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The Arts

We Are Cardiff recommends: Through the Night

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A hoy hoy friends. Today’s post is one I’ve been wanting to write for aaages, about a newsletter I signed up to a while ago that’s brought me much joy, as it covers ‘weirdo music’ in and around Cardiff. It’s called Through The Night and writer/curator Xavier was kind enough to spare me some time and some words on it. If weirdo music is your thing (and there’s all sorts of great stuff on there, so it really should be) please do sign up for Through the Night.

So, ready? Here we go!

WAC: Hello. Please introduce yourself.

I’m Xavier, from Cardiff. Since moving back in 2014 I’ve been putting on and playing shows here, initially as part of the Hotel de Marl collective, and now under the Sgarab Tapes moniker. I used to be a freelance music writer but am thrilled to say those days are behind me

WAC: You’ve been writing the Through the Night (TTN) newsletter for a while now. What inspired you to start it up?

Just before lockdown I felt we were seeing an especially fruitful time for weirdo music in Cardiff, culminating in a sell-out show in Tiny Rebel for Special Interest, a New Orleans-based outfit who play a sort of mutant no-wave dance-punk. Wild shit, largely the work of Luke Penny from Cardiff punks Cankicker. Happily, the pandemic failed to take the wind out of things, and so in Jan 2022 I threw together some listings in an effort to signpost things. There was once an outfit called ‘The Joy Collective’ who, along with putting on a tonne of leftfield stuff in Cardiff, ran a vital blog that did a similar thing, and I’m picking up where they left off.

I know that ‘Weirdo music’ is a pretty unhelpful catch-all, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t basically boil down to stuff I like, including projects I’m involved in. But fundamentally, this is a free, artist-led newsletter with no allegiances, least of all to pissant music monocultures of the sort which Cardiff Council loves to flaunt, if not actually support (see the presumably defunct ‘Music City’ project, for example), and which commercial venues are required to continuously indulge. Basically, TTN is dedicated inches for noise and drone, ambience and electronics, industrial, improv and weird jazz, anything that runs the risk of failing to draw an audience. At the same time I’m also open to including artists that are perhaps more easily pigeon-holed on paper, but in practice push boundaries, musical or otherwise, and that’s why I’ll still include certain punk & hardcore, weird metal, or club music. Ultimately I want to help anyone taking a chance, including the DIY promoters and venues; Lesson Number 1, Subvert Power Control, Paradise Garden, and on the performing arts side of things there’s TactileBOSCH.

I should point out another thing I don’t owe any loyalty to, which is publishing deadlines: in theory it’s once a month, but this doesn’t always happen since right now I am retraining as something with far, far more social utility than music-writing. Along with Cardiff I also do my best to cover similar stuff in Newport (home of Le Pub and more recently The Cab, which has quickly established itself as a righteous DIY space for punk and hardcore) and Swansea, (which is frequently the site of the excellent NAWR Music, led by the incredible Rhodri Davies, an improvising harpist from Aberystwyth), but am always concerned I might be omitting the real gear in these locations and am always keen to hear from punters on the ground

WAC: You also run a record label called sgarab tapes. Can you tell us a bit about that, and your own music production?

‘Label’ is a bit grand, for now it’s just a cassette and digital imprint for music I’ve made, on my own and with other people, but this year there will be some releases from artists whose music excites me and hopefully a Cardiff-focused compilation. Some people have asked about the logo, it’s the Summoner from the Canterbury Tales, whose job was to bring people before the church to answer for their crimes and face punishment, which is sort of what it’s like coming to our gigs

