Here's a pic we found of John on the "Check My Demo" panel at Talinn Music Week. He'll be appearing on the indie-labels themed panel at Liverpool Sound City on Thursday.

We're very happy to announce the second edition of the Projekta Remix Exchange programme, in partnership with The Great Escape and The Line Of Best Fit.

The pilot edition of this simple but innovative scheme ran earlier in 2012 via a partnership between Projekta, Brainlove Records, Estonian promoter Odessa Pop, and Tallinn Music Week. UK bands Napoleon IIIrd and Mat Riviere exchanged remixes with Estonian newcomers Candy Empire, with the tracks then presented as an online EP.

Each track premiered on the Snipe blog in London, and on Tallinn Music Week's social newsfeed in Estonia. The tracks spread quickly on both sides of the ocean, hitting the upper reaches of the global Hype Machine blog charts in the process. The bands then shared the stage at Tallinn Music Week for a packed-to-the-rafters showcase gig, at a spectacular old Soviet cinema venue called Sõprus (trans: "friendship").

For The Great Escape edition, the focus on building cross-border bridges between independent music organisations continues. Bringing together the various talents of Kaiku Studios in Berlin, MUSEX from Finland, UK publicity agency Freeman PR, Best Fit Recordings and London's Studio NXVI, one of these brand new tracks will run every day in the week leading up to this year's festival.

Hotly-tipped UK producer Enjoyed (pictured above) is set to swap remixes with one of the best new bands to emerge from Iceland, Retro Stefson; from Finland come electro-pop duo Zebra and Snake, who will exchange a mix with the first signing to the new Best Fit label, I Ching. All four bands perform at The Great Escape Festival this May 10th-12th.

The remix EP will be free to download, with each track premiered on The Line Of Best Fit, starting from May 7th.

Projekta's pilot Remix Exchange Project, in association with Tallinn Music Week and Odessa Pop, is complete.

UK artists Napoleon IIIrd and Mat Riviere did remixes of Candy Empire from Estonia, and vice versa, resulting in four new tracks that were jointly premiered by Tallinn Music Week in Estonia, and our UK media partner, the Hype-Machine-rated Snipe blog. You can listen to all four tracks below.

Napoleon IIIrd's remix of Candy Empire hit #6 in the global Hype Machine charts, showing the reach possible from this bridge-building exercise in creative cross-pollination. 

The second edition of the Remix Exchange Project is an expanded version with some very exciting partners, in progress now - more news on that soon.

Projekta will be at Tallinn Music Week in force, having been thoroughly impressed with the 2011 event.

Firstly there'll be a fantastic showcase, put together in collaboration with TMW, John's label Brainlove Records, and esteemed local indie-promoter Odessa Pop at the spectacular Kino Söprus cinema, with UK acts Mat Riviere (pictured), Tall Stories and Napoleon IIIrd performing alongside Estonian acts ÖÅK, Candy Empireand Väljasõit Rohelisse. See the festival's live programme here.

Those artists are currently engaged in a remix-swap, as part of Projekta's UK-Estonian culture-exchange, which so far saw Kreatiivmootor and Multiphonic Rodent cross the ocean to play at Brainlove Festival 2011 in London. As part of this return leg, the artists will also reinterpret each others' work, culminating in a free download EP the week of the festival. We'll post the EP here when it is complete.

Finally, John will appear at a panel discussion on Saturday afternoon called "Types of Music Entrepreneurship", hosted by Paul Cheetham of The NMO and SSC Management. More details of that here.

Projekta's John and Napoleon IIIrd hosted another radio show together for UK internet station DIY Radio. Mat Riviere is the guest interviewee talking about his forthcoming second album Not Even Doom Music.

The internet poet Steve Roggenbuck of LIVE MY LIEF was played and discussed on the show, and posted the show out on his well-read Tumblr page here. Cool.

Hear John's new online mixtape below. Also available to download here.

After being so impressed by Estonian bands Kreatiivmootor and Multiphonic Rodent at 2011's Tallinn Music Week that we booked them to come and play in London, it gives us great pleasure to be taking three UK acts over to Estonia this March to play at the 2012 festival.

