SGARAB NEWSLETTER FEB 2025
Dreamt I was in a pub in Swansea called ‘The Gramsci Arms’ and all the boys were crying
GIGS
Unfortunately there’s some ‘gigs’ coming up I feel you should know about, one of which is tonight. Jack Seargent was right; there is no crisis
WED FEB 19: THE PAPER PRESENTS BOYO, SPITHOOD, ESTHER & DAVID J. BULL @ Paradise Garden, Cardiff, 19:00
Wales’s daftest media graft continue to waylay any notion of ‘a second issue’ with a pointless mid-week piss-up featuring the seemingly made-for-purpose BOYO; rowdy, string-vest, valley-ratchet hip-hop. Support from local demolition crew / redline goblins Spithood, with New Beat and who knows to follow from Paradise Garden’s Esther and David. It’s been really cool seeing PG step up recently and make space for gigs and good shit, long may it continue. Tickets here
SAT FEB 22: TACTILEBOSCH PRESENTS SWAMP PARTI IV: BIRDS OF PARADISE, W/ MAY SWOON, THE SEER, LOLLY2POP, BEAUTY PARLOUR, DJ EVERGREEN, PATO CANTON, BOPA RHYS, BUOYS BUOYS BUOYS, DEE DEE DESIRE, LOU BARNELL, SGOR @ TactileBOSCH Lounge, Cardiff Capitol Centre, Cardiff, 18:00
Back to the bog for a (presumably) final throwdown in the Capitol before some poor fucker tries / fails to turn it into the aforementioned retail-dining-gimmick-cocktail-go-kart-piss-up paradise; I’ve heard they’ve got plans to make an outdoor dining area overlooking the ‘canal’ ‘quarter’, if the thought of ‘outdoor dining’ on the arse-end of Queen Street doesn’t fill you with sickening dread then maybe it’s your head that requires redevelopment. Speaking of sickening dread; Conny Prantera aka The Seer is coming to Cardiff! Abandon-all-hope doom-drone art from the anarcho-feminist sound artist, one highlight among many at the fourth edition of TB’s queerdo performance arts party. The theme is Birds of Paradise and if you’ve been before you’ll know that these mfs don’t play. Tickets here
SAT FEB 22: CAN KICKER ‘YEW’ LP LAUNCH W NATION UNREST / GIMIC / SELF-IMMOLATION MUSIC / THE DOGS / ESTHER & DAVID J BULL @ Inkspots, Cardiff, 19:30
Extremely predictable that Music City’s two premier events of 2025 should clash with each other. I fucking love Can Kicker’s ‘Yew’, their second full length effort; it hits harder, goes deeper, and is best described by superstar writer / activist / good-time-girl Bryony Beynon: ‘Can Kicker is no fetishistic re-tread, no, instead they confirm the horseshoe theory of bleakness best exemplified by The Mob: when explorations of the crevices of human despair go deep enough, dark enough, all that extreme downward pressure produces a kind of ecstatic hope, magic moments of spine-tingling sonic and spiritual resolve!’ That’s right Bryony! Support from Nation Unrest, the ‘ardest geezers in UK EBM now on their third / fourth attempt at a Cardiff showing, fearless / strung-tight HC punk from Bristol’s Gimic, heavy-as-hell cosmic dissonance from Self-Immolation Music, and of course, a job-lot of completely cooked fayre from The Dogs for starters. Tickets here
FRI FEB 28: SHIFT PRESENTS ABLE NOISE, MILKWEED @ Turner House, Penarth, 19:00
The experimental drums / baritone guitar return to (just outside) Cardiff. It is incredible / very pleasing to me that despite every setback, there are grassroots promoters in Cardiff like Shift who are now in a position to bring fringe-land groups of Ablenoise’s calibre to (just marginally outside, literally ten mins on a very reasonably priced train) Cardiff, a situation which seven years ago or so was largely beyond our scope. For me, 2024’s High Tide represented a real high water mark in avant post-everything guitar music; how music can remain so playful and centreless whilst simultaneously plumbing such moving depths is simply beyond me. Support from ‘Slacker Trad’ duo Milkweed; lo-fi folk wizardry / cursed plunderphonics
Not to be a beg but I am imploring anyone reading this to show up, support SHIFT and witness what I think will be a truly special evening. It is absolutely grand seeing people take to Instagram to declare that artists and artist spaces are under attack from the inscrutable forces of Capital / the Capitol (we know), but another useful thing to do would be to jump on the (short, very reasonably priced) train to Penarth, walk the two minutes to Turner House and give us your money. Tickets here
SUN 16 MAR: CLWDYCH ELECTRONICS PRESENTS ‘VERY FRIENDLY’ WITH EKSTASIS, DISTRAXI, SLOW MURDER X ORDEAL BY ROSES, H’ST, DJ FUCK RADIO @ Paradise Garden, Cardiff, 19:00
Thrilled to say that Clydach Electronics (who has graced these pages under monikers including Come Lord 1969 and Fuck Radio, who’s gonna jump on the decks for a bit after) is making powerful, financially ruinous moves by putting on noise / industrial shows in Cardiff. Most of this lot have cropped up here before, all of them were ace: modular abyss-worship from Ekstasis, stirring queer-noise n vox destruction from Distraxi, tag team business from local big wigs Slow Murder x Ordeal By Roses and harsh noise wall from H’ST, who I can’t tell you much about but am thrilled to see is selling mini CD-Rs. Tickets here
SAT 12 APR: MOTHER NATURE, DIALL, SHISHU, THE NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH, PROPRIOCEPTION @ Cathays Community Centre, Cardiff, 19:00
Ross Jones’s reign of terror resumes with a long-awaited return to CCC. Mother Nature is simply good hardcore from Leeds featuring members of Perspex Flesh, The Flex, and the og mystery guy HC outfit Mob Rules! Support from Newcastle’s Diall—fully-loaded riffs thru the chorus pedal, vox out the mouth of a cave, the good shit—and a stunning roster of South Wales locals including the vile Shishu, and HC newcomers The Neighbourhood Watch and Proprioception
SGARAB NEWS
Hopefully an announcement soon but in the meantime we are running dangerously low on YY Wood’s still brilliant ‘Yells’, so if u want it, come n get it