Ceri Shaw


 

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Playlists: 6
Blogs: 1936
events: 233
youtube videos: 537
SoundCloud Tracks: 21
images: 827
Files: 55
Invitations: 9
Groups: 33
audio tracks: 1098
videos: 8
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Category: Music



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Formed in Cardiff, Sock make guitar-driven alternative rock, taking inspiration from psychedelic music. Known for their creative melodic arrangements and blending of genres, the band describe their music as “a rather progressive affair”.

Following on from the bands debut album ‘Fresh Bits’, in 2018, their much anticipated self- titled follow up is out this April. The album features Jacob on Rhythm Guitar & Vocals, Billy on Lead Guitar, Sam on Bass & Keys, and Simon on Drums & Percussion.

Produced by the band, the album was recorded during the pandemic and sees the music move into a heavier and more refined sound.

Change Your Mind is the second track released from their self-titled second album, which is out on the 28th April through Bubblewrap Collective.

 





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Bethan Lloyd is a Welsh artist whose trance inducing vocals expand over an ocean of rave inspired production, harmonic layering and otherworldly ecstasy. Her sonic exploration has taken her from training as a classical singer, immersing herself in Berlin’s experimental music scene, to learning with shamans, masters and the ancient teachings of the natural world. In her latest album, Metamorphosis, Bethan, producing alongside Pre-Human bandmate and master of noise Isaac Ray, takes her intense explorations of the spirit and emotional realms and blends them into something playful and danceable, a gritty experimental pop.

 

Tracklisting

1.Boss Of Big Dreams

2.No Umbilical

3.Antares

4.Aria

5.Cutting Circuits

6.Parasitic Yes

7.None Of The Above

8.Whatever We Delete

 

Using expressive vocal layers and hypnotic acid breaks to pull the listener into an ecstatic experience, Bethan Lloyd begins this album by exploring the primal state of emptiness, a place where no thought exists and only being, acting and living remain. It is this state of emptiness and often The landscape itself which becomes the inspiration for Bethan's creativity. She is frequently journeying with her sonic tools to ancient Neolithic sites and places of awe and wonder and allowing her surroundings to inspire a unique vocal soundscape. A soundscape that stirs up a sense of the forgotten past. The album explores the cosmos and the dark euphoria within it, the themes of mind control and diluted society ask a question about where we are headed as a collective. The music is a spell for transformation. A cry for a return to sovereignty and autonomy of mind and body. This project delves into the philosophy of animism, guiding humanity back from its abusive relationship with nature. Cutting the chords of consumerism. Cutting the circuits of control and returning to our true gifts, to the web and to the void.

 


“Gorgeous” Amy Lamé’s ‘Sunday Girl’,

Amy Lame, BBC Radio 6

 

“This is good! Impressive stuff from Bethan Lloyd”

Huw Stephens, BBC Radio

 

“Folky vocalist to power your pagan rituals”

James Thornhill, Electronic Sound

 

“For Welsh artist Bethan Lloyd, the “voice” is a multi-faceted wonder - a tool, a weapon, a healing tonic.”

James Thornhill, Under The Radar Mag

 

“Bethan's inventive use of dream-like, layered sounds is otherworldly.. a rousing electronic set overlaid with distinct vocals... if it’s at all possible to imagine Gothenburg band The Knife singing in Welsh, then you might well be onto something.”

Susan Hansen, Clash Magazine

 

"A deeply emotive swirling electro pop that fuses together Lloyd's folk influenced, pagan like, refrains that gradually creep from personal and enveloping to swooping awestruck call to the heavens, underpinned by an intricate and pulsing tapestry of shadowy electronic sounds"

Bill Cummings, God is in the TV Zine

 

“I love the synths I love Bethan Lloyd voice, I love the the lyrics. It's just brilliant. She is just brilliant. Very enigmatic presence in many respects and a true artist.”

