When: 16 – 18 October 2025
Where: Various venues, Cardiff, Wales.
Tying into the two-week Cardiff Music City programme, the city’s multi-venue Sŵn Festival, returned for another packed three days of new music discovery, conferences, and trailblazing homegrown acts. Across the weekend, fans darted between independent venues hungry to cram in as much fresh sound as the schedule and their stamina would allow. Some of the biggest names in new music were also on hand. The likes of Getdown Services, The Bug Club and Squid performed to charged rooms, sometimes on more than one occasion, with different degrees of intimacy. While the rest of Cardiff carried on as business as usual, inner-city spots like Boho Cardiff and Tiny Rebel became packed spaces of electricity and intrigue.
Liverpool-based musical project from songwriter/producer Liam Brown appeared Thursday night under the alias Two Blinks, I Love You, joined by violin and bass. Drawing momentum with his country-flecked, confessional indie, a style that’s currently connecting with listeners worldwide due to the successes of MJ Lenderman and Alex G, delivering wistful, slow-burning numbers ‘i love you’ and ‘i’ll refrain’. Donning a Beatles shirt, Brown joked he was driving home the same night because he couldn’t stay away from The Beatles too long. The combination of introspective songs and good humour is always a winning combination.
That same night, South African artist (born Sanelisiwe Twisha) Moonchild Sanelly bought her “future ghetto funk” to upstairs Clwb Ifor Bach. Recognisable by her trademark blue “Moon Mop” hair and for various collaborations, she embodied a high-energy, club-ready spirit perfect for a late-night appearance. Her openness around themes of sexual liberation in the context of her music added an extra charge to the performance and the crowd couldn’t get enough of her and her backing vocalist who was equally bold. Performing some of her biggest tracks, both 2024 collaboration with Self Esteem, ‘Big Man’, along with the celebratory ‘Big Booty,’ the artist’s appearance blended musical styles and playful stage expression. (Emma Way)
Other highlights on the Thursday included the political and visceral Swansea band Kikker in Fuel rock club, who talked about literally entering into hand-to-hand combat with fascists. Vocally there were shades of Mark E Smith, whilst their spasming riffs and jagged percussion fire with Dead Kennedys-like vitriol. Then there was the nightmarish and challenging sounds of Piss, before the night ended with the barrelling yet really fun collision of post-punk and electro sounds from Adult DVD. (Bill Cummings, Rachel Graveson)
On Friday, the walls of Boho practically pulsed as funky Irish outfit Scustin crammed the small basement to bursting point. Midway through their set, the band whipped out their cult hit ‘Drinking Cans in a Field with Matt Damon’, chanting the absurd “Nothing makes sense anymore, I’m drinking cans in a field with Matt Damon” amidst Matt Damon masks, also provided by the band. By the finale, they had the entire room crouched to the floor waiting for the signal to explode into one last euphoric moment. (Emma Way)
With an air of theatricality, Cardiff’s own Slate also drew several packed rooms over the weekend with three sets in total. A queue stretched downstairs on the Saturday night, specifically with fans flocking to soak up the band’s dark, brooding atmosphere. Just before, Cardiff duo Beauty Queens, self-proclaimed “pop perverts,” appeared across town at Jacob’s Basement with a playful, lived-in set. Armed with bubble guns they delivered a nostalgic, retro-tinged performance that felt immediately warm and bright, a poppy contrast to much of the darker guitar fare elsewhere on the lineup. (Emma Way)
A band that’s been buzzing across the scene for the past few years, London-based art-punk six-piece Man/Woman/Chainsaw have steadily built a devoted following in Wales. They’ve made several trips over for both a debut Clwb Ifor Bach headline and a standout set on the rising stage at Green Man Festival, but this weekend marked their first return this year. Welcomed back with open arms, the opening violin strikes of ‘The Boss’ hit like a jolt of electricity, like snapping you awake from a deep sleep.
Hot off the release of their new single ‘Long Short Round’ just days earlier, London five- piece Ain’t brought shards of Midwest emo to The Canopi. Vocalist Hanna Baker Darch moved with elegant, deliberate grace, her presence cutting through the wall of distorted guitars with poise that recalled the ghostly allure of Kate Bush.(Emma Way)
Also performing in Clwb, were Silver Gore who produced gorgeous spinning electronic pop with producer Ethan P. Flyn’s soundscapes, lent a golden hew by vocalist Ava Gore, hitting a sweet spot between “joy and melancholia”. There was also the melodic yet twisted noise of Saint Clair followed. Their really promising and expansive sound harks back to early Radiohead, which is a recommendation.
