SMILEfest

From making mixtapes for the family car in the 80’s with pop records, to a BBC Radio 1 residency, providing part of GTAV’s FlyLo soundtrack and establishing 2 solid aliases that have been hugely responsible for switching up trends in House music… Shadow Child (fka Dave Spoon) is one of the Worlds most respected producers.

With new material in 2018 already set to be unleashed on DJ Haus’ Unknown to the Unknown, Dusky’s 17 Steps and Josh Wink’s legendary Ovum, the road ahead looks as exciting as ever.

Born on the south coast of the UK, he started out making Rave tunes at the age of 13 at School in 1990. Fast forward across almost 30 years of varying roles in music, his limited DJ sets across the globe have put high demand on his presence at festivals and clubs alike, but the studio environment is still where Simon feels truly at home. Over the last 14 years, releases and remixes have come thick and fast via a huge range of labels from Dirtybird, Hot Creations, XL, R&S, trough to Toolroom, Ministry of Sound, Polydor, and most major labels to boot. Official reworks of seminal tracks like Future Sound of London’s ‘Papua New Guinea’, Gat Dècor’s ‘Passion’ and Jaydee’s ‘Plastic Dreams’ have also formed part of Shadow Child’s armoury.

All this, plus his own Food Music imprint, has cemented his mark on electronic music whilst always supporting new artists, not least through his weekly radio show on Rinse FM which is already over 5 years deep.

Unafraid to genre-hop whilst equally keeping crowds happy is a challenge that’s accepted and delivered every time. Nothing inspires him more than pushing things across boundaries and weaving his roots of Rave, Jungle and Techno into new projects and DJ sets. Whatever the label, whatever the alias, Simon is held in the utmost regard and whilst being a humble character, he’s always known what he’s here to do.

Nick Halkes has played an important and consistently dynamic role in the development of electronic music culture for close to thirty years. Perhaps most notably as the founder of both the XL Recordings and Positiva labels and for his unique role in the development of The Prodigy (he signed a young Liam Howlett to XL before the band had played their first live show and manages Liam to this day). Alongside his Prodigy duties Nick currently manages, amongst others, breaks legends Stanton Warriors, drum n bass dons Bad Company UK and newcomers One Bit, who have made waves recently with their debut Ministry of Sound single featuring Noah Cyrus.

Nick’s start was running a mobile disco during his school days and before he’d finished uni he had worked for WBLS in New York, been the UK rep for the Easy Street label, and manufactured and sold smiley t-shirts in Ibiza in the summer of 88.

On leaving uni Nick got a job in club/radio promotions and worked on releases from the likes of Massive Attack and The Beloved before snagging a job doing club promo for the Citybeat label. It was whilst in this role that he came up with the agenda and logo for XL Recordings and launched the label with a focus on burgeoning underground talent. The hits followed and with a host of gold and silver discs for his signings such as SL2.House of Pain and Liquid as well as a top ten pop hit as an artist to his credit his next move was to become a director of EMI, launching the Positiva label.

Positiva defined the mid to late 90s dance music explosion and became the UK’s number one dance label delivering smash after smash from the likes of Reel 2 Real, BBE, The Bucketheads and Alice Deejay. By the end of the decade, however, Nick was keen to return to the indie sector and launched Incentive in partnership with Ministry of Sound. Here he had hits with artists as diverse as Joey Negro, Matt Darey, Genius Cru and Cascada whilst simultaneously launching a publishing business. More recent years have seen Nick more focused on his management company, enjoying success with clients such as Caspa and DJ Fresh before settling on his current roster. Nick also currently runs and DJs at a monthly club night called Reach Up, lectures about the music industry and is launching a podcast series with Eddy Temple-Morris which he describes as ‘A desert island discs of electronic music trailblazers’

Twitter @nickhalkes

Facebook : nickhalkes

Insta: nickhalkes

A native of Munich, Sabine is a translator for English and French. After eight years in the international royalties department at German copyright society GEMA, she moved to the UK and into PRS’ international department in 2000.
Intrigued by so-called ‘neighbouring rights’ (NR), she became MD of PAMRA, the UK artists’ society, four years before it merged with PPL.
After a 2-year-stint at Nielsen Music (Director of International Marketing for monitoring services and chart data), she moved to Zurich in 2008 and became CEO of Swiss NR society SWISSPERFORM.
Following a family-related move back to the UK in 2011, she was instrumental in setting up Kobalt Neighbouring Rights and continued as its MD for several years.
She eventually launched her own consultancy and translation business. Later this year she will graduate from Henley Business School where she will receive a distinction for her executive MBA (music and creative industries).

British musician ECKOES merges cutting-edge textures with soulful hooks to create her sublime and unmistakeable sonic world. A voice that will “make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up” [BBC Radio] she’s one of the most intriguing and emotive new outpourings to emerge from the London circuit. Naturally, tastemakers’ praise has come in thick & fast from BBC 6 Music, Clash Magazine, Q, Wonderland, BBC Introducing, Indie Shuffle, Afropunk, and the MOBO Awards amongst others. A prolific songwriter outside of her solo project, she has penned songs for many other artists, hitting #13 in the UK Club Charts last summer with a track she co wrote & featured on, produced by Le Visiteur. At the helm of her project she stands, a six foot statuesque weaver of hypnotic sounds taking the industry by storm.