Adam Walton BB Radio Wales

 

“I saw Bethan play at Focus Wales… She blew me away.. She was one of my favourite artists of the festival… I love her music”

Bethan Elfyn BBC Radio Wales

 

“Bethan Lloyd is awesome, she is an incredible musician and singer”


Zakia Sewell, NTS  Radio

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Aaronson today release their brand new single 'The Great Swells That Carry Us Will Pull Us Under' via Dirty Carrot Records.

Taken from forthcoming Album of the same name released 14th July, Aaronson's 'The Great Swells That Carry Us Will Pull Us Under' album is a sonic marvel filled with beautifully arranged ambient post-rock that will season the senses.

Aaronson are a post rock band from South Wales, whose towering layers of melody and epic crescendos have seen them share a stage with Nordic Giants, Coldbones, A-Tota-So and False Hope For The Savage, finish runners up at The Big Gig Wales 2020, be nominated for a Cardiff Music Award and release their cinematic EP You Are Not A Stranger Here.

For fans of:  Explosions In The Sky, MONO, Mogwai

“Their seismic sound could fill an aircraft hangar”, “Hands That Harvest is a spellbinding instrumental”
– Welsh Music Podcast

“Beautifully emotive post rock”, “Atmospheric post rock at its finest”
– Cardiff Events

“Songs that incorporate plenty of slow burn and build up, resulting in gorgeous crescendos”
– The Razor’s Edge

“If this doesn’t put a smile on your face, I don’t know what will”
– Minty’s Gig Guide

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Tom Emlyn releases his new single 'Broken Mirror' on Bandcamp Friday the 7th of April. The follow-up to 'Like a Cigarette' it's the second of three singles leading up to the album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol 1’ released on the 5th of May 2023.

Mastered by Charlie Francis ( R.E.M., Pixies ) 'Broken Mirror' is a semi-fictional ballad of lost love set against the backdrop of the Welsh landscape with a heavy dose of irony and imagism.

"And beauty is a curse/ But ugliness is worse/And loneliness is always"  Sighs Emlyn bittersweetly on this wistful poetic song rich with detail, as spindly guitars, waltzing fiddles and harps, orbit around his tender vocals. Beguiling and anthemic, introspective yet universal 'Broken Mirror' speaks to the human experience of lost love. 

Emlyn says: " This was a song I wrote after I came back from traveling in about 2015. It was a bit of a prototype for some of my other songs like Empire or Under the Weather, which try to use the Welsh landscape as a metaphor for a breakup. It's not really as biographical as it sounds, there's a lot of fiction in there too. It also deals with the choices you make in life and realising that there are many ways to look at a situation. It's quite conversational and imagistic."

"The instruments were recorded live as one performance in the big hall at the BBC studios, Swansea, which I've used quite a few times and has one of the best natural reverb sounds I've ever heard. The vocal was added later on. Jamie Nemeth plays the fiddle - he's a great folk player who has guested with many bands around Swansea and has a talent for improvising. Cadi plays the harp. Cadi is an anarchist harpist from Swansea that I happened to meet when I was traveling in Belgium, strangely enough. We busked a few traditional Welsh folk tunes in Europe, kept in touch and I asked them to come and play some harp on this recording a while after."



Tom Emlyn crafts honest, swirling evocative songs; tall tales, and dark jokes that cut straight to the bone. His current solo work maps an alternative Southwalian landscape, a hallucinated community drawn from psychogeography and local history. Written on foot and by bus, his observational, poetic lyrics and simple 60s-folk-influenced melodies to explore what it means to belong to a place - the bitterness, the love, and the humour. Compared to songwriters like Bob Dylan and Elliott Smith, Tom Emlyn's captivating songs explore the particularity and peculiarity of human experience uniquely. His sound, while rooted in garage rock, is tinged with psychedelia, folk, jazz, and blues overtones - including a recent adoption of the harmonica as a lead instrument.

