Music alumni selected for Glastonbury’s emerging talent competition
Music alumni selected for Glastonbury’s emerging talent competition
University of Leeds music alumni Jess Mollie and Conor Jordan, who make up the electronic duo Denton Thrift, have been selected for the longlist of Glastonbury’s emerging talent competition, after releasing just one song on Soundcloud.
The Glastonbury emerging talent competition, which is supported by PRS for Music and PRS Foundation, gives new UK and Ireland-based acts the chance to compete for a slot on one of the main stages at this year’s festival. Thousands of acts from a wide variety of musical genres entered the free contest. These were narrowed down to just 120 acts by a judging panel consisting of 40 of the UK’s best online music writers. Denton Thrift was selected for the longlist by the bloggers ‘Music Like Dirt’ who said ‘There are obvious comparisons to The XX in Denton Thrift’s wonderfully sparse sound but the combination of Xylophone, lush harmonies and a guitar seemingly pilfered from a Whitesnake power ballad lifts them above the many sound-alikes’.
Denton Thrift was officially formed last autumn – both Jess and Conor were Music Performance students and the University of Leeds and both completed their year abroad in 2014 studying at the University of Texas, in a city called Denton. The pair are both expert instrumentalists, (Jess is primarily a percussionist and Conor a guitarist) however they are also both skilled in electronic music production. Inspired by artists such as Tom Misch, Sampha, Bonobo and Bon Iver, Denton Thrifts unique sound is formed primarily from xylosynth, guitar, vocals and samples triggered by the Ableton Push. The use of environmental sounds is also a prevalent part of their music, particularly in the percussion & drum loops.
Since being selected for the longlist, Denton Thrift have released two more tracks, Fear In The Night which features University of Leeds music student Mared Williams on vocals, and their brand new track Fractures which was released on Friday 5th May.
