Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf (LP) - Clear Vinyl

Gwenno’s Y Dydd Olaf is the kind of record that sneaks up on you. You put it on for the synth shimmer and the soft-angled melodies, then realize a few songs in that you are inside something bigger, a world with its own weather and its own rules. Sung mostly in Welsh with one detour into Cornish, the album pulls from kosmische pulses, Broadcast-style dream pop, and a quietly radical sense of purpose. It first appeared in 2014 as a limited Welsh release on Peski, then found a wider audience in 2015 when Heavenly Recordings picked it up. That second wind made sense. This is the rare album that feels local and universal at once.

The title comes from a 1976 sci-fi novel by Owain Owain. In the book, humanity is being assimilated by machines, and language is one of the casualties. Gwenno leans into that idea, but her take is gentle and eerie rather than apocalyptic. The synths wobble like heat haze, the drum machines keep a steady motorik glide, and her voice floats above it all with a calm that feels like quiet resistance. It is a protest album you can dance to, a concept album that never forgets to be a pop record.

Everyone cites Chwyldro for a reason. The title translates to revolution, and it thrums like one. The bassline nudges you forward, the choruses blossom, and if you do not know the words you still feel them. Patriarchaeth hits just as hard, a critique wrapped in silvered synths that nod to vintage library music and early Stereolab. Elsewhere, the mood shifts from neon twilight to low-lit dawn. Calon Peiriant glows with choir-like pads and a patient rhythm that seems to breathe. Golau Arall moves like a train through mist, steady and soft, but there is tension in the rails. It is the sound of patience turning into resolve.

Part of the magic is how tactile the production feels. You can hear the oscillators warble, the kick drum thump like a heartbeat, the tape-like saturation that smooths sharp edges without sanding off the details. The album’s palette is consistent, but there is always a new hook, a curious arpeggio, a surprising melodic turn. That consistency serves the concept. If the world is becoming standardized, these small differences matter. Gwenno finds sparks of personality in every bar.

Critics heard it. Y Dydd Olaf won the Welsh Music Prize in 2015, a rare moment where an award seemed to match what fans were already saying. The Guardian gave it warm praise, and The Quietus championed its language-first defiance and its pop instincts. People who loved Broadcast or early Cate Le Bon found a new favorite. People who had last seen Gwenno fronting The Pipettes realized she was building a very different archive now.

If you are hunting for Y Dydd Olaf vinyl, you will be glad you held out for wax. This kind of low-end throb and analog synth wash blooms on a turntable. Heavenly’s pressings tend to be solid, and this one carries that glow that digital versions soften. If you collect Gwenno vinyl, this is the cornerstone, the one you file next to Le Kov to trace the jump from Welsh to a full Cornish suite. It also turns up often enough that you can buy Gwenno records online without diving into auction madness. If you are crate digging in a Melbourne record store, keep an eye on the Heavenly section. And if you are scrolling vinyl records Australia sites late at night, do not overthink it. Put it in the cart.

What lingers after the last track is a feeling of care. Care for endangered languages, for communities that exist between radio frequencies, for pop music that invites you in instead of showing off. There is political weight here, but there is also tenderness, the sense that pleasure and resistance are not enemies. The album’s fiction is a warning, yet the record itself is proof that culture survives through song, through breath, through a bassline you cannot shake. When people ask where to start with Gwenno albums on vinyl, this is where I point. It is a beautiful listen that earns every replay, and it still feels like a small miracle that something this focused and this generous found its way from a limited Welsh release to so many homes and turntables.