Chanpan, Quiet Light, Keo & Bel Cobain: get to know the four acts that we’ve been obsessed with this month.

The smell of summer is beginning to linger beyond flickers of warmth. Soon, festival fields, endless pub gardens and Sunday barbeques will take up most of our attention. But first, some artists to soundtrack our blossoming excitement. 

You could argue that, in terms of popular music, April has been disappointing. There were no major mainstream albums to feast upon, just deluxe records (because, for right or wrong, doing a deluxe is pretty much a rite of passage right now). But that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been emerging artists bursting onto our radar. 

Chanpan, for instance, announced themselves to the wider consensus with a jaw-droppingly good COLORS show rendition of their latest single, “buzzin”. Quiet Light, the glistening Austin polymath, showed craft and character with an intricate yet expansive body of music.

Elsewhere, Keo, one of British guitar music’s next best bands, has been touring all over the shop, prepping for a big summer and perhaps an even bigger backend to the year. And Bel Cobain, London’s soulful feeler, is back, brighter than ever, with a stunning comeback opus.

Head below for the full lowdown of April’s New Noise…

Chanpan

There’s not been a more aptly named song this year than Chanpan’s latest – and COLORS show breakthrough – “buzzin”. The track zips, cracks, pops, hectic but controlled, rough around the edges and bustling with charm. A bit like doing a triathlon on MDMA. 

The NYC trifecta of talents – comprised of Grace Dumdaw and twin brothers Lance and Matthew Tran – started off busking on the streets of Chinatown in their native Big Apple, before making an impression with a couple of EPs, “air ride + attack” in 2024 and “endlessly” in 2025. But their newest cut is a step up – there’s a ceaseless energy and playful nous that feels vital, acutely creative, and very, very fun. With dates coming up on both sides of the Atlantic – including festival appearances at The Great Escape and Governors Ball – expect to be copiously “buzzin” if you find yourself at one of the band’s shows. 

Watch “buzzin”… 

Read the interview…

What gets you all buzzin?

Matthew: A good bowl of soup. audiences that aren’t afraid to dance. people who care. caring about something in life!!

Lance: Being hot, having kindness, intelligence, and humour

Grace: Moisturiser; perfume; balanced indoor humidity levels; unwavering eye contact; eager consent. 

You originated busking on the streets of Chinatown in New York. How was that experience?

Matthew: We put in a lot of hard work early on because busking was a grind and a “schlep” (word from our manager Hill). Every time, we lugged a whole drum set up and down 4 flights of stairs from Lance’s apartment. But it was worth it because of how fun and formative the experience was. The early affirmation strangers gave us felt like permission from the universe to really go all in on music. Also, the struggle of trying to win over a non-captive crowd of passersby built a lot of confidence and strong nerves that we make use of now as performers. Honestly, it felt like a humiliation ritual, but it built character! 

Lance: We also can’t say enough about how much it matters for a community to welcome and support young artists, and we need to protect communities like Chinatown so it can continue to exist and thrive. We deserve that better world. 

What’s your favourite NYC hidden gem?

Matthew: If you find the hidden path to walk through the parking garage and cross an intersection, you can actually Citi Bike all the way home from Laguardia. Also, stealing from Whole Foods.

Lance: There is a $4 shuttle bus between chinatown and flushing and sunset park (but I won’t tell you how to find it)

Grace: Mambi. 

Sonically, you blend an unlikely amalgamation of styles. But what lies at the crux of your approach? What’s the essence of you as a trio? 

Matthew: The crux and essence is that there is no approach and there is no method. We write whatever we want, feel, and are moved by that day! We are 3 different people with different lives, brains and tastes, and that translates into how we make art. We don’t like being told what to do, so having fun at home or in the studio is important to us. We like playing with sounds, and even if we don’t make “experimental” music as a genre, the word does fit our ethos and process.

Lance: The influences come from everything and everywhere – the early drum n’ bass sound actually came from Lance’s training as a drummer and his fascination with that part of the physical playing.

What’s exciting you right now?

Matthew: That we’re getting to share our music with people from all over the world. i’m really just so grateful for that. Send us the UK food recs. Lance wants to try a spice bag!

Lance: I’m so excited to write new music. I’m getting into jazz piano and experimenting a lot more on the production side.

Grace: Young singer/songwriter/producers! And the idea of no one knowing anything about me!

Quiet Light 

We can all agree that ethereal is one of the most cripplingly overused adjectives in the contemporary cultural hemisphere. But allow me this once; Quiet Light is so goddamn ethereal. 

The Austin-based artist and producer – real name Riya Mahesh – is back, blessing us with the deft, ravishing and stylistically sprawling new mixtape, “Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2”. The work is a sonic sequel to a tape of the same name shared in 2023, and shows the progression of Mahesh’s genre-translucent style. An equilibrium of confessional, heart-rendering folk pop and atmospheric, idiosyncratic electronica, the project awes in its character and craft, full of surprising choices and vivid lyrical vignettes. 

