A drizzly Friday night in Soho sees grass roots music space ‘The Lower Third’ host the first BBC Music Introducing event of 2026.
BBC Music Introducing is a series of music events that offers new artists the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience and platforms emerging new talent in the UK.
Notable alumni include: Ed Sheeran, Florence and The Machine and Little Simz.
Being on the line-up for ‘Ones to Watch’ is a giant feather in the cap of any artist, because they are partially chosen on their likelihood to make a big breakthrough in the music industry.
Tonight, the audience is a mix of young professionals looking forward to a night of new music and the official bragging rights of saying ‘I knew them before they were popular’.
At a grass roots music venue like The Lower Third, it is a pleasant surprise to find my shoes aren’t sticking to the floor, and how polite everyone is.
It is also nice not to be jostling shoulders to get a half decent view of what’s happening on stage.
Jenn Crothers the BBC Radio 1 DJ is presenting the evening and bounds onto the stage to introduce ‘Yuneki’, the first act of the night.
Yuneki, 18, is casually cool with stacks of rings on her fingers.
Despite looking a bit apprehensive at first, she soon commands the audience’s attention with her mellow bedroom-pop sound and performs songs such as ‘Sleepwalking’ and (the very catchy) ‘Baby Teeth’.
Next announced is ‘fliss‘ who gets an enthusiastic scream from the audience and barrels in with a “bloody hell, it’s packed in here.”
With her long wavy blonde hair, double-denim and cowboy hat, fliss looks like she could easily have been cast in the Barbie Movie.
As if to match her aesthetic, her sound is bright, strong, retro and infectious but that may be because of her undeniable charisma.
Even the breaks between songs were an opportunity to interact and have a laugh with the audience, her energy radiated off of her like a nuclear powerplant.
The artist’s set covered a mix of released and unreleased songs such as ‘Raise Hell’, ‘Evil Genius’ and closed off with the uplifting ‘Coming Around’.
The final act was ‘Sofia and The Antoinettes’ who I heard previously when looking for new music and came across ‘Buried in This Room’.
‘Sofia and The Antoinettes’ wears her platinum-blonde hair up in rollers, akin to early looks from Marina and The Diamonds with a hint of the mob-wife aesthetic.
When talking about the song ‘Introspection’ to the audience, she said: “There’s something really comforting about being in a room full of people also screaming they don’t know who they are”.
Before running for my train, we heard ‘Overwhelming Fear’ (the fear of being forgotten), ‘Spiralling’ (themes of self-doubt accompanied by crashing drums) and ‘Women Who Love Too Much’ (yes, named after that relationship book).
They were all great to see live and it’s exciting to see what’s next, so check them out before tickets get expensive.
Image credit: Olivia Jowett
