My Favourite Artist Discoveries Of 2025

by Karl Magi

Each of these artists represents a new musical discovery for me this year (with the exception of Lovespirals & Donna Lewis who are rediscoveries). I've consistently enjoyed learning more about their music as I review it and each of them brings a fresh perspective or fascinating approach to music making which intrigues me. As with all the music I review, making choices is difficult because there's just so much good music out there on the scene, so these artists represent a selection of creators this year that really galvanized me or made me sit up and take notice.

Heartbreak City

Heartbreak City writes songs which create a sunlit charge, as they capture longing and the restless dynamism of youth. Jon Lilygreen anchors the music as his textured, tender voice rises skyward. Aled Rhys Evans’ synths pour through the songs like a crystal tide, spangled with sunlight, shaping each nuanced shading. Toby Davy’s production brings everything together in a cinematic whole to push the story forward.

The interplay between synth and guitar carries emotional weight as pellucid synth lines mingle with melodic guitar. The songs exhale tranquility before growing into driving rhythms that rocket toward the horizon. Sunrises, tropical nights, and summer winds form a backdrop, evoking memories that refuse to fade. Heartbreak, youth and desire along with an undercurrent of tender nostalgia runs through their music.

DRUMxWAVE

DRUMxWAVE (Juan Calixto) builds songs based on heartbreak, change and the struggle to reclaim one’s inner world. He brings together fierce drums, trembling synths and lyrics that explore bereft pain. His vocals are fervent as they anchor the songs, while vocal duets and interwoven harmonies deepen the music’s emotional gravity.

DRUMxWAVE’s drum performances propel each track with a powerful pulse. Starlight flickers from shimmering synths while volcanic guitar and blistering sax solos evoke moods ranging from triumph to fury and yearning. In contrast, more delicate elements flutter at the edges, billowing like clouds, offering a contrast to the rhythmic weight.

Dramatic rises and cataclysmic crescendoes pull me into the heart of each song, while drifting passages create a sense of fragility. Cosmic and elemental images permeate the music. Even as the songs fall quiet, DRUMxWAVE leaves a touching echo behind.

Neon Shards

Neon Shards’ music carries me through neon-lit cities and down cosmic highways as each track unfolds. The music is full of atmospheric imagery that weaves together impressions of sun-warmed poolsides and palm-lined boulevards to create chrome reflections. The melodies are bright, centred on escapism but touched by a melancholy glow that draws pictures of vanished summers and youthful dreams.

Neon Shards’s guitar moves through tenderness to fierce intensity. The solos expand each track’s horizon, creating images of roaring engines, sunrises and cosmic ascents. The synths are layered with glassy tones, glistening bells, and radiant timbres to create rich depth.

The rhythms are a driving force, as throbbing basslines and snapping drums shape the music’s kinetic energy. Through it all, the music carries me on far flung journeys as Neon Shards creates a tapestry of feeling and emotive expression.

Autumn White

Autumn White’s songs paint intimate portraits of yearning and the razorblades hidden in love. His voice, breathy and trembling, reflects vulnerability and contemplative depth. His melodies exude wistful melancholy, aching with emotion as they pierce me.

His production weaves an intricate web of contrasts. Misty synths hang in the air, flickering at the edges, while sharp-edged tones and a pulsing low end cut through with urgency. Drums stutter beneath the vocals as they capture turbulent emotion. The songs explore close personal connections, often with elusive or intoxicating characters, as they roam through fractured landscapes of feeling.

Dream imagery drifts constantly through the music, blurring the lines between memories and hallucinations. Autumn White’s world is one where truth glimmers through hazy light and disappears into the ether.

Dress To Impress

Dress To Impress writes music that wanders through broken landscapes of longing, hope, connection and loss. His vocals shift from raw vulnerability to haunting distortion, capturing a full spectrum of feeling that pulls me deeper into each story. Around his expressive voice, he builds luminescent sonic layers of crystalline bells, gleaming xylophone and atmospheres that wrap the melodies with lush light.

Gliding drums, pounding beats and rumbling bass lines create a sense of constant forward motion even when the emotions tremble. The songs often balance delicacy and power as twinkling tones collide with explosive rhythmic bursts, creating cinematic drama.

Images of rain, sunrise and fading light and lost motion gives each track a visual presence, as the music unfolds like a movie. Neon drenched, ‘80s inspired synths add a drifting retro haze. Dress To Impress creates a sound that explores the heart’s storms with colour, depth and clarity.

Donna Lewis & David Lowe

Donna Lewis and David Lowe shape gently glowing psychological journeys, anchored by Donna Lewis’ flexible vocals. Her voice carries the music’s emotional essence and impact. David Lowe’s production surrounds her performances in a carefully woven textural tapestry as synths create tonal layers that softly cradle the melodies.

The music creates a graceful contrast that evokes the rising and falling of emotive tides. The way in which the tracks guide the listener as they search, question and yearn for connection. The songs are filled with imagery of roads, mountains, valleys, distant lights and vast skies.

As the songs unfold, the narrators take internal journeys as they explore love, loss and a desire for connection in a disorienting world. Warmth and tenderness are at the heart of each track, even in moments of doubt or sorrow. The results are introspective and gently human as they unfold.

