Jen Abell
GWENNO
Unveils short film, “Le Kov, a landscape…”
UK & EU Autumn tour dates
New album Le Kov, out now on Heavenly Recordings
With her acclaimed second album Le Kov now out via Heavenly Recordings, GWENNO has shared a short film, titled ‘Le Kov, a landscape…’ a collaboration with filmmaker, Steve Glashier.
She says of it, “Here’s a contemporary visual document exploring what truth and myth is, what Le Kov is about – where we’re at, and how we got here. A collaboration between Steve Glashier and I, exploring landscape and a sense of place. A postcard of the now that may one day be forgotten, so let’s enjoy the moment before it disappears.”
Gwenno returns to the UK next month following a run of European dates, and will headline London’s Islington Assembly Hall on 18th October… Dates / info below:
Saturday 29th September – BERLIN – Columbiahalle *
Sunday 30th September – BRUSSELS – Ancienne Belgique *
Monday 1st October – AMSTERDAM – Paradiso *
Wednesday 3rd October – PARIS – La Cigale *
Thursday 4th October – MILAN – Fabrique *
Sunday 7th October – STOCKHOLM – Royal Dramatic Theatre *
Tuesday 9th October – COPENHAGEN – The Koncerthuset *
Wednesday 10th October – COPENHAGEN – The Koncerthuset *
Friday 12th October – BRISTOL – Thekla
Saturday 13th October – MANCHESTER – Yes
Wednesday 17th October – CARDIFF – Swn Festival, Tramshed
Thursday 18th October – LONDON – Islington Assembly Hall
Friday 19th October – SOUTHAMPTON – The Loft
Saturday 20th October – FALMOUTH – Falmouth University
Sunday 21st October – EXETER – Exeter Uni
Saturday 27th October – DUBLIN – Metropolis Festival
* supporting Suede
“There is shared ground with Jane Weaver, Broadcast and Cate Le Bon, but Saunders marks out her own terrain… An immersive statement of identity and survival in a fractured world, catching the light between the ancient and the modern.” MOJO – 4 Stars ****
“An exploration of Cornish identity… The melodies will keep people coming back: purposeful and direct, reminiscent of Broadcast in their creation of a psychedelia that looks backwards and forwards simultaneously.”The Guardian – 4 Stars ****
“Totally engaging regardless of the listener’s mother tongue… A constant pleasure.” Shindig – 5 Stars ****
“One of the most ageless and accessible pop records of 2018.” Record Collector – 4 Stars ****
“Unique in British pop history, crafting a soundscape that veers from startling ambient drift to pristine avant–pop, the language only deepening the intrigue.” DJ – 8/10
“The album title means ‘place of memory’ while the eclectic songs within range from dreamy sci–fi folk–pop chansons to psychedelic krautrock jams… Gwenno is a culturally unique figure in modern British music.” Uncut – 7/10
“Gwenno is on a mission to keep Cornish alive… There’s a mystical quality to the language that’s perfectly suited to pop.”
Sunday TimesShe dove deep into research, learning about attempts to protect and progress the language and the role of women throughout its history. When Gwenno considered the legends of sunken Brythonic cities Cantre’r Gwaelod, Kêr-Is, Langarrow and Lyonesse, she knew she had her starting point. These cities evoked her idea of language as its own form of psychological territory, a concept perfectly distilled by the Cornish title for the album, Le Kov – the place of memory.
Over the course of making Le Kov, Gwenno reconciled her anxiety over her right to make a Cornish-language pop record as a non-native of Cornwall, and realised that, in the age of Brexit, isolationism and hostility towards the rich cultures that make modern Britain, it had a wider resonance, too. “This album is a combination of accepting the culture which your parents have valued enough to want to pass on to you, regardless how small, and utilising it in a positive way to try and make sense of the world around you, it’s also about having to accept and respect the nuances that make us all different and discovering that all of our stories share the same truth.”
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