MUSIC NEWS EXTRA
SINFONIA CYMRU
This month ’ s paragraph to store in a time capsule underground , so future historians will know which music venues went under when , contains the following info . Cardiff dance venue Aura closed its doors on Fri 7 June ; nothing has filled the void as yet , but these are the student-free months . The Coal Exchange in Cardiff Bay , whose closure ( in order to build flats ) has been threatened for some years now , was forced to shut in late May due to safety issues . The venue plan to reopen when thes are resolved , however . Meanwhile , rock club Bogiez may also succumb to development hell , but despite a recent scare story in local press , they ’ re set to be there without disturbance for at least another year
Mark David Boden , a graduate of Cardiff ’ s Royal Welsh College Of Music & Drama , has his Chaconne For Strings premiered by Sinfonia Cymru on Thurs 4 July . Still in his 20s , Boden is considered one of the UK ’ s most promising orchestral composers , and won several awards while still a RWCMD student . As such , he ’ s an avatar of sorts for Classic Conversation , a short tour in which the young musicians of Sinfonia Cymru perform a programme which they assembled themselves . The aforementioned opening night is at the RWCMD itself ; it visits Newport Riverfront the following day
Cardiff ’ s abrasive rockers Future Of The Left . I like ‘ em , you probably like ‘ em , their reviews nearly always glow and Andrew the singer is sufficiently regarded as “ a funny guy ” that the Guardian Guide headhunted him to write for ‘ em . They ’ ve not had the greatest of luck with record labels , though , so who can blame them for going it alone for album four , and requesting fans ’ funds upfront via the Pledgemusic scheme . Especially when it reached its goal , and then some , in the space of a couple of days . As such , it should be released in October ; an EP , Love Songs For Our Husbands , is out on Mon 1 July on their own label , Prescriptions
Festival No . 6 , the loosely Prisonerthemed , loosely leftfield festival held in Portmeirion , returns for its second year with an expanded lineup of Welsh acts . In addition to headliners Manic Street Preachers , and younger upstarts like
ONE TO WATCH ...
Islet and Sweet Baboo , there ’ s a whole stage mostly devoted to Welshness old and new . The Clough stage , named after Portmeirion ’ s founder Sir Clough Williams- Ellis , features Geraint Jarman , Bryn Fôn and Heather Jones , as well as Yr Ods , Georgia Ruth and Gwenno . Not Welsh , but likely to pack bags of fun , are guest DJs including David Holmes , Andy Votel and members of Clinic and Demdike Stare
Where are all the protest singers from these parts ? Well , as I write they ’ re probably just leaving the Immortal Technique show in Cardiff , but in a more general sense you can find a lot of them on Stop The G8 – Mae ’ n Fucking Afiach !, a 23-song compilation released by local radical collective Afiach . Members include Steffan Cravos , who used to be in Welsh language rap group Tystion , and the mother tongue is well represented on the album , but there are also contributions from the likes of Little Eris , Cosmo , Tracey Curtis and hardcore / crust dudes Grand Collapse . Afiach have also just released an album by Lembo , a Welsh street artist who recorded this hip-hop / pop / baile funk mashup in 2010 and has dug it up for 2013
AFRO CLUSTER
Many would say that Cardiff is not famous for multi-member , MC-led partytime Afro-funk bands , and in a broad sense they ’ d be right . There is a caveat , though , in that there ’ s always been a pocket ( or indeed a cluster ) of the Welsh capital ’ s live music scene that has eaten up this kind of hybrid crops . The hip-hop scene around the turn of the century , for example , gave about as much room to live instrumentation as to turntables-and-a-microphone setups . More recently , Cardiff venues Gwdihw and the Moon have both found that this stuff can be a popular draw . And also not least Afro Cluster , who formed in 2010 , currently have nine members and are releasing their debut EP this month . Enter The Lion has four tracks , each of which prominently feature the rolling , positivist rhymes of Skunkadelic and colourful blasts of brass , including two trumpeters . The ingredients arrive in differing quantities : Afro Lion bounds along via an insistent , choppy bassline whose roots are in any number of old Fela Kuti records , while Break The Mould introduces itself with lairy hard rock guitar . Fear Not is bold enough to namecheck “ my man Tony Allen ,” one of Afro Cluster ’ s many , and largely