Hen Ogledd

Hen Ogledd originated in 2012 when experimental folk artist Richard Dawson and avant-garde harpist Rhodri Davies established the project. Over successive releases the lineup expanded and the music shifted repeatedly in character. Dawn Bothwell joined on vocals and electronics for the explosive 2016 live album Bronze, after which vocalist Sally Pilkington’s arrival steered the group from largely improvised abstraction toward polished electro-pop and organic songcraft on the expansive 2020 double album Free Humans.

The ensemble took its name from the Welsh phrase denoting the territory between Southern Scotland and Northern England. Its initial incarnation comprised only Dawson on guitar and vocals alongside Rhodri Davies as harp improviser. Those earliest sessions appeared in 2013 as the limited-edition vinyl release Dawson-Davies: Hen Ogledd. Two years later the band played just its second concert, incorporating vocalist and electronic musician Dawn Bothwell; the edited recording of that dense performance surfaced later in 2016 as the limited-vinyl album Bronze.

Hen Ogledd then moved to the Domino Records imprint Weird World for its third album, 2018’s Mogic. With Sally Pilkington now aboard as vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, the quartet abandoned its earlier shapeless approach in favor of conventionally structured, pop-oriented material that incorporated fresh electronic textures. The follow-up, Free Humans, arrived two years afterward and replaced the preceding record’s colder, mechanistic palette with a marginally warmer, more acoustic emphasis.