News: Glastonbury announces the Emerging Talent Competition for 2016

Glastonbury have once again announced their Emerging Talent Competition for this year's Glastonbury Music Festival. The competition gives new UK and Ireland-based artists of any musical genre the opportunity to compete for a slot on one of the main stages at this year's festival and I'm excited that BlackPlastic.co.uk once again gets to play a part in the process.

The competition is free to enter and the winners will also receive a £5,000 Talent Development prize from the PRS for Music Foundation. Two runners up will also be awarded a £2,500 development prize from the foundation. 

Acts have just one week to enter, from 9am Monday 18 January until 5pm Monday 25 January, via the Glastonbury Festivals website. Entries simply need to include a link to one original song on SohndCloud, plus a link to a video of themselves recording live (even if it is just a bedroom performance).

Entrants to the competition in past years include 2016 BBC Sound of 2016 nominee and 2016 BRITs Critic's Choice R&B singer Izzy Bizu and rapper Isaiah Dreads. Last year's winner Declan McKenna has since signed a management deal with Q Prime, who also manage Metallica, Muse and Foals. 

As usual a panel of 40 of the UK's top music writers will judge the initial entries to compile a longlist of 120 acts - I'm happy to once again be involved as one of the writers in that process and massively excited to hear the music of those that enter! From there the longlist will be shortlisted to eight artists by a panel of judges including Michael and Emily Eavis. The final shortlist will compete in the live finals at the Pilton Working Men's Club in April in order to select the final winners. In both 2014 and 2015 all eight finalists were offered slots at that year's festival!

News / Stream: My picks for the Glastonbury ETC Longlist

As announced in January, BlackPlastic.co.uk has once again featured in the panel of bloggers that judge the initial submissions of artists for the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition. Judging the competition is always tough - this year I had 153 bands to consider and whittling that down to just three is incredibly difficult, but I'm delighted to be able to confirm my final three choices.

In no particular order, my three choices:

1. Over My Soul - IISO

A very mysterious one, and sadly there is no public link, but you can get a sense of what they are about on their Facebook page. Anyway, trust me - subtle, emotive and sublime.

2. A Thousand Miles From Home - Aelius

Again, the track isn't public, but you can check out the band's last (self-titled) EP below. Like post-rock seen through the eyes of the lead character from Drive.

Written and Produced by AELIUS Mixed by Martin Roberts and Lee Tyler Mastered by Phil Joannides @ PushTheFrequency.com www.WeAreAelius.com www.facebook.com/WeAreAelius twitter.com/WeAreAelius - - - - - Aelius have recently launched their debut self-titled EP, where dynamic, ethereal electronics crash into the bones of Post-Rock. The haunting debut track 'Echoes...' has been met with fiery hot response from blogs, heralding it a "magisterial beauty" and a "blazing synth anthem". The four-piece is headed by songwriters Martin Roberts and Lee Tyler, who are responsible for all aspects of the records production; programming, recording and mixing everything within the enclaves of their East London studio. Having played sold out shows at both The Barfly and The Garage at the end of the year, the band has been met with a huge response after unleashing an impressive live show. Aelius are now hard at work on their forthcoming album.

3. AMILLION - Black Gold Buffalo

Lush. R&B influenced pop that sounds like it was beamed into my ears from Mars. Expect more from these guys soon.

Check out the full longlist here, and Glastonbury have a Soundcloud playlist with every public song here.

News: Glastonbury Festival launches the Emerging Talent Competition

The observant among you may have noticed this year's Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition logo appeared on the blog's sidebar a few weeks back, and yesterday Glastonbury Festival launched the competition.

The Emerging Talent Competition gives new acts based in the UK and Ireland the opportunity to compete for a slot on one of the main stages at the Festival and a £5,000 PRS for Music Foundation Talent Development prize in order to help fund further songwriting and performance development. Two runners-up will also be awarded a £2,500 PRS for Music Talent Development Prize.

Acts have one week to enter, from 9am on Monday 19 January until 5pm on Monday 26 January. The competition is open to all genres and entries can be submitted via the Glastonbury Festival website. Previous winners include Stornaway, The Subways and last year's winners, M+A.

Entries will go through an initial panel of 40 of UK music writers will compile a longlist of 120 acts, and once again I delighted to say that BlackPlastic.co.uk will be one of those writers judging initial entries. The longest is then shortlisted to 8 different acts by a judging panel that includes Michael and Emily Eavis, with the final winning act being decided at a live final at the Pilton Woking Men's Club in April.

News: Glastonbury announce the ETC longlist

This past week Glastonbury confirmed the blogger voted Emerging Talent Competition longlist. As I've mentioned before, the competition gives unsigned bands the opportunity to win a slot on one of the main stages at Glastonbury Festival and 40 bloggers go through the initial entries to arrive at the longlist - a list of 120 bands considered for the next stage.

Each blogger picks three bands to go through and so I thought I would just highlight the three bands I chose to put through. Competition this year was pretty tough - whilst the overall quality of entries was fairly consistent it felt more difficult whittling down the list to that final three. From the current list of 120 bands eight will be selected to compete at the live finals in April.

So my picks were as follows...

1. Benin City:

Currently unsigned following the release of their debut album last year, I was a big fan of Benin City already. They boast a massively distinctive London sound that captures the melting pot of influences that exist in our capital, a little rock and a little funk coming together to make something unique. I strongly recommend you check them out.

2. Brolin:

Produced by Brolin, Luke Abbott and David Pye. Purchase now via iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/reykjavik-single/id603996873 'Cundo" EP available via Double Denim Records - order here: http://doubledenimrecords.bigcartel.com www.iambrolin.com

The whole indie-R&B scene has become on of the most fascinating and innovative scenes within music in the past few years in my opinion. I would never have expected to be so won over by the R&B genre but the exposed sensitivity of some of the musicians in that space combined with the incredible production efforts make it one of my favourite sounds right now. The UK is a little under-represented in this space but Brolin could help to redress the balance.

3. Aztec Doll

There's more than a hint of Warpaint about Aztec Doll but they bring their own style and approach to that sound. They have a seriously deep groove going on and I can imagine them sounding great at Glastonbury, come rain or sunshine.

Good luck to my three picks and congratulations to all the bands that have made it this far. You can check out the full longlist (minus a few bands who kept their entries private) on the ETC longlist Soundcloud playlist.

New: Glastonbury Festival announce the 2014 Emerging Talent Competition

Glastonbury Festival have once again announced their regular Emerging Talent Competition and I'm super excited to be able to announce to confirm that for the third festival in a row I will be one of the judges.

For those unfamiliar with the competition it gives new unsigned artists from the UK and Ireland the opportunity to compete for a slot on one of the Glastonbury Festival's big stages at the 2014 festival. Previous winners include Stornoway, Scouting For Girls, Treetop Flyers, the Golden Silver, Ellen and the Escapades, the Subways and last year Bridie Jackson and the Arbour (who played five sets at last year's festival!)

Bands wanting to enter have just one week to get their entry in, from Monday 20 to Monday 27 January via the official website for the festival. Entries are completely free (terms and conditions apply).

Entries are then whittled down to a long list of 120 by a panel of online music writers (myself included). From here the list is reduced to a shortlist of 8 artists but judges including Michael and Emily Eavis. Finally a live showcase scheduled for April will decide the winning act.

As I've highlighted in previous years, please note I can't discuss individual entries (and due to the volume of entries there is no way of telling which I will even be reviewing). Standard submissions are welcome as always but please note the volume of communication I receive goes up around the judging period, so responses can be delayed.