Buzz Magazine Buzz Magazine - July Issue | Page 44

MUSIC NEWS EXTRA

The future of the Swn Festival appears to
have been secured for the next few years
at least, with the Cardiff-based autumn
weekender becoming the beneficiary of a
grant from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
The organisation, which pledges to
give financial aid to the arts, education
and social justice, hands out grants on
invitation only – as in, someone has to
put you forward, you can’t apply yourself
– and, until now, hasn’t chosen any
Welsh organisations for the honour. Swn
will be getting £95,000 in the initial 18
months, the result of which is that John
Rostron (Swn co-founder and the de facto
recipient of the award) will be leaving his
post at the Welsh Music Foundation to
become a full-time Swn employee

Meanwhile, enduring Penarth singersongwriter Martyn Joseph [pictured]
aims to show the world that Wales can
set up its own charitable trusts, too.
The Let Yourself Trust launched at the
end of June, and aims to reflect and
support similar concerns to those Joseph
has raised in song since the 1980s.
“Somewhere in the heat and dust of a
Palestinian refugee camp,” he recalled

of a humanitarian journey last year, “I
decided it was time to set up my own
charitable trust to help fund projects at
home and abroad.” Let Yourself Trust will
focus on a small number of projects each
year, for a few months at a time; Bob
Harris, of Radio 2 and speaking quietly
fame, is its patron

The Scene Club in Swansea, a popular
haunt for folks that like their blues and
hard rock touring circuit types, has
opened again having shut its doors
for refurbishments about a year ago.
Formerly  known as Milkwood Jam before
that went under in 2011, new owners
picked it up and changed its name, but
had no predicted time for reopening when
Buzz asked them last year. Which makes
its coming back from the (apparent) dead
a more pleasant surprise – moreover, the
owners are promising a well stocked bar,
full menu, new club nights and bands
booked up until the end of the year

The Lansdowne pub, in Cardiff’s Canton
district, has also enjoyed a pronounced
revival in recent times. Formerly a good
place to watch dodgy GAA broadcasts

in the company of professional drinkers,
it reopened in 2013 after a couple of
years’ inactivity, aiming for a slightly more
upmarket crowd. Throughout July and
August, they’ll be getting on the live music
wagon, with free entry gigs every Tuesday
and Friday. Mostly on an indie and folk tip,
Ellie Makes Music kicks off proceedings on
Tues 1 July, while later in the month you
can catch the likes of The Gentle Good,
Richard James and Andy Regan

Since forming in 2008, Cardiff four-piece
– until recently a trio – Samoans have
been a pretty reliable fixture on the city’s
gig lineups, with a sound that takes in
anthemic alt-rock, metal-riffed prog and
twinky postrock stuff. Apart, that is,
from when vocalist Daniel Barnett put
himself out of action for several months
by breaking his back last year. Cheerfully,
this sparked a burst of songwriting which
quickened the gestation of the band’s
debut album. Rescue is released this month
on vinyl by the Apres Vous label, and
was produced by local desk jockey Todd
Campbell. Samoans will also be playing the
postrocktastic Arctangent festival, held
near Bristol at the end of August

one to watch...
GULP

A biography detailing the Super Furry Animals’ early years, announced
last month and scheduled for 2015, reminds us there are still a core
of fans very much invested in the elusively dormant Welsh band. This
hasn’t always been obvious from reactions to their myriad sideprojects,
some of which have been slight, and quickly forgotten by most. The
debut album by Gulp, featuring SFA’s Guto Pryce, should hopefully be
an exception to that. Season Sun, released by the Sonic Cathedral label,
is a heady excursion into pastoral psychedelia with a synthesised pulse.
When Gulp formed in 2012, releasing debut 7” Game Love shortly after, they were a duo of Pryce and Lindsey Leven – the two
are now married – and live performances featured a drum machine, which lent a Silver Apples-like ricketiness to the spectacle.
They’ve