New year. New noise. Hype is back on the hunt, digging through the chaos, the chatter and the late-night tip-offs to find the acts who aren’t just next up, but about to detonate. Dork’s Hype List is our annual spotlight on the artists who’ve started to really stand out - not because they’re destined for instant superstardom, but because there’s something in what they’re doing that feels fresh, deliberate and worth keeping close tabs on. It isn’t about calling winners or demanding overnight breakthroughs. Consider it a guide to the acts shaping the edges of what’s next: the ones we’re excited about, curious about, and confident enough to back as they take their next steps.

Radio Free Alice are caught in a kind of geographic double exposure - still connected to Melbourne, increasingly rooted in the UK, and living mostly in the liminal space between. Their year has unfolded inside that tension, and the way frontman Noah Learmonth describes it has the calmness of somebody who hasn’t had time to process any of it. “We played our final US show last night,” he says, “so today the whole band is pretty much catatonic.” It’s exhaustion earned the long way round. They’ve been “in the UK” for months but don’t quite recognise the idea of “living” here. The band say it “doesn’t quite feel like we’ve properly moved… because we’ve been on tour non-stop.” Yet their gratitude for what’s happening is real. It’s “been fantastic,” Noah explains - not in the shiny, triumphant way bands sometimes frame things, but in the small, meaningful ways. “It’s been strange and exciting to see how many people are coming out to the shows.” Of course, the UK has also been its own unpredictable teacher. Noah recalls being hit with “a beer bottle… in Newcastle,” and, in Liverpool, “another guy threw tomato sauce at me… both times while being called a cunt.” He adds, dryly: “I hadn’t experienced much airborne violence from vehicles before visiting Northern England.” It’s delivered without bitterness — just another data point in a year defined by the unexpected. Not everything erratic has been negative. The band describe All Together Now in Ireland as a moment that hit differently. “There was just something about that set that felt really magical and fun,” Noah says. Afterward, they found themselves talking to Julian Casablancas and Bobby Gillespie. It’s the kind of story that would feel manufactured if it weren’t told so plainly.