Revolutionary Spirit Newydd

It's a demo from the Revolutionary Spirit. It's a hazy crucible of summer pop and psych. The spaced out sound of the clouds clearing. To take on the stoned Spiritualized/Spacemen Three vocabulary to which the Wrexham group subscribe, just what the doctor prescribed. Or something like that. Listen.

The Fag Machine

Music history is littered with great bands with not-particularly-great names, the Beatles being the most obvious example. Archers of Loaf another one. That is nothing new and probably something you don't need me to waste your time telling you.
The Fag Machine are from Wrexham. As with a lot of others and on the evidence of Formaldehyde, their name tends to push its way to the back of your head and become a little part of the furniture when you're confronted with music. It twists itself around and leaves you questioning yourself. And then on paper, it all looks better.
The Birthday Party had, I have always thought, one of the best band names ever. The Fag Machine slither and writhe in a similar way, shot through with a little more of the AOR slur of Interpol's Paul Banks.
Formaldehyde is abrasive Gothic squall all through. A spider scrawl of baritone and brooding. Unhinged screams and anger. All damn enjoyable, though. Obviously.


For more, watch this, Salt-Lick. Ace.

Baby Brave and the Love Bites Newydd

Wrexham's Baby Brave and the Love Bites have got a new record out! A charming,10-legged assault of dance moves and button bright indie pop. It's being released by Drum With out Hands and it's ace.
Assault is perhaps too strong a word, any band that plays pat-a-cake during instrumental breaks would always be more inclined to gently stroke your face than punch it.
Baby Brave are Wrexham’s Emily and Jo, backed by a three-strong set of Love Bites – Sian (bass), Steve (guitar) and Mikey (drums). The group came together in July 2010 after working on other musical ventures in the past. They create a sunny blend of Francophile folk pop. Although there are a lot of attributes you could describe as twee (flute solos, a ukulele named Fiona) there is enough going on for them to transcend any label or accusation of being kitsch.
An awesome antidote to this terrible weather, right? Buy it.

Dancers ain't dead

Over the summer, the only reason I knew Dancers weren't dead was that I seemed to see (from afar) a member of the Denbigh group at near enough every festival/event I went to.
But that pointless story isn't important. What is important is that they have released a new track, Resigned (BELOW).

With anything between one and seven members at a time, the music they produce is a hazy dream pop. Full of lo fi sensibility, they have always seemed capable of something a little more grandiose, or polished.

Speaking at the end of last year frontman Dafydd Myddleton said: “I’d love to record properly. As it is, it’s a bedroom recording thing and the tracks we have on the internet are around a year old. I like the lo fi side of things and don’t want something super-polished. Just properly recorded.

“In my head I know how I want things to sound – it’d be good to get someone to help realise that.”

I can't be certain, but I think Resigned has been properly studio recorded. It sounds big, but there is something heart warming in Dancers not being able to completely shake off the bedroom pop mantle.

Trwbador got video

Ever enchanting, Trwbador have produced a video for Lluniau which you can view below. It's a whispy, almost-there piece of avant-folk. The Carmarthenshire duo represent many of the things that are so good about a lot of Welsh music right now: Fiercely independent, sounding like nothing else and, above all, ace.
Trwbador also have a full, proper record out soon. Which is incredibly exciting.

Their singer Angharad has also lent her unmistakable vocals to (One of the UK's Greatest Ever Bands) Cornershop's Christmas offering. you can, and should, listen to it here: http://thequietus.com/articles/10570-listen-cornershop-featuring-trwbador-every-year-so-different.

Not a Swn Festival Review

Shy and the Fight, Dempsey's, Sunday

A slightly shortened version of my Swn Festival review went into the Daily Post last Friday. If you picked it up and read it, thanks.. I had been intending to put a full version up here, but it has taken so long to do it's kind of missed the boat. By now, many other people/blogs/etc have run through why the weekend was so great in much finer style than I ever could.
I recommend the reflection over at thelineofbestfit.com. Simon Tyers, in particular, is a wonderful writer. He runs the amazing sweepingthenation.blogspot.co.uk.

My review is also now so long that unleashing the opus upon the public would be of benefit to nobody.
But, the feelings can be pretty much summed up in the excessive display of sentiment (which appeared in the review) below:


"I was asked – at a point now shrouded in the mists of Swn – how the Cardiff festival compared to previous years. It was a very difficult question.
For something that is for many the genuine, 100% bona fide highlight of the year, past experiences almost melt into one. One succinct lump of all the noise and musical brilliance that makes the event. All previous years, to me at least, can only be defined collectively as ‘Swn’. In a word, brilliant."

It also did this to my sister:

Swn Festival 2012. GO!

Swn Festival is almost upon us! October 18 to 21! Below is an extension of a 'bands to see' piece that ran in the Daily Post on Friday October 12.
Of course, it does not include the likes of Liars, Django Django and The Cribs -- that'd be pointless. It is also slightly North Wales bands-heavy. There are only a couple from outside that area, that doesn't really matter, though, because they are all great, without exception. They are in no particular order.

