
FROM NOW ON | LIVE REVIEW
Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Fri 14 + Sat 15 Feb
The first of hopefully many editions of From Now On is not the biggest or most populous music festival to have taken place in Cardiff, but it is notably ambitious. Its lineup draws on acts who, with a few exceptions, are not exactly guaranteed ticket-shifters in this region, and in many cases are uncompromisingly avant-garde. From personal experience, gigs peddling this sort of marginal fare are liable to be sparsely attended – so it’s cheering to note that From Now On sold out a day in advance of its Friday evening kickoff.
Organised by Mark Thomas, also a member of Islet and founder of the Shape record label, his selected bill is eclectic, and far from wall-to-wall horrid noise. Friday’s opening act Gwenno, once a member of The Pipettes, makes nicely fuzz-edged DIY synthpop that I’d wager fans of Grimes might enjoy, if they can handle singing in Welsh. If they can’t, this might not be the festival for them – see also Carmarthenshire duo Trwbador, who combine keyboards, guitar, vocals and amiableness, and feel a bit like what would result if you condensed everyone ever to play Green Man into one band. In between them is Aberystwyth-raised harpist Rhodri Davies, whose USP is the manner in which he plays his instrument: blaring, distorted and more akin to guitarists from Hendrix to Keiji Haino or Bill Orcutt. Accordingly, the louder his amplification the more exciting he sounds.
Lucky Dragons, FNO’s token American act, are known for live sets featuring ample audience participation. This arrives after about 30 minutes of pulsing, cosmic synthesised shapeshifting – them being a male-female duo makes Gavin Russom & Delia Gonzalez an easy, albeit reasonable, comparison – which I’d have been happy with in itself. Getting contact mic’d-up audience members to hold hands and generate sound is sweet, though, and not distracting. The fractured crypto-blues of Bridget Hayden which follows is an emotional curveball, haunted and almost inert, but captivating.

Leaving the room early is no slight when Richard Dawson begins on the larger stage, mind. The last 18 months or so has seen the Gateshead folk singer’s reputation grow, largely by word of mouth, and his unaccompanied turns tonight (The Brisk Lad; Poor Old Horse) reduce a room to respectful silence. Likewise, his detuned, highly unusual guitar style doesn’t seem to be a dealbreaker for those present. Add a drily hilarious anecdote with the punchline “tell Bryan Adams to fuck off”, and I posit that Richard Dawson is one of the best active entities in British music, popular or otherwise.
Is the experimental music/Magic Eye painting analogy (i.e., if you don’t ‘get it’ after a minute or so, you might as well give up) a clichéd one? I fear it might be, but it’s my honest reaction to Aidan Richard Taylor & Kim Da Costa, whose Saturday afternoon set consists of stolid, blocky analogue tones and visuals of soundwaves generated from said tones. The Jelas from Bristol are more my bag today, with their impulsive and inclusive postpunk. Guitarist Colin Clements is wearing a well-preserved early 90s Southampton away shirt, leading the fanciful (me) to imagine a young Le Tissier up there, playing in suitably untethered style.

The pairing of Dawson & Davies brings together Richard and Rhodri from last night, building on a recent collaborative LP, Hen Ogledd. It’s a more challenging prospect than either solo set, but there’s still much to enjoy if you liked Friday’s turns, although Dawson steals the show once more with a joke about a penguin. Davies’ harp, the larger of the two he’s employed this weekend, is replaced onstage with the equally cumbersome model belonging to Serafina Steer. The From Now On programme notes leap in with a pre-emptive strike, suggesting you don’t compare the London singer-songwriter to Joanna Newsom, and indeed they have little in common beyond the cosmetic. Her songs are deceptively pop-formatted and create miniature lyrical dramas from relatable themes; “I tell the hosts they have failed,” from How To Haunt A House Party, is a strangely excellent line most properly delivered by someone with birdsnest hair like Steer’s.
Offering expertly realised Krautrock with a particular yen for Neu! (R. Seiliog), wiggy psych and shoegaze from Somerset (Thought Forms) and a room in which entrants can don headphones, Silent Disco style, and flip switches between three electronic-and-much-more sets (Micro Peski Nacht, hosted by Peski Records), From Now On forces punters to make tough choices. Euros Childs wins out for me, with a set played on the piano and featuring contributions by flautist Laura J Martin, who played earlier. Best known as the signer of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, his solo releases have taken him further still down the rabbithole of British eccentricism, with less apparent interest in couching this in a marketable indie-pop song. He can clearly still write an earworm melody in his sleep, though, as well as charm an audience in self-deprecating manner. Two Gorky’s numbers, Patio Song and Poodle Rockin’, inevitably get the warmest reception, but in the context of From Now On at least, Childs is a man of the people, and a fine way to finish a very successful debut festival.
words NOEL GARDNER photos ADAM CHARD