Welsh Music Wednesday
Shwmae pawb, mae hi wedi bod munud! Dwi'n dod nôl i gyflwyn band da arall i chi gyd, all things back to usual now :) I had queued up like 3 months' worth of Welsh music Wednesdays in May and forgot to fill the queue back up. So here I am again!
This week, I've got you a North Wales alternative rock band from Caernarfon called Kim Hon, who released their first single Twti Ffrwti back in 2019. But members of the band have been around the music scenes in Caernarfon for much longer. Singer Iwan Fôn started a band in 2015 called Y Reu, who were incredibly versatile as musicians: their songs drew on everything from glitzy hard rock with riffs to more psychedelic and lush sounds, and even some dance influences. I might do a separate WMW on them, but until then I'd love to bundle them in here as a bonus band for you to check out if you want more than the 1 band a week you bargained for. (Besides, I missed a few weeks, so let me make it up to you!)
You might also remember Lloyd Steele (from the second-ever week of WMW), who was/is the guitarist in Y Reu. You might also remember singer Iwan from the song he collaborated with Alffa on, the raw, raucous, intense punk scorcher about men's mental health, Babi Mam.
While Kim Hon's music is more psychedelic and indie, there are punk traces in their rebellion, as you can hear on one of their breakout 2023 songs 'Mr. English', railing against holiday homes bought up by English residents in Welsh towns fuelling a housing crisis and pricing out the residents. It doesn't have a music video, but I can link a performance they did for a gig series called Gigs Tŷ Nain (Gigs at Grandma's House).
They released their self-titled debut album in 2024 and have been releasing a few great new singles this year, that have seen them being interviewed on primetime BBC Radio 6 Music shows. The latest single, 'Tangnefedd' ('Peace') is a slice of delightful summertime indie, replete with psychedelic guitars.
The band have said about their new direction on what will presumably eventually be their second album, “The message at the heart of this song is simple. Life can be tough, cruel at times but those hard moments shape you. If they don’t succeed at breaking you, they eventually will build you. Bit by bit. Nothing truly good ever comes easy.
“Sometimes life drags you through the mud, but if you keep going, if you push through the pain with perseverance you’ll come out stronger. Because in the search for peace and calm (Tangnefedd) you often have to suffer first, to survive, and to grow.”
“This single and our last single ‘Ar Chw Fi Si’ have been explorations into the world of self-production, with the ambition of honing our craft ready for the process of making our second album in-house, which we hope to begin recording in the coming months.”
They're also at the Eisteddfodd this week on 9 August, for any folks headed that way!
I'll also link a song by Y Reu for those that want to dive into the back catalogue.
Wela chi gyd wythnos nesa!
