Apologies for recent radio silence, I have been away on my radiography placement. It is difficult to care about anything when you’re living out of a Gwent Premier Inn.
GIGS
AUG 26: SWAMP PARTI W/ AJA, MYSTIC LAND CRAB, TALLBOI AND DJ MUD PIE @ Shift, Cardiff, 19:00
Note the venue change. Nottingham’s Aja Ireland returns to Cardiff: room-wrecking industrial malaise, delivered live and prone to spontaneous evolution. Last time out at Fuel saw her pile through free-form noise, high-impact techno and unabashed gabber. Can’t see much about the support but suspect the line-up includes some one-off experiments, as seems customary at TactileBOSCH events. A brief teaser on the FB page suggests ethereal, high-tempo club excursions. Come down and ‘Seize the Night’, as we all say around here
AUG 26-AUG 28: HUB FESTIVAL 2022 @ Multiple venues, Cardiff
Couple of picks from the annual homebrew knockabout, mostly playing upstairs at the City Arms. Do they still have GB News on the telly? Anyway:
SACHASOM: See below for a write-up of Sachasom’s ‘Yr Offerynnols Uffernoliadaus!’. In short, weirdo Welsh hip-hop fermentations; the spirit of Dilla et al corrupted by the ineffable weight of ‘Welshness’, whatever that is. Broken, beguiling, good, on Sunday
MICROMANAGER: The biggest name in the Cardiff Business Techno Boardroom. ‘Welcome to My Office Vol. 01’ is all squelchy, 303-on-the-fly gear, and this DJ set with Garmon promises jungle, juke and more. Not sure if it’s technically part of Hub, but it’s on the Sunday at Clwb.
FFWRD: Enterprising Cardiff noisenik and improviser, previously covered here: February’s ‘Distraction’ was a harsh yet soulful listen. If you’re lucky he’ll bring that mad accordion he’s made, but don’t count on it. He plays on the Saturday
MAES-Y-CIRCLES: Arpeggios to heaven with local Kosmiche duo, also playing on the Saturday
SEP 2: BEAUTY PARLOUR, SHREDDIES, JIU JUK, PENNY LOPE @ Porters, Cardiff, 20:30
Don’t make me tap the sign (BLOODIED INDUSTRIAL STOMPERS, FLOODED VALLEY ATMOSPHERICS, THE OLD WALES MUST BE RELEASED FROM ITS ENDLESS TORMENT). Joining me is Shreddies, Jiujuk and Penny Lope: burnt-out house, snappy lo-fi wooziness and pure Casio power. This one’s free. Come and have a laugh
SEP 3: ALASDAIR ROBERTS & BURD ELLEN @ Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, 20:00
Alasdair Roberts might be described as an apostle of folk; he’s not just a gifted musician, singer and composer, but a vital voice within the genre who works for its preservation and evolution. His interpretations of traditional material are compelling, touching and unpretentious. Joining him is Burd Ellen, a frequent collaborator whose voice sounds like it might summon the spirits themselves. A real treat imo
SEP 9: MCLUSKY, JOHN @ Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, 19:00
Pure nostalgia ofc and I know they’ve been gigging semi-regular the last year or two, but still: a bit shocked to see there’s still tickets going for the Friday show. Original Cardiff Bastard Material, celebrating 20 years of aggro-pop triumph Mclusky Do Dallas. Imagine showing Albini around Womanby Street. What a fucking chore. He’d hate it
SEP 22: GWENNO, STONE CLUB DJs, TRESOR (FILM) @ The Gate, Cardiff, 19:00
Again, weird that there’s tickets still going here. In a move which we all hope will annoy some awful Berlin types, Tresor is the name of Gwenno’s second LP in Cornish, meaning ‘Treasure’. She arrives in Roath this month to tour both the record and an accompanying film, which sounds great to me: will be interesting to see how visuals are put to work with a sound that’s so dreamy, it’s already heavily suggestive of light, image and movement
SEP 23: WALLOWING, TORPOR, MADE OF TEETH @ Shift, Cardiff, 19:30
Last time Wallowing performed in Cardiff was in some geezer’s kitchen (I think), in Roath or Cathays: if you’ve been having flashbacks about blokes in black beekeeper costumes, that was them. Bad-trip Dadaist metal and electronics from Brighton, with support from UK doom heavyweights Torpor and Welsh noise-rock trio Made of Teeth
CLUBS
17 SEP: DJ TREE, FAM JAM RESIDENTS @ Jacobs, Cardiff, 22:00
…Welp folks, at least there’ll always be Jacobs. Assuming someone’s holding on to the lease. In times of crisis, I think the value of a solid, underground house & techno workhorse is indispensable, and I reckon Berlin-based, Italian-born DJ Tree is exactly that. Come get the goods
SOME QUICK REVIEWS OF WEIRD WELSH STUFF
Sachasom - Yr Offerynnols Uffernoliadaus! (Valley abstractions, Huw Edwards presents…)
