has gone on to collaborate with kindred spirits like Wiki, Jamila Woods, and MIKE, all while writing and producing their own music. Now, the Queens band are back with the mellow “planetary,” which was made between Berlin and New York and recorded at Baketown, an experimental studio and art space in Schöneberg. The song carries big feelings within a short runtime, championing growth, creativity, and communal love — ultimately inspiring the type of warm, calming introspection that makes you appreciate everything around you. The track comes with a serene visual directed by longtime collaborator Sandy Ismail — and provides the first preview of a larger project on the way, arriving later this year. —Neville Hardman
hey, nothing
Teenagers though they may be, Tyler Mabry and Harlow Phillips exude wisdom beyond their years. The Atlanta duo, who make up the emo-folk powerhouse hey, nothing, have championed the dubiousness of TikTok virality in the last couple of years without sacrificing lyricism that lays all cards on the table through their raw, memorable sound — an amalgamation of Modern Baseball, Modern Lovers, and Anthony Green, played at the folk-punk pace of Violent Femmes. Following last year’s debut album, We’re Starting to Look Like Each Other, earlier this month, they delivered a new EP, Maine. Its opening track, “The Sink,” which lead to one of hey, nothing’s viral moments, excavates addiction, one of the heavier topics that has permeated their catalog alongside the tribulations of relationships, love, and leaving home. Built upon Mabry’s furious riffage and thoughtful guitar parts, Phillips’ spine-tingling vocals, and climatic percussion, their unique talents are undeniable, but it’s the glue of their absolute humanness, connection, and creative compatibility that’s had us really hooked on hey, nothing. After a slew of sold-out headline dates this month, they will go out with the Moss in October, supporting them on a North American run. —Anna Zanes
