Jasmine4.t, Search Results, Alessi Rose, The Family Battenberg and Ellie O'Neill dazzle at Eurosonic

With the whole of Holland shrouded in freezing fog - one of my British colleagues left Heathrow expecting to land at Schipol but was rerouted via-a former German air force base - I arrive at the Oosterpoort just as the Cliffords are saying their goodbyes.

Thankfully, Dan Hegarty has been more adept at defying the elements and tells me that they went down the proverbial storm with the delegate top heavy audience who can be blighters to impress. I’ve been chain-listening to their song ‘If The Shoe Fits’ nonstop since it came out last year and suggest you do too.

Cliffords at ESNS 2025. Cedit: Casper Maas

Meanwhile, Dan’s 2fm pal Ian Wilson is bigging up Carpetman, a Ukrainian singer who goes one better than Kneecap by wrapping himself from head to toe in a nice bit of deep pile.

As gimmicky as that might be, songs like ‘What Does It Mean To You’ are of the supersmooth R’n’B variety and insanely hummable.

While yet to follow the likes of Sigrid and Aurora onto the international stage, Fay Wildhagen is a very big deal back home in Norway where she’s just released her third album, Let’s Keep It In The Family. I have ‘indie Christine McVie’ scribbled in my notes and I’m sticking with it. The harmonies are at times heavenly and the ‘Dear Diary’ lyrics about her love life - or lack thereof - compelling.

Eurosonic Day 2 finds Hot Press up and at ‘em at the crack of dawn - well, noon - and ready for some serious speed gigging.

Twelve months after the Lambrini Girls did their best/worst to wreck the gaff, I'm back in Plato, the bounteous record shop frequented by John Peel whenever he was in town, to get a first HP sighting of Manchester buzz artist Jasmine.4.t. I'm €179.99 worse off as a result of being obliged to buy the David Bowie Rock n Roll Star box-set that started winking at me as soon as I walked in, but hey you've got to accept the collateral damage sometimes.

Personally signed by Phoebe Bridgers to her Saddest Factory Records label and accompanied by Eden on drums, the Manchester-based singer is using the occasion to launch her brand spanking new You Are The Morning album, which is produced by Bridgers and her boygenius band mates who are taking Jasmine on tour with them in March.

First up is 'Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation', which manages to sound every bit as fabulous as its title. While there are also trace elements of Moldy Peaches, White Stripes and Anohni, Neil Young in both acoustic Harvest and Crazy Horse feedback modes is the most obvious musical reference point.

Jasmine's aren't the only eyes welling up as she talks about her at times difficult trans journey and the joy of finally finding her own tribe.

She describes the delicately strummed ‘You Are The Morning’ - “You make the grass grow/ You are the hawthorn tangled in dog-rose” - as a song of queer hope and then delivers the coup de grace of ‘Skin On Skin’, an account of her first trans love affair which tugs at the tear ducts again.

Jasmine’s helium falsetto might not appeal to everyone but it’s got me hook, like and sinker.

Jasmine.4.t at ESNS 2025. Credit: Ben Houdijk

Plato also affords me my first look at Search Results, the Dublin three-piece who might be a nightmare to Google but take about two nanoseconds to get them rocking in the shopping aisles.

Fionn, Jack and Adam bonded over a shared love of the Velvet Underground but, to these ears, are more grounded in ‘70s outfits like Talking Heads, Devo and Wire.

Regardless of what comes from where, their angular rhythms, clever percussion and ability to conjure up walls of noise at will is an enticing proposition.

It’s two degrees outside but the temperature in Plato shoots up as Sylvie Kreusch launches into ‘Sharngi-La’, a song that with lyrics like “Hips slide side-to-side/ You ain’t got a choice” has no trouble arousing the passions in whispered Grace Jones fashion.

‘Wild Love’, meanwhile, finds the Belgian singer coming on like a poppier Bjork. Which, in case you’re wondering, is a compliment.