This set of instrumentals from Machynlleth and Cardiff-based producer Izak Zjalič begins with an English voice repeating the line ‘We all know that Wales is a beautiful country,’ for three minutes. In the background, a harp trembles, the sun rises. If that sounds familiar, it’s possible you’re thinking of Craig David’s MOBO acceptance speech, sampled in a similar manner by Dean Blunt on the 2016 Babyfather debut BFF. ‘This makes me proud to be British,’ said Craig, and no doubt the speaker here—some sort of mild-mannered TV personality from the sound of it—feels the same way. It’s a suitably jarring opener for a diverse set of beats that, whilst often playful and self-effacing, seem nevertheless to be out for a scrap, or to at least unsettle some BBC Wales execs. ‘Dim Gwald’ and ‘Marian!’ are bright, fractured collages that shine in timbre, but refuse to settle into anything steady and reliable, the latter suddenly forced off the road by an MPC gone berserk. The sudden thump of ‘Miliynwyr’s icy bedroom trap is stark and welcome, whilst Agor flirts all too briefly with glossy, high-tempo Kuedo-style rhythms before giving way to a Welsh lesson from hell. Damned are the Dysgwyr. Seriously good gear
Mercury Calculus – Cowboys Holiday (Music for Prairies, Never haw yee)
Cardiff promoters The Beauty Emporium are known to date for their Italo (et al) nights, and so you might assume their plans as a label would concern high drama club cuts and a stoic commitment to yesteryear’s presets. This maiden release delivers nothing so obvious, instead calling on the mostly-anonymous Mercury Calculus for a work of subdued soundscaping. Its seven tracks blend slippery pedal steels, under-the-breath percussion, dusty synths and various bg chatter, from airports to what could be local radio. The result is an entirely charming, lightly hallucinogenic experience that never demands too much of listeners, a fitting quality given its conceptual centre: a fictional resort for over-worked, under-stimulated cattlemen
Sniffany and the Nits – The Unscratchable Itch (Neo pub-rock, open-sewer-wave)
I’ll keep it brief: Sniffany and crew is Josie (the talent) plus ex and current Joanna Gruesome, Artefact, Ex-Void, Caramel, Saturday’s Kids, The Tubs, Bad Vibes (?) and countless other guitar-bothering chancers from South Wales. It’s very good, a pure neanderthal clobbering when it’s fast with thick-as-shit riffs practically racing the charity-shop drums to the finish. Rightly at the centre of everything is Sniffany’s vocals: torrents of fresh-scented bile that never lose their sting. An intensely personal insult of a record. Cover your ears
IN THE BELLY OF A BEACHED WHALE
This week I spoke with Jon Ruddick, an improvising musician based in Cardiff who is also one of the driving forces behind Shift, a multi-disciplinary space in Cardiff’s Capitol Centre. Founded in 2018 and geared towards collaborative practice, Shift is an enormous basement beneath a fast-crumbling shopping centre, a trip to which requires a walk down a broken escalator which, as best I know, nobody’s managed to switch on.
One thing I was keen to find out straight away is how anyone can afford to run a DIY space in the middle of a city. Our chat is edited for clarity and brevity:
XB: How did Shift get started, and how is it sustained financially?
JR: I became aware through a friend of mine of the Wakefield-based arts charity Axis, which receives funding to take over empty shop spaces. This provides space owners with rate relief: if somebody owns commercial space in the Capitol Centre, they’ve got to pay rates on it, even if it’s empty. By then there were a lot of empty spaces in the Capitol Centre, and so following some meetings with management, there was opportunities for Axis members to use these spaces. Shift is an example of that. At the time I was joined by some visual artists who were just looking for a place to show their work, but there was an issue in that Cardiff Council were not convinced the space was being used for anything, and so wouldn’t offer rate relief. And so we put together our first open day in December 2018, with live performances and exhibitions.
After that, we got the relief, and as part of the agreement between us all there’s no rent or bills to be paid on the place. No overheads, basically. Not too long after that, those visual artists left to do their own thing, but I saw an opportunity to carry on doing shows.
XB: I remember that show because me and Nia David (Cardiff jeweller) performed as Beauty Parlour. I remember thinking, what shop did this use to be? An Argos?
JR: A Littlewoods, I think, and since then it’s been used for plenty of things like music videos and short films. Casey Raymond (Cardiff artist) did one there.
XB: Tell me more about Shift’s emphasis on collaborative practice.