Come Friday night Scottish band Cloth beguiled the audience in the rather more refined vintage surroundings of Canopli, or a skip over the bridge from town: it’s the old Transport Club if you know your Cardiff venues. There is an elegance and pointed subtlety to their sound; it’s more comforting and forgiving than the ferocious sounds of earlier that day. ‘Pink Silence’ the title track from their 2025 album, produced by Ali Chant. It glistened as the moon shined in the sky; the liquid basslines and shuffling drums were an evocative release punctuated by distorted interludes. My favourite is ‘Golden’, where Rachel Swinton’s vocals were more like an exhale of air than traditionally sung, filling the room with blues, reds and greens. It was heartfelt, and invested their fluid songs that shift in unison with the band’s glistenng guitar riffs and locked in bass and drums, with life. There was more than a hint of the XX or locals Young Marble GIants. It is a touching set. (Bill Cummings)
Two sets closed out the night at Clwb; Jessica Winter delivered a gloriously camp ’80s-inspired performance later into the evening, only having released her debut My First Album in July. Winter’s vocals were chameleonic against the backdrop of off-kilter pop. Later, all round American artist Mykki Blanco took to the floor in sparkly trousers, commanding the room in a circle to give himself room to move freely. Swinging the microphone stand like a cane, he tackled weighty themes of climate crisis, depression and love with a stone-faced intensity: “We need systems,’” he declared. Supported by local DJs and a trusty stagehand to extend his mic lead, Blanco – clearly a born performer – closed out Friday with a set both theatrical and confrontational. This wasn’t a show anyone in attendance was likely to forget anytime soon. (Emma Way)
We were out early Saturday afternoon for a “surprise set” from The Bug Club at Porters; it’s absolutely rammed, almost claustrophically so. There were still people queuing outside. Standing room only, for this prolific garage pop trio who weave hook-laden songs with a real sense of wit and gusto, ‘Marriage‘ got us dancing, with its addictive jiving boy/girl melodies, brisk drumming and waves of fuzzy riffing. “I haven’t been this happy since 2003.” Indeed. (Bill Cummings)
Returning to the festival Saturday, Bristol’s My First Time had already made waves last year on a much smaller stage across the street at the now-closed The Moon, turned The New Moon. With a string of standalone singles showcasing their riff-heavy and politically-charged lyrics, the band have quickly built momentum, emerging more commanding than ever. Frontman Isaac Stroud-Allen proved to be one of the weekend’s most magnetic performers, locking in with unwavering eye contact and commanding stage persona. (Emma Way)
Downstairs at a crammed (to the point of unsafe) Clwb Ifor Bach in the late afternoon of Saturday, MORN, who were holding court led by two brothers from the Welsh hinterlands, with an absolutely incendiary, ear-splitting set that intersected elements of dynamic post-punk, post-rock polemic and garage pop melodies. They inspired a crashing moshpit with their fantastic single ‘Modern Man’ which came out on Speedy Wunderground earlier this year, fired by wiry guitars, and a frenetic percussion that sounds like a train flying off the tracks, while three-pronged vocals collide like bumper cars. The shifting dynamics were absolutely awesome, echoing the best parts of the 00s garage punk, and retooling it with a burning and crushing intensity of vividly chanted lyrics that explore the city at night. They also look f*cking cool, which, let’s face it, always helps. MORN are on the rise, and will be absolutely impossible to resist. (Bill Cummings)
3l3d3p was a striking presence as a one-woman band, a really exciting artist from LA; she is a key member of the Vada Vada collective alongside The Garden, Cowgirl Clue, and more. With a treasure trove of beats, oscillating synths, her barrage of abrasive future pop was ladled with an intoxicating blurring of raving, techno, quickfire vintage electro and insatiable pop refrains. It’s exists somewhere between the addictive sound of early Grimes and the off-kilter imagination of Grace Jones, yet firing off in a comet to some future dimension. It sounds like a transportive place to be, which is a much better place to be than earth right now.
If you could get in, Getdown Services, induced a bare-chested riot in Tramshed, with the playful push and pull of their offbeat pop meets glistening riffing, these restless tunes dance with percussion and squelching synth parts. It’s partly the seductive tongue-in-cheek of Electric Six, part a darkly comic delivery influenced by Ian Dury and part playfully like the Happy Mondays, with a side order of new wave and a great big dollop of FUN. The bouncing ‘Come On‘, where melodies gyrate and synth spirals dance across the notes, takes the ridiculousness of modern life for a spin. It was a big closing party and they challenge the moshing throng to a rendition of the Welsh national anthem, it was a perfect warm-up for supporting the Super Furry Animals on their upcoming reunion tour. So ended Swn for another year; an absolutely hectic weekend brimming with new music, both local, national and international. (Bill Cummings, Rachel Graveson)
Getdown Services – Charlie Harris
