New Music 2015 - Part 37 - Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf

In the recent times of political and even cultural uncertainty in the UK this album just became an obvious choice for what, to me at least, is a difficult post to write. One thing I pride myself on is a willingness to tackle cross-genre music including that in other languages and this is certainly no exception.
I did a quick survey of my collection yesterday evening and just now: most of my music is unsurprisingly in English. Spanish language albums are in third place. In between those and by some margin...

Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf was released, in a very limited edition, by Peski Records late last year.

It gets a very much deserved full release - vinyl, CD & d/l - by Heavenly Records on 24 July 2015.

Although - aside from a single track (sung in Cornish) - it is all sung in Welsh that is not to say that, lovely though that might be, it is full of plaintive harp and lilting tradition. The title comes from Owain Owain's 1976 novel that depicts an overbearing dystopia controlled by distant, often malign, robots.

Musically it is gently electronic kraut-pop, or at least that's the best description I can muster at this moment. This is the track-list:

1. Chwyldro 5:18 
2. Patriarchaeth 3:29
3. Calon Peiriant 5:08
4. Sisial Y Môr 5:41
5. Dawns Y Blaned Dirion 1:30
6. Golau Arall 3:31
7. Stwff 4:59
8. Y Dydd Olaf 4:15
9. Amser 4:45

It is a political concept album. It won't appeal to all, I fully understand that, but it is a curiously soothing kind of revolution even if you don't actually understand a word of it.

This is the opening track 'Chwyldro' ('revolution', but also 'rotation' and 'orbit' - generally, that which goes around).

GWENNO - Chwyldro (2014) from Peski TV on Vimeo.

As we often share a similar taste in music, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, I'd be very interested to see what De krenten uit de pop makes of this LP and not least because music in a language other than their own is their normal diet.