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It’s worth getting down early to this weekend’s Wild Life festival, to see who curators Disclosure and Rudimental have decreed will be next to follow them into a long career in clubland.
The future of dance music doesn’t necessarily come from the coolest places, especially in the case of Karen Harding. The half-Filipino singer from County Durham endured two far from credible flops before becoming part of Disclosure’s Method record label: first falling short of representing the UK in Eurovision: Your Country Needs You in 2010, then being kicked off 2013’s X Factor at the Boot Camp stage.
Wunderkind producer MNEK evidently thought more of her than the voting public, and invited her down south to work on the sophisticated garage pop of Say Something. The song hit the top 10 in February, stayed in the top 40 for three months and is now on over seven million YouTube views.
Next up is something still hipper, her energetic vocals dominating the triumphant piano house of New Love by Belgian duo Arches, which appeared online last week. Like Becky Hill, who went from The Voice to singing with Rudimental, she’s turning talent show also-ran status into a brighter future away from the telly.
Buy Karen Harding's Say Something EP on iTunes here, or listen on Soundcloud here