Of course, it’s a stupid time to be doing any of this; venue closures and rising costs make things like rehearsing, equipment, touring and getting people out of the house a struggle. Strangely though, it feels like things have never been better in Cardiff for adventurous sounds, at least in my time. Personally I think this is largely thanks to SHIFT, a performance space buried deep in the remains of the Capitol Centre which many, many hands have helped transform into a vital hub of experimentation, cultural solidarity and, I stress, real, actual fun. It’s been a riot, and I’ll be gutted when someone somewhere decides it’s got to go (presumably when the council finally decides to demolish the centre and replace it with unaffordable flats). A lot of highlights there over the last two years (Tara Clerkin Trio, Elvin Brandhi and Yeah You, Lo Egin, Viridian Ensemble) but a recent one that I think underlines what it’s all about was a residency by the Dutch performer Svartvit, who I suppose you could describe as an extreme noise artist. He’s also an extremely nice guy who, as part of the residency, ran a free, open workshop in which he described the processes by which he makes music, which embrace things like chance and situation, and by no means rely on expensive tech. Two of us ended up using what we learned to perform as an improv duo on the final night of his residency. I loved the name of the workshop, which was ‘democratising and de-quantising sound’, which I think is what it’s all about for me (de-quantising is a fancy way of saying working outside of traditional parameters or guidelines)

As for my own music, I perform solo as Beauty Parlour, which I normally describe as an extended exercise in world-building that looks to capture the ‘air of calamity’ I think hangs over South Wales a lot of the time. The music itself takes a few forms, from flooded ambience to manic, industrowave stuff that you can sort of dance to. I also play alto sax and sampler / synth in a band called ‘The Panama Papers’, which began as a hopelessly convoluted in-joke and has since expanded into a jazz-not-jazz-electronics outfit

WAC: Who are your favourite local musicians / artists that you’ve featured? Anyone you’d like to pick out for us to listen to?

I’ve mentioned Cankicker (goth-adjacent dirge-punk from Splott, really looking forward to their second LP which should be out this year) and Rhodri Davies (awe-inspiring improvising harpist, also plays in Hen Ogledd; last time I saw him he was supporting my favourite band of all time The Ex at Clwb Ifor Bach, and the performance was him simply going hell for leather on a smaller harp until all but two or three of the strings had snapped, it was special). A few more from across Wales who I’ve featured these past couple of years are Ardal Bicnic (duo of Rosey Brown and Heledd C Evans, no music online but whose shows have featured everything from scorching violin and clarinet loops to mic’d-up gelatine desserts), Sachasom (deranged, Machynlleth-based beatmaker; what if J Dilla had been made to watch S4C?), Ordeal By Roses (South Wales’s premier power electronics act, ‘And Darkness…’ is my favourite) Somatic Responses (prolific modular synth and electronics producer), and Ash Cooke (improvising guitarist from North Wales, currently putting on some very interesting stuff in Aberystwyth)

WAC: Any hopes / dreams / ambitions for your work for 2024?

Only that I can find the time to carry on doing this stuff. If the newsletter actually helps anyone, that’s mission accomplished. There are a couple of Sgarab releases available now:

T PERSON – THE SUN / THE THROAT (listen to the preview / order here)

MEGZBOW AND VINEGAR TOM – FIELD MULCH (preview / order here)

WAC: Finally, where can people find / follow you?

You can follow Through The Night here. Head to the Sgarab Tapes Bandcamp to check out our releases. Sgarab is also on insta somewhere. My first release is still my favourite, originally it came out on the excellent Bristol label Ceramics.

Big thanks to Xavier for sparing me his time. Go check out Through The Night and follow, follow, FOLLOOWWWWW!

Much love

WAC x

The Arts

Paper Aeroplanes – luminescent folk, guaranteed to bring you joy: review and interview

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Paper Aeroplanes
Paper Aeroplanes

Cwtching snugly between the sounds of Laura Marling, Feist and Marika Hackman, Paper Aeroplanes are easily one of the best alternative folk bands in Wales at the moment. Their fourth album, Joy, is released on 8 April, which was written and recorded in Cardiff with the help of producer Mason Neely (Cerys Matthews, Sufjan Stevens). The band are gearing up for a 30 date European tour to promote the album, which heads to France, Switzerland and Germany before returning to the UK with a date at Clwb Ifor Bach on 16 May.

