Spearheading the new Welsh Wave of bands, exciting trio Adwaith have today shared the cinematic video for ‘Wedi Blino‘, the latest track taken from their anticipated second album Bato Mato, due 1st July via Libertino.
Following on from the epic and anthemic opening single ‘ETO’, new cut ‘Wedi Blino‘ digs deeper into where the band is headed, turning up the fuzz guitars and intricate percussion and wistful melodies for a hazy train ride through the anxieties of your early 20’s.
“We wanted to create a big indie-pop song that has a melancholy feel to it,” say the band. “It’s about being worried that life is going too fast or the worries of a relationship, the overwhelming feeling that you’re not good enough and that you are the reason things aren’t working out.”
They continue, “The concept of the video is all about anxiety, feeling detached from the world, feeling like you’re the problem always. All these emotions that are very apparent in your early 20s. We worked with Eilir Pierce to create this video as we wanted it to be more dramatic and heartfelt than our other videos.”
Speeding into the frosty outer reaches of Russia on the Trans-Siberian Express – the longest railway line in the world – Welsh art-rock band Adwaith suddenly felt a long way from their home back in Carmarthen. Shown the way by their trusty guide, Bato Mato, as a frozen-over Lake Baikal whipped past the windows, the trio eventually wound up in the bracingly cold city of Ulan-Ude. The pavements were deserted as locals battened down against the chill, lending the grand, brutalist streets a kind of isolation. “I strangely saw similarities between there and Carmarthen,” says drummer Heledd Owen. “You could kind of sense this loneliness. It felt like this empty city.”
As Adwaith travelled further into Eastern Europe, the trip transformed into a voyage of creative discovery. While the band’s debut album Melyn – which won the prestigious Welsh Music Prize in 2019 – was a musical bildungsroman, dreaming of the possibilities of adulthood, Bato Mato looks in the mirror and sees stark reality biting. Matching Singer’s explorative lyrics, which yearn for a simple life and “a place to call my own”, Adwaith’s songs constantly shift and evolve, searching for a steady pulse that never sticks.
The band’s memories of speeding through Russia have seeped into the fabric of their second record Bato Mato – the industrial chug powering tracks like ‘Yn Y Swn’ or ‘Anialwch’ recall the relentless pistons of the high-speed train they boarded. “There’s no one on the street but me,” sings Hollie Singer on its opening track ‘Cuddio’, returning once more to the abandoned streets of Ulan-Ude.
“It was a life-changing trip that really inspired us to write this album,” explains bassist Gwenllian Anthony. “The barren landscape and brutalist architecture really seeped into these songs and the use of world instruments was heavily inspired by this journey”. “Our journey through the Siberian and Mongolian wilderness influenced the writing and sound of the album to be as open and big as the limitless sky around us there,” says Singer.
“Our first album was very much about growing up in west Wales and going from teenagers to adults,” says Anthony. “This is the next step in our journey: shit, this is life. We hit reality.”
Mostly recorded in Giant Wafer studios in Llandrindod Wells, a community in mid-Wales, Adwaith reunited with ‘Melyn’s producer Steffan Pringle (Estrons, Boy Azooga) for their second record, as well as teaming up with whenyoung collaborator Gethin Pearson for ‘ETO’.
Live Dates:
3rd June – In It Together Festival, Margam
4th June – TRIBAN, Urdd
18th June – Gwŷl Neithwr, Bangor
19th June – TAFWYL, Cardiff
30th June – Lovetrails, Gower
1st July – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
5th July – Moth Club, London
2nd July – Car Gwyllt Festival
15th July – Big Love Festival
22nd-24th July – Nozstock Festival
18th August – Green Man Festival
28th-2nd September – Calgary, Canada
Tracklist:
1. Cuddio
2. Sudd
3. Wedi Blino
4. Toddi
5. Yn Y Sŵn
6. Cwympo
7. Lan Y Môr
8. Nid Aur
9. Oren
10. Anialwch
11. Bywyd Syml
12. Amser Codi
13. ETO
