Gwenno announces new album, shares “Dancing On Volcanoes”

Gwenno has announced new album Utopia that will be out July 11 via Heavenly. After three record sung in Welsh or Cornish (including 2022’s Mercury Prize nominated Tresor), she’s singing in English for her fourth which was produced by her longtime collaborator Rhys Edwards and features contributions from Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline.

The album was named after a club Gwenno used to go to in Las Vegas while she was starring in a production of Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance when she was in her late teens. “I feel as if I’ve written a debut record, because it’s a different language and it’s a different part of my life,” Gwenno says. “It’s about that point where I go out into the world on my own, which people generally write about first, and then get on with their lives. But it’s taken me so long to digest it — I needed 20 years just to make sense of things, and I realized the starting point of my creative life isn’t Wales, it’s actually North America.”

The first single from the album is “Dancing on Volcanoes” which flies on Smiths-ish guitar lines and baroque touches. Here’s how Gwenno describes it:“Jarvis Cocker dancing alone on stage, surrounded by dry ice, perfectly conveying the loss of our congregational dancing and drinking in small venues with a slight swing of the hip and flick of a hand… dancing ’til 5am at Le Mandela restaurant in Grangetown, Cardiff… the Pet Shop Boys’ perfectly aimed observations on modern life… the spirit of Johnny Marr on guitar, his echoes of the Celtic sea passed down through the generations… the need to dance as a cathartic act… it’s all here – Dancing on Volcanoes!”

You can watch the “Dancing on Volcanoes” video, filmed in her old Vegas stomping grounds, below.

Utopia
1. London 1757
2. Dancing On Volcanoes
3. Utopia
4. Y Gath
5. War
6. 73
8. The Devil
8. Ghost Of You
9. St Ives New School
10. Hireth