Julia Deli took in the atmosphere that pervaded her home town of Cardigan in early November, as County Kerry’s cult festival Other Voices underwent its second spinoff event for 2022 on the other side of the Irish Sea…

Listening in on the hubbub surrounding Cardigan’s 2022 edition of the Other Voices festival, amongst fervent compliments about the calibre of music, one word you hear dropped constantly is ‘eclectic’. Based in Dingle, County Kerry, its Welsh edition – translating as Lleisiau Eraill – debuted in Cardigan in 2019. The subsequent, enforced ‘time off’ has only served to heighten the excitement of its receptive audience.

This year, 38 acts featured in this Cymro-Irish collaborative event, showcasing every genre from drill to classical, in four languages. Town-based festivals have such spontaneity – we meet artists and other music-worshippers in various venues, cafes and on dancefloors. And when you’ve made your new discoveries, you can see them again, just hours after you’ve first fallen in love! Here’s just  a fraction of all the riches on offer over those three magical days.

The Cellar Bar hosted Tapestri, who began life when local folk/Americana guitarist Lowri Evans met Northwalian Sarah Zyborska at Lorient in 2019. Mellow, close harmonies, sonorous steel strings and fluttering Southern-style keyboards create their poignant sound, stirring up deep hiraeth/longing in us. Recording songs in both Welsh and English, Tapestri release their first album early next year.

In contrast at the same venue, Cardiff’s Red Telephone channel the best of 80s electronica and swooping shades of Roxy Music, give it all a dark, contemporary twist and finally smash it up with psych-rock, to our wonder and delight. Creative and prolific, their new single is released in January, to be followed by the album Hollowing Out.

Roughion’s late-night slot mixes techno, psy-trance and house in a seamless blend. The mid-Wales duo ramp up the beats and frequencies as required, responding to their heaving dancefloor with witty samples and juxtapostions. Infectious rhythms, rock hard or whimsical, ensured an ecstatic response to their string of heavy crowdpleasers.

Small World Theatre brought us Irish experimental noise-merchants Pretty Happy, whose worldview encompasses B52’s-style harmonious wildness with punchy, hectic drums and bits of found poetry. Profound and cartoonish in turn, they had a lot to give, and gave it in spades.

Hosted by the Pizza Tipi, the indie-psych-pop of Ynys loaded us with twangy guitars, echoes of Randall & Hopkirk in the spookily shimmering synths, and songs with classic hooks. A playful kinship within the band drew us in like moths to flames: hats off to them for the community feeling they brewed!

Warming up our November bones with reggae, dub and dancehall, Welsh DJ and producer Timbali brings a cheeky persona and Jamaican beats while Pembrokeshire creative Peppery mixes in fiery style for the wildly appreciative groovers, finally involving us in a passionate call-and-response.

Chamber-folk trio VRï, playing at The Angel, give a voice to early, elusive Welsh roots music with faultless pedigree, combining original instrumentals and soaring vocals for an intense and mesmerising sound.

Cynefin’s performances always feel so intimate. With warm, inspired harmonies and sensitive, honeyed lyricism, Owen Shiers mines traditional songs from around the Clettwr Valley for his source material. Castle Pavilion experienced that blissful feeling, entering the lives of ordinary folk, and through their lens, watching the centuries peel away to reveal our common hearts.

Los Blancos, hailing from Carmarthen, took the stage with their amazing wall of sound: four guitars playing off each other in such a complex way that only their group ethos and years of devotion can make it so perfect. Moody, passionate, chunky rock tinged with grunge, they get the airplay they deserve, performing new single Pyramid Scheme, and the recently released Bricsen Arall, now taken up by S4C as their official World Cup song.

With three rows of strings to be tuned (89 in all!), the Welsh triple harp doesn’t phase Machynlleth’s dexterous Cerys Hafana, but encourages her “to play weird tunings and time signatures”. Hafana’s uniquely haunting style and pure voice delve into experimental folk, psalms from Welsh archives and found sounds, conjuring new stylings on an ancient bedrock: all at Canfas were charmed by her presence.

