What do alien invasions, the scent of death, Vince Gilligan, Awkwafina, and the gleam of overpriced mobile phones have in common? Nothing at all, unless you’re earwigging on the soft hum of conversation drifting through St Matthias Church on a rainy Friday evening while waiting for Tristwch y Fenywod to start their set. You know you’ve arrived in the right place when gentle misfits start gathering in the pews, each one gleaming a little strangely, as if lit from within by a story yet untold.
Tristwch y Fenywod is Welsh for “the sadness of women”. Their name seems to open up in the candlelit air, as they carry their eldritch neo-folk tinged with gothic shadow spirit. Clad in long black, glitter-shot dresses, the trio start letting their music creep in with measured enchantment, the bass pressing through the room and everything else coiling like a spectral tremor around its edges. Ferch Lisbeth picks at her self-made dwydelyn, a sort of two-harp forged from a pair of zithers wired to a contact mic, and the music quickly slips into a ritual tempo, hypnotic enough that the voice becomes a conduit rather than something you need to understand.
Seated at the centre, Leila Lygad shapes the otherworldly rhythm from her electronic drum kit, drawing on field recordings and the uncanny clicks of bats moving through darkness. This mesmerising but almost oppressive atmosphere is built of the backbone of Sidni Saffwraig’s bass, and the set unfolds in two almost distinct halves: the first thick with incantation, the second ripped open by shrieks that crawl restlessly across the walls and ceiling. Tristwch y Fenywod are not catchy in the traditional sense, but I dare anyone to listen to their debut album once and not remember it. By the end, the audience was aching for more. “We have no more”, the band announced, leaving the church suspended in their mystical echo.
Opening for Tristwch y Fenywod was experimental artist Anna Peaker. From behind a desk, she built an immersive soundscape, stitched from textures, bird sounds, and soft electronics. Even the choir of beer cans being opened became part of the performance. Watching her felt like seeing a film scene unfold in real life, with Anna completely inhabiting that world. There was something delicate about her music and the way she was studiously manipulating cassettes under the glow of her desk lamp, a quiet, intimate prequel to the night ahead.