Italy will take centre stage at The Great Escape as the focus country for the 2023 edition with a host of exciting new artists ready to make their mark on the international music scene. Already known for its fashion sense, cultural monuments, beautiful landscapes and art, Italy’s music scene is now gaining global recognition with a new generation of young and talented musicians including Anna Bassy, BLUEM, Eugenia Post Meridiem, HEIR, Maria Chiara Argiro, Milanosport, PEAKS!, Sans Soucis and The Gluts.
Already making waves is songwriter, artist and producer Sans Soucis, whose music combines elements of Congolese Rumba, classic Italian songwriting, electronic R&B and alt-pop sounds. Recent accolades include the Music Moves Europe ‘Grand Jury’ prize, TicketMaster’s breakthrough artist for 2023 and inclusion in Spotify’s global RADAR campaign.
Italian-Nigerian singer-songwriter Anna Bassy is one of the most interesting emerging talents in the Italian new soul scene effortlessly blending African roots with soul, pop, electronic, and folk influences.
BLUEM aka Chiara Floris is a Sardinian singer, songwriter and producer living in London. Her new album ‘Nou’ is an important landmark in her creative vision, being representative of her heritage where she creates a rich musical landscape that stays true to Sardinian musical traditions, stories and sounds but moving them forward in her own way.
Eugenia Post Meridiem is a quartet blending electronic music and psychedelic guitars with percussive jazz origins. Rolling Stone Italia named the band among the twenty most promising Italian musicians of 2020 and their second studio album ‘Like I need a tension’ was released in November 2022.
HĒIR is the industry’s new alt-pop prodigy, known for ethereal vocals and bold synths.
Already the muse of many fashion designers and magazines, her passion for music was sparked by opera, which has influenced her current love of cinematic sounds. Heir’s new EP
titled ‘Is that all there is?’ is due out on 7th April.
Maria Chiara Argirò has been quietly weaving her way around the UK jazz, classical and electronic worlds. Her new album, ‘Forest City’ marks her out as an exciting rising electronic artist, where jazz meets Kelly Lee Owens, Jon Hopkins and Radiohead.
Alt Rock duo PEAKS! have received widespread support from streaming platforms across Europe including New Music Friday on Spotify on Amazon Music’s Fresh Rock and New Rock playlists. Across the airwaves, Jack Saunders has supported them as part of his BBC Radio 1 ‘Future Artists’ section and their first single ‘Blackout’ was featured in the opening episode of last season‘s Love Island and BBC Match of the Day.
Currently working on their first album, Milan-based Milanosport are a romantic post-punk outfit centred around Fender guitars, 10 amps, synths and teamwork. Also hailing from Milan are the Fuzz Club noise punk and psychedelic four-piece The Gluts.
As part of the focus campaign, Italia Music Export will host two special showcases at The Great Escape featuring some of the best and most exciting emerging talent coming out of Italy. More info and set times will be announced soon.
Listen to all the acts here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4CucFcJUA91tjTRkOctUuK
More about the artists
Anna Bassy
https://www.instagram.com/annabassy/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/76s04CnDX5gMiAl3Mkq7iC?si=hyWnMpFjRxiaHYOHF7cKng
Italian-Nigerian singer-songwriter Anna Bassy is one of the most interesting emerging artists in the Italian new soul scene. She wrote her first songs in 2016, originally conceived to be performed solo only with a guitar. Now the project has evolved to include a full band lineup that has brought new life to the arrangements, making them more intense and sophisticated whilst still retaining their delicacy, and blending African roots with soul, pop, electronic, and folk influences.
Since the start of the project in 2019, Anna has continued to pursue opportunities to perform her songs live as an essential way of expressing herself. To date, she has played over 70 concerts across Italy. In October 2021 Anna released her debut EP ‘Monsters’ which was a journey through fear in its various forms. Moving into 2022, Anna released a new EP “Genesi”, which was a return to the roots, including some of the first songs she ever wrote. Anna was also selected to be part for the 2022 Keychange program, the international movement for gender balance in the music industry.
BLUEM
https://www.instagram.com/sailorbluem/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1eFOTBAGM0w0SH7jnTYSd1?si=AQBiKKDnSV-K3LYE3_gD9A
BLUEM is Chiara Floris, a Sardinian singer, songwriter and producer living in London.
