Cardiff’s favourite festival for music discovery and emerging artists, Sŵn Festival, has unveiled the first wave of names set to perform for this year’s event starting in October.
On Instagram, the festival organisers released over 60 artists signed up to perform including American rapper, performance artist, poet and activist Mykki Blanco alongside indie rock band Casual Smart, country rock Norvichians, Black Horse, and future ghetto funk artist Moonchild Sanelly amongst many other headliners.
Sŵn Festival takes place across multiple venues over two weeks with a spellbinding collection of gigs, installations, pop-ups and more. The event will hit these venues: Tramshed, Clwb Ifor Bach, St John’s Church, Jacobs Basement, Fuel, The Canopi, Tiny Rebel, The New Moon and Porters. Sŵn’s Head of Music said this about the festival with Dork Magazine, “We’re proud to champion new music and give a platform to the amazing artists we collaborate with throughout the year — many of whom will be playing their biggest shows in Wales to date.” This is true for several artists including Brown Horse, who performed their biggest show at MOTH club, London last year.
Brown Horses’ involvement in the festival follows the release of their second album ‘All The Right Weaknesses’, which came out in April this year. Listeners hope that the 70s inspired folk album will feature in their setlist for Sŵn Festival alongside their old track favourites like the 2023 single ‘Willow’. The multifaceted Californian artist Mykki Blanco will similarly broaden their horizons of performance with this highly anticipated festival. Known for their immersive live gigs, Blanco will surely take Wales by storm. In a recent interview with Skinny, they spoke about the creative construction of their live shows, stating “I keep on using the word ‘theatrical’ because I feel like the show happens in three acts.” They go on to say, “We start really high-energy and then we change the mood up – really, like, sultry and soulful.”
Blanco’s creative endeavours don’t end here, with their new film The Beautiful Fish in production as of this year with Alvaro Kreyden who has worked on an exciting number of short films, documentaries, music videos and more.
Several artists have expressed their appreciation to be a part of this year’s Sŵn Festival. Emerging artist Angharad shared her excitement on Instagram to be giving her “first festival announcement”.
Find tickets for the most exciting Welsh festival for new and emerging artists on the official website.
