Sometimes in the race to move folk’n’roots music forward it’s easy to forget just how attractive the actual source material can be when adorned and performed simpy but with a care and passion. Twm Morys and Gwyneth Glyn’s album of last year is a great example and now here comes another – involving the delightful Gwyneth yet again. Pedair is the feminie variation of four in Welsh thus, constituting Sian James, Gwyneth Glyn, Meinir Gwilym and Gwenan Gibbard – all well known musicians in their own right- banded together they bring a lightness of touch, gentle forcefulness and heavenly harmonies to Welsh source material as well as their own writing, all allied with a knowing instrumental blend that can surprise as well as fulfill the expected. All this they do with a delicate ease which can only come from experience. An experience that emphasises the feminine.

‘Dadoni’ is their second full album, the first ‘Mae’na Olau,’ set out their agenda winning Welsh Album Of The Year back in 2023, the cover saw them striding determinedly through the edge of the sea, this time the cover shows them up to their necks! Symbolism? Well maybe. The music though is sweetly seductive, it oozes into your critical facilities, lodging there with resoluteness and a purpose, coming out as a remembered riff, or lyric when you’re going about your daily business. For instance I found myself humming the cyclical ‘Golomen Wen,’ whilst patio cleaning. Other tracks are available for other home chores. Pick your own chum.

Otherwise ‘Cartef’ is a beautiful vocal/harp glide in praise of home and hearth, no matter where you wander or what you get up to, roots matter. ‘Cerrig Man’ has a hypnotic electric guitar figure underlying a soulful poem which questions life’s rocky path and how people react.  There are many more highlights, hopefully you get my drift. This is a profound, eloquent album, it’s both deeply felt and expressive, given time it enchants. Let it work its charms on you, you’ll not regret it.

Simon Jones.

pedair.cymru/sainwales.com