Gwenno announces fourth studio album, Utopia

The album is the follow-up to her third album Tresor which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2022. Accompanying the lead single, Gwenno has shared a B&W video shot in Las Vegas.

Commenting on the track Gwenno says: “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!"

There is a sense of revelation to Utopia, a feeling markedly different to that of previous records. Having released three albums in Welsh and Cornish, Utopia is Gwenno’s first album recorded predominantly in English, and presents a very different side to her life and songwriting.

“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,” she 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 realised the starting point of my creative life isn’t Wales, it’s actually North America.”

Tracklist:

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