Voice Independent Music Awards (VIMA) 2013

THE Voice Independent Music Awards (VIMA) 2013 is now officially calling for submissions and the closing date is Nov 2 this year.

Considered the most important and anticipated indie music award in the region, the awards platform has grown from strength to strength and now recognizes independent and unsigned musicians from four countries, namely, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei.

“I can’t believe this is going to be the fourth time we are organising the awards but over the years, I can only sum up the experience as a journey we have walked hand-in-hand with musicians of all creed and genre. It’s been an overwhelming task to put together the whole process of the awards, yet surprisingly, we enjoy it because of how we connect with so many talented musicians,” said Siva Zaphod Chandra, founder of VIMA and chief operating officer of Bite Media, in a Press statement.

“This time round, the bar will definitely be set higher, with some truly exciting and creative musicians from Indonesia who will be invited to participate. To top that off, we are super excited to be working with Sony Music Entertainment Malaysia which have teamed up with us to sign a one-song deal for the Song Of The Year Category and also to work with us to come up with an 18-track compilation which will feature the best songs of VIMA 2013.

“On a personal level, I am really motivated to pull off another amazing awards show because of the special Hall Of Fame inductees we announced, for Paul Ponnudorai (posthumous) and Poetic Ammo. We are going to do our level best to have a special segment that will honour them.”

Meera Thuraivel, co-founder of VIMA and chief executive officer of Bite Media, said: “Social media is such a crucial element to how an independent musician reaches out to their base of fans, so this year we are making it a compulsory measure that all musicians participating must have a Facebook and Soundcloud account.

For musicians submitting music videos, we are encouraging everyone to submit their video links from either YouTube or Vimeo.

To make things even spicier, 10 per cent of the overall scores will be based on how well a band interacts and promotes themselves using social media.”

Independent musicians from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei are invited to submit their songs and music videos to vima2013@gmail.com.

All musicians are also encouraged to join the VIMA 2013 Facebook group to catch up on all updates, at http://www.facebook. com/ groups/436329473066182/.

The main awards event is scheduled to be held in February 2013.

To know more about the categories to submit and the rules and regulations, visit: http://bitemymusic.com/rules-vima-2013/.