In summer 2022, Tom released his debut solo album ‘News From Nowhere’, a bittersweet love letter to his hometown of Swansea, described by Adam Walton (BBC Radio Wales) as a record of "undoubted brilliance, eloquence and energy". It has been positively received, with airplay and support from Radio Wales, BBC Horizons, R.E.P.E.A.T. fanzine, God Is In The TV, and Joyzine, among others. Tom's second album ‘I've Seen You In Town’ followed hot on the heels of the first - a more mellow, acoustic affair which was also well received. He also released the ‘Scounger EP’ on Bandcamp this February. He is currently promoting these records with intimately explosive solo and band performances across Wales and beyond, with a string of releases planned for 2023.

The follow up to 'Like a Cigarette', Tom Emlyn’s new single ‘Broken Mirror’ is released on the 7th of April - the second of three singles leading up to the album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol 1’ released on the 5th of May 2023.

https://linktr.ee/tomemlyn
https://tomemlyn.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/tom_emlyn
https://www.instagram.com/tomemlyn/





















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Tom Emlyn returns with ‘Like a Cigarette’ on the 24th of March, the first of a trio of new singles building up to the release of an archive album Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol.1 on the 5th of May 2023.




Swansea born songwriter  Tom Emlyn  vividly depicts why he is one of the most prolific and inventive songwriters emerging songwriters in Wales, with his new album  ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol 1 ’ recorded at BBC studios in 2018 and mastered by Charlie Francis ( R.E.M., Pixies ). The album is a peek inside his treasure trove of recordings dating back to 2017 and 2018, with songs showing the sheer scope of his songwriting talent.

Built upon a cyclical strum and raw vocals recorded live in one performance, Emlyn’s new single ‘ Like a Cigarette ’ released on the 24th of March, poetically sketches out the scene as he spends his days busking outside a café in Frankfurt, shot through with the corrosive power of imagery, and acts as a living and breathing earworm that charts his travels around Europe and Germany in 2017.

Tom Emlyn says:  “I ran out of money on something like the second day of the trip, so didn't have the opportunity to be lazy and had to rely on busking for survival, which turned out to be amazing practice and one of the best things I've done. I was watching people smoking and drinking and wondering why people smoke. I started thinking about advertising and the seductive power of images. Images which are far removed from the rhythm of everyday life and the monologues of our interior minds eyes. Images which are ultimately disposable, carcinogenic and affect the way we treat other people.”

Tom Emlyn crafts honest, swirling evocative songs; tall tales and dark jokes that cut straight to the bone. His current solo work maps an alternative Southwalian landscape, a hallucinated community drawn from psychogeography and local history. Written on foot and by bus, his observational, poetic lyrics and simple 60s-folk influenced melodies explore what it means to belong to a place - the bitterness, the love, and the humour. Compared to songwriters like  Bob Dylan  and  Elliot Smith , Tom Emlyn's captivating songs explore the particularity and peculiarity of human experience in a unique way. His sound, while rooted in garage rock, is tinged with psychedelia, folk, jazz, and blues overtones - including a recent adoption of the harmonica as a lead instrument.

In summer 2022, Tom released his debut solo album ‘News From Nowhere’, a bittersweet love letter to his hometown of Swansea, described by Adam Walton (BBC Radio Wales) as a record of  "undoubted brilliance, eloquence and energy" . It has been positively received, with airplay and support from Radio Wales, BBC Horizons, R.E.P.E.A.T. fanzine, God Is In The TV, and Joyzine, among others. Tom's second album ‘ I've Seen You In Town’  followed hot on the heels of the first - a more mellow, acoustic affair which was also well received. He also released the  ‘Scounger EP’  on bandcamp this February. He is currently promoting these records with intimately explosive solo and band performances across Wales and beyond, with a string of releases planned for 2023.

Tom Emlyn’s new single ‘Like a Cigarette’ is released on the 24th of March - the first of three singles released through March and April leading up to the album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol 1’ released on the 5th of May 2023.



