Joshua Radin is an American folk recording artist, songwriter and actor born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Radin, raised on the sounds of 1960s Motown, Stax and Beatles records, as well as singer-songwriters of the early 70's such as Paul Simon, Cat Stevens and James Taylor, turned to music after college, when he moved to New York City, bought a guitar and taught himself to play and write music. On a "Meet & Greet" after his concert in Cologne on 11 October 2009, Radin stated that his biggest musical inspiration is Bob Dylan.

In 2004, Radin's friend Cary Brothers gave a demo featuring his very first composition, "Winter", to TV star Zach Braff, who promptly used it to score a scene in the hit television series Scrubs. Other Hollywood types found his music just as evocative, and soon various Radin songs were being heard in TV shows such as Grey's Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters, American Idol, One Tree Hill, and So You Think You Can Dance, among others, as well as movies including The Nanny Diaries, The Last Kiss, Catch and Release.

Radin's debut album, 2006's We Were Here drew critical acclaim and passionate listener response. His favorite song is "You Got Growin' Up To Do". Radin has also had a number of well known musicians on his studio recordings, including Ryan Adams who played guitar on the song "Lovely Tonight".

As of late Radin has achieved massive success in the UK and Europe, and has been there promoting his top 10 record "Simple Times" and his single "I'd Rather Be With You" which reached #2 on the charts. He has recently concluded a sold-out tour and will be back in the UK playing a number of festivals from Glastonbury, to Hard Rock Calling, to Oxegen (Ireland), this summer. After the success of his first single, Radin has recently released the 2nd single of off the UK release of Simple Times, "Brand New Day." There is a new video to accompany the song as well which can be found on his websites.

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Listen to what will be Tiffany's first single, Walk Away Slow, and it's her voice that will strike you first. It's a voice that knocks you back and then sits you to attention. It has the sassy swagger of Chrissie Hynde, Shirley Manson's vampish purr and the hellion roar of Courtney Love. It soars and soothes and cracks around the edges, as spiky as it is seductive. That it's wrapped around three perfectly formed minutes of sunburst guitars and a chorus that cements itself to the inside of your skull only enhances the effect."

"She got her first guitar for her 14th birthday. By then she had discovered the joys of American alternative rock - the first records she bought were Nevermind, Pearl Jam's No Code and Smash by The Offspring. As soon as she had learnt how to play three rudimentary chords on her new acoustic she began writing songs. She still has the tapes of all of them. She can't recall any titles, but suggests they were exclusively angry."

"Discovering Hole was the start of my teenage angst years," she says. "That led to L7 and Babes In Toyland… I loved how these girls could sing like men. It sounded like it hurt them. That's how I wanted to be."

Tiffany began work on her debut album last summer, writing and recording in Los Angeles and London. Fleshing her songs out with a full band has, she says, brought them properly to life and indeed it is a record populated by proper tunes - short, sharp, instantly memorable songs, each as tightly constructed and fat free as the next. Songs like Heaven Ain't Easy, Hope He Doesn't Know and Out Of Mind, with their snappy riffs and soaring choruses. And all the time there's that voice at the heart of everything.

There are depths and darker corners, too - the melancholy ballad You Won't, the jagged twists and turns of Police and, perhaps best of all, I Am The Blaze, which travels through bittersweet verses to a roaring storm of a chorus.

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On her second single Self Machine, she takes the idea of the global online community to its extravagant conclusion and imagines herself in a robot state to a thumping electro rock sound bed. It is as if a new new wave star has taken equal inspiration from JG Ballard and WallE. The other stone cold stand out on a complete and rarefied debut album, In Sprit Golden, was written under the influence of the powerful anti-seizure medication Coco had been prescribed after a terrifying incident in LA when she collapsed over dinner. The repercussions of her malady have been physical (no sense of smell, very little taste), social ('I recently had to walk around for a day with electrodes on my head so doctors could monitor the effect. It was so embarrassing')and creative. The medication was actually brilliant to write under. Every cloud etc. She recognises that the air-punching, astral pop rock of Party Bag could be open to narcotic interpretation, too. 'But it is actually about, you know, party bags that you get as children.'

