Ynys emerged blinking into the light in late spring 2019, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Dylan Hughes formerly of Race Horses and Radio Luxembourg, delivering gorgeous sunshine kissed psych pop in the form of ‘Caneuon’ (Songs), a song laced prettily with nostalgia and melancholia, reminding us of the triggered pleasures of the past.
‘Mae’n Hawdd‘ ‘Aros am Byth‘ (Waiting Forever) and ‘There’s Nothing The Sea Doesn’t Know‘ served as appetisers for debut album Ynys arriving in 2022 via Libertino Records. The record was shortlisted for the Welsh Music Prize.
The new songs from record number two we now know as Dosbarth Nos (Night School), performed at the Trawsnewid / Transform festival in Aberystwyth at the top end of 2024 came as a bloody great surprise. Joyful pop songs flavoured by classic soul and Motown and 1970s songwriting, what a step up on each and every level possible on this glamorous, glossy long player. It’s a distance literally timewise and via creative practice since those early recordings five years ago with Dylan so unsettled as a singer, he asked friend Mali Llywelyn to shadow his vocal.
‘I decided to, maybe for this album that I would park the crisis of self-confidence for a bit,’ Hughes joked to GIITTV on the run up to Dosbarth Nos’ release.
Dosbarth Nos was recorded live over a period of four days at the picturesque Mwnci Studios located on a Victorian Gothic estate in rural West Wales, supervised by the studio cat. ‘I guess it’s an old rock cliché – going to the Welsh countryside, getting away from the city to record an album,’ says Dylan.
Singles ‘Aros Amdanat Ti’ (Waiting For You) and ‘Gyda Ni’ (With Us), and ‘Shindig‘ set the scene, and the record once out is received all the love possible, golden reviews from MOJO and Shindig! and everybody, winning regular keen spins from 6 Music’s Craig Charles and bagging our Neutron Prize. Once again Ynys has another Welsh Music Prize nomination.
Gruff Owen of Libertino Records told us this week: ‘It has been such a thrill to witness the overwhelmingly positive reception to Ynys’s second album ‘Dosbarth Nos’, especially following its recent joint win of the Neutron Prize. The songs on the album and the world created around it aesthetically has really connected to an audience as witnessed by the exuberant live shows on the band’s album tour. Dylan and the band’s commitment to the power of the pop song and in crafting uplifting anthems that move your feet as much as they move your heart is on display throughout ‘Dosbarth Nos’. From a label perspective, working with the band on their second album has been such a joy, seeing it all grow and develop from simple home piano demos to the lush cloud scraping songs that once heard are never forgotten now make up ‘Dosbarth Nos’. Such records that overflow with melody, fun ideas and emotion make all our work worthwhile.
‘Witnessing the new confidence in Dylan as a songwriter, vocalist and performer has been magical. This album places me as a fan, a music lover in my happy place, it’s Ram-era McCartney it’s honey to the ears. Feel very proud to be part of it and can’t wait to the next chapter. He is on a roll now and I feel we are building in a very unfussy way a very impressive catalog and an artist people will notice on his own terms in the next few years.’
Read our interview with Ynys about the writing and creation of Dosbarth Nos here.
Photo credit: Trigger Happy Collective