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Ivan Moult is set to release his third album, 'Songs From Severn Grove', this Spring on independent Welsh record label, Bubblewrap Collective. His previous albums have received radio support from BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio Wales, and have been featured on Folk Radio UK.


Ivan's second album, 'Longest Shadow', released in 2018, won him festival slots at Cornbury Festival, Folk on The Dock, and Festival of Voice, as well as support slots with This Is The Kit, Becca Mancari, and Willy Mason. For this new album, Ivan played, recorded, engineered, and mixed all of the instruments himself at his home studio in Cardiff. The album charts a journey of growth and change, beginning with the lockdown during the 2020 pandemic and continuing through Ivan's experiences of fatherhood and the development of his love and relationships.

The album showcases Ivan's voice front and centre, with layered harmonies and a soundscape of delay-soaked electric guitars, drums, and bass. The music draws from influences such as J.J. Cale, Nina Simone, and Tim Buckley, creating a fusion of 1960s/70s folk and blues with a contemporary sound. Ivan's unique and original style remains recognisably present throughout the album.

The first track to be released from the album will be 'Out Of Time' and will be available across all digital platforms on March 29th. Ivan explains: “Lyrically it’s a song reflecting on the nature of life and finding meaning in making the most of things and living in the moment. Sonically the song started off after I’d been listening to Paul McCartney's ‘Ram’ album and it was quite driving whilst also relaxed but in production it ended up more reverb washed and dreamy.”



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Swansea born songwriter Tom Emlyn vividly depicts why he is one of the most prolific and inventive songwriters emerging songwriters in Wales, with his new album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol 1’ recorded at BBC studios in 2018 and mastered by Charlie Francis (R.E.M., Pixies). The album is a peek inside his treasure trove of recordings dating back to 2017 and 2018, with songs showing the sheer scope of his songwriting talent.

Built upon a cyclical strum and raw vocals recorded live in one performance, Emlyn’s new single ‘Like a Cigarette’ released on the 24th of March, poetically sketches out the scene as he spends his days busking outside a café in Frankfurt, shot through with the corrosive power of imagery, and acts as a living and breathing earworm that charts his travels around Europe and Germany in 2017.

Tom Emlyn says : “I ran out of money on something like the second day of the trip, so didn't have the opportunity to be lazy and had to rely on busking for survival, which turned out to be amazing practice and one of the best things I've done. I was watching people smoking and drinking and wondering why people smoke. I started thinking about advertising and the seductive power of images. Images which are far removed from the rhythm of everyday life and the monologues of our interior minds eyes. Images which are ultimately disposable, carcinogenic and affect the way we treat other people.”  

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About The ‘Hollowing Out’ Album

 

Hollowing Out, the debut album from Cardiff-based five-piece Red Telephone will be released on 31st March 2023. The dystopia-tinged album deals with themes of alienation, identity and monotony, as well as exploring contemporary social dilemmas such as the trappings of ambition in a saturated pop culture age, the pervasive nature of modern media and social media fatigue. Sonically, the band draw from an array of influences; ranging from Berlin-era Bowie, brooding synth-led film soundtracks such as Blade Runner and Uncut Gems, the art rock of Kate Bush and St Vincent, as well as modern electronic pop artists such as MGMT, Mitski and Tame Impala.

 

Speaking about the upcoming album, singer Declan Andrews said;


 


While putting together ‘Hollowing Out’ we were really getting into synths; drawing quite a bit on brooding, synth-led film soundtracks like Blade Runner, Scarface and Uncut Gems. Part of this was out of necessity - it was the initial 2020 lockdown when I wrote most of the songs in my bedroom and I’d got my hands on emulations of classic synths which gave me free reign to really explore this territory of sounds. I also had the free time to watch and rewatch a lot of movies such as those just mentioned. All of this definitely crossed over with the band’s prior love of film, Bowie’s Berlin-era sound, his work with Iggy and albums like Little Dark Age by MGMT too. Basically, those dystopian soundscapes that evoke a lot of mood and imagery. As a band we’ve been drawn to them for a while, especially since visiting Berlin and exploring Bowie’s stomping ground (quite run down and not very touristy areas) but also after playing Tallinn Music Week in 2019. The post-Soviet landscape was pretty striking in parts of Tallinn and we discovered bands like Molchat Doma for the first time, who were using synths and electronic elements in ways that got us excited and has definitely rubbed off on our approach since.