Projekta acts Napoleon IIIrd and Tall Stories and Brainlove Records-signed UK artist Mat Riviere will join ÖÄK, Väljasõit Rohelisse and Candy Empire for an event organised in conjunction with veteran Estonian promoters Odessa Pop. The show will be held on March 30th in Sõprus, an old Soviet cinema in Tallinn's beautiful Old Town, with stripped-down daytime performances happening in venues dotted around the city.

As well as an excellent selection of Estonian and European bands and artists, there's also an international music conference and seminar programme.

Find out more and register to attend Tallinn Music Week here.

Apparat Organ Quartet have announced a nine-track EP featuring remixes of tracks from their acclaimed second album, Pólýfónía.

Featuring mixes by FM Belfast, DREAMTRAK, Reptilicus, Robotaki and more, the EP will be made released on Crunchy Frog Records on February 27th.

Also, Gerda Klotz's video for 123 Forever has been nominated for the Best Music Video award at Northern Wave Film Festival.

Projekta are proud to announce a new signing in Denmark-based Icelander Snævar Njáll Albertsson, aka Dad Rocks!.

Over the last year, Albertsson has himself taken the project all over Europe, sometimes performing solo, and sometimes with up to a nine-part band. His debut album "Mount Modern" has been widely acclaimed, and we look forward to developing Dad Rocks! onwards from this most promising foundation in 2012 and beyond.

Howard Monk of The Local has been brought in to take care of European and Festival live booking after seeing Dad Rocks! perform a spellbinding set in a chapel at Shhh Festival in London.

Hear Mount Modern on Spotify or Bandcamp, and follow Dad Rocks! on Facebook and Twitter.

Projekta artist Napoleon IIIrd has opened a recording studio in London, called Studio NXVI.

Having recorded and produced both of his studio albums, Napoleon IIIrd (aka James Mabbett) has over the years amassed a huge collection of instruments and sound-making devices that make his recording space in Hornsey an Aladdin's cave of musical objects.

The studio is available for writing, recording, mixing and mastering, and has a live booth and rehearsal room. Full spec is available on request.

Mabbett has started work on his third studio album, which goes under the working title "The Great Lake". He will take a break from the studio to perform at the Estonian music conference and urban festival Tallinn Music Week on March 30th 2012 with Tall Stories and Mat Riviere.

Napoleon IIIrd also recently completed a remix of Zebra and Snake, premiered at The Line Of Best Fit.

Follow NXVI on Facebook and Twitter.

(Photo by Sonny Malhotra)

Projekta are pleased to announce the addition of Tall Stories to our management roster.

This North London trio play a smashed together amalgam of classic songwriting and punky energy - urban guitar-pop for a tweenaged millennium.

They take their manic live show to Tallinn Music Week as part of the Odessa Pop/Projekta/Brainlove showcase on Friday March 30th, to be held in an old Soviet cinema. There are also plenty of chances to catch their incendiary live show at various venues around London in February and March.

"Things Are Strained" got it's first spin on the BBC Radio 1 from Huw Stephens on Feb 8th - you can listen again here for the week following that date.

Check out the band's website at www.tallstoriesband.co.uk.

(photo: Brendan Cleaves)

Hear Projekta's John and Napoleon IIIrd co-hosting a new radio show on DIY Radio below, including music from When Saints Go Machine, Arthur Russell, Atlas Sound, Future Islands, Zebra and Snake and Blanck Mass, and an interview with David Thomas Broughton.

Have a listen to Napoleon IIIrd's Zebra and Snake remix below. It was premiered by The Line Of Best Fit and made a strong showing in the global Hype Machine chart.

Napoleon IIIrd is currently writing a recording his third album at his new London recording space, Studio NXVI.

Gazelle Twin has a new Tumblr, featuring a flow of images disturbing, interesting and haunting. Get involved with her rich visual world here.

John wrote a conference report on You Are In Control, held in Reykjavík, Iceland, for the Ja Ja Ja music blog.

John wrote a piece on the RVK scene for Drowned In Sound, talking to musician Reykjavík Grapevine editor Haukur Magnusson, Æla frontman Halli Valli and Grímur Atlasson, main man at Airwaves Festival.

