Battle of the Bands final four announced

Maes B and BBC Radio Cymru have announced the four shortlisted artists for this year’s Brwydr y Bandiau (Battle of the Bands) competition.

This is the nineteenth year that the competition has been held, and this year’s shortlist has been whittled down from fourteen artists or bands.

The four finalists are Alis Glyn, Francis Rees, Moss Carpet and Tew Tew Tennau.

Alis is a young artist from Caernarfon who’s been part of the Merched yn Gwneud Miwsig project.

She said: “I’m really looking forward to performing on Llwyfan y Maes on Wednesday afternoon in the Eisteddfod and to watching the other three finalists perform.”

Her favourite music includes Mared, Lizzie McAlpine, Gwilym and The Beatles.

Francis Rees from Tywyn, has made it through to the final four for the second time and she’s also benefited from participating in the Merched yn Gwneud Miwsig project.

She describes her music as “dream pop” but said she also took “lot of inspiration from European music after Eurovision this year!”

Moss Carpet is a project from Caernarfon, which experiments with different genres and likes to “experiment with different techniques and see how it goes! The result is a mixture of sonic textures…”

He’s been creating music for five years, “alone in my bedroom” and said “I never thought people would listen and enjoy [my music].”

Tew Tew Tennau , who complete the final four, are a youthful band from Denbigh.

Eban Elwy Williams, the lead singer of the band says “Brwydr y Bandiau has been our goal since we started, we feel very lucky to have this platform to share our music with an audience in the Eisteddfod.”

They listen to a lot of different music as a band, but say their main influences come from rock, rap and reggae music.

Judging this year’s competition were Glyn Rhys-James (Mellt), Marged Siôn (Artist and member of Self Esteem), Marged Gwenllian (Y Cledrau + Cube), and Sion Land (Alffa).

Marged Gwenllian, Y Cledrau and Ciwb’s bassist, said, “The standard this year was fantastic, and the number of entries made things difficult for us, but it was a wonderful problem to have.”

Important

Siôn Land, the drummer of Alffa, who won in 2017, added “Brwydr y Bandiau is one of the most important competitions in the Eisteddfod, especially for contemporary Welsh music.

“The competition enables artists to go to the next stage and gain more awareness across Wales and beyond! The competition was an essential part of our journey and without the competition we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

The four artists have recorded sessions at Sain’s studio and the performances can be seen over on Maes B’s YouTube.

The Brwydr y Bandiau final will be held on Llwyfan y Maes on Wednesday 9 August between 15:30 and 17:50.