 

We really wanted to integrate these sounds and influences into a modern sounding record rather than just looking back though, so we spent a lot of time getting the bass and low end sounding as big and distinctive as possible - we were really influenced by the likes of Kendrick Lamar in this respect. Similarly, dystopian themes seem as relevant as ever; with the saturated and pervasive nature of modern media which the album explores lyrically, as well as topics like social media fatigue and alienation.

There’s also a big guitar aspect to the sound so it’s not just a synth album. We grew up listening to guitar bands like Arctic Monkeys, so that’s part of our DNA, but while making this we were delving into a lot of R&B, which influenced the use of phased guitar lines and seemed to accentuate the dark and cinematic sound we were after. The most recent Strokes album The New Abnormal had also just come out when we started work on this album and we were listening to it a lot, so no doubt some of those guitar approaches found their way into the sound.

 

About Red Telephone

 

Formed in 2018 and hailing from Cardiff, Red Telephone’s richly layered alt-rock could have emanated from a club in Blade Runner's dystopian LA - combining angular guitars, Krautrock-inspired rhythms and New Wave-tinged synths with infectious pop sensibilities. Drawing on post punk, synth pop and industrial rock influences the band has been catching the attention of DJs across BBC 6 Music, BBC R1, Amazing Radio and Radio X; with comparisons to the likes of MGMT, Mitski and Berlin-era Bowie being drawn. With previous single releases on Welsh-based labels Libertino Records and the Popty-Ping Recording Company, the band's highly anticipated debut album is set to be released early 2023.

 

'Hollowing Out' Album Tracklisting

 

1.Hollowing Out

2.Happy Man

3.Wanna Sleep Tonight

4.Orange Lights

5.Wake Me

6.Normal Life

7.We All Look So Nice

8.I'm Broken

9.The Machine That Changes Itself

10.Waiting For Your Good Days

 

 


“Very nicely layered. Has a bit of early 80s melodrama; a sort of Pet Shop Boys croon and a Krautrock halo.”
– Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music



“Something brilliantly dark about this, with their synth psych noir with a pulse. Real potential to go big.”
- Chris Hawkins, BBC 6 Music

“Great Welsh psych!”
– Amy Lame, BBC 6 Music

"It's a stunning sounding single from Red Telephone, my artist of the week”
– Huw Stephens, BBC Radio Wales

“This direction pegs Roxy Music/Sparks playfulness to their neo-psych and Suede-aping past selves, turning it into something thoroughly intriguing. They have the skills to match the ambition.”
– Under the Radar Magazine

“Veers between being a paranoiac industrial rock hammering and shimmering, escapist 60s psychedelia.”
– Gigwise

“That sounds momentous to me. The imagination is bubbling over the sides of the recording, it cannot be contained. I love the way the singer sounds a little bit like Marc Bolan, he’s got that real sense of wonder and playfulness in his voice.”
– Adam Walton, BBC Introducing Wales

“A lot of splendid noises packed into just under three minutes.”
– Gideon Coe, BBC 6 Music




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Bethan Lloyd is a Welsh artist whose trance inducing vocals expand over an ocean of rave inspired production, harmonic layering and otherworldly ecstasy. Her sonic exploration has taken her from training as a classical singer, immersing herself in Berlin’s experimental music scene, to learning with shamans, masters and the ancient teachings of the natural world. In her latest album, Metamorphosis, Bethan, producing alongside Pre-Human bandmate and master of noise Isaac Ray, takes her intense explorations of the spirit and emotional realms and blends them into something playful and danceable, a gritty experimental pop.

