Industry news & advice blog

Leeds rapper, producer and songwriter Dave-O loves to blend old skool features with progressive, forward-thinking ideas of grime and trap to shape his music. A huge hit with BBC 1Xtra’s Charlie Sloth who first played the track on his Work Out Wednesday mix section of his show, he has been championing Dave-O for a while now, so it was only a matter of time before everyone else jumped on board too.
 

Dave has already made his mark on the live circuit, opening for the likes of Wretch 32, P-Money, Black the Ripper & AJ Tracy, to name a few.
 

2017 is set to be busy for Dave-O with an EP and mixtape due out. The music video for the single ‘Dem Tingz’ should be ready to hit the net soon, and there will be more singles and music videos to follow. He’ll also be playing at Antwerp Mansion in Manchester for their Applebum club night and hopes to have a few festival slots in the bag soon. Watch this space!

 

 
 

The alternative rock project of Manchester based producer and songwriter Mike Lawetto, Well Done You, has fashioned ‘Part Wolf’, a gritty but upbeat juggernaut of a song with a chorus that will be lodged in your head within seconds of your first listen.
 

Part Wolf is one of the oldest tracks taken from the upcoming album, but acts as a perfect introduction to how the rest of the record will sound to listeners. The creation of the album has been a time consuming but very rewarding task for Mike, and more singles are due before summer, with an EP and the album to follow towards autumn, finally rounding the year off with another single release.
 

Although it’s incredibly early days for Well Done You, some recent airplay for the track on Kerrang! Radio, just less than a week since self-releasing the single, is definitely a promising sign, and we don’t doubt more recognition will be forthcoming.

 

 

 

Creating his own brand of ‘future folk’, Gus’ songs resonate with inspiration from the likes of Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell and Jeff Buckley. Having truly developed his songwriting and craft since his move to Belfast in 2013, Gus had previously been playing in bands much of the time and his solo electroacoustic music has only taken off in the past year or so.

 

Last summer Gus completed a 6 week busking tour of Europe with a few friends; a fulfilling musical adventure all round! More recently, his song has been championed on BBC 6 Music’s Introducing show and next week Gus will unveil his debut EP entitled ‘True Really Do Come Dreams’. 

 

Gus tells us more about the intriguing concept: “It follows the journey of a dreamer through a night’s sleep, drawing on a year’s worth of keeping a dream diary myself. I’m not releasing it on CD or vinyl, but instead, as a dream diary (with download code) that includes lyrics and illustrations, but most importantly, blank pages too. The idea is that the rest of the book is for the listener to begin to write down their own dreams and hopefully get as much out of them as I did in this process.”
 

Over the coming months Gus will be playing some gigs in London, Essex, Winchester, Wiltshire, Chichester, York, Bristol and Belfast to promote the EP and my dream diaries. Check out his website for dates and get yourself to a show, but in the meantime take a look at his video for ‘Life Is But A Dream’: