It is fair to say that Sŵn Festival, the multi-venue event bringing alternative music of all stripes to the Cardiff city centre, can by now be regarded as an institution within the Welsh musical scene. In one form or another, it has been running since 2007, and credit has to be given to its organisers in that they are constantly trying to shake things up rather than rely on a tried-and-tested formula.
In the 2024 edition, this included the running of a conference, Sŵn Connect, intended to foster thoughtful discussion and create network opportunities, as well as the decision to shift the festival schedule from a weekender in the sense proper—traditionally running Friday to Sunday—to a more unusual Thursday-to-Saturday pattern. The former was a success, bringing people together and facilitating some very interesting conversations; one can hope that it will be repeated, and indeed expanded, in future years. The latter was somewhat more of a mixed bag. While having two shorter days meant that there were considerably less stage clashes than in previous years, and ultimately resulted in people being able to see more artists with greater ease, on the other hand most of the festival was running on work days, with one weeknight thrown in the mix, and the audience felt noticeably more subdued on the Thursday and Friday as a result. Other than this, the festival was well organised, arguably more than ever: there were barely any queues and those few were handled quickly and competently, and it is fair to say that most people got to see the artists they wanted. There is much to say for the overall climate Sŵn is able to foster, year on year: it feels like a remarkably safe and welcoming festival experience, ideal for both seasoned festival-goers and newcomers to the scene—a true celebration of music in a city where the grassroots community has at times had to struggle to be heard.
Also, a credit to Sŵn through the years, is the broad variety of artists and sounds the festival manages to bring to its schedule, both from Wales, from the UK, and beyond. While the 2024 line-up skewed towards new bands a little more than usual—a welcome reminder of how lively the alternative music scene currently is—there were also enough familiar faces to command large crowds of loyal fans. On the Thursday night, the upstairs room at Clwb Ifor Bach felt like the place to be for a fairly long stretch, showcasing the more unusual and atmospheric soundscapes the festival had to offer. Automotion once again proved their ability to evoke a compelling mood through a stripped-down but well-engineered tune, with some strong guitar game thrown in for good measure. Bristol-based quartet Quade challenged definitions of genre and provided a truly immersive experience for the audience with a heady mix of layered instrumentals, folk suggestions, and atmospheric lighting, sounding in places like classical music from a distant future. Returning to Sŵn for the second year in a row, The New Eves also leaned into the unusual and suggestive, and their highly theatrical brand of folk-rock did not disappoint: there is always something primal and compelling to their performances, but it is also nice to see them, year on year, feel more comfortable with simply having fun on stage—and getting the audience to have fun with them. Those who were not too tired from the mid-week workday and felt like continuing with the experimental music streak were able to wrap up the night in the best of ways by catching Wu-Lu’s genre-defying set, contaminating all sorts of influence with each other into a truly distinctive voice.
Friday also started at Clwb Ifor Bach: this time on the ground floor, where French trio Ile de Garde, out of Nantes, delivered one of the most impressive performances in the whole festival, mixing humour and defiance, depth of emotion and genuine excitement into a multi-lingual set that had the audience entranced and ended with a bang in one of their most energetic tracks. It is always good to see how Sŵn has the ability to attract international artists; if there is one concern about the Welsh music scene, it is that it can at times feel somewhat provincial, and the festival has always been an opportunity to show that it is not so. There was barely time to catch a breath before heading back upstairs to catch a set by one of British synth-pop’s ones-to-watch: Circe showed what she is capable of with a fun set-up, a great command of the stage, and a confident willingness to lean into the fun of it all. It is this kind of injection of unusual sounds and locally quirky choices that will save British pop from a fate of dull repetitiveness, and not since Jessica Winter’s set last year had the performance of a solo pop artist at Sŵn felt so intensely exciting.
Much of the rest of the day was dominated by the Welsh contingent. Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard can by now be described as Sŵn Festival aficionados: the high-octane quartet are Cardiff locals, and their home crowd gave them a very warm welcome at the Tramshed, a venue that is a perfect fit for a band with a sound so broad and powerful and an energy level so constantly high. Less established but not less intriguing, The Cheeky Habibis, also a Cardiff outfit, brought pop-rock bounciness, plenty of charisma, and a fair amount of earworms to the stage at Fuel. The latter club is mostly known for its metal-loving clientele and penchant for the rough and noisy, and so it was very fitting that the nightcap on this stage should come from Shtëpi, a post-punk outfit known for their dirty guitars and ability to summon chaos to the stage. It was a much-needed, and well-received, last burst of energy in a very packed day, and additional evidence of how broad the range of sounds Sŵn is capable of attracting truly is.
The longest day, and the one which saw the biggest crowds, was of course the Saturday. Venture into the ground floor room at Clwb for an early set and you would have been able to catch Freak Slug, bringing a grunge-tinged brand of indie-rock and showing that the genre can accommodate far more than slow ballads and acoustic guitars. Some of the more intriguing acts for this final day graced the stage in the basement room at Jacobs, a particularly charming venue that couples cafe and antiques shop, and which felt like the perfect match for this assortment of artists. Plenty of adrenaline was guaranteed when Alien Chicks took to the stage: the London trio are another of the standouts from this year’s festival, powering through a tight-packed set which was a good showcase of their distinctive sound, coupling fast-paced punk and a rather experimental handling of tempo. Mary in the Junkyard made for more reflective listening: some of the more interesting tracks in terms of composition and songwriting were to be found in this set, in spite of a quieter stage presence. The Jacobs basement trifecta was completed by Fräulein—another name which very much belongs on a ones-to-watch list, as this duo with Dutch and Northern Irish connections managed to create a remarkable amount of beautiful noise with just a guitar and a drum kit.
As was to be expected, the big guns came out for the end of the night at the Tramshed, but one last stop at Clwb felt mandatory before then in order to catch Crows, who might have quite possibly delivered the most charismatic stage presence of this year’s Sŵn during their relentless set, as heavy with thrumming guitars as it was with audience interactions. At the Tramshed, however, arguably the two most-awaited sets of the festival were delivered one after the other: English Teacher took to the stage first, fresh from their well-deserved Mercury Prize win, and showed exactly why it was deserved: complex without ever feeling heavy, hazy without ever being unfocussed, nodding to shoegaze and new wave without being either, their music is a perfect fit for a live stage. Also a perfect fit, for different reasons, the final act of the night, the excellent Lambrini Girls: exactly the kind of roaring political punk which is needed both to end a festival on a high note and to remind the audience what grassroots music truly is—or should be—about.
It was yet another strong showing for Sŵn, which is once more confirmed in its ability to bring packed schedules with a vast variety of different sounds and to attract pleasantly mixed audiences to a truly engaging festival. The choice to run so much of the festival mid-week may have partially dampened the mood, but ultimately this could not hinder the success of an event which has become beloved of music fans in Wales and beyond, and for very good reason.
For more information about Sŵn Festival, visit their website.
Photo Credit: Lambrini Girls by Elijah Thomas
