OTHER VOICES FESTIVAL | LIVE REVIEW
Various venues, Cardigan, Fri 1 Nov
For the first time, but perhaps not the last, Other Voices has crossed the Irish Sea from its usual home in Dingle, County Kerry to Cardigan in west Wales. This unique music festival took over the town centre with a host of acts that created a good balance between Welsh performers, such as Kizzy Crawford and Gwenno [below], and the Irish contingent, featuring ROE and Lankum [above].
The festival is mostly structured around the ingenious Music Trail – a mapped-out tour of Cardigan town that takes you through 18 venues of many different shapes and sizes. Amazingly the two days, and near 50 performances, are all accessible with a £5 wristband. Using the numbers from the wristbands, a lottery system is used to choose who gets into the exclusive, atmospheric, St. Mary’s Church performances. The nominal headliners – Gruff Rhys, Gwenno, Hayden Thorpe and Lankum on the Friday that I was in attendance – all performed in this intimate space to the lucky ones who were told in advance that they had been selected for entry.
The organisers, however, did a fantastic job of including the rest of the festival-goers by setting up a livestream in a dozen other venues. At one point I wandered out into the town and, with so many venues streaming the concert, could hear the sound from the speakers flowing out into the streets. You could, in fact, move from the stylish Crwst cafe to the Red Lion pub without missing a note.
Alongside the music, Other Voices has always made room for discussion and debate. Clebran, the Welsh for chatter, babble or gossip, was this year’s title for the talks that went on at the Guild Hall. Journalists, artists, politicians and others engaged in informal discussions about the topics of the day, not least the relationship between the Celtic nations in an increasingly divided continent.
Despite the wealth of talent on before, and after, Lankum were the definite main draw for the first day. The Dublin quartet were last to perform in the church setting and, after a stately set from former Wild Beasts frontman Hayden Thorpe [below], Lankum ground the tempo down even further with their stunning rendition of The Wild Rover. The Irish band have made their trademark, uncompromising soundworld a deeper and darker affair over their last three albums.
In a world where the bright, crossover sound of folk-pop has become ubiquitous with chart success, Lankum have secured the admiration of the folk faithful through staying true to the Woody Guthrie maxim: “It’s a folk singer’s job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people.” So it’s a real reward when the band let their more soaring songs like The Young People breathe and swell within the warm acoustics of St Mary’s Church.
Earlier in the day, singer-songwriter REO had commented that being in Cardigan was just like being back in Ireland. It was the talented and endearing performer’s first time in Wales. The Celtic connection that joins the music and people of Ireland and Wales was, for her, a new and welcome experience. I bumped into Liz Murphy, who was looking after artist liaison, at Stiwdio 3 and she was struck by how similar the towns of Cardigan and Dingle are: the nature of the people, the warm welcome and the excitement for music of any sort was obvious to her. The suggestion is that, as well as maintaining their Dingle festival (on the last weekend of November), Cardigan will be a regular event on the Other Voices international calendar. This is welcome news for an industry that is set to suffer greatly in the aftermath of a movement-restricting Brexit.
Lankum’s Lynch brothers, Ian and Daragh, are well known for their between-song stories that help lighten the mood in their often-dark sets. Early on, Daragh told the story of the last time Lankum visited Cardigan for a gig at Theatr Mwldan. A “local legend” had helped fix their tour van and had been promised, in return, a book that Daragh had recommended he read. Three years later, after carrying around a scrap of paper with the Cardigan man’s address in his wallet, Daragh had finally got around to buying the book.
By design, or good fortune, the roadside angel was in St. Mary’s that night and the book was passed, with much joy, from pew to pew until it reached him at the back of the church; like so many hands stretching out across the Irish Sea carrying the music of the Celts across its invisible border.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES photos TARA THOMAS