Joy is a, ahem, joy. I have to admit that their comparison to Lykkie Li didn’t enthuse me about the sound of this band. But this album is not unrelentingly mournful- quite the opposite. It sweeps you up in a breeze through rolling 80s beats (Good Love Lives On) to sparkling folk (Race You Home), and from cute, dreamy pop (Books and Joy) to haunting pianos (Caravan). It soars from being shimmeringly upbeat to powerfully atmospheric, all with a surprising depth. The flourishes of synths, strings and pianos are a welcome addition to Sarah Howells’ delicate (but never weak) voice. Richard Llewellyn’s masterful guitar shines through on tracks like Race You Home with echoes of John Martyn and Bert Jansch.

This album is a joyful celebration of unconditional love, making stories and finding warmth from the cold. Steeped in the salt-tinged air of West Wales, but with the unmistakeable influence of Cardiff’s diverse music scene, Joy is guaranteed to a be a hit.

*****

We caught up with the band’s Cardiff-based guitarist Rich Llewellyn for a quick Q&A.

Q. What was the last book you read?

A.  Intermission by Owen Martell. A contemplative, fictional shortish story which takes a little-documented part of the life of jazz pianist Bill Evans as its starting point. I’ve also been reading The Rough Guide to Germany so I can appear knowledgeable during our forthcoming tour.

Q. Tell us a secret.

A. I have a crush on posh BBC4 historian, Lucy Worsley.

Q. What’s your favourite place for breakfast in Cardiff?

A. For an old-fashioned hearty fry up, Café Fresco in Canton.

Q. What’s your local pub?

A. The Lansdowne – great beers, lovely staff and 2 minutes from my front door.

Q. Tell us about a hidden part of Cardiff that you love. 

A. There’s a place I like to escape to when I need to clear my head, which is a very short drivefrom Canton. Countryside walk, feels like you’re miles away from the city. I can’t tell you where it is though, because then you’d go there too.

Q. If you had some friends coming to visit for the weekend, where would you take them?

A. Lilo’s Grill on city road. Great juices, tasty meze and a platter of grilled meats and rice for everyone to share.

Q. What’s the next gig that you’ll be going to in Cardiff?

A. We’re away touring a lot over the next couple of months but I’ve just seen that Chris Wood is playing in St David’s Hall in June, so I’ll definitely be getting tickets for that.

***

Joy is released on 8 April on Diverse records. Photo from Paper Aeroplanes.

The City

New sister site: Love Letters to Tucson

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Recently we received a lovely email from a site in Tucson Arizona called Love Letters to Tucson, asking to be added to our list of sister sites. We investigated a little more and discovered that Rachel who runs the site has Welsh roots! We always said all roads lead back to Cardiff. We asked Rachel a few questions about her lovely site. Read on!

1 – What’s your name, where do you come from, how did you end up in Arizona when you have British roots?

My name is Rachel Hughes Miller. I’m from Prescot, just outside of Liverpool. My grandparents lived in Llanblethian, so we spent a lot of time there, my aunt and uncle live in Pent-wyn,  and my cousin Nikki in Cardiff.Let’s see, how did I end up in Tucson, Arizona? My dad moved out here about 25 years ago for work, and I followed him a couple years later to go to university at the University of Arizona. I didn’t expect to stay more than a few years, before heading back across the pond, but it didn’t happen. Somewhere along the way I started putting down roots in Tucson. You know the usual thing, friends, boyfriends (sequential, not consecutive), dogs, a house, and of course Tucson, herself, winding her way into my heart.

2 – what inspired you to start LLtT?

