A sound reaction
BIG news in the world of Welsh music festivals this week with the news that Clwb Ifor Bach has taken over the running of Swn Festival.
The multi-venue city festival will return to Cardiff this autumn with an array of new music from Wales and beyond, the first in the hands of new management – the team behind Clwb Ifor Bach.
The legendary Cardiff venue has announced the takeover of the festival with the first wave of acts including Gwenno, Boy Azooga, Drenge and The Go! Team.
The long standing multi-venue festival, now it its 12th year, will take place from Wednesday, October 17, to Saturday, October 20, and tickets go on sale today at 9am.
In addition, Norwegian daze-poppers, Great News, and the multi-instrumentalist and producer, Cosmo Sheldrake bring groove and minimalism while Montreal’s Suuns couldn’t be more apt for the festival.
The rest of the initial line-up includes Argrph, Breichiau Hir, Buzzard, Cassia, Cowtown, Fling, Giant Party, Goat Girl, Heavy Rapids, I See Rivers, Keir, Los Blancos, Mammoth Weed Wizard B ***** d, Marged, Martha, Mellt, Teddy Hunter, Viva la Void, Wasuremono, with more acts to be announced soon.
Guto Brychan, chief executive of Clwb said: “Many people think of us just as a live music venue, but more recently we’ve been putting on events in other venues and locations around Wales. Providing a showcase for emerging artists and developing new ways to nurture them is core to what we do. When John suggested they wanted to hand over Swn, it was the obvious next step for us to continue to grow and we are excited to be taking the helm and continuing its legacy.”
Swn, founded by Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens and John Rostron in 2007, was the first multi-venue music festival in the UK outside of London, inspired by trips to SXSW in Austin, Texas and Iceland Airwaves in Reykjavik.
Over the last decade Swn has hosted bands who’ve gone on to bigger success such as The Vaccines, Alt-J, Disclosure, Wolf Alice, Ghost Poet, Cate Le Bon, Ben Howard and The Staves.
Festival co-founder John Rostron added: “When we established Swn we always envisaged that at some point we would hand it over to the music community and step away, and we now have the right opportunity to do this. It’s thrilling and exhilarating to step away yet know that Swn will continue to develop in new hands. Without doubt it will be weird to go and not have any work to do, but I’m looking forward to being free to see as many bands as humanly possible that week.”
Drenge, who have played at the festival previously, said: “Five years since we played in pyjamas, and six years since all our equipment packed in, we return to Swn Festival. A little older, a little wiser, but with fire in our bellies and ready to set Cardiff alight. Cymru am Byth!”
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