"Do you have a copy of the schedule?" I ask the girl manning a trestle table by the entrance to Kaz Bar.

"Well, I wouldn't worry about that. We've lost Casio Kids, so God knows how long Gallops! are going to play for, or who's going on next..."

Across the road in Ifor Bach, Indian Jewelry are similarly MIA, a situation made less helpful by the fact that they've decided to go on tour without what proves to be quite a useful but of kit in this day and age, a mobile phone.

So, it seems the best thing to do is rip up the timetable and see what unexpected treasures this year's Swn throws up; an approach made more attractive by the lack of big names compared to last year, when Beirut brought his whey-faced Balkan-indie schtick to the Point. Apparently last year the Swn organisers (Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens and local promoter John Rostron) lost more money than an Icelandic hedge fund manager, so this year we get a credit crunch friendly assortment of discerningly chosen smaller bands.

Post-rock, it appears, is alive and well, and living in Wales. A packed Kaz Bar sees a muscular set by Wrexham's Gallops!, who successfully channel the riff-heavy, Oxes-style breed of post-rock, rather than Mogwai's snowflake prettiness/sonic maelstrom template. Fat, Sabbath-esque riffs underpinned with grooving drum patterns and smattered with laptop electronica; it's post-rock for the head and the heart, and a very promising start to the festival.

Over at Ifor Bach, Rolo Tomassi's diminutive singer adjusts her blonde, choirboy bob and smiles disarmingly at the crowd, thanking them for the deserved applause. As the next song jerks into action she opens her mouth and bellows like a particularly surly Regan from The Exorcist. Christ, where did that come from? Her co-vocalist displays similar Jekyll and Hyde tendencies, stalking through the crowd, screaming and spilling pints with whiplash-convulsions, then thanking the crowd for coming with manners that would make a vicar seem coarse. Their set is incredibly accomplished for a five-piece with a combined age of eight (approximately): prog-jazz-math-core executed at breakneck speed, with frenetic, spidery guitar work, and giddying time-changes.

Clinic: now there's a band you wouldn't want baby-sitting your kids (I'd be worried they might end up a little bad-Rolo Tomassi). Wearing their trademark surgical masks, their set of stripped-down, pulsing kraut-pop is oddly disquieting, like a shadowy figure with an erection lurking in your peripheral vision. It's a singular furrow they plough - rock music stripped to its bare bones, pop melodies backed by pounding drums and single note guitar riffs - and one which is uniquely effective, in a sinister, claustrophobic way.

Saturday sees us back at Kaz Bar, and back with the Welsh post-rock. Zail contain two thirds of the fondly remembered Moutain Men Anonymous, and maintain their ability to craft grandiose cathedrals of sound, like Godspeed! falling down a hill in a runaway pram. Truckers of Husk, are more post-Baroque: an odd medieval melodic sense creeping into their prog-post-rock template. Both bands remind us how much fun can be had with loud guitars, and without silly words getting in the way.

Golden Silvers have a lot going for them: a great name, a perfect pop song in Arrows of Eros, and perhaps their strongest asset, a cracking slug of a moustache proudly framing their bassist's top lip. Several songs are strutting, bass-driven Talking Heads style dance-pop beasts, but much of the set drifts into a mid-tempo, piano led torpor. Arrows of Eros, with its handclap strewn, woo-ing and synth squelching ridiculous-pop brilliance only serves to highlight the averageness of much of the rest of the set. Which is a shame, as I'd have loved to have bought one of the extremely chic maroon and gold Golden Silvers tour T-shirts. 

In Dempseys on Sunday, with the weekend taking its toll, I look at my pint of Guinness with a mixture of trepidation and relief. The Ash and the Oak do their best to soothe me through these difficult times with a set of melodically intricate folk rock. With a similar, imploring vocal style they bring to mind an American folk-influenced Elliot Smith crossed with Crosby, Still and Nash. Fortunately, Richard James does nothing to drag me from this happy place, where my hangover has been replaced with Guinness and winsome folk-rock. Building on his Gorky's Zygotic Mynci era song writing, he seems to have located the common element between West Coast America and the West Coast of Wales; gentle vocals, more CSN style harmonies and melodies that are as natural and beautiful as the Pembrokeshire coastline. An appearance by local folk Queen Cate le Bon on backing vocals doesn't hurt either. A joyous, Neil Young-like ragged, blues workout closes the set, and as the Justin Lee Collins lookalike drummer hammers out a closing fill, Swn is over for another year.

Phew. Time for a final whisky in Dempseys downstairs, to count our bruises and compare new finds with fellow Swn-ies. In a manner that chimes with the current economic crisis, the organisers of Swn have demonstrated the success of thinking globally and acting locally: of tapping a rich vein of local talent, or at least using a discerning approach to book bands based on quality rather than volume of NME headlines. Perhaps, with their ability to turn economy into a virtue, Huw Stephens and John Rostron should consider running for office? We've had the first black President, maybe the world's ready for a ginger Prime Minister...?

by Robin Wilkinson