She first moved to the UK to study music for film, and soon became inspired to start her own musical venture.
BLUEM began with 2018’s “Picolina”, her first EP, self-released, that was all sung in
English. She has since released “Notte” in 2021, which received widespread praise in the
Italian music scene and explored an instinctive, primordial experience of love.
Alongside writing and producing, BLUEM’s music has been heavily influenced by her
developing pole dance practice that has become an informative part of her creative process, teaching her discipline and hard work.
“Nou” is the latest development of BLUEM and is an important landmark for Floris in
stepping further into her creative vision. ‘Nou’ means ‘new’ in Sardinian, and the album set to be released in May is representative of her Sardinian heritage in a way that feels both authentic to her and to the culture. It creates a rich musical landscape that stays true to Sardinian musical
traditions, stories and sounds but moves them forward in her own way.
Eugenia Post Meridiem
https://www.instagram.com/eugenia_post_meridiem/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/47wCQih5a5wC9l3LqDRySE?si=kJcHYdi5SbqgSdM-yX0ydg
Fate, coincidence or divine intervention? Eugenia Post Meridiem took shape in the summer of 2017 after three months of travelling around Lisbon, when by chance Eugenia (voice, guitar) met Matteo (bass), Giovanni (guitar, keys) and Matteo (drums, percussion). The quartet soon moulded together, blending Matteo’s bass and electronic music skills, Giovanni’s psychedelic guitar and Matteo’s percussive jazz origins.
The initial meeting then led to the creation of a series of songs that showcased Eugenia’s wonderful voice and remarkable songwriting potential, and blended layers of soul, indie and folk influences. Distinct 60s and 70s psychedelic directions are combined with the 90s sound textures that are l held together, interpreted and channelled through four completely different musical backgrounds.
The band spent the summer and autumn of 2019 touring around Italy, releasing their first record in October 2019. 2020 saw them play a number of key festivals, incl. ESNS, MENT and WAVES Vienna, and get selected for the INES talent pool. Rolling Stone Italia named Eugenia Post Meridiem among the 20 most promising Italian emerging musicians of 2020.
In 2021 the band released LIFE SLEEPER SIDE A and SIDE B, which were followed up by performances at MIL festival in Portugal and Reeperbahn in Germany. Eugenia Post Meridiem have now recorded their second studio album “Like I need a tension’, released in November 2022 via Bronson Recordings.
HEIR
https://www.instagram.com/heir/?hl=en
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4zroxWKoeCisPvqHj5CtqW?si=Bos3phENQimR-SKo3LXnWw
HĒIR is the industry’s new alt-pop prodigy. Known for ethereal vocals and bold synths, the London-based artist, is already the muse of many fashion designers and magazines. Raised by two classical musician parents, the singer comes from Naples in the south of Italy. Her passion for music was sparked by opera, which has influenced her current love of cinematic sounds. Titled ‘Is that all there is? and set for release on 7th April 2023’, Heir’s new EP Is a contemplative query about an existential dilemma. The singer describes it as a body of work that challenges you to be lost before you’re too found. Being lost is how you embrace unpredictability and play your own instead of other people’s games in life.
Maria Chiara Argiro
https://www.instagram.com/maria_chiara_argiro/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2uz9ERD3U5c4F2CZDS0mzb?si=e4LJOC7NQ6S837cF-I2qaQ
Maria Chiara Argirò (pronounced ma-REE-ah key-AH-rah r-gee-ROW) has been quietly weaving her way around the UK jazz, classical and electronic worlds since she moved to London from Rome 11 years ago. A pianist from the age of nine and a key player in the capital’s multi-national jazz scene, she’s lent her skills to indie band These New Puritans, lush jazz troupe Kinkajous and, more recently, collaborations with Jamie Leeming – their 2020 album Flow was nominated for one of the albums of the year in the Jazz Revelations Awards and was the Guardian’s jazz album of the month – and beat-driven duo Moonfish.
But with her new album, Forest City, she finds a glistening thread between these movements: it marks her out as an exciting rising electronic artist, where jazz meets Kelly Lee Owens, Jon Hopkins and Radiohead. It’s a concept record, about the “duality of nature and city”, and where organic sounds and textures seem to flow above the urban sprawl.