JR: The initial idea was to run three-week residencies for artists, taking them out of their usual space and dropping them in a collaborative, experimental environment. If they wanted a show at the end of that time, they could have it. Things have changed a bit since: post-covid, my interest was in pushing some DIY gigs and bringing in interesting sound artists and musicians: there’s very few restrictions, since we can have people in there till midnight, and the location means there’s no concerns about noise. Since Christ Parfitt (Cardiff-based improviser running the Shift-based ‘South Wales Improvisers’ group) has gotten involved, there’s been a lot of interest from people in the improv world looking to play somewhere unique. Putting on the band Caroline was more of a traditional promotion with a fee, and in that sense a bit of a risk, but it worked.
XB: Definitely, that night seemed like a big success. I had never seen the space that full. Before I turned up to that, I was wondering about some of the challenges such a big, unfurnished space may present.
JR: Sound-wise it’s much better than you imagine, particularly when you get bodies in there. There’s also unique things that happen in there when it’s not so full, which is why I think the improv sessions work so well. But yes, it’s big down there and that’s why I like anyone performing to come and experience it for themselves beforehand. It’s artist-centred, and there is time available to make it sound how you like.
XB: In terms of working as a venue, there’s issues such as the lack of a bar or toilets…
JR: Yeah, that’s a weird one, and something we have to work around using surrounding facilities. We may be getting some of our own, but generally it is just a rough-and-ready space: it’s not a club, it’s not The Moon, it’s something different for audiences, often with site-specific works. I think most people who come are aware that we’re not a straight gig venue: we’re an artist-led space. In any case, we wouldn’t want to compete with the likes of The Moon, who have wages to pay.
Something else to consider is that if a corporate buyer decides they want the space, Shift has a notice period of just three weeks. I think the current state of the world means we’re ok for now, but then again, one of our upstairs spaces has just recently been acquired by some sort of retail and dining experience. Long-term we know it’s all going to get knocked down as part of the canal project and accompanying ‘regeneration’ of Queen Street, i.e. more retail and leisure experiences. That affects not just us but neighbouring spaces in the complex like TactileBOSCH. So there’s longer-term discussions to be had about what to do next. With enough people we could hopefully think about paying rent on a space: a Café Oto-style venue and co-op. Obviously cheap rent is extremely hard to come by these days, but who knows what will open up going forward because there are more and more empty spaces.
XB: So there’s a real precarity about Shift.
Yeah, we can plan as many things as we like, but there’s every chance that once a date rolls around, the space won’t be there. That’s why I like encouraging people to just get in there and get something done. It doesn’t have to be your magnum opus. Our space is for trying new things.
XB: Earlier you mentioned that you’d like to incorporate Shift into a network of venues within Wales that can effectively exchange interesting artists. How important is that Welsh element?
Really important. Obviously it’s fantastic that we now have artists who might not have otherwise visited Cardiff coming to the space, such as Max Syedtollan, Caroline, Sascha Brosamer & Chi Him Chik. But I think it’s vital we start something in Wales too, and build a viable circuit for performers here and put them in different spaces, whether in Newport, Pembrokeshire, up north, or wherever. Audience-building is important for that because that’s how we can afford to put people up, feed them and secure travel.
XB: You mentioned Chris Parfitt earlier who helps run South Wales Improvisers (SWI) at Shift. These are informal, welcoming sessions, but it feels like they’re also having a cohesive effect for artists here.
JR: Definitely. We can view the improvisers as a satellite group, with their own say in what Shift does and how it does it. And there can be lots of these groups, it’s just that SWI are the first to get so involved in the space, much more so that previous artists.
XB: It’s funny how these spaces exist on account of the Capitol Centre’s own failures—and without being too grandiose, those of society under late capitalism. It’s like working in the shell of a dead beast.
JR: Yeah, and to the centre’s management, we’re completely invisible. They’d replace us in a second. But that’s fine. I don’t mind not having a relationship with them!
You can listen to Jon Ruddick on Bandcamp
LATELY I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN LISTENING TO:
- Basically nothing this month, bar a tonne of live Prince (thanks Dan) and this from AMM, who I only got round to spending some time on last July. It was therefore a real privilege to attend what in all likelihood was their last performance at Café Oto last month. Even in John Tilbury’s absence, it was sheer magic, as was the impromptu stand-up set. Apologies for my awkwardly phrased question but it was so interesting to hear how guitarist Keith Rowe has adapted his technique with the onset of Parkinson’s.
F1 FORUM RETURNS AFTER THE SUMMER BREAK!
Xavier Boucherat is a Cardiff-based musician and writer. You can listen to and read his work here. Through the Night is published monthly on Substack. You can subscribe below.
If you are a recording artist in Wales or from Wales making anything freaky, I’d love to hear your stuff, particularly if you’re from a group that traditionally lacks representation. You can email me at throughthenightwales@gmail.com
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