Gwenno Announces New Album 'Utopia', Shares New Single 'Dancing on Volcanoes'

Gwenno has announced a new album called Utopia, which will be released on July 11 via Heavenly. The follow-up to 2022’s Mercury Prize-nominated Tresor was produced by longtime collaborator Rhys Edwards and features contributions from Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline. It’s led by the mesmerizing ‘Dancing on Volcanoes’, which blurs the line between catharsis and nostalgia. Check it out and find the album cover and tracklist below.

Reflecting on the lead single, Gwenno said: “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!”

After releasing three albums in Welsh and Cornish, Utopia marks Gwenno’s first album recorded predominantly in English. “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,” Gwenno explained. “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 realized the starting point of my creative life isn’t Wales, it’s actually North America.”

“I think the way I’ve managed to write in English is by acknowledging that I can’t translate a lot of memories,” she added. “I’ve found that idea really important to explore. I think if I’d just stayed in Wales, and I hadn’t lived anywhere else or experienced any other culture then it would be really different. I would’ve made records in Welsh, but I left home at 16.”