It was raining and remnants of a day's worth of lectures; books, paper and of course sweet wrappers weighed down the bag on my shoulder, but this was of little thought; the sound of Swnwas in the air, and I was all set for a weekend of music on the streets of Cardiff. A city rarely thought of as cool, and never mentioned in the pages of the music press, once a year is host to a festival the likes of London would be lucky to put its name to. Swn, welsh for 'noise', and noisy it was. And with the legend that is Radio One DJ Huw Stephens orchestrating the whole event, I was assured a truly eclectic mix of music talent that would undoubtedly be staples of our CD collection in the years to come.
Thursday, lovingly known as 'Day one', started badly. I wore high waisted leggings, a trend one should have really bypassed, and thus the evening was spent in varying degrees of discomfort as I was forced to suck in my noodle- greedy protruding paunch with every passing pretty boy. And by jolly there was plenty. Fredrick Stanley Star offered me an opportunity to relax my stomach muscles and please my ears; gentle folk complete with banjo and guitars played with violin bow. From utterly pleasant music one would be happy to play during Sunday roast, I moved onto Gallops. The instrumental four piece created a sheer wall of raw noise keeping the audience hooked until the last minute. Undoubtedly influenced by Battles, and comparable to the more progressive aspects of Foals, this is a band which holds no bars in its conviction to pathing its own way in post rock. Portasound was the band I had spent the evening looking forward to, and to no real avail. Previously heard recordings made the band seem rather interesting, ' in the 'lets dance and be happy' understanding of the word, as opposed to 'get to number one and make everyone with an inch of taste want to vomit on themselves' definition. Instead I was faced with three very awkward boys and their keyboards doing a second rate Late of the Pier. Shame.
Day two, and the outfit choice was a little more appropriate, however the Welsh weather cared nothing for my hair and rained on it, so whilst I could breathe without fear of Homer Simpson comparisons, I instead stood to look like Screech from Saved by the Bell. Sweet Baboo is a singer songwriter known in the real world as Stephen Black, who plays an intoxicating set of bluegrass folk inspired songs with only a guitar to his aid, and effectively made me forgot about my hair for the beginning of the night, as the gin enabled me to do in the latter part of the evening. 'If I'm Still in Love' is one of those songs which makes you smile as you listen, a true-to-life little ditty which makes you turn to your neighbouring gig attendees and sway in a life assuring happy clappy manner. Set in a bar with a very Welsh name (Y Fuwch Goch, and no I can't pronounce it either), the whole of the Sweet Baboo set was like the best type of hug, gentle but assured.
Next up Decimals, screechy pop fronted by Alex Pennie of The Automatic fame; it was a great show, but overall lacked the sheer originality that defined many bands of the weekend. Johnny Foreigner, a personal favourite was next up and my first chance to hear their new material. Furious playing and screechy vocals, the trio as always provided the audience with a frantic set of pop hooks, distorted guitars and tender moments of loving simplicity. Ending the set with new song 'Criminals', the band have left none of their signature style behind; with the mass of vocals crammed into short spats and full stopped with passionate chants, my love affair with Johnny Foreigner looks set to endure. So to Pulled Apart by Horses. Topless, hairy and quite literally spitting with rage, the audience didn't quite know what to make of the raucous band as they trashed out track upon track of Black Sabbath influenced hard rock. Awakening the crowd from the relative comfort of their toe tapping stance, lead singer Tom threw himself into the crowd, forcing himself into the faces of Pulled Apart by Horse's future converts in the manner the music had done several tracks earlier. Hugely exciting stuff.
The end was nigh and in determination to take the final night for all its got I arrived geekishly early in order to catch the Swedish duo Taxi Taxi!. The two tiny figures stood at the front of the crowded bar, heads down and with a look of concentration, hands over ears as they struggled to hear their own voices over the relative silence in the room. Breathtakingly delicate, the understated performance, with lyrics of an almost childlike innocence was vocally reminiscent of Eva Cassidy and undoubtedly the highlight of the weekend.
The beauty of Swn festival is the sheer variety of musical genre on offer, and so it was from this half hour of quiet reflectivity that I moved onto the club across the road to watch Gaggle, a 22 piece all female choral group. Hugely theatrical, the innovative and powerful sound created is more comparable to a soundtrack of a West End musical such as Chicago than to any band that springs to mind, and is all the more unusual and exciting for it. The final band of the weekend was The Drums. Hailing from the streets of Brooklyn, one questions how at home they felt in the dingy upstairs room of an Irish pub in the Welsh capital, but regardless of how they felt, the crowd crushed into the small space were thrilled to see the band causing such a stir on the American indie scene. Dancing as if lives depended on it, front man Jonathn and his fellow comrades twisted, clapped and gyrated in the most contagiously energetic set seen that weekend, if not ever. New wave with a dab of 1960s twee, the songs so danceable and the band so likeable, The Drums produce pop music in its truest form.
And so that is the story of the streets of Cardiff on a rather special weekend. Unique in its aim not to pull in the money welding crowds, but instead to be a stage for the exciting new musical projects occurring in Wales and beyond, swn stands alone amongst a tirade of festivals, holding the bar of talent extraordinarily high. Fun, wet and Welsh, all hail the legend that is Huw Stephens for putting on a festival that will in time put Cardiff on the music map.
Posted In Festivals, Nov 10 2009.
Words - Dom Kehat