Cardiff’s award-winning Sŵn Festival has unveiled a fresh batch of artists appearing at its 2025 edition…
The multi-venue festival – 10 venues and 150 bands/artists – is taking place across the Welsh capital from Thursday October 16th to Saturday October 18th.
The day splits have just been revealed and single day tickets are now on-sale. As with the beefed-up 2024 edition of Wales’ premiere new music festival, Sŵn 2025 once again runs over three days of programming and is part of Cardiff Music City Festival.
Sŵn Festival is an award-winning multi-venue music festival based entirely in Cardiff’s city centre, which has been running since 2007. Since its inception, the festival has been focused on new music, emerging artists and homegrown acts.
It is a diverse and eclectic array of the best Welsh, national and international talent across a slew of Cardiff venues, from ascendant acts making waves on a large scale to newbie Welsh artists making their debut on the live scene.
Squid will be heading to Cardiff this autumn, fresh from releasing their critically acclaimed third album, “Cowards”, earlier this year via Warp Records. The Brighton-formed quintet have spent the best part of a decade at the vanguard of guitar music. They appear on Saturday.
Recent Partisan Records signing TTSSFU – the performing alias of Tasmin Stephens – has quickly become a rising star in the shoegaze genre, with comparisons to The Cure and The Strokes while maintaining a grounded DIY production and artistic approach. Appearing on Friday.
One of the greats of modern Welsh music: the inimitable Gruff Rhys makes a return to Sŵn this year, on Friday, after his appearance in 2019.
From fronting the legendary Super Furry Animals to his substantial solo career, Gruff’s music has always remained a one-to-one emulation of modern Welsh culture. This theme is continued through his new album “Dim Probs”.
Formerly the bassist in the much-loved Goat Girl, Naima Bock has been one to watch for a while, following two solo LPs released via Sub Pop Records. The second of these, last year’s “Below a Massive Dark Land” was hugely lauded at UK press.
Making the trip from West London is the singular Lord Apex who plays on the underground rap of Earl Sweatshirt and Freddie Gibbs, fusing it with a love of anime and vintage clothing and the backing of his West-London perspective to create soulful music that has since gained him a coveted collaboration with Madlib.
Ugly take the trend of Brixton post-rock and adds flourishes of choir-like harmonies and driving acoustic guitar lines, culminating in something akin to a folk-tale. A reputation for being “one of the finest live acts around” Saturday is the day to find out if that is true or not.
Among the new local names are bilingual Welsh rapper Sage Todz, a vital figure in the ever-burgeoning Welsh rap scene; Welsh-Ghanaian alt’ r&b vocalist and guitarist Adjua; Welsh-born pop firebrand CATTY [stylised uipper case] who’s seen all eight singles they’ve released hit the A-list at BBC Radio Wales;
Green Man Rising-winners and fresh Memorials of Distinction signees Wing!; collaborative South Wales soul/r&b project Source; and Ynys, the solo project of former Race Horses member Dylan Hughes, who pulls everything from Ethiopian jazz to Elliott Smith into his distinct orbit.
Earlier this year, an absolutely stacked first round of names were announced for Sŵn 2025, among them: art-punk five-piece Man/Woman/Chainsaw, Dunlin quintet Gurriers, Bristol indie-dance duo Getdown Services, South African rap-pop trailblazer Moonchild Sanelly, the roof-raising experimental pop of Jessica Winter, thought-provoking post-punk courtesy of Deadletter, wry dance-punk crew Adult DVD, and alt-emo band Keo.
This year’s festival is once again multi-venue across all three days, including Tramshed, Clwb Ifor Bach, St John’s Church, Jacobs Basement, Fuel, The Canopi, Tiny Rebel, Boho Club and Porters.
William Dickins, Live Music Manager at Sŵn, says: “We’re very proud of this year’s lineup and can’t wait to welcome some outstanding names we’ve been loving for years, as well as some brand new up and comers that we know will be instant favourites for people. We’re also very glad to be utilising some new venues to the city, and extremely excited to see what opportunities they add to Cardiff’s music scene as a whole.”
Following a successful expanded edition in 2024, the Sŵn Connect industry conference returns in 2025, taking place across October 16th and 17th at Cornerstone and Porters. The conference aims to provide support and guidance for artists and industry practitioners looking to take the next step in their career – hosting discussions, presentations and talks, as well as breakout rooms and workshops with industry partners.
The Sŵn Mentor programme will also return, a chance for delegates and conference attendees to discuss the issues and challenges they face with invited industry professionals. There will also be industry mixers available to all those with delegate or Connect tickets. This year, the mixers will feature the Sŵn Spotlight series, a showcase for new Welsh artists that will make an impact over the next 12 months.
- Cardiff City Music Festival is a two week-long celebration of gigs, happenings, installations and pop-ups, harnessing the power of music, performance and tech.
Catty photo by Liam Battersby
