Getting deep inside the incredible lineup at this year's FOCUS Wales with ten artists you need to know.
As the Welsh music industry's annual showcase event, FOCUS Wales' lineup is predictably flush with a brilliant cross section of everything exciting across the country's vibrant and diverse scenes.
It's also a hotspot for some of the best new sounds from across the far-flung corners of the globe and for three days each May, Wrexham – the largest city in North Wales – becomes a hub of international activity with Korean rappers and Candian folk singers rubbing shoulder with Maori rock bands and Spanish label owners.
This year, more than 250 artists will hit Wrexham to perform across 20 stages, with showcases curated by the likes of CNM France – including Quinquis, Nastjyjoe and Servo playing sets - and Canada's Breakout West, featuring Sam Tudor and Kimmortalfrom British Columbia, Sunglaciers from Alberta, and Bitterfly from Saskatchewan.
It remains one of Europe's most finely curated and warmly human showcases - as much about the people as the music – and our festival picks represent a cross section everything that's great in music right now.
SAMWOY
Samwoy's moody indie-rock mesh intense rhythms with electronic textures to create something with a poetically cinematic sheen. Proclaimed as something of a musical genius by his contemporaries back in Monteal, Sam Woywitka's body of work revisits recurring themes and preoccupations through shifting lenses and atmospheres. On his sophomore album Even Sad Boys Like To Have Fun, Woywitka incorporating elements ranging from rap bars to baroque and classical instrumentation to an all-star choir of Montreal singers. Live, he's a high-wire act of dramatic shifts between bangers and beauty.
Find out more: Instagram
Sage Todz
When: 6:45 pm on Thursday 7 May
Where: Ty Pawb Performance Space
Flying the flag for the growing visibility of Welsh hip-hop, Sage Todz – who performs in both Welsh and English – has had some landmark career moments including a collab with with the Football Association of Wales, where he remade Dafydd Iwan’s famous Welsh protest song "Yma o Hyd" ahead of Wales’ historic victory against Ukraine in the World Cup qualifiers. Born in Essex and based in North Wales, his first Welsh language track "Rownd a Rownd" went viral and his music deals head on with race, relationships, and masculinity.
Find out more: Instagram
Yoo Doo Right
When: 9:35pm on Saturday 9 May
Where: The Parish
When something is signed to Montreal's Mothland Records - a hub as much as a label for the visionary artists in the psychedelic, experimental and art pop space - you know it's worth your time. Yoo Doo Right's epic, magisterial noised draws inspiration not only from post-rock, krautrock and shoegaze, but also from classical music, electroacoustics and musique concrète. Ten years since they formed, Justin Cober (guitar, synthesizers, vocals) and John Talbot (drums) have released two full-lengths and three EPs and sit commendably next to the likes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Big|Brave and METZ.
Find out more: Bandcamp
Shame
When: 8:35pm on Saturday 9 May
Where: Llwyn Isaf
Among the bigger names playing at FOCUS Wales - Idlewild, Deerhoof, The Bug Club, Bill Ryder-Jones and Moonchild Sanelly – it's South London's Shame that we're clearing out schedule to see. The Dead Oceans-signed five-piece have long been favourites of Best Fit and stand as one of the biggest success from the 2010 post-punk revival. Still in their 20s, the band formed as teenagers and four albums down, their best came last year with the John Congleton-produced Cutthroat. Their live shows are nothing less than legendary with Charlie Steen proving himself as a generational frontman many times over.
Find out more: Bandcamp
RAKEL
When: 5:50pm on Saturday 9 May
Where: St Giles
A quietly singular presence in the Icelandic music landscape over the last five years, we've written warmly about Icelandic singer/songwriter RAKEL many times. Working in songs that evoke memory, and atmosphere, her music folds together voice, field recording, and emotion into compositions that feel intimate and expansive. Performing with artists including Nanna (Of Monsters and Men), Axel Flóvent, and Kaktus Einarsson, she found a label home on Olafur Arnalds OPIA Community for her debut record a place to be. Part diary, part landscape, the album is shaped by the acoustics of real places, woven into songs that resist structure and resolution.
Find out more: Instagram
Mari Mathias
When: 8:50pm on Thursday 7 May
Where: Hope Street Church
The evocative sound of Welsh musician Mari Mathias is underwritten by the folk tales and traditional songs of West Wales and Pembrokeshire. Annwn (meaning the ‘otherworld’ in Welsh mythology) was her 2022 debut album and framed around samples of her great-grandfather's cassette tapes, creating a window into a significant place that no longer exists, but holds vast meaning. Redefining what alternative folk means in her home country, Mathias has taken a confident step forward over the post modern footprints that extends through past and present, exploring a re-imaged reminder of identity.
Find out more: Bandcamp
Campfire Social
When: 6:50pm on Friday 8 May
Where: Llwyn Isaf
For fans of Los Campesiños and The Get Up Kids, six-piece collective Campire Social are mining the best parts of introspective emo and indie into something of their own. Headed up by real life couple Tom and Carrie Hyndman, the band formed eight years back but only put out their debut record in 2024 with the sonically maximalist They Sound The Same Underwater coming via Welsh indie label The Popty Ping Recording Company.
Find out more: Bandcamp
PISS
When: 9:55pm on Saturday 9 May
Where: Penny Black Room 1
With just three demos on their Bandcamp, B.C.-based hardcore quartet PISS have been an underground word-of-mouth phenomena thanks to their live shows and the commanding Tay Zantingh. Taking stagecraft to a level of catharsis rarely seen, Zantingh's stories of trauma incorporate sample audio, poetry, and performance art. It's very, very heavy, very loud and it's something you'll be processing for a long time afterwards.
Find out more: Bandcamp
Freyja Elsy
When: 7:50pm on Friday 8 May
Where: Old No.7
Creating emotionally charged soundscapes drawn from a blend of cinematic folk and electronic, classically trained South Wales composer Freyja Elsy lives in a space adjacent to Massive Attack and Aurora, combining intricate musicianship and soaring vocals. Her songs explore existentialism, feminism and the complexities of inner life, and last year she was selected for both the BBC Horizons Launchpad Fund and Beacons Cymru’s Forté Project.
Find out more: Bandcamp
Summer of Hate
When: Midnight on Friday 8 May
Where: The Parish
Weaving the classic shoegaze template into their finely crafted throwback indie, Portugal's Summer of Hate's expansive sound isn't straightjacked by some of their more obvious reference points [The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Spiritualized, Flowers of Hell, The Horrors, Mercury Rev]. This year's Blood and Honey record also pulls in influences from sufi music, drone, dabke, raga to create something urgent, fresh and filled with so much fun.
Find out more: Bandcamp
FOCUS Wales runs from 7-9 May; find out more at focuswales.com.
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