The Green Man Podcast

Ahnansé from London-based afro-punk band Steam Down chats to Birmingham producer and vocalist Tony Bontana. 

Tony Bontana calls his approach to his music “Splayed”: open, blown apart, chopped samples, wonky rhythms, destructive and degrading processing, “messing it up to make something beautiful out of something that isn’t considered beautiful”. His recent projects have included last year’s Sunday Service, all of its songs recorded on a Sunday, and L’Humanité, a tribute to his late mother. 

Tony Bontana will be at the Talking Shop on Sunday afternoon, with Henry Widdicombe for the panel "Making Art from the Tough Stuff" chaired by Kiri Pritchard-McLean. Later on Sunday evening, at 8.40pm, Tony goes Round The Twist.

Steam Down have perfected a finely-tuned alchemy of sound, space and energy. They will bring their afrosonic infinitism to Chai Wallahs at midnight, Saturday into Sunday morning.

National treasure and Green Man’s Talking Shop curator Huw Stephens meets with Meg and Emily from Cardiff's Panic Shack. 

The Welsh punk girl band have a “no f***s given” attitude: they opened their album with voice recordings from the smoking area of an Amyl and the Sniffers gig, give their songs excellent titles such as Gok Wan, The Ick, and Who’s Got My Lighter?, and stuff them full of deadpan, tongue-in-cheek wisecracks.

Panic Shack (or 'Panics' as we shall now refer to them) tell Huw how they met at Green Man, chat about their recent US tour, and reminisce the time they summoned Kelly Jones in Leigh Delamere Services. 

Huw Stephens is a longtime friend of Green Man, whether found hosting the Mountain Stage, DJing on Green Man Radio, or, more recently, curating the conversations over at the Talking Shop. 

The broadcaster extraordinaire has selected an astonishing lineup for 2026 that is sure to get curious minds ticking. Huw tells Meg and Emily about some of the authors, musicians, journalists and political voices who’ll be taking part in a memorable weekend of conversations, debates and Q&As. 

Panic Shack play the Far Out tent at 4pm on the Sunday; Talking Shop opens midday Friday and closes Sunday at 6pm. 

Green Man Rising winner tall child — aka London-based Nigerian-Indian songwriter Zha Gandhi and their band — melds intense, stormy emotion and grungy riffs with sweet melody and happy-go-lucky indie jangle, to irresistible effect. The name “tall child” comes from a Mitski lyric: a marked influence, together with Radiohead, Arlo Parks, and Rachel Chinouriri. tall child released their debut EP Somehow You Grow last year, on which they grow like a tall tree and rise above the challenges of being a queer, disabled, POC indie artist. 

Zha chats to Eaves Wilder, who’s been coming to Green Man since she herself was a tall (or rather, small) child.  A couple of years ago, Eaves Wilder decided to quit music and join a nunnery. Thankfully the north London songwriter is still yet to don a nun’s habit — instead, she’s made a debut album called Little Miss Sunshine, which came out this spring. A compendium of influences — everything from CMAT to Philip Larkin, Wet Leg to Smokey Robinson — help her chronicle the change and loss of innocence experienced in your early twenties, and the result is something of emotional and elemental magnitude: or as she puts it, “music that would make you feel tectonic”. 

tall child opens the Mountain Stage at 11.45am on Friday; Eaves Wilder does the same at midday on Sunday.

Content warning: There is mention of sexual assault in this episode.

GWEN is the solo project of Welsh artist, songwriter and producer Gwenllian Anthony. As co-founder and creative force behind the acclaimed band Adwaith, she helped bring music sung in Cymraeg to international audiences. As GWEN, she creates music that blends industrial textures, minimalist electronics and hypnotic rhythms with emotionally direct songwriting. As she prepares for her debut solo performance at this year’s Green Man, Gwen chats to Pictish Trail - aka festival stalwart Johnny Lynch. 

Pictish Trail released his sixth album Life Slime last spring, “about how slimy life can get”. Written at his home on the Isle of Eigg and recorded in Margate, the new songs are sure to feel at home in the Welsh mountains too. Brace yourself for guilt, surrender, hope, transformation, renewal, fracture, and release, via warped and tender psychedelic electropop tunes. 

Pictish Trail will play Far Out at 1.30pm on Friday; see GWEN in the Walled Garden at 12pm on Sunday.

SNL UK star Jack Shep has a transatlantic yap with Nora, Penelope and

Jack Shep will play Last Laugh in the early hours of Saturday morning;

Critically acclaimed stand-up comedian Stewart Lee sits down with your Thursday night headliner Mogwai ahead of Green Man Festival 2026. Longtime admirers of each other’s work, Stew and Stu discuss the various eras of Mogwai’s thirty-year back catalogue of epic instrumentalism, and how Stewart keeps his comedy surprising after so many years in the game. Settle in for a chat about science, merch prices, multi-generational fandom, Stewart’s current show “Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf”, Stuart Braithwaite’s book “Spaceships over Glasgow”, and of course, an excited look-ahead to a magical weekend in Bannau Brycheiniog. 

Mogwai play Far Out on Thursday 20th August 2026; catch Stewart Lee on Friday night at Babbling Tongues.