When it came to naming the record, Coco had the title from the start. Like Britain's best new pop star, a contradictory mix of deep insecurities and special musical dexterity, it is open to more than one interpretation. A Constant is something that will always be there, that won't ever end. It's also a clock that you put into something and after a number of steps it explodes. Timeless and explosive? Welcome to the world of I Blame Coco.

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Lee Mitchell has a lot to live up to. His hometown of Bangor in Northern Ireland is responsible for giving the world such songwriting talent as Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody and Iain Archer, as well as Foy Vance. Thankfully, twenty three year old Mitchell can more than hold his own with such illustrious songwriting talent.

Over the past few years, Mitchell has moved out of his native Bangor to study in the bright lights of Coventry. However, he's been keeping on the move by playing 200 shows in true DIY fashion not only in the UK, but also across Germany, Holland and Sweden. BBC Northern Ireland has cottoned on to Mitchell's talent, saying, "Lee has one of the most assured voices we've heard in a long time. We expect - no, demand - great things from this guy." High praise indeed.

Lee Mitchell's debut 7" opens with the rollicking country pop of Love is Here, a cheery summery anthem swept along with gorgeous female backing vocals, soaring strings and a shimmering piano line. Meanwhile, Heart Over Head backs the 7", offering up Lee's more delicate side in a touching paean to love that recalls Foy Vance or Fionn Regan's more intimate moments.

After the release of his most recent 7&, Mitchell sets out on a touring stint across Europe with Got Got Need Records label mate Luke Leighfield in June, before some festival slots in Sweden and the Netherlands in the summer.

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Born in the UK, brought up in Gibraltar, she travelled the world as a kid (Venezuela, Singapore, Florida, the Philippines), partly because of her Gibraltarian dad's work and partly because of the disintegration of her parent's chaotic marriage. Kirsty's home became music: "Music was the only place that felt like home, always." At her many worldwide schools, 19 in all, she would pick up a guitar, play piano and work things out by ear, "harmonies were easy, hearing chords on guitars was simple". She'd also been painting, sculpting and crafting forever. "I recently made a shaker that was made with shards of glass inside and I can see and hear diamonds falling," she explains. "I just love sound." She also, naturally, finds colours in chords and blends them together exactly as a painter would. "I am," she cackles, "a massive hippy."

At the formative age of 17, Kirsty left Gibraltar for the possibilities of London, becoming an exceptional art student at Middlesex University, painting both abstractly and illustratively (ice cubes were a favourite) and was good enough as a teenager to exhibit her paintings and sculptures before moving to Leeds for musical study at the prestigious Bretton Hall. Here, a spell in musical theatre began with the now globe-travelling 'Carnival Messiah' (Handel's Messiah performed in a carnival style) where, alongside lead singing, "as people began to fall apart", she'd double up on jobs (PA to the artistic director, stage manager, costume designer, choreography assistant, understudy). "Everyone would say, 'get Kirsty, she can do it!'," she says. In 2001 she moved to Manchester, became a singer/songwriter touring the city's smokiest gin-joints and sang on one occasion for Latin band La Gran Descarga who, by the end of that night, requested she join the band full-time. Soon, she became the principal singer and song-writer and toured the UK theatre scene for 3 years. Descarga became successful and had a keen live following with international opportunities now emerging from Switzerland to Peru. "But I didn't want to become a Latin artist," says Kirsty. "It was a hard decision but I decided to go to Sheffield and write my own album. Which I did, in two months. My whole life, I've made my imaginary world real."

An experimental craftswoman, Kirsty customises her own instruments and creates her own stage-wear, collaborating today with internationally renowned stylist Mrs Jones (Kylie's white jump-suit, Brandon Flowers' feathery epaulettes), and is currently working on a musical dress specifically for the forthcoming live shows. "We're gonna make a big ball-gown train out of spoons and forks and knives and attach little bells all the way down," announces Kirsty. "So I can actually play my own dress. Great!".

