One of Wales’s longest-running independent record shops is moving across Swansea city centre — and choosing a building delivered by the same housing association that owns its current location.
Tangled Parrot, founded by Matt Davies as a stall in Carmarthen Market in April 2000, is moving from its existing space on Swansea High Street to a dedicated standalone unit at 61 Kingsway. The new store is expected to open before the end of June.
Announcing the move on Instagram, Mr Davies described it as “the most difficult post I’ve had to make in 26 years of running Tangled Parrot” — a reflection of the difficult decision to close the original Carmarthen store at the same time.
A move between two Beacon regeneration sites
Both locations sit within the regeneration footprint of Beacon Cymru — the housing association formerly known as Coastal Housing, which has spent more than a decade rebuilding the commercial and residential offer along High Street and is now extending the same model to the Kingsway.
Beacon’s £100 million-plus High Street investment programme has steadily brought derelict and underused buildings back into use through mixed-tenure schemes, anchoring what is now known as the High Street Urban Village.
The Kingsway location continues the same pattern. Work began in September 2024 to transform the long-vacant former McDonalds at 61 Kingsway — closed since 2010 — into seven apartments for social rent across the upper floors, with two ground floor commercial units fronting onto the Kingsway and Park Street respectively. Tangled Parrot is taking the Kingsway-facing unit.
Beacon Cymru’s then regeneration manager Andrew Parry-Jones said at the time that the McDonalds redevelopment would be the first in a series of city centre projects. Tangled Parrot is now the first significant commercial tenant to take that space.
A bigger Swansea presence
Mr Davies explained the choice of unit on Instagram. “61 Kingsway — a more central location than our current shop on High Street,” he wrote. “There will also be a café space which will be run by a friend… allowing us to do more frequent and bigger events in the shop space.”
The Kingsway location is substantially larger than the previous space at Alleyway Coffee on High Street, allowing Tangled Parrot to run more frequent and bigger events in its own dedicated venue.
Mr Davies framed the move as a deliberate strategic shift. “I’m looking on it overall as a positive move allowing the business to become more focused, to expand our online operation and to collaborate on events with other like-minded folk in the Swansea area,” he wrote.
The shop is known for stocking both new and second-hand records and CDs, with an emphasis on music from the fringes — and sometimes extremes — of the industry, rather than mainstream chart releases.
A growing independent cluster
Tangled Parrot joins what is now a noticeable cluster of independent businesses along the Kingsway. The Bunkhouse — the independent music venue, hostel and café — has already welcomed the news on social media, jokingly offering to lend their new neighbours sugar.
The Kingsway has been the focus of one of the most significant city centre regeneration programmes in Swansea’s recent history. The £1 billion Copr Bay scheme at the street’s eastern end has been the most visible component, but a quieter pattern of housing-association-led mixed-use redevelopment is reshaping the street’s western stretch.
The arrival of a 26-year-old indie record store reflects the growing confidence in the street’s independent commercial offer — a different proposition to the chain-driven retail of the Quadrant Shopping Centre or out-of-town parks like Parc Fforestfach.
The Carmarthen back-story
The Swansea move comes alongside the closure of the original Carmarthen shop, where the business began.
Mr Davies has described the decision to leave Carmarthen as one that took nearly two years to reach. “I have a lot of attachment to Carmarthen,” he wrote. “The town has been good to myself and the shop, and it also nurtured the venue The Parrot before the established CWRW. I’ve made a great many friends in the town and surrounding areas through the shop and I will miss it.”
He cited wider economic pressures as the underlying driver. “The last few years have been difficult in many ways not least economically with the pressures that all retail businesses face nowadays — rising costs across the board and the changing shopping habits affecting basic footfall,” he wrote.
The Carmarthen store will close on 30 May 2026 after a closing sale to lighten the load before the move. A separate Tangled Parrot location in Hay-on-Wye will continue trading unaffected.
The Carmarthen closure leaves a gap in the town’s independent music scene — though Mr Davies has suggested that Dales Music Store, currently based in Tenby, may be planning a move to fill it.
Closing dates and farewell
Tangled Parrot will close its Swansea High Street location for the final time on Wednesday 27 May, with the Carmarthen store remaining open through to the 30 May final day. Both stores will operate normal opening hours in the meantime.
In a video posted to Instagram, longstanding team member Rich shared an emotional farewell to the Carmarthen shop ahead of its closure, reflecting on what the store had meant to him and to customers over the years — and recalling earlier Tangled Parrot homes including the original market stall in 2000 and a previous Bridge Street location, before the current King Street unit. The new Swansea store is expected to open sometime in June.
A win for Beacon, a win for Swansea
For Swansea, the arrival is a clear win. An independent business with 26 years of history, a loyal customer base across south Wales, and a niche cultural offer that’s hard to replicate is choosing the city centre at exactly the moment the Kingsway is finding its post-regeneration identity.
It’s also a small but telling win for Beacon Cymru’s slow-build approach to city centre regeneration. The housing association now anchors much of High Street’s commercial offer, has delivered the first major Kingsway commercial space since the Copr Bay phase, and has retained one of its longstanding tenants through that transition rather than losing it.
Signing off his Instagram announcement, Mr Davies quoted a phrase associated with the late DJ and producer Andrew Weatherall: “Fail we may, sail we must.”