Lovespirals

Lovespirals music is full of soft shadows and slow-burning intimacy. Anji Bee’s breath-warmed vocals are aching and wistful as they drift with fragile sensuality that’s deeply personal and affecting.

Ryan Lum’s guitar further shapes the expressive tone, capturing the drifting feeling that runs through so many of their tracks. Subtle percussion, gentle piano and distant synths fill in the spaces with atmospheric quiet and jazzy riffs.

Fear of loss, distance and unresolved wounds fill the music with heart. The lyrics probe the contours of regret, invisibility and a fear that love is slipping away, using imagery of drowning, drifting, floating, or cosmic motion to deepen the emotional weight. Slow, dreamy tempos mirror the lyrical depth, creating songs that are soft, sorrowful and full of vulnerable honesty.

Arcade Beach

Arcade Beach crafts music that transports me on beams of light, creating a sunrise blush over an open horizon. The band’s sound is built on layered synths, expressive guitar and massive ’80s-infused drums that limn uplifting landscapes. Each song has a sense of seeking pathways toward renewal or escape. Even when there’s hope, a bittersweet undercurrent flows, as loss and healing intertwine.

Nick Sauter’s vocals deliver all of their feelings with sincere tenderness. Airy melodies rise into gripping choruses, as vulnerability fills his voice. The lyrics ache for meaning and belonging, seeking a way out of distance, while baring his soul.

Arcade Beach’s songs take journeys through neon twilight, balancing aching reflection with rising hope. As the songs evolve, light breaks through the haze and the music rises with feelings of renewal.

NeonShe

NeonShe writes songs centred around larger-than-life protagonists who blaze with confidence and have an unstoppable drive. Her world is vibrant with cotton-candy hues, glossy textures and pixel sparkle, amplifying the persona at the heart of her music. Each song leaps forward with an engaging, lively energy.

Her vocals capture power and vulnerability with a silken edge, as they soar through choruses and drift across digital dreamscapes. NeonShe blends organic and digital elements , supporting songs which move through aspiration, transformation and connection. Her explorations pause for moments of self-reflection before returning to more positive feelings.

The songs revolve around self-worth, identity and desire. Longing and intent mingle before resolving in determination and a need to move forward. NeonShe’s songs tell the stories of characters who shine so brightly that they reshape the world around them.

Beachdolls

Jessica Ess creates music in which myth and moonlight intertwine. Each song’s supernatural imagery is used to reveal deeper truths. Her songs drift through desolate streets and cities haunted by those who never sleep. Within the stories, desire hides jagged edges and love dissolves into loss.

Floating synth, gripping guitar lines and Rob Nordli’s velvety saxophone add depth as heavy percussion crashes like waves. Jessica Ess’ vocals shift from whisper-soft confessions to powerful cries. The music’s vocabulary is made up of tumbling melodies, cascading textures and flickering tones that escape like memories slipping away.

Beachdolls’ explores longing, struggle and identity. The songs delve into toxic relationships and damaging attraction. A sense of drifting between places and selves fills each song. In the end, Beachdolls creates intimate, shadowed and deeply felt music.

Stacy Gabriel

Stacy Gabriel’s music drifts through misty emotional landscapes where trust is fickle and hope flickers briefly while truths emerge with clarity. The lyrics are full of people trying to understand each other across psychological distance, in search of meaning.

His soundscapes expand like petals opening to reveal secret layers, woven from tones, timbres and textures. Beats guide, patter or burst with intensity. Stacy Gabriel and his guests bring galvanizing emotion to bear as they interpret the lyrics, carrying me along with the undercurrents of sensation waiting within them.

All of the musical elements exist in a dreamy place of hovering tones, weightless chords and iridescent hues that create a cloudy haze, full of a warm retro glow. Stacy Gabriel’s music fuses emotion, an intertwining synth atmosphere and first rate storytelling.

All The Damn Vampires

All The Damn Vampires’ music wanders through jagged emotional terrain. Love is strained to the breaking point and devotion intertwines with hurt. The songwriting deals with rejection and desire, creating visceral monologues as they express fear, hope and the search for understanding

The band’s sonic world is sweeping and cinematic. Synth lines add gem-like light, drift like fog over midnight streets or contribute haunted warmth. Guitars charge the music with raw force, while drums gallop beneath the melody and towering basslines rumble like distant storms, anchoring the music.

Ryan Rose & Mint Simon’s vocals are each radiant and break open with passion. Their performances throb like exposed nerves, carrying damaged love, fiery yearning or the hollow ache of disconnection. Pain, devotion and hope rises and fall as each song weaves together.

Kraver

Kraver’s sound fuses emotional vulnerability and atmospheric richness. Each song delves into the complexity of relationships as synths move in finely woven lines, deep bass currents flow and percussion rebounds. The productions each reveal a facet of Kraver’s unique sound design and musical approach.

Kraver shapes fluid soundscapes which add support to his collaborative partners’ performances. The guest artist’s voices hover and pour outward with honeyed warmth, capturing regret, desire and self-awareness. Wistful melodies glide as the bass moves in a tidal flow, supporting vocals that reveal love's cravings and wounds.

Whether the narrator is pleading for affection, burning with desire or wrestling with guilt, the production delineates fine detail. Kraver creates sonic textures that mirror the lyrics’ intermingled emotions and rhythms ground the music in propulsive motion.