Surely no-one reads these lists? Aren’t they all the same? Therefore, in the spirit of Christmas and New Year, here are a handful of artists to look out for in 2020.

The Homesick

Dutch band homesick have a style which is either going to catch on big time, or is going to find them playlisted to death on 6Music until you can’t stands no more. Indie, crunchy spiders of sound and vocal flights of fancy.

KOENJIHYAKKEI – Angherr Shisspa: Revisited

This is technically already out but has Asian Noise Art finally found the right time to splatter all over the mainstream. With J Pop and K Pop and readily accepted hither and thither, we say it’s now time for the general public to say hello to some of the world’s most challenging, impressive sounds. Avant garde jazz, a spot of prog and some angels setting fire to time signatures

Possimiste – Butterfly Lullaby

Leeni Laasfeld, an Estonian crackpot living in Iceland, recording in an abandoned nuclear power station…what, you still want more? Having a short film made entirely around this track reconfigured 2012 song may not be enough for the pixie queen for fairytale pop and we hope 2020 will send her stratospheric. Effortlessly sublime.

Luke Haines and Peter Buck – Beat Poetry for Survivalists

The most preposterous coming together imaginable, bonding over Luke’s mental paintings of Lou Reed and somehow collaborating on a concept album which takes in hauntings, occultists, Pol Pot and Bigfoot. We’ve already heard it and it’s everything you’d hope it to be.