Sŵn Festival // NEW DATES, NEW MUSIC and NEW MANAGEMENT

Sŵn, 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.

Sŵn 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.

Gwenno, Boy Azooga, Drenge and The Go! Team to play festival this October

On Wednesday 17, Gwenno will bring her psychedelic sounds to Tramshed with support from Adwaith, Audiobooks, Halo Maud and Heavenly Jukebox DJs in a show curated by the Welsh songstress and Heavenly Records.

 “When we established Sŵn 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 Sŵn 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." 

Festival co-founder, John Rostron 

Thursday night will see The Great Hall rocking with the grungy guitars of Drenge and jangly riffs of Melbourne’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, with further support to be announced.

A weekend Sŵn fans will be more familiar with will kick off on Friday 19 with the magnetic party rock noise of Boy Azooga, the latest sensation to come out of Wales enjoying air time on Radio 1 and Later…with Jools Holland with their debut album ‘1, 2, Kung Fu’ released just last week.

Joining the weekend bill are Brighton based sextet, The Go! Team with their unique blend of indie rave pop. Bringing the noise will be Japanese neo-psychedelic four-piece, Bo Ningen, riot grrls Dream Wife and proto-punk trio the Blinders with their rip-roaring riffs and in-your-face delivery.

In addition, Norwegian daze-poppers, Great News and the multi-instrumentalist and producer, Cosmo Sheldrake bring groove and minimalism whilst Montreal's Suuns (pronounced 'soons') 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 Bastard, Marged, Martha, Mellt, Teddy Hunter, Vive la Void, Wasuremono ...with more to be announced…

Sŵn Festival returns Wednesday 17 to Saturday 20 October 2018. Tickets go on sale on Friday 15 June, 9am. For more information and to be the first in the queue, visit swnfest.com, join the mailing list or follow @swnissound #swn2018

This year’s event is supported by For Cardiff and PRSF along with sponsors Ticketweb, Cowshed, Bubblewrap Collective, and Musicbox.