News: Glastonbury announce the 2020 Emerging Talent Competition

Ahead of this year’s Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury have just announced the 2020 Emerging Music Competition.

As with previous years, the competition is aimed at providing unsigned musicians an opportunity to get exposure through the festival, with a slot of one of Glastonbury’s main stages up for grabs. The competition is once again being run in partnership with PRS for Music and PRS Foundation, with the PRS Foundation offering an additional prize of a talent development fund of £5,000 for the overall winner, with two additional funds of £2,500 each for the runners up.

Musicians of any genre are invited to enter with a one week window for entries starting at 9am on Monday 27 January and closing 5pm on Monday 3 February. The entry form will be available on the Glastonbury Festival website and acts will need to supply a link to one original song on SoundCloud, plus a link to a video of themselves performing live (this can even just be a bedroom recording if you don't have concert or gig footage).

Previous winners of the competition include R&B singer Izzy Bizu (a 2016 BRITs Critics’ Choice nominee and winner of the 2016 BBC Music Introducing Award) and 2016 winners She Drew The Gun. Many winners have gone on to wider success, including Marie White, last year’s winner, who has since signed with Decca Records and Universal Music Publishing Group.

Once entries have closed a panel of 30 music bloggers, including yours truly, will review entries and whittle them down to a longlist of 90 artists, with each blogger selecting their favourite three. From here, Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis will create a shortlist of finalists who will go on to compete in Pilton in April to decide the winning act. It’s worth noting that for the past five competitions, all eight of the finalists were ultimately offered slots at the Festival.

You can find all the details on the Glastonbury website here. As always, I’m looking forward to diving into the entries and finding some unsigned gems to put forward for the competition!

News: Glastonbury Festival announce the Emerging Talent Competition 2019 Longlist

Glastonbury Festival have announced the Longlist for this year’s Emerging Talent Competition. The Longlist is a list of 90 different musical acts who have been selected by a panel of judges from the thousands of acts that entered this year.

I’m one of a panel of 30 judges, made up of online music writers, that helped select the acts who go through to the next round. Each judge is hand selects just three artists, with the overall Longlist of 90 ultimately being further whittled down by the festival organisers to just eight finalists, who will all perform live in next month’s finals.

You can see the full list and listen to a playlist including music from most on the Longlist over on the Glastonbury Festival website.

The three artists I chose were JacobNeverhill, Kudu Blue and Jen Simmonds. I’ve included the track I judged from each band below, together with a very brief description of why they stood out for me.

JacobNeverhill

JacobNevrhill

JacobNeverhill creates emotionally vulnerable R&B with beautiful, sophisticated production that lets the songwriting really shine in a way that has led to crossover success for the likes of Miguel.

The song I judged isn’t currently available publicly but the video below is a great demonstration of what made me think JacobNeverhill’s talent deserved recognition.

Kudu Blue

Kudu Blue

Kudu Blue blend melancholic vocals with sophisticated and soulful house music to create something that feels undoubtedly modern whilst drawing on three decades of dance music… The result is a little like the xx collaborating with John Talabot, that is to say, excellent.

Jen Simmonds

Jen Simmonds

Jen Simmonds captures a blissful dreamlike state on the spectral yet grungy One In A Million… A shoegaze wall-of-sound that feels like the soundtrack to a time when you have been untethered from your day-to-day reality and instead have become lost in all the things we hold close in our inner lives.

Good luck in the next round to JacobNeverhill, Kudu Blue and Jen Simmonds!

News: Glastonbury Announces 2019 Emerging Talent Competition

I’m excited to to be able to share that, in partnership with PRS for Music and PRS Foundation, Glastonbury Festival have just announced the 2019 Emerging Talent Competition. The competition gives artists of any musical genre the opportunities to compete for a slot on one of the main stages at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. Winners will also be awarded a £5,000 Talent Development prize from PRS Foundation to help support their songwriting and enable them to take their music creation to the next level. Two runners up will also each be awarded a £2,500 PRS Foundation Talent Development prize.

Those that wish to enter have just one week, starting at 5pm on Monday 28 January, to submit their entry before the deadline on Monday 4 February at 5pm. Entries can be submitted at the Glastonbury Festivals website, and should consist of one original song on Soundcloud plus a link to them performing live (even if it is just a bedroom performance).

Recent finalists in the Emerging Talent Competition include Nigerian-born Flohio, a rapper who featured on the BBC’s Sound of 2019 list, and Izzy Bizu, a 2016 BRITs Critics’ Choice nominee and winner of the 2016 BBC Music Introducing Award.

Once again I will be one of a panel of some 30 bloggers tasked with judging the initial entries and creating the ‘longlist’ of 90 entries. This longlist will then be scrutinised by Michael and Emily Eavis in order to compile short-list of eight artists who will compete to be the winning act in a live final in Pilton in April.

Stream: Steady Cruising - Fang Night

Glastonbury recently announced their finalists for the 2017 Emerging Talent Competition. Whilst Fang Night didn’t make the final eight they hold a particularly special place in my heart since they were one of the three acts I put through to the longlist, a list of 120 acts selected by a panel of 40 bloggers.

Earlier in the year when I submitted my nominations for the longlist Steady Crusing was one of the songs by Fang Night I used to make my judgement. At the time I said “A great example of how to combine indie, R&B and pop into one perfect package” and that still encapsulates how I feel about this track. There is a cool minimalism to this track that reminds me of two of my recent favourite acts - Chinah and Philco Fiction.

The London duo are made up of Ben Walker and Ewa Lefmann and they have been making music together since they were 14. Steady Crusing is the first in a planned series of single releases for the year so you should expect to hear more from Ben and Ewa.

Steady Cruising is out now on Every Second Records. Fang Night will host their club night Plant x Jewel on 27 April at the Waiting Room in Stoke Newington in London.

For the curious… The other two acts longlisted by me in this year’s Emerging Talent Competition were Explorers and Tigerclub. You can check out Explorers’ track Numbers and Tigerclub’s track Control, both on Soundcloud.

Prod. by Oli Bayston

News: Glastonbury Festival announce the 2017 Emerging Talent Competition

Glastonbury Festival have just announced the Emerging Talent Competition for 2017, supported by PRS for Music and PRS Foundation. The competition aims to give up and coming artists the opportunity to play on one of the main stages at the festival.

In addition to a slot at the festival the competition winners will receive a £5,000 Talent Development Prize from PRS Foundation whilst two runners-up will each receive a £2,500 prize.

The competition is open to musicians of any genre - entries must be submitted between 9am on Monday 30 January and 5pm on Monday 6th February via the festival website. Entrants must include a link to one original song on Soundcloud plus a link to a video of a live performance (even if it is just a bedroom recording).

Long time readers will be aware that I've played a role judging the competition before and I will be returning as one of the blogger judges for my sixth time. Once all the entrants have been received these will be whittled down to a list of 120 by myself and 39 other bloggers. This list of 120 acts will distilled to a list of 8 finalists by judges including Emily and Michael Eavis. The live final will be held in April to decide the winner and it is worth noting that for the past three years all eight finalists have been offered slots playing at the festival!

If you have always dreamed of playing the festival then now is your chance... I can't wait to hear some of this year's entrants!