In this final episode of the Green Man Podcast 2025, we're joined by the award-winning Welsh comedian, Anna Thomas, in conversation with Cassandra Jenkins, ahead of her set at the Far Out stage. We're also joined by Jacob Alon and John Grant backstage at the Walled Garden.

"Anna Thomas is an award-winning comedian, originally hailing from Carmarthenshire, South Wales. She wrote and starred in ‘Lady Bigfoot’, a short film that premiered on BBC One Wales at 10:40pm on 4th July, and became the most watched comedy short on BBC iPlayer in 2023. ‘Lady Bigfoot is a tender and utterly charming portrait of an outsider’s yearning. And it’s very funny too with little jokes squeezed in where they have no right to be’ ★★★★ Chortle. Anna also wrote and starred in the radio sitcom ‘Gulls’ which is currently available on BBC Sounds."

Hailing from a musical family in New York, Cassandra Jenkins learnt to play the guitar from a young age. She's released 4 studio albums, with her most recent - My Light, My Passage receiving critical acclaim. While making her third album, My Light My Destroyer, Cassandra Jenkins set up a soundcloud page for unfinished songs called "Valley of Despair". Loneliness and its corresponding shades and images - blue orbits, delphinium blue, dawn
— feature heavily on the new album. But just as on the New York songwriter's previous record, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, her superpower is in celebrating the poetry of the everyday. Life-affirming stuff, and about as far away from the valley of despair as you could get.

Jacob Alon is a Scottish poet, musician and singer, who blends the worlds of ethereal storytelling with music. Initially, they started studying medicine at university, but only found joy through creating music - and how lucky we are. They joined the Green Man family at the Walled Garden on Friday aftenoon.

The absurdity of the world on the outside juxtaposed with the world taking place on the inside,* says John Grant of his latest album, The Art of the Lie. "That fascinates me, the ability to capture what it really feels like to be a human." It could apply to much of his output since 2010: inducing comfort in the candid, and expressing that via handsome baritone, lubricated grooves, slightly sordid stickiness. and everything from opulent electronica to folk strum. The Art of the Lie borrows - or rather amends - a title of a book by Trump, and owes much to funk, vocoder, the Bladerunner soundtrack, Dead Can Dance, and Devo.

We're backstage at the podcast tent as Taff Rapids, and comedian Jarred Christmas talk about music and comedy. We then meander through Einstein's Garden to Chai Wallahs to hear Adwaith and Derya Yildrim chat about the magic of Green Man festival.

Taff Rapids, Cardiff’s bluegrass sensation, is taking the international stage by storm with a unique blend of original bluegrass compositions and their own take on traditional American and Welsh tunes. Comprised of seasoned musicians Darren Eedens, Siôn Russell Jones, David Grubb, and Clem Saynor, the band infuses their music with Welsh-language elements, bringing a fresh perspective to the bluegrass genre that resonates worldwide.

Jarred Christmas, in his own words: Comedian. Joker. Storyteller. Professional idiot. Word clown. We couldn't have said it better ourselves!

Adwaith hail from Camarthen, Wales, and formed in 2015. Their first album Melyn won the Welsh Music Prize in 2018, and Bato Mato in 2022. It's a joy to have them back at Green Man Festival.

Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek refer to themselves as “outernational” over international as they say it suggests a sound that’s more inclusive or “beyond borders.” Derya, who sings and plays the bağlama, is German born to Turkish parents. Drummer Helen Wells is Berlin-based by way of South Africa while keyboard player Graham Mushnik and guitar/bass player Antonin Voyant are both French. The collective influences they bring to Anatolian music make for a completely unique and fresh sound that both pushes the genre forward and champions its rich heritage.

JOHN HARRIS has a weekly column in The Guardian, hosts its Politics Weekly UK podcast, and co-created its BAFTA-nominated video series Anywhere But Westminster. He also writes regularly for Mojo, and is the author of the acclaimed pop-cultural history of the 1990s The Last Party, as well as the definitive work on Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon. His latest book, Maybe I'm Amazed, tells the story of how music profoundly connected him to his autistic son James, and explores the hidden history of creativity and neurodivergence.  

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Richard King is the author of the Gordon Burn Prize shortlisted Original Rockers, a Rough Trade, Times and Uncut Book of the Year; How Soon Is Now?, a Sunday Times Music Book of the Year; the Penderyn Prize shortlisted The Lark Ascending, a Rough Trade, MOJO and Evening Standard Book of the Year; Brittle with Relics and the Penderyn Prize shortlisted Travels Over Feeling, all published by Faber. His recent appointments include Visiting Simon Industrial and Professional Fellow, University of Manchester and Royal Literary Fellow at Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media & Culture.

In this two part episode, we're backstage at the legendary Chai Wallahs, where we hear from Aziza Jaye, Amy True & Madly as they discuss their new project Conn3ct three - a project born out of a desire to connect souls, connect musical heritage, connect powerful female spirit, connect audiences, and collectively share the energy that each of these unique performers bring in one monumental show.

We’re also joined by the icon that is Asha Puthli, in conversation with Big Special - the collaboration we never knew we needed. Together they take us on a journey through their musical styles, the magic of Green Man, life on tour, and Asha’s mission to inspire older generations to chase their dreams.