There are also a lot of bands here from Dempsey's on Sunday. That is because it's a Crackling Vinyl stage and the line up is wonderful. You could do much worse than just camping there for most of the day. But get there early, Irma Vep start at something like 3pm.

Trwbador : O’Neill’s (Trinity St), Thursday

Sparsely constructed folk and psych is all wistful and haunting. The breathy vocals of Angharad Van Rijswijk are unavoidably beautiful. The duo have an album out soon, which is pretty exciting.



Ifan Dafydd : Undertone, Friday

DJ/electronic artist from Gwynedd, incredible musician and former flatmate of James Blake. Better than James Blake. Scheduling etc. at last year's event meant that Dafydd played to the upstairs of Clwb Ifor Bach as it started to fill up. Regardless, he was great. Hopefully a slot in the wee hours will suit him.


Irma Vep : Dempsey’s, Sunday

The solo incarnation of Klaus Kinski drummer Edwin Stevens. HAHA, his tenth full length album, was released earlier this year. Stark and visceral, it is one of the best records, I at least, have heard in aeons.
The track What's That in Your Mouth is below, but you should really just go here and listen to as much as you can.


Mowbird : Dempsey’s, Sunday

Wrexham’s Mowbird are bratty and loud. They produce jittering wedges of off-kilter surf pop that slide haphazardly between bright melody and a caterwauling yelps of guitar and keys.
This will be the second time the group have played Swn. Since last year they have become more toned and glossy, trashy, like some pulp fiction magazine. Progressing all the while yet never losing their charm or immediacy. They are thoroughly ace.


Sex Hands, Dempsey’s, Sunday

Mostly from Conwy but based in Manchester, the foursome make music inspired by the hit TV series Friends. Infinitely better than that sounds, they straddle the line irresistible melody and lo fi, teeth shattering squall. Delightful.
They are cited by more than a few as Wales' Best New Band. People, me included, have a tendency to flail about wildly with superlatives and the like. It is not hard, though, to see where the few are coming from.



Sen Segur : O’Neill’s (Trinity St), Friday

Talk to anyone about Sen Segur and among the first things they will mention is how young they are. Secondly, they are likely to use the word progressive. Progressive has become something of a dirty word. But in the vein of Yes or Emerson Lake and Palmer, Sen Segur are not a prog band
The Penmachno group lead you down the road of ace reeled in psych, making stops at Brian Jonestown Massacre and Gorky’s along the way. Refreshingly, they seem particularly disinterested in labels. They are more interested in Olympic swimmers.
[I saw them live for the first time at Green Man Festival last month. They were great, really great]

Shy and the Fight, Dempsey's, Sunday

Shy and the Fight are a 12-legged band from the border country between Chester and Llangollen. Their hearts are as big as their harmonies and choruses. Which is to say huge.

Since their inception in 2009, their early demo recordings have earned them airplay on BBC Radio Merseyside, BBC East Midlands and BBC Radio Wales – and a BBC Introducing session on 6Music.

They have a record out on Popty Ping which you should buy, partly because it's orange but mainly because it's lovely.

Sweet Baboo, Undertone, Saturday

Otherwise known as Stephen Black, he plies his trade in bittersweet pop blasts. He has performed elsewhere with the likes of Cate Le Bon, H Hawkline and Euros Childs. On his own he produces sparkling melodies swinging from darkly funny to tender. Self-deprecation never goes a miss either.

Sweet Baboo's last record, A Girl Under a Tree, is a marvellous medley of tales, a distinctly human collection of lost love, relationships and the world. There is a hell of a lot to love.

Golden Fable, CHAPTER STIWDIO, Sunday

Formed out of the ashes of the Tim and Sam Band, Golden Fable are the brainchild of Tim McIver and Rebecca Palin. They mix electronics and guitars into lush folk-influenced atmosphere.

They are though, a bolder, brassier concept than the Tim and Sam band. Pop sensibility is gratefully intact but the group owe an awful lot to Palin’s soft and swooping falsetto. The single, Sugarloaf, is a shining slice of gossamer pop. Really, and quite disarmingly, lovely.

They remind me a lot of the Vaselines, mixed with The Radio Dept. and Enya. Which isn't really helpful. Because they don't sound like that at all.

Sam Airey, O'Neill's (St Mary Street), Saturday

Very early on the Saturday of Swn 2011, a crowd of fragile heads shuffled into a Radio Wales showcase and were greeted with Sam Airey‘s dark tales of love and the sea. Perhaps in some part down to mass recovery, it was an experience as bleak as it was startlingly powerful and disarming. Through his own admission, the Anglesey musician covers slightly morose territory. His music haunts, but in a good way.

Lying somewhere between James Taylor and John Martyn he is always thoroughly entertaining.

See also:
Gallops, O'Neill's (St Mary Street), Saturday

Joanna Gruesome, O'Neill's (St Mary Street), Sunday

Plyci, Gwdihw, Sunday

We Are Animal, Gwdihw, Saturday

Gulp, Solus, Thursday