Emerging Ibiza – White Isle talent contest set to launch

At TNG, we get sent all kinds of weird and wonderful music-related items and spend hours on end trawling through our inbox to bring to you what we think is most relevant.

While this story we’ve selected goes against much that we believe in, we post it in the hope that there is at least some chance some good may come of it.

The details seem pretty ambitious and at first we were a little sceptical of its authenticity but when you look at the names involved, most notably ViVa Music supremo Steve Lawler (one of our faves), it does seem to be pretty legit.

Emerging Ibiza is a novel concept that aims to “give up and coming electronic music artists a platform to be heard.” It doesn’t sound particularly ground-breaking, however they insist that what they have come up with is “an innovative way to discover new music.”

The platform they talk about is actually two platforms – one being their website, the other a festival: the 5 day Break-Thru Festival kicking off at the tail-end of May in Ibiza. The most popular “break-thru” online and festival artists will be asked to return for “residencies at iconic Ibiza venues throughout the summer.”

A panel of experts have been drafted in to curate tracks and sets from a new wave of up-and-comers and plan to harness the latest generation of DJ/producers and nurture their talent. The panel includes Steve Lawler, Pete Tong, Ben Turner and Danny Whittle from IMS, with more to be announced in the coming weeks.

It all sounds a bit X Factor/Fame Academy/industry (money) motivated which is obviously not particularly righteous coming from an underground music publication such as ourselves, but you know what? There are some talented people out there who need a break and if this can help some of our readers achieve their dreams then so be it, we won’t stand in your way. There are, after all, some serious industry heads involved who are looking to lend their expertise and insight.

It goes both ways. The idea is that the panel will act as a seal of approval, green-lighting record deals and gigs for the artists but also giving the current flock of deep house fanatics the chance to achieve something which often supersedes a connection to the music itself – know about new DJs before their mates.

The tracks selected from submissions to the website will be cherry-picked and form a playlist to be streamed on truly underground mediums like Youtube, Spotify and promoted via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. On second thoughts, maybe we should forget about notions of underground completely for the minute.

As you might expect, the most popular artists – judged by likes, RTs, DLs etc – will determine if and when the acts turn up on the festival billing, with the 8 most viral lads and lasses being given a month of residencies across peak season in Ibiza. Ibiza might not be what it was, but that itself is still not a bad proposition.

Of course there is the very real possibility that it’ll all be absolute dog-shite but from a business perspective, EI have probably smashed it. There’s enough room in the fresh-18-club-recruits-with-their-Deep-House-Anthems-’14-CDs-backwards-snap-backs-and-bumbags market who’ll think the £149 tickets are a snip for a festival of ‘Look Right Through’ tribute acts.

For those who think Ibiza has lost its soul, you may be right but either way you have to accept it is now what it is. The White Isle now has its very own talent contest/conveyor belt and there’s nothing you do about it. So either get on your Free Runs/Ray Bans/tiny fluorescent shorts combo on or go try and instigate your own wave of super-underground motorway raves off the M42. Oh no wait, that’s Steve Lawler.

Check out what all the fuss is about at the Emerging Ibiza site.