Listen to ECKOES on Soundcloud

Jagz Kooner is a Record Producer / Remixer / DJ/ Song Writer who has been credited with creating some of the most genre-defining songs of the last 20 Years. He began his career working with Andrew Weatherall remixing and producing for the likes of Future Sound Of London, Bjork, New Order & The Chemical Brothers before forming the seminal band Sabres Of Paradise. He was also a founder member of The Aloof and was responsible for Co-writing,
producing & mixing the early albums.

After the band’s demise Jagz has gone on to produce and remix some of the biggest names in modern music including Primal Scream, Kasabian, Oasis, Killing Joke, Garbage, Massive Attack as well as a host of leftfield artists such as Royal
Trux, Ladytron, Deus, The Kills & Soulwax. As well as being a studio boffin, Jagz has also DJ’d extensively around the world including a residency at the legendary club Manumission in Ibiza as well as being one of the founders of the rawkus club night “Kill All Hippies” in London & regular slots at Fabric in the past. More recently he has been in the studio writing / producing with Iraina Mancini and new mixes for the hotly tipped Shimmer Band as well as producing new songs for the Southampton based band The Dead Freights.

As well as that, Jagz has also been involved in developing software for Music apps & Plugins, as an original beta tester for Emagic Logic Audio (prior to its acquisition by Apple) & the highly regarded Drum manipulation software Addictive Drums by XLN Audio.

Jagz is also the curator, host & music programmer of Jagz’s Acid Lounge at Glastonbury Festival ( and will also be debuting The Acid Lounge at Fuji Rock festival this year), it’s a late night party area where he brings an eclectic range of djs & friends ranging from Primal Scream & Eddy Temple Morris to Stanton Warriors & Plump DJs to keep festival-goers entertained after the main stages shut down till the not so small hours of the morning!

Selected Jagz Kooner Productions.

Primal Scream “Swastika Eyes”

Massive Attack “Butterfly Caught” Jagz Kooner Remix

Oasis “The Shock Of The Lightning” (Jagz Kooner Mix)

Primal Scream Featuring Kate Moss “Some Velvet Morning”

Kasabian “ Club Foot” Jagz Kooner Remix

If you require further information or a complete discography, please contact Jagz
directly on: jagzkooner@me.com

Joe Frankland is Senior Grants and Programmes Manager at PRS Foundation, the UK’s leading charitable funder of new music and talent development across all genres.

Since 2000 PRS Foundation has given more than £23.6 million to over 5,700 new music initiatives by awarding grants and leading partnership programmes that support music sector development. Widely respected as an adventurous and proactive funding body, PRS Foundation supports an exceptional range of new music activity – from composer residencies and commissions to festivals and showcases in the UK and overseas.

Through schemes such as Momentum, The Open Fund, ISF, Women Make Music, The Composers’ Fund and Flash Funding, PRS Foundation support the creation, performance and promotion of outstanding music.

Nina Condron is a director at Horus Music Limited, a fully independent global music distribution and label services company that was the winner of the Queens Award for International Trade 2017. Horus Music started in 2016 after previously operating as a label and management company. Nina has been with the company for over 4 years starting as an intern and landing a permanent position as the business development manager for 3 years until she was promoted to director in 2017. Nina graduated from the University of Gloucestershire with a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Popular Music. As a director of Horus Music, she manages all members of the distribution and business development teams in the UK, India, Korea and Asia Pacific. Her main duties are to develop and expand the company by building new client relationships with artists, labels and stores in the global and digital sphere. She has had experience in lots of different aspects of the music industry including running her own independent label, working at a booking agency, performing at festivals as a solo artist, and putting on gigs for both the label and as a hobby. Horus Music is focused on working with local platforms and has secured deals in Asia that most Western distributors don’t have. Horus Music provides physical distribution in the UK, digital distribution to platforms around the world, online digital PR to help artists increase their online social presence, and playlisting campaigns pitching to independent and service owned playlists on Deezer, YouTube and Spotify. Horus Music also has a separate publishing company Anara Publishing that pitches for sync opportunities in major Hollywood films, games and TV shows.

Songwriter Emma McGann has been award-nominated alongside Adele & Katy Perry for her efforts with music and livestreaming. Passionate about interacting with her audience, McGann’s TEDx Talk explains the importance of her YouNow livestreams, which have amassed over 10 million views. She’s also a broadcaster & ambassador for livestream/crypto app ‘Rize’.
A first-degree music graduate, Emma has taken part in Masterclasses at Abbey Road & Maida Vale, achieved airplay on BBC R1 with her single ‘Cherry On Top’ and her recent album ‘B.R.A.V.E’ gained 20,000 streams in its first month as a completely independent release.

Check out Emma’s site