Mistletone

GWENNO TOUR DATES:

• PERTH: Saturday October 8 @ Mojo’s Bar. Tickets on sale now. Presented by Cool Perth Nights.
• SYDNEY: Thursday October 13 @ Newtown Social Club. Tickets on sale now.
• Also playing Camp Doogs 2016. Melbourne show to be announced.

Mistletone is super happy to announce the first Australian tour by Welsh electro-pop goddess Gwenno. Touring Australia as a trio, Gwenno Saunders is a sound artist, DJ, radio presenter and singer from Cardiff, whose day jobs prior to her solo career included writer and performer for Brighton-based conceptual pop band The Pipettes, and touring synth player for Australia’s own Pnau and Elton John. Following a series of critically acclaimed singles as Gwenno, she released the dazzling album ‘Y DYDD OLAF’ (The Last Day), which won her the 2015 Welsh Music prize as well as Feature Albums on RTR-FM, 3RRR (Melbourne) and FBi (Sydney) and Double J Best New Music.

In a period of governmental and cultural revolution, Gwenno’s brilliantly spacey and synth-heavy ‘Y DYDD OLAF’ was a political concept album inspired by an obscure 1970s Welsh language sci-fi novel, subtly disguised as a blissful kraut-pop record. The album, which is sung entirely in Welsh (apart from one song in Cornish), is Gwenno’s response to the political upheaval she sees playing out all over Europe — from the borders of Scotland to the Basque country and beyond — as well as a war cry to all those who are dissatisfied with the way things are.

‘Y DYDD OLAF’ is a political, feminist, brilliantly executed record; and although this particular revolution might not be televised, it certainly will have a great soundtrack. As Gwenno told The Guardian, she made a comparison between globalisation and the “robotic control of the masses” predicted by the novel that inspired the album, in which a hero prevails against robotic overlords by speaking Welsh, a dying language that his enemies cannot decipher.

“A language dies every two weeks”, Gwenno explained, “and with that language dies a whole history of people. Those are things that connect you with the past. They are man and woman’s way of communicating and telling stories.”

PRAISE FOR GWENNO:

• “A visionary of synth-pop moods and textures…Saunders’ beguiling melodies and execution also make it one of the best British debuts of 2015” – Pitchfork (8.0)
• “Each track expertly evokes the eerie analogue pop and psychedelic grooves of BBC radiophonic pioneers such as Delia Derbyshire – and more recent innovators Broadcast and Stereolab – while maintaining their own, unique, identity” – 3RRR (Album of the Week)
• “Channels Broadcast and Boards Of Canada via fragrant kosmische grooves… Seldom is the personal married to the political in such an enchanting fashion” — Uncut (4 Stars ****)
• “At once spooky and playful, romantic and angry… Mixing an ancient, bucolic language with otherworldly dance music is a genius move” — MOJO (4 Stars ****)