So Saturday evening we all jumped into the old jalopy and headed into town for the latest incarnation of the Sŵn festival – Cardiff’s own city-centre music festival (imagine Barcelona’s PrimaVera with less tapas and more Clarke’s Pies). Actually this was Dim Sŵn, the smaller but perfectly formed little sister of Sŵn – a one-day event with forty bands playing across seven venues.
We intended to base our evening around Cardiff’s hipster central area of Womanby Street, ping-ponging between Clwb Ifor Bach and The Moon Club.
Rozi Plain
First up for us was the wonderfully idiosyncratic Rozi Plain. I hadn’t realised beforehand that Rozi is also a member of “This is the Kit” , a band we loved when we saw them at The Glee Club in Mermaid Quay last year so it was a joy to catch her again tonight.
From the off it was obvious that the band were enjoying themselves with smiles all around. The bassist later told us they were afraid it might be a heavy-rock fest so maybe it was a sign of relief on their part.
Rozi plays (on what appears to be a home-crafted guitar) an almost uncategorisable brand of shoe-gazy pop with nods to Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross-era ambiance. I particularly loved the swooping, swirling keyboard playing of Yoshino Shigihara.
Rozi and the band have a new album “Friends” out next week which I can’t wait to catch on Spotify
Denim Snakes
Next we crossed the alley to catch the set by Denim Snakes – a name so bad that the lead singer apologised for it.
These guys are so loveably naff that my wife asked if they were Australian. Where Rozi Plain’s music was difficult to categorise Denim Snake’s positively rattled with a closet full of musical skeletons. I caught whiffs of The Ramones, Pistols, Clash, Stiff Little Fingers…. you get the point.
They play high-energy garage rock with some great story telling lyrics and typical foot-on-the-monitor rock stylings. I’d hate to live next door to their practice room but I’d definitely book them for a party.
Derivative then but loud and fun – the antithesis of cool, I watched with a big grin on my face.
East India Youth
We crossed back once again to Clwb Ifor Bach for one of the festival headliners – East India Youth. One of those acts which sounds like a band but is actually a single person, in this case the wonder-kid William Doyle.
At first glance, as he set up his stage rig, with his booted, suited, buttoned-down style he reminded me of a Michael Fassbender lookalike auditioning for a Kraftwerk biopic
With enough buttons and dials to look like the control panel for CERN this modern one-man-band generates a massive sound with a low register bass-thrum that rumbles thorough the nether regions. The tone of his music reminds me of Berlin-Era Bowie crossed with Eno and Kraftwerk. His strong voice was as clear as a bell above the electronica in the fashion of Vienna-era Ultravox. He gives good drum-machine and wigs out fantastically whilst paying his bass guitar
But for all the electronica he also plays some wonderfully melodic songs such as “Carousel” and “Heaven, How Long”
And don’t get the idea this is static, boring stuff – Doyle is a ball of fizzing energy and by the end he was stood in the corner, drenched in sweat with a towel round his neck like a prize-fighter. We went all twelve rounds with him and enjoyed every minute of it.
Keys
And so we crossed back once again to the Moon Club for our last set of the night from Keys. With impressive beardage and full-on Welsh accents I was instantly taken with them.
Driven on by the percussion of the ubiquitous Dave Newington, these twin Gretch-toting psych-rockers have their musical influences plainly on display.
A bit of blues, some psycho-billy, plenty of Nick Cave and lots of Americana, as we arrived they were already blasting through a Doorsy gospel-tinged belter and they didn’t let up the pace until there was steam rising from the audience. At the close, to cries from the crowd of “One more song!” it was “Right you fuckers!” and they launched into an impromptu encore and blasted through one last tune.
Easily my favorite band of the night.
The festival played on into the early hours but, satisfied with what we’d had, we staggered out, ears happily abuzz, past the young lad playing ragtime sax to dancing refugees from “10 Feet Tall”, to make our way home
Another great Sŵn event then – roll-on the full fest later in the year.
Eat see hear Cardiff 