 

Tracklisting


1.Boss Of Big Dreams

2.No Umbilical

3.Antares

4.Aria

5.Cutting Circuits

6.Parasitic Yes

7.None Of The Above

8.Whatever We Delete

 

Using expressive vocal layers and hypnotic acid breaks to pull the listener into an ecstatic experience, Bethan Lloyd begins this album by exploring the primal state of emptiness, a place where no thought exists and only being, acting and living remain. It is this state of emptiness and often The landscape itself which becomes the inspiration for Bethan's creativity. She is frequently journeying with her sonic tools to ancient Neolithic sites and places of awe and wonder and allowing her surroundings to inspire a unique vocal soundscape. A soundscape that stirs up a sense of the forgotten past. The album explores the cosmos and the dark euphoria within it, the themes of mind control and diluted society ask a question about where we are headed as a collective. The music is a spell for transformation. A cry for a return to sovereignty and autonomy of mind and body. This project delves into the philosophy of animism, guiding humanity back from its abusive relationship with nature. Cutting the chords of consumerism. Cutting the circuits of control and returning to our true gifts, to the web and to the void.


 


“Gorgeous” Amy Lamé’s ‘Sunday Girl’,

Amy Lame, BBC Radio 6

 

“This is good! Impressive stuff from Bethan Lloyd”

Huw Stephens, BBC Radio

 

“Folky vocalist to power your pagan rituals”

James Thornhill, Electronic Sound

 

“For Welsh artist Bethan Lloyd, the “voice” is a multi-faceted wonder - a tool, a weapon, a healing tonic.”

James Thornhill, Under The Radar Mag

 

“Bethan's inventive use of dream-like, layered sounds is otherworldly.. a rousing electronic set overlaid with distinct vocals... if it’s at all possible to imagine Gothenburg band The Knife singing in Welsh, then you might well be onto something.”

Susan Hansen, Clash Magazine

 

"A deeply emotive swirling electro pop that fuses together Lloyd's folk influenced, pagan like, refrains that gradually creep from personal and enveloping to swooping awestruck call to the heavens, underpinned by an intricate and pulsing tapestry of shadowy electronic sounds"

Bill Cummings, God is in the TV Zine

 

“I love the synths I love Bethan Lloyd voice, I love the the lyrics. It's just brilliant. She is just brilliant. Very enigmatic presence in many respects and a true artist.”

Adam Walton BB Radio Wales

 

“I saw Bethan play at Focus Wales… She blew me away.. She was one of my favourite artists of the festival… I love her music”

Bethan Elfyn BBC Radio Wales

 

“Bethan Lloyd is awesome, she is an incredible musician and singer”

Zakia Sewell, NTS  Radio




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Finding Aurora Their explosive new single 'The Never-Ending' is released on Friday 24th March



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Alternative rock band 'Finding Aurora' release their stunning new single entitled 'The Ever-Lasting' on the 24th of March.

 


Inspired by bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, Newport Quintet 'Finding Aurora' discover themselves embarking on a new era for the band they formed back in 2019, and 'The Ever-Lasting' is the first single that propels them into the unknown.

 

The band’s music has been described to have a garage rock feel to it, with grungy sounding guitars and pure raw energy.

 

The inspiration that drives them to write music, Sam tells us: “I try to find inspiration in anything, which is something that has materialised over the years of playing music. I find inspiration in a lot of aspects of life, but a lot of the best songs come from moments, people, times and those kind of things which have an emotional attachment to your heart. They can be good or bad things, that’s the beauty of writing music.”

 

The band have been busy writing this batch of new material, which Sam adds “is our best yet.” So expect more of the same in terms of good production, mixing and writing. Sam explains: “We’re all so proud of it all and cannot wait to get it into peoples ears. It’s an exciting time for us, we’re entering a new era of the band and its so much fun.

 

You can catch 'Finding Aurora' Live

 

Sunday 9th April - The Big Sesh, Newport

 

Saturday 17th June - Le Pub, Newport 




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