Julie Michelle of I live here: SF and I were both involved in a group called Help A Mother Out, which started in 2009, using social media for diaper(nappy) drives. I followed her personal blog Tango Baby and the I live here: sf blog. I loved the idea of sharing people’s stories as a way to see a city or place through new eyes, finding out new quirky things about a place you have lived in for years through other’s stories, and maybe it’s a bit grandiose to think that such a site can have an impact on community, but I hope that if we see this place we love through another’s eyes we might feel more connected to one another, and might enjoy this place we live in a little more.

3 – what has been the best thing about running the site?

Well, while I’ve had the site for a couple of years, I only got my act together this July. So far, it’s been lovely to see how receptive people are. This weekend LLtT got a shout out in our local alternative weekly newspaper online. Tickled me pink to see that. Right now, the response has been really positive to LLtT, but the demographic represented pretty narrow and I really hope in time it will come to represent Tucson better.

4 – what’s it like living in Tucson?

Hot.
You’re asking this at the tail end of one very hot summer. Think an average of  43 degrees Celsius. Oh, and don’t let anyone kid you when they say, “but it’s a dry heat”. We have monsoons in July, August, and into September. Hot AND humid. And stunning, stark, rich and beautiful. These big, thunderous clouds roll across the sky in the afternoon and in about 30 minutes dump crazy amounts of rain, that then stream down the streets, because there isn’t a road drainage system.

Seriously, Tucson is complex. It’s a big university town, but it’s downtown is small, still growing and vital. It’s about 60 miles from the border with Mexico, and it wasn’t that long ago that it was part of Mexico.  Between October and May there seems to be one festival or another  every other weekend, Cyclovia, All Souls Procession, Tucson Meet Yourself, Festival en el Barrio, Festival of Books, Parade of Lights  etc.  It has, quite a rich cultural life, although that isn’t always apparent to an outsider or inhabitant. It is a clothing thrift store delight. It has a vibrant music and art scene. It is more liberal that the rest of the state (that doesn’t take much though). It’s a city in size, but a town in nature.

I wrote the following on my personal blog following the January 8, 2011 mass shooting at a Meet your Congresswoman.

IMG_9407

Tucson is a beautiful place. Sunrises and sunsets that make you swoon. Mountains that rise majestically from a fabulous bizarre desert landscape. In summer, thunder and lightning roll in from the East and provide us with both relief from humidity and spectacular evening entertainment. For most of the year, the high altitude, dry air, clear and dark skies allow us sweet glimpses into the celestial heavens that this transplant, from a country known for its constant cloud, still gets goosebumps from.

There is something else too. Something that can’t always be seen. The city has a population of over a million now, more than twice what it was 22 years ago when I arrived. Yet, despite its size this is a small place. A place where typically it isn’t six degrees of separation but one, or maybe two, degrees of separation. And so here Green and I sit this evening talking of the lovely Ashleigh Burroughs who I only know through her writing, and Tom & Mary who we know IRL, hoping they’re okay and that their path to healing is swift. We know we’re not alone in that hope. Across this big-little town we’re all trying to process what has happened. These people are our friends, our colleagues, our family.

5 – what do you do besides run the website?

Most of my day, now our five year old daughter is in school, is spent with our 1 year old son, or developing content for and supporting our local community hospital’s social media ( a couple of blogs and facebook pages).

6 – how did you come across We Are Cardiff and what do you like about it?

I found We Are Cardiff through i live here: sf. It makes me a little homesick. I identify with the delight in a city that isn’t appreciated by those outside as much as it should be. I like the frankness of many of your subjects and the humor. I love that your mission is to show people just how flipping brilliant Cardiff is.

I know Cardiff through the eyes of a child. Meeting my Gran and Granddad at the station (that’s where I’d go for a photo session if I was on WAC), going to the Arcades, have a nice lunch with Gran before heading out toward Cowbridge and Llanblethian.  Revisiting it through We Are Cardiff is lovely.

Some photos from the Love Letters to Tucson site:

Visit Love Letters to Tucson

Love Letters to Tucson on Facebook