CYNT @ Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Fri 3 June
This naughtily-named promotion team were at one time Cardiff’s most successful late night proposition. For the last couple of years, though, they’ve dropped the ball a little, drifting into the periphery with a run of tepid bookings and some unappealing locations. Yet as we approach summer, they’ve returned, rejuvenated, with a high-powered flurry of decent bookings at decent, varied spots, starting with one of the biggest names in the UK underground, and later in June they have a formidable warehouse party arranged.
Peter O’Grady, best known as Joy Orbison, has certainly been responsible for some game-changing tracks. The barely pronounceable Hyph Mngo was his debut release, and with its clattering beats and vivid synths it embodied the move away from murky, monochrome sub-bass rhythms, becoming the biggest song of the post-dubstep world and bringing O’Grady immediate renown. The next big one was Sicko Cell, made anonymously but strongly believed to be him and Boddika, which hinted at where his music was heading, with expert mastery of tension and control.
His creative collaboration with Boddika proved successful; the two share a studio and seem to have an amazing knack for blending house, techno and electro and hitting the sweet spot time and time again. For five years, tracks like Swims, Mercy and Dun Dun have soundtracked countless entries into the world of clubbing, and are technically and conceptually sophisticated to a point where they get played by the world’s most cutting edge and DJs, like Blawan, to the most mainstream Ibiza guys, like Wales’ own Jamie Jones. Like his music, his career is full of restraint and intrigue – some of his most effective and requested tunes remain unreleased – GR Etiquette is a prime example, a rollicking, breezy rhythm that licks up the UK garage energy O’Grady was raised on into a pure motion-inducing force.
Even with enormous underground success, selling out pretty much every gig he’s played since he first became a name, it’s fair to say Joy Orbison/Joy O/Peter O’Grady has kept it real – refusing to play crappy superclubs or churn out dross pop remixes. He even sold me a t-shirt last year at his mates’ night.
Tickets: £12. Info: 029 2023 2199 / clwb.net
GWYN THOMAS DE CHROUSTCHOFF