ETEP Heads For Close Finish

This year’s European Talent Exchange Programme appears certain to end in a close finish as six acts are within a couple of festivals of each other.

Early leader Jack Bugg is still ahead with 11 European festival bookings, while Danish guitar band Efterklang, Ireland’s much-touted Kodaline and Dutch drum and bass maestros Skip & Die have 10 each.

The UK’s Palma Violets and Ireland’s Villagers are hardly out of it with nine shows each.

So far this year’s ETEP has found 267 festival slots for 91 acts from 22 European countries. It looks certain to be a record-breaking year for the European Union-funded programme, which will have the added entertainment value of a race that goes all the way to the wire.

The second staging of CEETEP, a similar programme basically for countries from the old Eastern bloc, is also reporting a huge success.

So far, 18 acts from 11 countries are sharing 25 festival appearances.

Djaikovski, a Macedonian act the WOMEX website describes as “one of the most respected and critically acclaimed electronic artists from the Balkan region” is doing best with four festival appearances.

Shutka Roma Rap, also from Macedonia, Rasabasa from Lithuania, Très.B from Poland and Croatia’s Vlasta Popic have two shows apiece.