Line-up Two Best Kept Secret 2025

Nia Archives is a master of the beat, an artist igniting a new jolt of excitement to established arenas of electronic music, approaching her craft with a crate-digger's nose for new sounds. It seems like a tall order to fuse such a studious curiosity with the novelistic qualities of a Nina Simone or a Maya Angelou, but Archives makes as much impact as an orator as she does as a producer.

You could surely pen a sitcom based on professional mischief-makers The Vices. Four charismatic main characters with distinct personalities, perpetually at odds, yet ever close-knit as a whole. Within the backdrop of their plucky catchy-as-sin garage-pop hits, The Vices explore friendships, human nature, unknown affairs and the stubborn staving-off of adulthood – if only for a little while.

Nilüfer Yanya’s songs are like a warm bottomless abyss: you keep listening and imagining what's down below. This sustained magnetism lies in her expressive, dark-hued voice and hypnotic guitar playing: two distinct traits that makes you want to swim inside her records for eternity. An effortlessly cool, poised artist who has carved out her own lane within the modern landscape.

Barry Can’t Swim doesn’t take the eye off the ball concerning the main directive of dance music: sounds that inspire movement and a golly good time. His warm, richly textured modern house seems tailored for this very goal. But in reality, his crisp carefree productions thrive more on intuition and states of unthinking. For a guy who supposedly can’t swim, he sure knows how to go with the flow.

Dan Snaith has the air of a quixotic mathematician, and guess what, he is an actual mathematician. Transpose that notion into his principal trade – forward-thinking, emotionally resonant club music – and suddenly, it all makes sense. Unsurprisingly, Caribou’s music computes effectively outside of the club’s ecosystem: during a hike, a yoga meditation, or in full band lineup at Best Kept Secret. How's that for an equation?

From composing robot orchestras to works inspired by the nine muses of Greek mythology, renowned Dutch harpist Remy van Kesteren is a chronic trailblazer. Remy's ceaseless drive for adventure and innovation allows him to traverse literally every musical avenue – from classical to electronic music to pop – without conforming to the familiar.

Ever since the age of 14, Oluseun ‘Seun’ Kuti has carried the torch of his legendary father Fela as the driving force of his just-as-legendary Afrobeat-band Egypt 80. And in the decades that followed, Seun has put his own resonant stamp on the Kuti-legacy, nurturing the old and trail blazing towards the new. The power of revolt and freedom ensnared inside a dazzling groove.

UK artist Kae Tempest has diligently achieved the title ‘voice of a generation’. Forging their distinct take on rap, Tempest’s probing poetry always cuts to the heart of the matter, holding one ear to the ground. Having played Best Kept Secret several times before, it’s no longer a secret that Kae Tempest is as compassionate and intense a performer there is, perpetually attuned to our collective truth and humanity.

Last time Lucy Dacus played Best Kept Secret, it was evident why she is one of music’s most charismatic storytellers. One of life's few certainties is Dacus connecting to a crowd, both as a solo artist and one-third of succesful indie supergroup boygenius (alongside Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers). Dacus's songs are like opening a book of faded photographs: full of wit, wisdom and powerful imagery.

For metal trail blazers Amenra, earthbound matters take precedence over the arcane: pain, trauma and despair are ground zero for higher states of consciousness. Though Amenra shows are indeed punishing, juggernaut affairs, the doom-and-gloom never stifles a rejoice in overcoming. Whether Colin H. Van Eeckhout decrees in English, Flemish or Klingon for that matter, an Amenra-ceremony will always leave its mark.

Irish punk rap group Kneecap are all about rebellion, reclamation and the right to renovate every stage they perform. Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, and DJ Provaí were a movement long before a feature film skyrocketed them to fame. Possessing a lyrical punch supercharged with satirical wit, Kneecap are living proof partying isn’t just empty hedonism, but a positive form of revolt against the forces of oppression.

Elephant are what you call a storybook-type of band: four tight knit friends cut from different sides of the same cloth, intent on giving the attuned ear that warm embrace it so craves. These guys have a special knack for crisp alt-country/dream pop gems, where the most pristine melodies scatter into jammier bits like bolts of lightning caught inside a mason jar.

As a 10-year-old, Josh Edwards went to Latin-America on vacation and there, a lightbulb went on in his young mind. Edwards would follow through on this fascination with a pilgrimage of sorts, studying flamenco in Spain and mastering the charango in Bolivia. As Blanco White, he performs soothing yet urgent songs with that unmistakable hot-blooded reverie.

In the songs of Katie Crutchfield – aka Waxahatchee – strength and sensitivity are like two peas in a pod. This acclaimed alt-country artist enchants even the simplest of expressions with lifetimes of experience. Yet somehow, her music also comes across like casual conversation with a loved one on a back porch. Waxahatchee makes you feel like ‘them good old days’ are happening today.

Personal Trainer are no longer the young guns frolicking around the corner, but a band in their prime on second full-length Still Willing. Thank heavens, adulthood isn't making these Dutch indie greats more conservative – quite the opposite in fact. The beloved Amsterdam 7-piece is more adventurous than ever, with deeper urgency anchoring Willem Smit's songwritting. 'Still willing' is indeed an understatement.

You would have had to escape to another dimension to avoid Djo's viral hit 'End of Beginning' in 2022, a song that resonated with millions of people around the world. Other than being a beloved actor, Joe Keery is proficient at penning immediately satisfying synth-pop bangers, proving himself to be a jack of all trades. To be all that and still somehow be underrated? It truly is the strangest thing.

What do you call that thing when you adopt ‘big pop staples’, warp them into your own weird leftfield plaything and, fortuitously, it achieves the same level of acclaim as the ‘big pop staples’ you’re deliberately queering up? Magdalena Bay live to tell this tall tale with their masterpiece Imaginal Disk, an abundantly fun, conceptual electro-funk romp that infiltrated the mainstream like a glitch in the system.

YĪN YĪN are giddy magpies, cherrypicking the juiciest bits from myriad musical forms. Psychedelic rock, dark dub, Thai funk and Anatolian disco: if it has a fingerlickin' good groove, this Dutch fellowship will be quick to concoct their own immediately satisfying version of it. No opportunity to punch a cowbell, bongo drum or massive gong is left unchecked.