When French producer Wax Tailor brought his debut performance to Cardiff, the fit with CULTVR Lab on Penarth Road felt intimate.
Known for combining hip-hop instrumentals with cinematic spoken-word samples, his sound naturally suits a venue designed around 360-degree full dome projection and immersive audio.
The space filled up early with an attentive crowd, and the set delivered a consistent, head-nodding momentum throughout. Built around heavy, mid-tempo hip-hop breaks, the music incorporated his trademark vocal chops and mid-century radio dialogue. Rather than driving a single continuous tempo, the set was divided into distinct mini-segments, each exploring a slightly different vibe and gradually pushing the energy forward. Toward the finale, the focus shifted to live turntablism, with clean needle drops and beat chopping across the decks, with well known samples spliced throughout.
The visual component ran parallel to the music. Wax Tailor operates a tightly timecoded show where visual loops sync directly to specific tracks and sample cues. Projected across the dome, the imagery mixed custom animations with vintage archival footage, creating a look that landed somewhere between retro sci-fi world building and 1960s pulp films. Dystopian motifs ran through much of the video work, offset by repeating imagery of vinyl records framing music as the unifying, hopeful element amid the chaos.
For a Cardiff debut, the performance was a well-executed showcase of how music and dedicated visual design can complement each other without relying on gimmicks. It gave a clear view of why Wax Tailor’s approach to sample-based music and live staging continues to hold its ground.
The crowd fully engaged and wanting more, Wax Tailor ended with a special rendition of Ce Sera, with the audience joining in, and the lyrics projected above. What ever will be will be, but CultVr’s musical curation is going from strength to strength, for the quirky beat laiden left field.
