Capturing Cardiff - Pagan Wanderer Lu

Cardiff's music scene drew attention in the 90s when the Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia and the Super Furry Animals were at the height of their collective success. Years before that it was known for its jazz artists, most famously producing Dame Shirley Bassey.

Now, in the wake of the inaugural Sŵn festival the city is getting recognition as a buzzing centre of music once again. Sŵn was the brainchild of Radio 1's Huw Stephens and the first festival of its kind in Cardiff. It took place in music venues across the city in November and drew international bands as well as the area's stalwart performers. Headliners including Beirut, I Was A Cub Scout and The Cribs drew massive crowds at big venues but arguably the most exciting part was the chance to discover less well known acts in the pubs and bars across the city.

Pagan Wanderer Lu at Glo Bar 11/11/07

One of the festival's highlights was Pagan Wanderer Lu, a genre-defying artist who played at the Glo Bar on Churchill Way. He said: "I hope they do another Sŵn. I think it worked really well. Much better even than people expected."

Pagan Wanderer Lu - or Andy Regan as he's known to his friends - is now based in Cardiff having previously lived in Bolton, Manchester and Aberystwyth.

Ask him how he defines his sound he says, "it's like strongly worded letters from a road safety fascist." His Myspace page claims the same. When pressed he explains: "One of my friends accused me of being a music fascist in terms of what I dismiss. I'm very hard to please with music and very particular about it. I thought it was fair, but the use of the word fascist was funny because music in the grand scheme of things is quite a trivial thing to get worked up about as I am wont to do."

Regan says: "I try to walk a fine line between saying what I actually mean and it not coming over as painfully earnest." In this he succeeds admirably. His lyrics are sometimes political, sometimes funny and sometimes, like the cracking “Christians like you are why God invented lions,” inspired.

Musically he is more difficult to pin down. The term 'electronica' is bandied about a lot because he has backing played on a Mac in live performances. On Wikipedia he is described as "indietronica" and online music mag Drowned in Sound calls his sound "melodic electronic indie."

Regan intentionally flits between genres: "I've got my fingers in too many pies with the way I write, I'm known for doing electro indie political pop songs but I do a lot of different stuff. I like to think it's more interesting for people if all the songs don't sound the same. If one song starts one way it's not necessarily going to be the same all the way through, I really like stuff like that. I really like how the Fiery Furnaces - probably my favourite band of recent years - can change the song without any warning."

The Cardiff music scene was welcoming when Regan relocated there 10 months ago: "I didn't find it hard to get into playing because I knew a few people already. I supported Attack+Defend at their EP launch last year and seemingly met pretty much every other Cardiff band at that gig." He adds: "I think people are still supportive and friendly to young bands."

He thinks Cardiff's profile will rise still further: "People seem to be expecting a rush of attention to hit here when [local band] Los Campesinos!'s album is out next year. The usual hacks who run awful music magazines will say 'Cardiff is the new Sheffield,' and suddenly start looking at all the bands who've been going for ages."

However, he continues: "I wouldn't want Cardiff to turn into some sort of 'cool' place to be in a band. That's not why I came to live here. Stuff like that inevitably fades after a while and then you get a city full of tribute acts six months late wondering where it all went wrong."