Projekta is very happy to announce the addition of UK artist Gazelle Twin, aka Brighton-based artist and musician Elizabeth Walling, to our management roster.

Gazelle Twin has recently signed with 13 Artists for live booking, and will be playing live in London on September 1st - the release party for the debut album The Entire City, which is out now. Further European dates follow, including a hometown show at Brighton's Green Door Store and opening for Planningtorock at Berghain in Berlin.

More...

See Apparat Organ Quartet in the new episode of Sleepless in Reykjavík. Their section begins at 5m 40s, but the rest is very much worth watching too.

We're happy to announce that two of our acts will be our at German industry events this September.

Napoleon IIIrd will play at Popkomm Live, part of Berlin Music Week. And Apparat Organ Quartet will perform at Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg as part of their forthcoming European tour.

More info on these shows as it comes in.

Napoleon IIIrd at Club NME, KOKO, by Sonny Malhotra

New management agency and music export consultancy PROJEKTA today announces a major new signing in Apparat Organ Quartet. 

This legendary Icelandic electronic ensemble's five members include celebrated composer Jóhann Jóhannsson and four seasoned veterans of Icelandic acts such as Ham and Trabant. 

 The band have been going for over a decade and have a very impressive live history that includes performances at the Pompidou Centre and Central Park in NYC, Roskilde, Pukkelpop, and London's ICA. More recently, they headlined the prestigious NASA venue in front of a capacity crowd atIceland Airwaves 2010.

The band are about to release their second studio album Pólýfónía via Danish label Crunchy Frog, and plans are in motion to unleash their incendiary live show across Europe later in 2011.

This May, PROJEKTA and Tallinn Music Week collaborated in bringing two Estonian bands over to the UK for their debut gigs on British soil. Kreatiivmootor and Multiphonic Rodent played at the Brainlove Festival at Brixton Windmill on May 28th, alongside established UK bands like Meursault, Napoleon IIIrd, Bear Driver and David Thomas Broughton. See John from Projekta/Brainlove and Roomet Jakapi from Kreatiivmootor interviewed in a short film about the event below.

Read reviews of the inaugural Reykjavik Music Mess festival in the current issues of Clash, Mojo and The Fly (below). There's also an "In Photos" feature online over at Drowned In Sound.

Napoleon IIIrd has announced his next London show at Brainlove Festival on May 28th. He'll perform his latest album "Christiania" in it's entirety with a full live band. This comes after a busy year that's seen tours of the UK, Ireland, Spain and Norway, with dates for Popkomm Live in Berlin and Tanned Tin festival in Castellon.

"Christiania" will be released throughout Europe in Autumn 2011, on Brainlove Records via Cargo Distribution.

PROJEKTA will be helping out our friends at Popkomm down at The Great Escape this May 12th. They will host a brunch showcase above Audio from noon, with performances from four very exciting new bands: Retro Stefson (Iceland), Lucy Swann (Norway), Iiris (Estonia) and Dry The RIver (UK). Get in touch with John or Vas or pop over to the Facebook event for more info.

PROJEKTA is proud to be working with Tallinn Music Week in a pilot exchange programme between musicians from the UK and Estonia. The aim is to help build bridges between like-minded musicians and organisations in different countries, and allow interesting, creative bands to cross-pollinate with their overseas counterparts, and gain a valuable foothold in a new territory.

Kreatiivmootor and Multiphonic Rodent will come over to the UK on May 28th and 29th, to play at Brainlove Festival, and spend a day doing interviews, live sessions and photographs with key UK media, producers and music makers. At a later date, a return trip will be made with UK artists travelling out to Estonia to introduce themselves in Tallinn.

The resulting films and content will be documented and linked from here: stay tuned, or if you’re in London, come to the show!

These last few weeks, John has been working on some UK press for the inaugural Reykjavík Music Mess festival, held at NASA, Sódóma and the Nordic House this weekend, and headlined by Deerhunter. The festival released a free 16-track download compilation to promote the bands on the programme via our favourite newspaper The Reykjavik Grapevine, using a cover photograph taken by Vas. See the photo, check out the lineup and grab the music here.