More about: Focus Wales

FOCUS Wales, as Gigwise has consistently reported, is one of the very best in new music showcases. In 2021, the conference and festival took place a few months later than usual after the entire of 2020 off.

Rotating around The Fat Boar pub and its excellent menu, industry types skittered around Wrexham to find some of the best new picks from a brand new crop of musicians blooming out of the pavement cracks of the pandemic.

We're here to highlight some of the best for you.

Bandicoot

"Positively feral" it reads across the merchandise for Welsh quartet Bandicoot. It's a great descriptor, not only for the band's increasingly thrilling live shows (they play four at this weekend's FOCUS Wales) but for the polished filth of their bilingual rock'n'roll tracks. 

Listen: 'Worried Blues'
What's next?: Their debut album Black After Dark is due in March 2022.

Red Telephone

With music as smart as their aesthetic, Cardiff's Red Telephone are making neo-noir sounds that could have made it onto the Drive soundtrack. 

Listen: 'Happy Man'
What's next?: A debut album is in the works.

Minas

Another Cardiff export (there's one hell of a scene brewing there), Minas are impossible to pin down. With its linchpin James Minas' two main inspirations being Burial and Deftones, their spiky sounds straddle acidic punk, a love for nu-metal and battering synths.

Listen: 'Burner'
What's next?: A tonne more singles.

Mauvey

Dressed always in the mauve he's named for, Mauvey sees the colour as in between, just like his music. Based between Vancouver and London, Mauvey blends the alt-pop of Charli XCX with hip-hop, RnB and a dash of Roisin Murphy disco.

Listen: 'Irrational'
What's next?: World domination.

Teddy Hunter

With a wealth of pastoral field recordings under her belt, Teddy Hunter uses nature as an inspiration for her (and her new band's) meandering soundscapes. Their one and only official single, 'Games', has had several remixes, the song's delicate beauty a flame to audiophile moths everywhere.

Listen: 'Games'
What's next?: A longer project—and some more songs!—will drop by spring.

Alicia Edelweiss

A brightly dressed figure in a sea of band T-shirts, Vienna-based Austrian Alicia Edelweiss caused quite a stir with her charming, hypnotic performance at Wrexham's church. Her eccentric brand of folk (freak folk, she calls it) incorporates accordion-playing and hula-hooping à la Grace Jones.

Listen: 'Dreck'
What's next: Anything goes.

Jiminil

As introduced by us on the recent second single 'Family Tree', Jiminil is a ponderous and sinister indie-folk singer-songwriter with Gothic overtones. A fascinating career awaits.

Listen: 'Family Tree'
What's next: More music is on the way.

Mace The Great

Incorporating icy beats, samples of guitar and beats that offer a different perspective, Cardiff's Mace The Great is proving that grime goes further than just London and Manchester. 

Listen: 'My Side Of The Bridge'
What's next: His new album My Side Of The Bridge is out now.

TELGATE

Self-described as a "fiery aggro-glam band with a duty to start riots in 6" platforms", TELGATE have leggy riffs and swaggering sounds on tap. They're as good as what you lot think Måneskin are...

Listen: 'Cherrytight'
What's next?: Fuck tonnes of live shows.

FOCUS Wales continues 8-9 October 2021 in Wrexham, Wales.

More about: Focus Wales