Maes B and BBC Radio Cymru are happy to announce the four shortlisted artists in this year's Battle of the Bands competition.
This is the nineteenth year that the competition has been held, and this year fourteen artists or bands applied.
The four finalists are Alis Glyn, Francis Rees, Moss Carpet and Tew Tew Tennau.
Alis Glyn is a young artist from Caernarfon who’s been part of the Merched yn Gwneud Miwsig project, and she’s "delighted to reach the final round. 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.
This is the second year for Francis Rees from Tywyn, to reach the final four, in the competition, and she’s also benifited from the Merched yn Gwneud Miwsig project. She describes the community created by this project "a growing community, keen to help and support each other." She describes her music as "dream pop, but I get a 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, I never thought people would listen and enjoy [my music]."
Tew Tew Tennau is a young band from Denbigh and 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 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 Siôn Land (Alffa).
The competition was amazing this year, and the judges had a very difficult task choosing the top four. 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."
Siôn Land, the drummer of Alffa, who won in 2017, said "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.