very tasteful , influences . That said , for this listener they perhaps most often resemble Jurassic 5 big band spinoff Ozomatli , who never quote entered the musical canon but whose live shows were tons o ’ fun back in the day . If Afro Cluster can approach that when they cram onto stages , they ’ re be doing just fine . www . facebook . com / afrocluster one louder LIKE everyone who writes a column , I ’ m a big fan of observing what my friends and acquaintances have been up to recently , and then extrapolating from this to make out that it ’ s reflective of the world at large . Therefore , I ’ m here to let you know that right now , having a positive major event in your life is HOT , while doing more or less the same thing week-in week-out without any notable upheaval is NOT . I attended a friend ’ s stag ‘ do ’ the weekend just gone , as I write ( since you asked : it was fun , not too blokey , we went to see Carl Craig ) and was at another friend ’ s wedding the week before that . Including the aforementioned stag , there are three more weddings coming up between now and mid-September . It didn ’ t use to be like this , not for me at any rate . This might have something to do with being in my 30s now , and not being in my 20s , like before . As you ’ re no doubt aware , weddings and their attendant ceremonial faff tend to involve ladlefuls of warm nostalgia . In the speeches , where the world and its pissed dad wheel out a cheerful anecdote about how the bride ( s ) and / or groom ( s ) met ( hope you liked the way I covered all bases there ); in the small talk between a bunch of people who haven ’ t seen each other for years . This works well for most people because it ’ s easier than trying to think about the future , which involves a lot of unknown quantities , dodgy assumptions and fuzzy predictions . Unlike the time when we were at that place and those people were doing this and that , and the results of that activity . That definitely happened and is still hilarious . Ah , where does the time go ? Last month ’ s issue of this magazine was a particular pain in the arse to get finished , thanks to incompetent telecommunications clowns disabling our broadband connection for a week and a half around deadline . This meant that I was frequently sat at my PC trying to find something to pass the time . In a blaze of solipsism , I decided to read hundreds of my old music reviews from 10 to 13 years ago . What a pleasant trip down memory lane this didn ’ t prove to be . I mean , it was fun remembering old bands who no-one cares about anymore – everyone likes that – it ’ s just that I sound like an absolute tosser when describing most of them . Filled with an unearned confidence that ’ s often found in males in their early 20s , there are lots of words CAPITALISED FOR NO REASON , exhausting hyperbole , ‘ provocative ’ blanket statements and a general feeling that this guy actually believes music writing ( his or anyone else ’ s ) is remotely important . Wow , here ’ s a review of a Regular Fries EP for the Big Issue in which I jokingly suggest that one of the band might be called Tarquin , you know like a posh person . Hilarious ! It all felt a bit like a long-view version of a post-party cameraphone video revealing that your Wildean bon mots were in fact shit and embarrassing . One of my favourite bands in the early 00s were loose cannon LA punk rockers The Icarus Line . Remember them ? They have a new album this month , which sounded pretty good when I played it earlier while making breakfast . The press release dutifully mentions the pranks-cum-publicity-stunts they played on more famous musicians – notably The Strokes and Fred Durst , who are apparently “ corporate rock ’ s sacred cows ”. What seemed like truth speaking to power in 2002 or so now feels a bit lame and needy , especially because The Strokes and Durst are effectively nostalgia acts in 2013 . Maybe The Icarus Line feel the same way , but mentioned it to jog a few memories . Or maybe they never really grew up . Maybe they ’ re content in their lives . THOUGHT FORMS ( Cardiff Moon Club , Fri 5 ), TV SMITH ( Windsor Arms , Penarth , Sat 6 ), CHESTNUT ROAD ( Gwdihw , Sun 7 ), NAMELESS and SCIENCE BASTARD ( Clwb Ifor Bach , Fri 12 ), EMILY ’ S ARMY ( Hobos , Bridgend , Fri 19 ), TUNABUNNY ( Buffalo , Sat 20 ), AKRON / FAMILY ( Clwb Ifor , Wed 24 ), classic rock fest STEELHOUSE ( Aberbeeg near Ebbw Vale , Sat 27 and Sun 28 ) and Cleveland hardcore legends INTEGRITY ( Le Pub , Newport , Sun 28 ). Those are some gigs happening this month NOEL GARDNER
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