Christine And The Queens and the other leftfield pop acts taking the music scene by storm

Glastonbury Festival often provides a breakthrough hit, a relative unknown that uses the weekend to catapult into mainstream consciousness. This year, that act was undoubtedly Christine And The Queens, the vehicle of French auteur Héloïse Letissier, whose debut album Chaleur Humaine has risen to its highest chart position so far in the wake of her captivating Other Stage set.

It is a fantastic triumph for a pop act, especially one that raises such heavy issues as gender identity, and a sign the genre is once again finding room for more idiosyncratic voices – not just in terms of sexuality, but how they sound.

The Gallic artist proves you can still make it even if you keep control – composing and recording her own material – rather than selecting big-name co-writers and producers to fashion surefire hits, which has seen a few huge names, from Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift to Rihanna and Beyoncé dominate the charts.

open image in gallery

In fact, there has been a growing movement of artists that are bringing more variety, among them Canadian identical twins Tegan and Sara, Chvrches, led by the brave, outspoken Lauren Mayberry, and the trio Years & Years, whose frontman Olly Alexander has been open about being gay and mental health issues.

The good news is that there are more acts emerging that boast similar individuality. Perhaps closest in outlook to Letissier is Shura, Manchester's Alexandra Lilah Denton, who began updating Madonna’s early synth-driven pop in her own bedroom to emerge this month with a classy debut album, Nothing’s Real, which that leavens introversion with infectious tunes. The title track alludes to a panic attack that hospitalised its creator, while elsewhere the album closes with nine-minute psychedelic excursion “Space Tapes”.

More exuberant is Elle Exxe, a Scottish solo performer with a brash personality backed by guitars as well as electroclash synths. She is due to release her first album, the bolshie Love Fuelled Hate, on her own LX label, led by the single “Lately” with its memorable gender-curious video. Elle has also been building support through traditional gigging, though is now setting her stall out with a London residency Exxtravaganza that opened this month.

Further ahead, next year should see the first album from Birmingham-formed Ekkah, the duo formed by Rebecca Wilson and Rebekah Pennington, who share vocal and music duties, allowing them greater scope to pursue a DIY aesthetic. “We've been best friends for a long time and it just seemed to work with the two of us,” the former explains. They came to attention last year with the self-released Last Chance To Dance EP that showcased their tastes, not only eighties synth-pop, but reaching back to the sophisticated seventies productions of Chic and George Benson.

That EP helped get them signed to a major label and scored them a support slot with Kylie Minogue at Hyde Park, though the duo had no expectations at the time, Pennington explains. “We just wanted to put our music out into the world,” she says. “We hadn't put that much online, just rough demos and mixtapes we'd made in our bedrooms, but this was a more polished thing to show what the Ekkah vibe was.”

Even though they are now in a deal with RCA, the duo have ensured they have retained sufficient creative control to develop their sound. “We have help and control from other people, but we still keep control of how we research new sounds,” Wilson says. This remains the case with their forthcoming double A-sided single, “What's Up”/“Space Between Us”, produced by Los Angeles-based DâM-FunK to bring a slower, more spacious groove. Ekkah were sent to the city to work with a variety of producers and musicians, but hit it off immediately with the eminently chilled keytar-wielder. “He has a downtown LA, nighttime sound with a lot of old school synths,” Pennington says. “He's a really open, positive guy and we have similar influences, such as Earth, Wind & Fire.”

Similarly self-starting are another duo, Nimmo, formed by co-vocalists and childhood friends Sarah Nimmo and Reva Gauntlett, who although signed to major label Columbia, have also kept their hands on the tiller, being left to devise material in a low-key Dalston studio in east London. They already stand out thanks to their androgynous looks, though while out and proud, sexual identity is far from a major inspiration behind the deceptively deep “UnYoung” and the pair's current single, the infectious “My Only Friend”. Their debut album is also due next year, which could make 2017 a vintage year for the resurgence of the musical duo – and for pop generally.

Christine and the Queens play Latitude Festival tomorrow, Friday, at 6pm. Ekkah's single ‘What's Up’/‘Space Between Us’ is out on 22 July on RCA