GWEN announces debut solo album ‘UMA’ out October 23
Following a breakthrough summer for debut single ‘Achub Yr Iaith’ and her first solo performance at Green Man Festival, Welsh musician, songwriter and producer GWEN, the new project from Gwenllian Anthony, announces her debut album UMA, out 23 October via Libertino Records.
Alongside the announcement comes new single ‘POP!’, out today..
Driven by a commanding bassline, warped electronics and hypnotic rhythms, ‘POP!’ is restless, infectious and confrontational. GWEN describes it in the lyrics as “post-Brexit pop” and “post-the-world-has-gone-to-
For Anthony, that frustration also carries particular weight when creating in Cymraeg, a language still too often treated by the wider music industry as something requiring translation, explanation or compromise.
‘POP!’ pushes back against that idea.
“POP! is a release of all the feelings that can bubble away working in the music industry. It’s putting up the middle finger to gatekeepers, to the close-minded industry folk, the grind that is expected from artists, but it also reflects on my dreams, what I want to achieve and what I’m willing to sacrifice to achieve those dreams.”
At the heart of the song is a contradiction that runs throughout UMA: the impulse to walk away and the determination to continue.
‘POP!’ begins with “Fuck that, I’m done”, but later Anthony sings: “Mae gen i freuddwyd / Syniadau Mawr / Manifesto / I adennill y wawr” / “I have a dream / Big ideas / Manifesto / To reclaim the dawn.”
The song closes with the old Welsh saying “Dyfal donc a dyr y garreg”, meaning “Constant tapping wears away the stone”, a proverb about persistence and the belief that even the hardest obstacle can eventually give way.
That movement from doubt towards self-belief sits at the centre of UMA.
The album represents a profound change in how Anthony works. After years of writing and creating collectively, most notably as a founding member of two-time Welsh Music Prize winners Adwaith, UMA is the first body of work she has written entirely alone.
Written while touring across Europe during the summer of 2025 and completed in West Wales with Tim Lewis (Coil, Spiritualized) and long-time collaborator Steff Pringle, the record became a process of creative reinvention.
“The experience of writing and recording on my own really allowed me to be introspective and to learn a lot about myself. It allowed me to believe that I am capable, that I am creative and that I have something to say, and that I don’t need to rely on other people to create my vision. I have everything I need inside me. There were moments of self-doubt, feeling lost and fear, which are completely normal in creative practice, but overcoming these has really helped me grow as a musician, as a storyteller and as a person.”
The title UMA was chosen because it carries no inherited meaning. A made-up word, it can mean nothing and everything at once. For Anthony, it became a clean slate, a doorway into a world that could be defined entirely on her own terms.
Across the album, that world moves between two very different landscapes: the sticky floors, smoke and sweat of European nightclubs and the wild coastline, mountains and open spaces of West Wales.
Songs move through overwhelming love, friendship, exhaustion, vulnerability, surrealism and escape. Some find freedom in the communal darkness of the dancefloor, while others look towards nature, intimacy and softness as forms of strength.What connects them is not independence in the sense of isolation, but the discovery that Anthony can trust her own instincts without closing herself off from the people, places and communities around her.
“The album reflects self-discovery, the discovery of confidence, discovery of being uncompromising. Writing the album on my own allowed my vision to be uncompromised, but outside of that I have learnt to be fearless and to believe and trust in myself in everyday life.The album is truthful, poignant, joyous and reflects all the emotions that life throws at you. It speaks of reinvention, finding yourself again after major changes, the trials and tribulations of the music industry, love, sadness and friendship.”
Musically, UMA draws from the physicality and repetition of post-punk and industrial music alongside the possibilities of electronic pop.There are traces of Kim Gordon and Lizzy Mercier Descloux, the rhythmic freedom of CAN, the world-building of Björk and the dense, immersive atmosphere of Tricky, Massive Attack and Nine Inch Nails, but the result feels distinctly GWEN: commanding basslines, minimalist electronics, hypnotic rhythms and emotionally direct songwriting with Cymraeg at its centre.
That private process became public for the first time this summer when GWEN stepped onto the stage at Green Man Festival for her debut solo performance and played UMA in full.
Anthony first came to prominence with Adwaith, the Carmarthen band who became the first group to win the Welsh Music Prize twice and helped shift perceptions of contemporary music in the Welsh language both within Wales and internationally.
But UMA is not interested in looking backwards. It is the sound of Gwenllian Anthony finding out what happens when she trusts herself completely: creatively, personally and linguistically. An album about reinvention, contradiction and making space for yourself without waiting for permission. POP!’ is its manifesto: keep going, make your own space and never wait for permission to create.
UMA Tracklisting:
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POP!
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GOTH
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TRIX
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Achub Yr Iaith (Save the Language)
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Digon (Enough)
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UN, DAU, TRI! (ONE, TWO, THREE!)
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Tina Ar Y Crusher (Tina on the Crusher)
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Umami
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Meddal (Soft)
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Breichiau Tyner Y Môr (The Tender Arms of the Sea)
GWEN Live:
10 October – SUNS Europe Festival, Udine, Italy
16 October – Sŵn Festival, Cardiff
24 October – Left of the Dial, Rotterdam, Netherlands
30 October – Tangled Parrot In-Store, Swansea
A full UK and European tour will follow in February and April 2027.
‘POP!’ artwork