Completing a very satisfying Plato quadruple-whammy is Morpheus, an Amsterdam singer weaned on the likes of Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour and who’s since discovered the likes of Nick Cave and Bryan Ferry who he sounds very like on the moodily atmospheric ‘Burning In Paris’. Actually, everything about him is moodily atmospheric...

Popping in to the Iceland Music reception for a quick Delirium Tremens - it's a beer, not a psychotic episode - I get to meet Kaktus Einarsson, the composer who made an international stir last year working with Damian Albarn.

The song they wrote together, ‘Gumbri’, is a standout later in the night when Kaktus performs in an old peanut factory. Sounding like an even more eccentric Gorillaz, it’s one of numerous reasons why you should check out his Lobster Coda album.

It’s a mere minute’s walk to the Grand Theatre where Cardiff four-piece The Family Battenberg wrestle the Loudest Band Of The Day honours from - sorry, lads - Search Results.

There are no sartorial trappings, just lots of glam stomping, fuzzboxed-to-infinity guitars and occasional straying into Queens Of The Stone Age territory.

‘Feed Yer (Nganga)’ and ‘Fuzzy Features’ both grab you by the nether regions and refuse to let go, as does the bonkers but brilliant ‘Ant Eater’.

Giift is a Danish singer with a rather too slick brand of piano-driven R'n'B. Or so it seems at first. When she steps away from the keys, straps on a guitar and returns to her indie roots, things become a lot more interesting.

Out today, her new single ‘Pussy’ - I’m saying nothing - has more of an electro feel and the sort of vocodered vocals that seem de riguer these days. It’s a solid enough song but I’d love to see/hear Giift getting more dirt under those impeccably manicured fingernails of hers.

I'd also love to tell you how marvellous Kingfishr were in Huize Maas but, thanks to Dutch radio taking a shining to them of late, the queue outside is two hundred deep. Those that are better at blagging their way in say they were indeed marvellous.

I'm agnostic but if I'm wrong and hell does exist Hungary's Baby Lasagna are the house band. Imagine Aqua covering Blink 182 with a bit of Scooter thrown in for bad measure and you'll have some idea of how exquisitely awful songs like ‘Superstar’ and ‘Dopamine’ are. Needless to say the crowd love them and would rip me apart if they knew what I was scribbling in my notebook.

It's pin drop quiet in Lutherse Kerk for Ellie O'Neill. Well, until the end of each song when the place erupts. Armed with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and her velvetine voice, the Meath singer's dissertations on love and womanhood mesmerise the mainly local Groningen crowd who clearly think they're watching a star in the making. 'Silver Arrow', 'Baby Blue' and 'Great White Wind', which all pack a hefty emotional punch, suggest that they're right.

Ellie O'Neill at ESNS 2025. Photo: Denise Jans

The audience is just as adoring in The Forum which is home away from home tonight to Alessi Rose. As hot a UK pop prospect as there is right now, the Derby-born singer seems genuinely surprised by the gaggle of Dutch girls down the front who know every word to every song and shower her in flowers at the end of her set.

While routinely compared to the likes of Gracie Abrams and Olivia Rodrigo, she's no mere clone with a voice that owes as much to Kate Bush as it does those two pop behemoths.

Lyrically, though, it's pretty much all about boys, especially the bad ones who break your heart but, in doing so, only make you stronger.

There's no doubting the 21-year-old's talents as a songwriter with 'Say You're Mine' and 'Break Me' bangers of the highest order.

'Oh My' is even more sharply penned and with lines like "He gives me head while I've been losing mine" is guaranteed to make your Aunt Bridie blush.

Mark my words, Ms. Rose is going to be mega.

There are also a couple of hundred people outside Groningen's answer to Whelan's, Vera, eager to cop an earful of Cardinals. My blagging skills being better this time, I make it in for the last fifteen minutes and, wow, it's incendiary.

Rather than just putting their heads down and charging, the Leesiders know how to build the mood... and then knock you into the middle of next week!