Sŵn Blog: Saturday
Saturday started with an afternoon trip to the famous local Chapter Arts Centre. Chapter Arts, locally known as 'Chapter', is one of the biggest art and cultural houses of its kind in Europe. It's also home to a cinema; bar; gallery; another cinema; a café; a restaurant; art and work spaces; a venue and a theatre. It's this versatility that probably led it to be chosen as one of the numerous venues that are involved in Sŵn this year.
It uses its cinema to show a rather interesting multimedia project called ‘Dots.Filmband’ that took video and improvised music, leading onto the evening’s proceedings. These included Ffred Jones, a Welsh musician who’s a regular on the BBC Wales playlist, as well BBC 6 music and Benjamin Francis Leftwich, an acoustic English musician who played in Chapter’s theatre.
Everywhere the festival was occupying as a venue was totally polarised: it was either packed to the brim with a ‘one in, one out’ door policy, as it was with Dempseys. Or, it was like Clwb, with queues going around the street. After Friday night, Undertone seemed like a good move. After seeing Team Sports at Undertone, I was keen to get down to see a group from south-east London called Melodica Melody and Me who I’d heard good things about, and mainly through word of mouth. They played a pleasing 45 minute set to a half (if not more) empty Undertone. They had a great stage presence, a sort of reggae/folk Latin-American inspired vibes from their music; a world away from last night’s experimental.
Next up were Pandas and People; they reminded me of French pop-group Air. Harmonies, sleek guitars and minimalistic percussion provided slow songs with the barest of acoustic guitar, cutting back into a jagged indie feeling. Personally, not my cup of tea; but it was surprising that this venue wasn’t packed out like others were. Gwdihŵ had an interesting line up of bands yesterday evening including Canton’s own folk group the Evening Chorus and a bilingual Welsh blues group called Cowbois Rhos Botannwg who I caught at the Rheola and Riverside fest, but after a Friday night of indie rock, I was looking for something a bit different to folk.
Next up on the list was Cardiff Arts Institute for a night of hip hop. Or, rather the Institute. Cardiff Arts has closed and reopened under just ‘the Institute’. As a result, it’s grown up a lot; everything’s been redecorated and refurbished from its rainbow colours to subdued greys, whites and blacks, after having been taken over by Brains.
Everywhere was packed, and after failing miserably to get into O’Neills, I realised that there was a rather prominent Welsh rapper playing at the Institute, a man by the name of Mr Phormula. Mr Phormula is a bilingual DJ, rapper and beatboxer; and, by all accounts, a bit of a legend when it comes to Welsh-language hip-hop. Using an Apple Mac and some additional dj-stuff including turntables and some electrical devices that manipulated pitch and drops, the music swayed from classic hip hop with the use of classical musical samples to break drum beats to modern-day dubstep. The flow was genius, switching between Welsh and English and dropping knowledge and jokes in both, but sort of lost his swag towards the end of the set, after deciding to quote ‘Who let the dogs out?’ as a chorus, which probably resulted in most of his audience heading outside for a quick cigarette before Ugly Duckling.
Ugly Duckling headlined the Institute that night. Ugly Duckling are a group from Long Beach, California, and certainly one of the most prominent underground hip hop acts from the US who are still around today. It’s a vintage sort of hip hop, relying on pre-made samples and live scratches to create their sound live on stage (and all from vinyl), in stark comparison to many modern day hip hop artists making their own beats. The crowd loved it, and the Institute was jumping, the whole building was shaking in between Young Einstein’s scratching and the MC’s, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that the Institute was the most happening place on Saturday night of Sŵn. Afterwards, a mix of DJ’s played everything from golden age of hip hop to modern day electro to cater for everyone’s taste, and we moved onto a DJ night at Buffalo Bar, before popping back home, to get some actual sleep after Friday night.
Today’s Sunday, and I’m hoping to catch Cuba Cuba and the Witches’ Drum, even if I don’t manage to see anyone else. I don’t know how I’m going to manage; it’s my fourth night out in a row, but I’ll manage, and check back here tomorrow for another update!
1 Comment – Post a comment
Sprout Editor
Commented 7 months ago - 25th October 2011 - 19:22pm
Saturday rocked! Highlights for me: Jim Jones Revue at Spillers and Ugly Duckling preview in the Full Moon!