After a hugely successful debut run last year, the 12 Points music festival returns to Dublin in March.
The 12 Points festival is an opportunity for local audiences and visiting music professionals to catch live sets from a dozen emerging jazz acts from all over Europe.
Some of the highlights from last year's festival included Berlin's Castten Daerr Trio, Helsinki's Ilmiliekki and Stockholm's Nils Berg.
Festival boss Gerry Godley from the Improvised Music Company says 12 Points is partly about putting Dublin back on the European jazz map.
"Since the Dublin Jazz Festival ran its course in 2004, I was very conscious that the city needed a jazz festival presence. The question was how to do this without aping the existing, rather dysfunctional, festival model which revolves around bringing in big acts and is a huge undertaking.
"Instead of doing that, we decided to take a leap of faith and work just with the green shoots, the new acts. We didn't want to wait for the act to be famous before bringing them in. The notion is that 12 Points will be a snapshot of the most vibrant working bands around Europe at the moment."
Godley views the festival as being along similar lines to such talent showcases as Eurosonic, but stresses they're still at the "small acorns" stage of the game.
"I'm very aware that we need to establish our bona-fides and that's not a process you can force. 12 Points has to have credibility amongst musicians, bookers, festival promoters and journalists and we have to build relationships. That will take us a couple of years, but I would be very confident that we'd get to a tipping point within two more editions."
The class of 2008 includes such acts as Shreefpunk (Cologne), The Saga Quartet (Vilnius), RSQV (Vienna), Urs Bollhalder (Lucerne), Togetherness (Dublin) and Oddarrang (Helsinki).
12 Points takes place in Dublin's Project Arts Centre from March 5th to 8th. More info from www.12points.ie
Competitve spirit
Every week, On The Record is inundated with press releases shouting about all-singing, all-dancing band competitions and showcases.
Some band showcases, though, have proven their worth over the years.
Delorentos first came to attention when they won the National Student Music Awards in 2005.
Bands seeking to enter and play at this year's heats in Dublin, Galway and Cork have until Tuesday to enter. Full info at www.nsma.ie
The IMRO Showcase Tour has also given exposure to The Flaws, Oppenheimer, The Immediate, Fight Like Apes, Rosey and others .
Acts seeking a berth on this year's tour, which will visit 10 venues countrywide, should email their MySpace details to showcase@imro.iebefore next Thursday, February 14th.
Magnificent seven
Seven is the magic number for Dublin label and store All City Records.
The hip-hop mini empire's forthcoming Beatstrumental Series will feature seven different producers releasing a seven-inch record apiece over the next seven months.
The series gets under way with Snowman in March. The Detroit native and Los Angeles resident is currently working with Stones Throw rapper Guilty Simpson.
Other producers lined up for the throwdown include Hudson Mohawke (Heralds Of Change), Newman (New Jack Hustle), Mike Slott (Heralds Of Change), Fulgeance (Musique Large), Mweslee (Arkestra) and LeNeko (Le Phonik).
More info from www.all-cityrecords.com