Listen to “Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2”…

Read the interview…

How can a light be quiet?

I always think of a candle or a lamp with a soft white light bulb. 

Name your three biggest influences outside of music.

David Lynch, Clarice Lispector, and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Congrats on Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2! Why did you return for the sonic sequel?

Thank you! I loved making “Blue Angel 1” so much, and I felt as though the record represented this sort of creative freedom for me. I wanted to return to that sort of lawless dreamland. Life had just gotten so serious for me, and I needed to retrain my brain.

How have you grown personally and artistically since the 2023 original record? 

My production skills have most definitely improved, and I feel more confident as an artist. When I was younger, I didn’t really think that I had it in me to be good at music production. It’s a different landscape now; there are so many female producers that I am inspired by, like PinkPantheress, Smerz, and Erika De Casier.

Describe the new EP as an emotion, a colour, and a culinary dish.

Emotion: Nostalgia

Colour: Powder blue

Culinary Dish: Angel food cake

Keo

There’s ample talk of a British indie renaissance. And well, if you take in Keo’s hair-raising debut EP, “Siren”, you’ll likely believe it. Frontman Finn Keogh’s vocals have a throaty angst to them that’s pure, irresistible anguish, while the songwriting is gorgeously forlorn.   

The EP is well produced and performed with nuance, but if you really want to know what Keo is about, see them live. They’ve just wrapped up their UK and EU tour – their grandest to date – including an Electric Ballroom headline that blew the socks off the entire room. With scores of festival dates to come this summer and new music teased to drop before the end of the year, expect plenty of guitar music revival chat from your local indie boi nerds in a pub near you.

Listen to “Siren”…

Read the interview…

Describe your live show in three words? 

Cranked, spontaneous, dynamic.

What’s the best show you’ve ever played? What’s the worst?

The best show for me would be the O2 Ritz on our last headline tour. Everything about that gig felt right. Our worst gig would probably be one of the many industry gigs we’ve played over the years, I can’t put my finger on which one, but A&Rs don’t make for a great crowd.

Your debut EP is nearly a year old now. How do you reflect on it? What do you love? What would you do differently?

I’m grateful that we’ve managed to tour off the back of our debut EP for this long. It’s sweet to look back on. We were more naive back then, but naive isn’t always a bad thing. If we could do it again, though, I wouldn’t change a thing. Loving a band is loving their journey, and doing our debut EP with next to no budget, having to settle for whatever came out of five days in Pete’s garage, was part of the journey.

UK bands are thriving right now. Do you think there’s been a shift back to guitar music? To you, who are the bands leading the way?

There’s definitely been a resurgence of guitar music. I used to think of it coming back to life as if it were some sort of mythical creature, but here it is, and we as a band have always known this would involve us if it were to happen. It’s been one of those things you almost feel you’ve already experienced, like déjà vu. We’re meant to be here, and we’re grateful we are.

What’s 2026 looking like for you? 

2026 is going to change everything for Keo, we’ve got a lot of cards up our sleeve, and we’re planning to throw them all on the table.

Bel Cobain 

Those of us with our fingers on the neo-soul pulse in London know that Hackney’s Bel Cobain is no newcomer. She first emerged at the backend of the 2010s with now cult classic cuts like “Introverted Stoner” and The Silhouettes Project’s “At the Bay”. But the British-Nigerian needed some time away from the mania of music – to grow and refocus.

Now she’s back, illuminating the London scene brighter than ever. New EP “Kizzy”, released via Brownswood Recordings and named after her dog, who sadly passed away as the EP recording process came to an end, is a vibrant, rewarding collection of cuts. Plucking from R&B, hip hop, jazz, breaks and more, the five-pronged project is deeply personal and emotionally giving, reminding us all of Cobain’s boundless capacity for beautiful, heartfelt musical creation. 

Listen to “Kizzy”…

Read the interview…

What have you smiled about today? 

The birds. Their lil song this morning. 

What did your time away from releasing teach you about art, the industry, and yourself?

It’s important for me to live my life and feel the gravity of my experience fully without appeasing the consumeristic expectations around art. It taught me many things, and they’re all relayed in the EP. They’re mainly about letting go and allowing things to die in order for the inevitable rebirth.

Congratulations on your new EP, “Kizzy”! It’s your first project in a few years. How does it feel to be back? What’s the story behind the project’s title?

Thank you. It’s been beautiful releasing again and connecting with humans through all the stories I’ve been telling. It’s named after my dog, Kizzy. The queen. 

It’s a body of work about transitions – how do you bottle the passing of time, the changes in your everyday and all-encompassing emotion into a single body of music?

I think it’s to do with sequencing. I didn’t really make any of this music with any other intention other than therapy/ to transmute a heaviness. When it came to track selection and order, I really wanted to narrate the journey of grief and the stages of madness that I’ve moved through. 

Describe your music in the form of a haiku.

When you are honest 

You can honestly be free 

And that is Godly.

Words – Ben Tibbits