Os Mewn Sŵn (translated as ‘If in Noise’) was Huw M’s first album, released in 2009 on the Gwymon label, and received glowing reviews including a 4-star write up in The Times newspaper. In 2012, his second album, Gathering Dusk, was shortlisted for the Welsh Music Prize. His latest offering Utica, released in November 2015 by I Ka Ching Records, blends early gospel with Welsh folk influences. Huw has also released a handful of singles and EPs over the years.
Utica
Released 13 November 2015
Utica is Huw M’s third album – his first on the wonderful I Ka Ching label, recently chosen as NME’s label of the week. For this release, Huw has been working with various musicians to blend early gospel with Welsh folk, and a good dollop of poignancy, melancholy and heartbreak. Very jolly stuff.
Featured on Radio 1, Radio 3, Radio 6 Music, Radio Cymru, Radio Wales.
Huw Stephens, BBC Radio 1
“His new album is beautiful”
Gareth James, Clash (8/10)
The rich songwriting of Huw M’s Utica deserves a much wider audience.
Max Bell, Record Collector
Delicate and original and packed to the rafters with gorgeous melodies and intriguing words.
Dave Haslam, R2 Magazine
Fragile and uplifting, heartrending and heartwarming… an album that confirms Huw M’s position as one of Wales’s finest contemporary folk artists.
Buzz magazine
Folk and gospel make for an organic blend on this rather fine recording… Huw has shown a rousing intellect and sensitivity to Welsh folk history as well as its future; definitely worth bending an ear to.
Gathering Dusk
2011
There’s no doubting that there’s a warmth to Huw M’s music and his album ‘Gathering Dusk’ is like answering the door to an old friend. True, the word ‘lovely’ is overused. But from the fragile, ethereal ‘For while I wait for you to sleep’ to the lush texture of ‘Dyma lythyr’, ‘Gathering Dusk’ is a piece of pure loveliness. There are strains of the vast Welsh folk tradition to be heard in ‘Gathering Dusk’, but Huw M gives it a bright new coat of paint. The album was produced by Frank Naughton and Llion Robertson.
Ro Cemm, The Line of Best Fit (8/10)
Rarely does an album title so perfectly sum up the spirit of the music it contains. With soft harmonies, delicate instrumentation and simple melody lines Gathering Dusk finds Huw M conjuring up the perfect soundtrack for those short late-twilight minutes of a sticky summer’s evening…
Malcolm Jack, The List (****)
If you, like me, hold the view that Super Furry Animals’ Welsh-language album is their finest work, then you’ll probably be predisposed to love Huw M’s near exhaustingly delightful Gathering Dusk, a mildly psych-sizzled alt-folk charmer, sung mostly in the Pontypridd singer-songwriter’s throaty and naturally mellifluous native tongue…
Os Mewn Sŵn
2009
Os Mewn Sŵn (translated ‘If In Noise’) is a mix of original tracks and some borrowed Welsh folk songs, blended together with influences from France and Brazil and some weird and wonderful instruments such as the sitar and the Maui Xaphoon. The record, Huw M’s first album, was recorded in a four month period during the winter of 2008-9 by producer Frank Naughton.
David Hutcheon, The Times (****)
The Welsh language seems to lend itself perfectly to dreamy, pastoral psychedelia. With its mix of new originals and melodies borrowed from folk songs, this eight-track debut from Huw Meredydd fits right into that genre. The highlight may be Seddi Gwag, particularly for Bethan Reynolds’s clog dancing (an aural treat), but Gad y Diwrnod Wrth Y Drws finds a space midway between 1967 Beatles and Sigur Rós, while the spirit of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci flows from every song.
DW, Plugged In
“This beautifully structured mini album from Huw M can be used as a defining point of the talent that is overlooked in Wales due to the language barrier… Maybe the rest of the world should be listening too.”
Huw Stephens
Early reviews for Huw M say it all: “Stunningly beautiful”, “charming”, “gorgeous”. If you’ve ever explored some of the brilliant catalogue of Welsh legend Meic Stevens or have heard the Super Furry Animals’ Welsh Language album ‘Mwng’ then you’ll connect with Huw M. Here’s shimmery Welsh folkpop at its best.
Singles with musician Llwyd
2008