Milanosport
https://www.instagram.com/milanosportsportsport/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5Om07vNuCtNPdkHuYKkSNl?si=o1nU3_xyRCiJ-9XP-g123Q
MILANOSPORT are Fender guitars, 10 amps and synth bound together by teamwork. Each member of this romantic post punk band from Milan carries a completely different musical past, where punk mixes itself with surf rock, synth-pop, electronic Soviet, shoegaze and Irish folk.
“Ain’t big enough”, the band’s first self-released EP, gave Milanosport the opportunity to reach the international market playing Linecheck Festival in November 2022. Currently, the band is working on their first album produced by Jennifer Gentle’s frontman Marco Fasolo.
PEAKS!
https://www.instagram.com/yeswearepeaks/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6OmQ3QpipDrfFdHjtYNMp1
PEAKS! are an Alt Rock duo from Italy who started creating music back in 2020. Their debut live shows at The Great Escape 2022 gained rapturous praise and were followed up by festival performances at 2000 Trees and BST Hyde Park with Pearl Jam. The band went on to play their first Italian show in front of 10,000 people in Mantova Italy, supporting Placebo and finished the year supporting Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes.
Their releases have received widespread support from streaming platforms including New Music Friday Spotify across Europe, as well as key playlists including All New Rock, The New Alt, Pop Rock Shot, Alternative Beats, Rock Italia and New Noise. They also gained support on Amazon Music from their Fresh Rock and New Rock playlists, were featured by
Jack Saunders as part of his BBC Radio 1 ‘Future Artists’ selections and heard on Love Island and Match of the Day.
Sans Soucis
https://www.instagram.com/sanssoucismusic/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4vXFvvWirlvTwcl184KfDc?si=7VPcnBLCTG2Ne6cSSXvoVA
Sans Soucis takes her name from a childhood nickname meaning ‘carefree’. The Italian songwriter, artist and producer has been releasing music independently since 2018, on an intense journey to find herself spiritually and sonically. Latest EP “On Time For Her” is her most vulnerable work yet, tackling childhood and racial trauma and a search for her identity within a Western society.
Born out of a desire to reconnect with the uninhibited joyfulness and authenticity of childhood that all of us lose as we grow older, their music is a radical act of reclamation. Receiving praise from The Guardian, Paper Mag, The Independent, Fader, The Forty-Five, Pitchfork and more, it combines elements of Congolese Rumba, classic Italian songwriting, electronic R&B and alt-pop sounds.
Her accolades include the Music Music Moves Europe ‘Grand Jury’ prize, inclusion in Spotify’s global RADAR campaign, and TicketMaster’s breakthrough artist for 2023.
In recent months she’s performed shows at Cross The Tracks, All Points East, Pitchfork Paris, Eurosonic, and supporting Rina Sawayama in Milan.
The Gluts
https://www.instagram.com/thegluts/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/13WOru4Cg1ZdszgnB1AU17?si=xwHcDvsJRHODFIpmtPhAOA
The Gluts is a noise-punk and psychedelic four-piece band based in Milan (IT). The members are Marco Campana (guitarist), Nicolò Campana (vocals/synth/percussions), Claudia Cesana, (bassist), and Dario Bruno Bassi (drummer). Up to this moment the band has released four studio albums Warsaw (in 2014 for Nasoni Records) Estasi, Dengue Fever Hypnotic Trip, and Ungrateful Heart (respectively in 2017, 2019, 2021 for Fuzz Club Records), one live session (in 2018, Fuzz Club Sessions) and contributed to a number of compilations (e.g Reverb Conspiracy Vol.5). Thanks to the collaboration with El Borracho Bookings, over the past few years the band has toured extensively around Europe playing independent festivals and performing both in South Africa and the USA.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
Download more info and photos of artists here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12xUyr5_Vl8TT-XCMuvmGSa4VnqZHgMrq
About the Italia Music Export – SIAE
Italia Music Export is Italy’s first music export office, founded by SIAE in November 2017. Its aim is to promote Italian music worldwide, boost music export revenues and support Italian music companies going global. While supporting the Italian music business, Italia Music Export also advises and assists international professionals interested in working with Italian artists and companies. More info here: http://www.italiamusicexport.com/