Last week (October 15-17), Sŵn Festival took over the venues of Cardiff, bringing with it some of the buzziest and most interesting artists across the UK and Ireland with it. For nearly 20 years, the multi-venue event has been shining a light on artists about to break through, helping to build the momentum around them as they aim for the next level. With acts like Disclosure, Wolf Alice, The Last Dinner Party, Black Country, New Road and more as some of the event’s success stories, it’s long proved itself as a place to go to see the next big thing. This year’s edition was no different – here are the best shows NME managed to catch at this year’s bash.
Bathing Suits
“If you’ve got strobes, can you use them for this song?” Freyja Blevins politely asked Clwb Ifor Bach’s lighting tech early in Bathing Suits’ set – a request that elevated their second performance of the festival from great to unreal. The Leeds band have quickly cemented a reputation as a thrilling live act – put them in the right setting and they’re on another level entirely. With said strobes going off in the background, Blevins became a striking silhouette on stage, each twitch and jerk to ‘I Can Be A Freak’ and ‘Empathy’ turned into something far more dramatic.
READ MORE: Bathing Suits are bringing deranged noise-punk to the dancefloor
Dermot Henry
As he switched between playing with a full band and sitting down at a keyboard on his own, Wiltshire singer-songwriter Dermot Henry conjured spectres of other artists during his Clwb Ifor Bach set – a glimmer of Bright Eyes here, a holler of Cameron Winter there, a croon of Dove Ellis thrown in for good measure. Despite that, Henry’s alt-folk odes didn’t stray into pastiche or parody – they remained fresh and something you want to immerse yourself in. All bodes well for his debut album, ‘Bad Throw, Good Catch’, out next year.
Esmeralda Road
Under the bright strip lights of a pub’s top room might not be the most atmospheric way to watch a new band, but Esmeralda Road didn’t let that faze them. Nor did the crowd who gathered to see the Belfast band, with the front rows enthusiastically singing their songs back to them, as frontman Charlie Magill – already a charismatic performer – encouraged them with his barrier-breaking antics. The likes of ‘Park It’, with its almost breakbeat rhythms and chopping and changing pace, bolstered the set’s sense of unpredictability. Impressive stuff.
Martial Arts
Martial Arts’ music is both tightly wound and ready to go off the rails. When they got on stage at Clwb Ifor Bach on Friday, the Manchester band felt like they could go either way. The looping riff of ‘Before The Fire’ clung on by its fingernails, while the sparser, gloomier ‘The New House’ threatened to tumble over the edge, driven by a chanted chorus of “Makes you say!” and three guitarists continuously adding new fragments into the mix.
Pixie McCann
“This song is about lying to men, which I do often,” Pixie McCann told the crowd on Sŵn 2026’s opening night. That cheeky spirit quickly gave way to something more serious as she and her live band dived into the blustering world of ‘It’s Pixie’, a brooding song that mixed Florence + The Machine’s theatrics with the dark guitars of NewDad (coincidentally, the former band of her bassist Cara Joshi). The highlight of her set, it turned a corner of Cardiff into another deliciously dramatic world.
Twenty One Children
Moshpits were few and far between at the sets NME caught at Sŵn this year, but South African punks Twenty One Children didn’t let us leave the festival without witnessing some carnage. The trio battered the packed room upstairs at Tiny Rebel with thunderous riffs, while singer Abdula Skink threw himself into the crowd to show them exactly how they should be moving. And what choice did they have really, with the likes of ‘Life Thing’ and ‘Warriors’?
Wyatt
Wyatt only have one single out so far, but getting into their set at Tiny Rebel on Saturday night was an absolute mission. If you managed to make it through the doors, though, you were rewarded with a sneak preview of a band on the precipice of something very special. The Manchester four-piece are set to support Westside Cowboy later this year, which makes sense since they come from a very similar school of sound – slacker rock that bears hints of country and jangly indie. Emily Mason’s trumpet lines add a touch of beauty to proceedings, and live, created an extra hook to hum – or howl – along to, much like her bandmates did during the last song, yelling her melody off mic as the song reached its grand finale. Big things surely await.
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