Heartfelt singer-songwriter Matthew Frederick’s crisp, wide-ranging blues, folk and Cymrucana caught us unaware (queueing for a falafel wrap in Stwdio 3, in my case), where he halted us, captivated, until he let us go. A gamut of emotions are deftly processed in a therapeutic set from this Rhondda-based mucician.

As well as coordinating the event on the Welsh side, Theatr Mwldan gave us the first public duo performance from two forces of nature who, again, met at Lorient: renowned local harpist Catrin Finch and major exponent of the Hardanger fiddle, Aoife Ni Bhriain. Lyrically combining folk and classical genres, these pieces were inspired by their mutual concern for the plight of bees. In the suitably meandering Wandering, sinuous strings describe relocation and depopulation as bees meet Nicotinamide, their set completed by the upbeat plucked and sparkling notes of the celebratory Waggle Dance.

It’s hard to define Rye Milligan’s original and engaging sound, even when he’s filling the stage with his mercurial being. Tempestuous and playful in turn, each track is a projection of his electro-indie soul. Piledriving breakbeats replacing delicacy in an instant, he constantly wrongfoots us and enjoys it! Prefacing one loud mashup by telling us it was written when he lost his beloved dog Rebel, we’re all OK until we reach the last whispering sample at fadeout, then are putty in Milligan’s hands.

We were truly awed by Melts. Fresh in from Dublin, the psych-rockers blew minds and created a transcendent atmosphere with their dense layering of sound. Each song was a new, colourful vista, a dimensional exploration in the thrall of Eoin Kenny’s shamanic frenzies, the band’s masterful conviction in their theatre akin to early-period Doors. Every soul in their presence had its own personal epiphany, the manna tasting as each preferred: you couldn’t ask for a better example of the ideals of Other Voices than this remarkable band.

Another artist with links to Welsh football is Cardiff’s Juice Menace, whose single For Her was written for the women’s national team. From street culture to inner life, her on-point rap, gloriously unfettered rhymes and genuine, democratic depth filled floors wherever she went. The crowd was immense for her last gig of the festival, doing justice to the esteem in which she is held.

Buying our tickets, we’re all put into a lottery to see one of the four ‘big gigs’ in St Mary’s Church, being filmed by S4C and RTE for broadcast in December. Amazing performances by Finch and Ni Bhriain, Gwenno, Mauvey, Poppy Ajudha and Stella Donnelly were livestreamed for all at the theatre, while we were lucky enough to win a ticket to witness two crucial homegrown talents.

Sage Todz filled the sacred building with massive, life-affirming beats, vibrating soul as well as solar plexus. He graced us with a premiere of Royalty before its release, and reminded us why his blend of drill, hip-hop and r’n’b has just been adopted by the FAW in the form of O Hyd, a nod to Dafydd Iwan’s protest song Yma O Hyd. As the Nigerian first-language Welsh speaker from the Nantlle Valley says: “Some of the biggest talents have grown up in the smallest towns.”

Next to raise the medieval roof with their resonating brass, Band Pres Llareggub slow-march up the aisle, New Orleans-style, then fill the altar space with a divine racket. Mashing up Welsh pop, trad tunes and hip-hop, they get the whole congregation on their feet to stomp and swing, and we heartily thank them for their heavy grooves and our harmonic salvation!

Plans are afoot for future Other Voices in Cardigan after this successful 2022 version, before the caravan moves on again. For now, it was a privilege to be there with so many top-of-their-game originals, in welcoming venues and with such an ethical and thought-out framework. When clear November skies sparkle their stars down on the River Teifi again, we’ll expand our paradigms, hug our neighbours, discover new passions once more.

Other Voices Festival, various venues, Cardigan, Thurs 3-Sat 5 Nov

words JULIA DELI photos TRIGGER HAPPY CREATIVE / JENNIE CALDWELL