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One of the buzz bands of the last few years at Cardiff's Sŵn Festival have been local boys . They only perform a handful of shows, full of their distinctive brand of looped guitar and fierce drumming.

There's a début album Power Grab , and it's interesting to see them make the jump to recorded project. I caught up with the band to find out a bit more - here's what happened:

Right Hand Left Hand

Hi RHLH! Who's in the band and how long have you been playing together?

We are Andrew Plain and Rhodri Viney. We've been playing in bands together since 2004 but we decided to ditch other people and employ a loop station and formed Right Hand Left Hand back in late 2006. The loop station does what we tell it to do and, apart from some funny mood swings from time to time, it rarely argues back and doesn't have a drink problem.

What's the reason you got together?

We formed Right Hand Left Hand while on tour in Europe with another band of ours. We'd just finished a show in the Vera in Groningen and were drinking in the little club downstairs when we discussed the idea of doing something on our own. Slow Response by Trans Am was playing in the background so we decided to cover that song first.

We ended up sharing a flat when we got back and one night we were watching a great Robert Mitchum movie called Night Of The Hunter. There's a scene where he tells the story of 'right hand, left hand' or, in other words, the battle between love and hate which he has tattooed on his knuckles. We'd recommend it, it's a great film. We decided that it was a cool band name for a two-piece so Rhodri went and booked us a gig.

It wasn't until 10 days before that gig we realised we hadn't played a single note or used the loop station so we got to work and wrote five songs in a week and covered the Trans Am tune. I'd recommend that approach to anyone. Having a deadline really got us to do something rather than just talk about how great it would be. We were probably a bit crap but we enjoyed it.

What's been your career highlight so far?

We've been very fortunate to have supported some really great and diverse bands in the last few years but one of our highlights was supporting Super Furry Animals. Getting the opportunity to record our album was also a big deal.

Which have been your best and worst gigs to date?

Too many favourites to mention and I don't think there's been a worst gig as such. The weirdest was when we supported Funeral For A Friend in the Pavilion in Tenby. It was great to be asked to do it but the venue was weird and the crowd didn't really get it. One kid asked us afterwards if we had a bass player who hid backstage. Saying that, we left a bunch of free demo CDs out on the merch stall and they all went. Hopefully the the kids listened to it before they used it as coaster for their bottles of black hair dye.

You mostly write instrumentals. Are there any with lyrics on the album, and is there any reason for avoiding words?

Power Grab has a few songs with vocals on it but we tend to treat vocals as another instrument as opposed to a main vocal over the top. It's not something we try to avoid - if we feel it needs vocals then we'll do it. For those willing to look a little deeper, some of our song titles have useful/useless bits of information without needing vocals.

You played a blinding set at Sŵn. Where's usually good to play and what's your favourite Welsh venue?

Thank you, we had yet another great time at Sŵn but it was a bit weird playing in the afternoon. We had to play our daytime, pre-watershed set! There are so many venues in Cardiff these days and I think the whole gig playing circuit is very healthy. What we do is a very visual thing so we feel comfortable in smaller venues where the crowd can get up close and see the looping in action. Downstairs in Clwb Ifor Bach is still one of the best and I've really enjoyed watching gigs in Undertone lately but Right Hand Left Hand are yet to play there.

Have you got any tales of crazy misfortune while on the road?

Unlike our previous bands, there's no real tales of misfortune with Right Hand Left Hand. Maybe it's because there's only us two idiots to look after. The loop station going down in a show would be a massive dose of misfortune for all concerned if that happens.

2011 is closing on a busy high for you, but what about next year? And what are your plans following the album release?

We've got a few shows before this year is out and we plan to release the songs that didn't make it onto Power Grab along with some remixes which some very lovely friends of ours have done. These include a remix by Guto Pryce from Super Furry Animals and Underpass. It'll all be on Bandcamp before Christmas and we might set it as a freebie or perhaps set it up so that people pay what they feel they want to pay for it. If there are any proceeds then we'll take the people who were kind enough to remix a track out for beers.

We'll keep gigging in 2012 but we also intend to record another album in February. It's almost written so we're really excited. We'll be working with the amazing Charlie Francis again and be doing it at the legendary Musicbox Studios.

Where can people find you online?

We are available on as well as . We are on Twitter but most importantly you can listen and buy our album Power Grab from . Shameless plug!

What are the next few gigs coming up?

We're playing with our friends Poket Trez in Dempseys on 18 November and supporting Truckers Of Husk upstairs in Clwb Ifor Bach on 26 November for their album launch. We'll be doing a headline show somewhere too but we're yet to sort that. Getting out further afield is also on the cards for early 2012 but nothing has been finalised just yet.

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