Hype List 2026 Round-Up: Part Three

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.

This week we’re rolling out bigger features on some of our Hype List picks, but there are loads more names in the mix. This is Part Three of the smaller interviews and mini-profiles we’re not spinning out into bigger stand-alone features, pulled together so they don’t get lost in the scroll.

Arthur Hill’s musical journey has been one from social-media upstart to fully fledged pop contender. Before the sold-out shows and Brixton headlines, he was best known for short, self-deprecating clips on TikTok - sketches, humour and scrappy song drafts. That early digital presence built him a community long before the music industry caught up: millions of followers, a reputation for disarming sincerity, and an audience already emotionally invested in whatever he did next. What’s notable is how convincingly he’s outgrown the “viral boy with a guitar” box. His debut EP, ‘In The Middle of Somewhere’, marked the first serious shift, and recent follow-up, the six-track ‘Missed Again’, cements that transformation.

Saint Clair have marched into band life with the kind of assurance that suggests they’ve known the destination for a while. Their recent London shows have been the first hint: tight, self-possessed and ruthless in the way great new bands can be. They’ve barely begun releasing music and already have serious interest forming; the kind of early attention that doesn’t happen by accident. What little has surfaced from their upcoming plans offers only fragments; it feels built for small rooms pushed to capacity, though it’s hard to imagine them staying in those spaces for long. Their first run of dates gave them a fitting stage to plant a flag: nothing about Saint Clair feels tentative; the spark is already there. 2026 will show just how brightly they plan to burn.

Sex Mask might just be Melbourne’s best-kept secret. With a penchant for the unpredictable, this experimental pop trio - vocalist Wry Gray, drummer Vicente Moncada and guitarist/synth-tamer Kaya Martin - have been reshaping the underground scene with their off-kilter charm. Their ‘Body Broker’ EP is a perfect introduction. It’s a compact, serrated little ecosystem: industrial clatter, post-punk snap and avant-rock left turns. The backstory for standout single ‘Cold’ only adds to its mystique: written near the base of Mt Fuji while Gray was bed-bound, convinced by local doctors that a rare neurotoxin from “fresh frogs and crabs in stormwater drains” had taken them out. It’s the kind of detail that could only belong to this band.

Dove Ellis writes with the kind of emotional clarity that usually takes artists whole albums to earn. The Galwegian songwriter’s early singles travelled on soft piano and half-muttered self-reflection, but 2025’s ‘Blizzard’ blows that world wide open. Self-produced, the record moves from delicate folk-leaning stillness to indie-rock eruption without losing its thread of hope. Tracks like ‘Love Is’ and ‘Pale Song’ wrestle with heartbreak, isolation and the small moments of light that push through the cracks. Live, he’s leapt from first-ever headline shows to a US run with Geese, plus festival appearances that have made him an early-tipping-point name. Ellis isn’t trying to chase a scene; he’s building something sturdier. He already feels like a lifer.

Opal Mag’s music feels like the glow from a bedroom lamp at 1am; warm, hazy and quietly defiant. Across a string of fuzzy dream-pop singles, she’s carved out a world that’s part heartbreak, part soft-focus self-preservation. Standout latest release ‘Kitchen Song’ is a love letter to choosing your own company - popcorn dinners, outfit experiments, and a night in that feels like freedom rather than defeat. It’s that refusal to glamorise chaos that marks her out. Opal finds magic in the small, the ordinary, the overlooked. With songs that deliver with that same kind of hazy immediacy that mark out some of the greats, she’s quietly becoming one of the most resonant new voices in alt-pop. Proof that softness can be its own kind of power.

London-based trio green star are the kind of band whose back story is as compelling as their sound. The group formed when LA-born vocalist Lilah Bobak linked up with Mallorca’s Pedro Soler and Madrid’s Alberto De Torre in the city’s ever-shrinking warehouse zones. Their shared mission? To fuse shoegaze, noise-pop and indie-rock through three distinct cultural lenses into something raw and magnetic. Their debut EP, ‘bleeding swirls’, introduced this vision, with tracks like ‘four-o-five’ leaning into jagged riffs and textured distortion. With a series of standout live shows around London and festival appearances already under their belt, green star are entering 2026 at full tilt, stepping into a year where their sound can truly expand.

Irish–Brazilian duo Burglar, aka Willow and Eduardo, haven’t officially released a single yet - their debut is incoming, mixed by Daniel Fox of Gilla Band - but anyone who’s caught them live will already understand why they’re primed for a breakthrough. Formed in 2021 after meeting at college, Burglar fuse two very different musical upbringings into something urgent and curiously addictive. Willow emerged from Dublin’s indie-pop scene, while Eduardo was raised in the punk community of Goiânia, Brazil. Over the past few years, the pair have treated Dublin’s gig circuit like a second home, playing relentlessly and turning themselves into one of the city’s most energising new live acts. Future cult favourites, for sure.

Wasia Project make songs that feel like someone has cracked open a feeling and spilt it everywhere. Siblings Will Gao and Olivia Hardy fuse classical training with jazz instincts and wide-eyed pop melodrama, building tracks that drift between intimate confession and cinematic swell. Early singles like ‘ur so pretty’ sketched out their universe in soft pastels, but it was 2024’s ‘Isotope’ EP - complete with short film and orchestral arrangements - that confirmed their ambition. Since then, their world has only expanded: tours with Laufey, festival slots from Governors Ball to Lollapalooza, and a new wave of fans discovering the quiet ache in songs like ‘Is This What Love Is?’ and ‘Letters From The Day’. 

Sean Trelford writes like someone trying to make sense of growing up faster than everyone else around him. The Anglo-Chilean Londoner emerged from a flurry of homemade EPs recorded in his teens, pairing diaristic lyrics with a studio-rat obsession that saw him play, produce and arrange everything himself. ‘Naked’, the track that announced his signing to Adventure Recordings / Island, sharpened that instinct: a teeth-clenched alt-rock confession built from jagged guitars and tightly wound melodies. It anchors ‘Ulcer’, his upcoming EP exploring voice, shame and the bruises left by adolescence. He’s the sort of act you only need to see once to realise you won’t be catching him in small rooms for long.

Don't forget: Dork, Close Up + The 100 Club present Here Comes Your Jan - two nights at The 100 Club, London.
Night One: 29th January 2026 - Alien Chicks, Ellis-D, Ugly Ozo (tickets £10 + BF, via Dice / WeGotTickets).
Night Two: 30th January 2026 - Pencil, FLETCHR FLETCHR, Pack of Animals (tickets £10 + BF, via Dice / WeGotTickets)