I really don’t like labelling artists as ‘future stars’ because I care little about that kind of thing, and I’m notoriously wrong. But anyway, here’s one, her names Agnes Hartwich.
She‘s a Danish ‘alternative pop’ artist, describing herself quite wonderfully on her Spotify bio as ‘Your favourite sad-grunge-tumblr-girl from 2013 only 9 years later’. I guess this makes me a sad-grunge-myspace-boy from way too many years earlier.
I‘ve no idea quite where she’s popped up from, but its clearly her younger years that have created her perspective as an artist: ‘I had a hard time growing up and struggled with a lot of different things. I used to spend all of my energy, trying to bring those heavy emotions down but I have learned to accept and live with the fact that these are traits that neither I nor others can or should change. They are my own strange qualities that make me who I am.”
It‘s the opening track ‘Black Shiny Car’ in debut EP ‘Into the Deep Dark Blue’ that made the biggest impression, written apparently after her experience of working in an expensive clothes store making sales to ‘filthy rich old ladies’. It’s a cutting yet catchy track that just trips along irresistibly, and whilst I sometimes find expletives in songs lazy and predictable, she pulls it off with both style and swagger - and even if I didn’t like it, well she rightly wouldn’t give a toss anyway.
’Deep Dark Blue’ brings together grungy guitars, synths, more forceful lyrics and another killer chorus, but I really like ‘the way he would’, sad and intense but really powerful too, and the kind of song a sizeable young audience would sing along to.
I really like this and Agnes Hartwich is a relatable interesting artist who is not afraid to fuse together different genres in her songwriting, and that makes her different and slightly unpredictable - and I mean that in a really positive way, I’ll definitely be writing about her again at some point.
Find her on Facebook or Instagram.