Radio Wave at the Largest Showcase Festival in Europe
The largest and oldest European showcase music festival Eurosonic Noorderslag focused this year on young Czech and Slovak music projects. Radio Wave was the only Czech radio station to broadcast the two festival days directly from Groningen in the Netherlands. On Thursday 17 and Friday 18 January from 15:00 to 18:00, Radio Wave moderator and programming editor Jakub Kaifosz talked to both Czech and international bands and music industry professionals.
In the church of Martinikerk on the main square in Groningen, Radio Wave took over one of the special broadcasting studios. Over twenty guests took turns in the Radio Wave studio over the six hours of broadcasting: "The adrenaline you experience when there is essentially a queue made up of artists and music professionals from around the world waiting for your broadcast is indescribable. I had to replay it for myself at home because I had the feeling that instead of six hours we had only broadcast six minutes from Eurosonic," says the moderator of the special festival broadcast Jakub Kaifosz, who was visited in the studio by such figures as Czech bands Manon Meurt and Mydy Rabycad, musician and multimedia artist Floex or programming director of the Prague Metronome music festival Barbora Šubrtová and Matwe Kaščák from the Slovak festival Pohoda. The playlist for the broadcast, made up of Czech and foreign projects that appeared at Eurosonic, was supplemented with concert recordings directly from the festival, as well as live feeds from the stage that was located right next to the studio. Also heard in the broadcast were polls from the site, daily contributions from Ondřej Bambas (available here and here) and also an online report. Multimedia content on Radio Wave's social network profiles was joined by two videos: a poll of festival-goers about their knowledge or lack thereof of Czech music and a video following the path of female rapper Hellwana, the winner of Radio Wave's music export project Czeching.
"Radio Wave broadcast from Eurosonic for the first time in its thirteen-year history and we are ecstatic that we were one of only a few European radio stations to receive this chance in a year when the concentration of Czech and Slovak musicians at Eurosonic was pronounced," added Radio Wave editor-in-chief Iva Jonášová.
Another of Radio Wave's tasks at Eurosonic Noorderslag was to promote the musical export project Czeching. It's winner from last year, female rapper Hellwana, actually played twice at the festival – at the evening of the Czecho-Slovak delegation and then at the club Huize Maas. The young musician managed to fill the club in the centre of Groningen with festivalgoers and thus earned top marks for her showcase premiere.
“Aside from collecting important contacts, the whole festival also showed us how we have our work cut out for us not only in terms of music, but also how we should think about the overall promotion of the music – better and more interesting visuals, costumes at events, putting together a team to help me with all of that. In short it was also very educational. If I don't count the interview for Radio Wave and the cameo for SoundCzech, I had a photo shoot for the German PR agency Factory 92, we made an acoustic version of the song Cherrypies for the French magazine madmoiZelle.com, we got a contact for the booking agency Reva Moose Marauder, which is based in the USA, and the magazine DIY, which is based in London, is also interested in us,” reflected Hellwana on her attendance of the festival, which culminated a packed half-year as the winner of Czeching. Since her victory in September 2018 she has managed, thanks to the support of Radio Wave, to record a new EP Phases, make a music video for the song Love Game and play several concerts. Recording a record, a music video and attending Eurosonic are some of the prizes for the winner of Czeching.
In February, Radio Wave will be broadcasting a two-hour special programme on last year's Czeching, Hellwana's path abroad and the station's broadcast at Eurosonic. The next year of the music export project Czeching will culminate this June.
Aside from Hellwana, more than twenty Czech and Slovak music projects presented themselves at Eurosonic. Under the direction of the Czech export office SoundCzech and the Slovak festival Pohoda, artists such as Thom Artway, Lazer Viking, Manon Meurt, Floex & Tom Hodge, Lenny, Zabelov Group, Lenka Morávková and Bohemian Cristal Instrument or Mydy Rabycad played at the festival. The Slovak projects at the festival included Isama Zing, Katarina Máliková, The Ills, nvmeri and others.
A great number of European bands and artists have managed to break out at Eurosonic in the past. Awards have been won there for example by Adele, Anna Calvi, Mumford and Sons or Lykke Li. Playing at the festival just before their greatest success were also for example James Blake and Jessie Ware, rappers Stormzy and Rejjie Snow, or Silvana Imam.
Czeching is a music export project through which the Czech Radio station for young people Radio Wave supports promising progressive bands in their efforts to break out onto international stages, and above all onto the European airwaves and reach listeners of European radio stations. The winner of the project gets the opportunity to record an EP, a music video and is sent out by Radio Wave to the showcase festival Eurosonic Noorderslag.