Experimental music alchemy-Gwyl Ffynnon Garon 2026
Schedule
Fri, 06 Mar, 2026 at 07:30 am to Sat, 07 Mar, 2026 at 11:45 pm
UTC-06:00Location
TBD | Dardenne Prairie, MO
Advertisement
Gŵyl Ffynnon Garon returns to Tregaron this March 6/7 for a weekend of experimental and left field music. Now in its 6th year Gŵyl Ffynnon takes place around St Caron’s day and features a ritual walk to the Ffynnon Garon led by Welsh Bagpiper Ceri Rhys Matthews, attendees are invited to lay offerings. Friday Night introduces Magpahi, the enigmatic and haunting music of composer, visual artist and curator Alison Cooper. Alison’s enigmatic vocal style has been described as an “abstract(ly) hint at higher powers, as if she is immersed in a primeval choir that has somehow been beamed into the 21st century.” (The Quietus). Festival friend Sara Evelyn (Cymru) returns with her Eliane Radigue inspired drones. Sara Evelyn is a Wales based composer and interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans sound, performance, sculpture and printed matter. Her work considers space, materiality, and site and is often created through listening with and responding to the acoustic or material elements of a specific place or environment. Ceredigion based Ob Od endlessly hums husht songs of the seairth witches that haunt dream houses!
Saturday morning follows Welsh Bagiper Ceri Rhys Matthews to lay offerings at Ffynnon Garon, the brave sampling its waters. For the afternoon concerts we return to the Heritage Centre for an eclectic afternoon with Ian Watson is a Cardiff based multi disciplinary artist working across 2D, sound and instrument building. His sonic output tends towards ambient, real world sounds buried amongst synthesised signals. Add to this a current interest in improvising alongside the ever present by-products of the modern landscape, noise, solar and wifi informed improvised sludge. Susan Matthews (Cymru) is an experimental composer, musician, and artist known for her intense, hypnotic, and abstract soundscapes that often blend piano, electronics, industrial noise, found sound, and deeply emotional textures. Her ghostly, minimalist piano hauntings are by turns complex and intimate. Immersing the listener in hypnotic harmonies, she offers abstraction as sublime beauty. Dean Mc Phee heads off the afternoon drawing on influences from dub, British folk, underground electronic music, and psychedelic rock. Dean’s sound has evolves from sparse, echo laden solo guitar pieces to heavier, more multi-layered style featuring deep bass, hypnotic riffs, and looping textures. “Set within an electric ancestry that includes Michael Karoli’s solos in Can, the hymnal rock of Popol Vuh’s Daniel Fichelscher, and the sonic spaciousness of dub, as well as the emotional punch of John Martyn’s dawn-lit Echoplex epic ‘Small Hours’.” - The Quietus
Saturday night in the Memorial Hall starts off with Ceredigion based modular incanatory music from Carausias Arise! Then Friends of the Well will perform an improvised piece funded by Ty Cerdd and co-created with one of contemporary music’s most fascinating figures Angharad Davies. She is a specialist in the art of preparing her violin: adding objects or materials to it to extend its sound-making properties.
Luminous Foundation are underground music veterans Neil Mortimer (Urthona) and Mark Pilkington (Teleplasmiste) and can usually be found traversing space and time.
They play improvised polyrhythmic electronics that warp krautrock, acid house and cosmic ambience into strange and beautiful new sounds, shapes and grooves.
.:MMM:. is a collaboration between Gayle Brogan, Nick Jonah Davis and Elizabeth Still.
In April 2025, the trio travelled far north to Black Bay Studio, on
the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. This was the rare moment of
Lunar Standstill, when every 18.6 years the moon reaches its most
extreme northerly and southerly points on the horizon. The
extraordinary 5000-year-old Calanais Stones are believed to have been
built in alignment with this phenomenon for astronomical and ritual
purposes. Immersing themselves in the archaeology, astronomy and lore
of the site, .:MMM:. created a sonic response to this unique moment at
these exceptional megaliths. “In dazzling lunar light, we revel in the
stones, shimmering majestic, towering above us into starry skies.”
Advertisement
Where is it happening?
TBD, O'Fallon, Missouri, Dardenne Prairie, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