For years, Kirsty has lived in a parallel dimension, making both music and a living on quietly productive sidelines; today, she runs a musical collective, Odbod, in her Manchester hometown (currently commissioned to record two tracks for the independent London film project 'Patagonia') while her name as a solo artist has turned from underground murmur to word-of-mouth phenomenon. In 2010, she just might be a pioneer. "In this new decade I think there'll be a lot more people like me coming through," she concludes. "A lot more artists who are doing this because they love music, not because they want to get to the top or be a fashionable person. I think everything will be a bit more real. I don't mean we lose the fantasy world, that should always be there, but so many songs today are about production and audio glitter. It would be good to be part of a truly magical scene."

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Described by Perez Hilton as 'one of the most exciting things to happen to British music since Amy Winehouse' 20 year-old Jose Vanders' 'prodigious talent' has marked her out as the next Regina Spektor.

Jose started playing classical piano aged three, and over the last few years has built up an impressive repertoire of songs. She first showcased them in a local pub in Greenwich back in 2006; since then Jose has played extensively across the UK alongside acts such as Jay Jay Pistolet, Little Boots, Adem, Johnny Flynn, Noah and the Whale, VV Brown, Alan Pownall, Starsmith, Supergrass and Air Traffic. She has received substantial airplay, having been chosen as Xfm's unsigned artist of the week and performed a live session on Rob da Bank's Radio 1 show.

Jose has self-produced and independently released three EPs, which have sold a few thousand copies, and has over 2 million plays across MySpace and YouTube. She was appointed as the 'new face of BBC3' in 2008, presenting the continuity links on the channel every night.

Jose has since embarked on a number of headline tours, recorded a collection of her songs at Abbey Road Studios, performed at the Royal Albert Hall, and played in New York and at SXSW, Texas. Jose is currently studying English Literature at Bristol University and amassing a wealth of inspiration for future projects. Watch out.

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A giant in both stature and voice, Andi Wolf's music is delicate yet powerful. A songwriter on the edge, he is soulful yet sweet and can charm any audience with his songs on loves lost and loves found.

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Captured by the greatness and beauty of the acoustic sound, it awoke a dormant passion and talent which has flourished as a means to express personal truths and lyrically decipher the mysteries of life and love. Her music is reflective of her spirit and character in that it is calming and honest. As a listener you have no choice but to connect and identify with the truth and passion of a young woman embarking on life's journey with an open mind and heart.

Verity Pabla's music challenges people to stop and listen - not through a barrage of sound or complex guitar playing, rather audiences have been silenced by the sheer simplicity and truth of Verity's songs, in particular the track 'Wasted Time'.

Out of the spotlight of music courses and popular trends, Verity has honed the music in her own way - citing only relatively few inspirations; musically she has been influenced more by her heart than by her ears and eyes. Nowhere in British music do we hear or see a woman singing about another woman, in a way that both men and women can relate to. Nor a woman who bravely chooses to speak about the challenge of relationships with others and self, within popular music.

"My songs come out because I need to express through music! I put my heart and my truth into music as a means of expression that no other form can fulfil. My honesty pours into the melodies and lyrics, sometimes heartbreakingly so. Though they may be simple arrangements, the depth has the potency to touch the listeners own inner truth and resonate with their outer circumstances… in life, love, and relationships."

Verity's songs are written in the rawest of moments - fresh from heartbreak, at the point of almost giving up… but being soft and lovingly persuasive, her songs aim to inspire others to look deeper at their own lives, feelings, and relationships. She cites India.Arie as one of her main inspirations but where India comes from a point of total surrender and empowerment, Verity delves into the emotions of life lessons a little differently and directly.

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Blast is the BBC's youth creativity service and is online, on Tour and on TV. From first timers to emerging artists, Blast gives 13-19 year olds the opportunity to have a go at new creative skills, showcase their own work and find out about working in the creative industries.

Blast on Tour takes its mobile village across the country each year offering exciting FREE creative workshops, showcases and master classes.

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