The Sprout

Gone Too Swn?

Posted by Sam (Sub-Editor) from Cardiff - Published on 26/10/2009 at 11:25
1 comments » - Tagged as Music, Festivals

After months and months of anticipation, Swn Fest 09 is suddenly all wrapped up for another year, just like that. Three days of bands, antiquated pub function rooms, DJs, fast food and partial deafness have flashed past. Well apart from the deafness. That’s still hanging around… worryingly.

The nature of Swn, spread out across the city from The Gate in the east to Chapter in the west, means that delivering an objective, all encompassing overview of the festival is nigh on impossible. Covering every major event that occurred, being in the right place at the right time, would involve an army.

I am not an army.

So this review is merely a brief glimpse, a tasting so to speak, of a part of what my Swn was like. If you witnessed stuff that I missed, post, post and post again either below or in a new article. There was plenty to go around.

DAY 1

Thursday started upstairs in Dempseys. I’m ashamed to say that this was my first foray into this part of the pub, often home to the long-running Twisted By Design nights. Old-fashioned to the point of being hip again, the room wouldn’t be out of place in Life On Mars. I was a little bit in love. A fairly full room saw Them Squirrels continue their adventures into the Prog-verse, though more engagingly than the last time I saw them. We were then introduced to a common theme of the festival, bands coming on late. This accelerated mine and Lou’s departure to Clwb to see Gold Panda, one of the most exciting new prospects that has been spat out by the blogosphere and one of the acts I was most psyched about seeing at Swn. He didn’t disappoint with organ-rattling bass and intricate, intriguing soupy loops, similar to the sought that have propelled Animal Collective to the top of critics’ lists. The guy operating the smoke-machine could have toned it down a bit though.

Dropping down two floors, we were met with a desert. There was nary a soul in the place for Unicorn Kid, despite a stellar performance at Green Man this August. He ripped through his set, knocking his equipment to the floor, pounding the few present with his day-glo chiptune music.

I was still wondering where everyone was as we sauntered back along Womanby Street. The answer was in Dempseys, watching Islet. We just caught the end of their set, all tribal drums, nomadic basslines and wailing. Very nice. After a few more beverages, the eyes started to droop. Despite Evils best attempts to inject us with some electro filth, the call of bed was irresistible.

DAY 2

Y Fuwch Goch was the first port of call on Friday to see a pair of local favourites Threatmantics and Sweet Baboo. Rammed to the rafters it was. Threatmatics played their violin-led alt-rock, bolstered by a new member who sang a bit and whacked a drum a bit. Sweet Baboo provided introverted singer-songwriter gubbings. He had a nice line about Bruce Campbell. Neither blew me away but it appeared everyone else had been. Each to their own, I suppose.

Next on the agenda was Elephant & Soldier in Dempseys, a fella with a guitar and a pleasant if perplexing mid-Atlantic voice (thanks Lou) and a lady with a cello, which was melancholic of course. I’m not sure which was the elephant and which was the soldier. Maybe it’s not a name to be taken literally. Anyway, it was very pleasant in a BBC Radio 2 kind of way, augmented with a cover of LCD Soundsystem’s All My Friends, how very Jo Whiley. A vain stab was made to get into Clwb to see Johnny Foreigner, but the wall of hipsters made it nigh on impossible. Defeated and exhausted (how old are we?) we left for home, missing Gemmy, Daedelus and Mary Anne Hobbs. Boo-urns.

DAY 3

Determined to get our money’s worth today, what with flake-out Friday, Lou and I stormed into The City Arms to partake in Scrabble Saturday. Rock ‘n’ Roll. With artist Pete Fowler jetting in from Monsterism Island soundtracking our increasingly contentious game (EQ and EU are not acceptable words), we had fabulous, if nerdy, start to the Saturday.

A short trip next door was in order. We climbed the stairs to The Model Inn’s function room, welcomed by a smell which hadn’t entered my nostrils in years, that of a teenage boy’s bedroom. It’s one that I could happily forgo ever smelling again. Despite this and the throngs of people in such a tiny spot, both Supertennis and Tubelord brought shouty, post-punk flecked, angular indie-rock tunes. Went down well.

The “atmosphere” was getting a bit much though after an hour and a half, so respite and fresh air were required. Once relaxed and refreshed, Y Fuwch Goch was on the cards. Lou figured correctly that the place would be heaving for Cate Le Bon, so we got there early, before the check-shirt army arrived. Unfortunately this meant we had to sit through the dirge that was Taxi Taxi. They could have played the same song ten times in a row, I’d be none the wiser, it all sounded exactly the same. Unfortunately our patience and persistence was not rewarded as Cate Le Bon’s set was curiously flat, never kicking in like she did at Green Man.

A change of pace and a change of scene resulted in us visiting The Toucan and seeing Anchorsong, a Japanese guy’s take on the one man band. Using trip-hop era breaks, looped synths and a curious liking for hammy piano sounds, Anchorsong was a bizarre cocktail of styles. Not necessarily great but definitely different to anything else at Swn.

It was only fitting that Lou and I should finish Swn where we started, upstairs in Dempseys. Teeth were described in the programme as “Surf-pop genius, sleazeball electro and a squelchy bass that would give George Clinton goosebumps…” and my interest was duly piqued. From the first note of their set, this preview was redundant and pretty inaccurate apart from the electro. That’s not to say Teeth were a let down, far from it, in fact they were brilliant, a bit Erase Errata, a bit Crystal Castles, a bit bloody good! Gloriously artificial, with one guy cradling a laptop and pressing the space bar at the start of each song, another with a minimal drum kit including an electronic bass pedal and a girl screaming/singing into a microphone it was refreshing, new, unpretentious and LOUD.

The Drums were also loud, but by Jove, they were pretentious drips, flapping around even worse than Morrissey used to. They were incredibly punchable. They played to a backing track, were late on stage, had an overly fussy dad-like manager and wore trousers that were too short. They are bound to be huge and loved by the NME. I was bitterly disappointed, I thought their first single Let’s Go Surfing was awesome but they were so inauthentic, so obviously groomed, styled and marketed. They basically sucked.

So Swn ended on a bit of a damp squib. And despite a pause for thought, I still feel slightly under-whelmed by the festival. Chapter and The Gate are too far out of town, fine if you plan to spend a whole evening at one of them but a pain if you only want to see one band on the bill and hop to another venue. A shuttle bus would be a nice addition for next year. Overcrowding was a big problem at certain gigs. And if I knew I could buy tickets on the door for individual gigs before I purchased a wrist band, I reckon I would’ve saved some dough.

But despite all that, Swn is a vital and important addition to the culture of Cardiff, almost an institution now. As it continues to grow year by year, these issues are sure to be addressed. And £45 for three days of music isn’t that bad really. Overall a cautious thumbs up. Now, who did YOU see?

For more photos of Swn, head on over to theSprout Flickr account.