Catatonia were an alternative rock band from Wales who gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1990s. The band formed in 1992 after Mark Roberts met Cerys Matthews and Kirsty Kennedy. The first major lineup featured Dafydd Ieuan of Super Furry Animals on drums, Paul Jones on bass, and Clancy Pegg on keyboards. With this line-up the band recorded two EPs, For Tinkerbell and Hooked.
Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band formed in Cardiff in 1993. For the duration of their professional career, the band consisted of Gruff Rhys, Huw Bunford, Guto Pryce, Cian Ciaran, and Dafydd Ieuan. An earlier incarnation of the band featured actor Rhys Ifans on lead vocals. The band are considered to be part of the renaissance of Welsh culture which emerged in the 1990s: other Welsh bands of the time include the Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Catatonia and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.
Dafydd Ieuan is a Welsh musician, best known as the drummer with the band Super Furry Animals, The Peth and The Earth.
Gruffudd Maredudd Bowen Rhys is a Welsh musician, composer, producer, filmmaker and author. He performs solo and with several bands, including Super Furry Animals, which obtained mainstream success in the 1990s. He formed the electro-pop outfit Neon Neon with Boom Bip. Their album Stainless Style was nominated for the 2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize. He won the 2011 Welsh Music Prize for his album Hotel Shampoo, which was followed up by American Interior in 2014, accompanied by a film, a book and a mobile app. His most recent album, Sadness Sets Me Free, was released in 2024. He is considered a figurehead of the era known as Cool Cymru.
Guto Dafydd Pryce is a Welsh musician best known as bass guitar player and songwriter in the band Super Furry Animals. With them he has recorded nine UK Albums Chart Top 25 studio albums, plus numerous singles, EPs, compilations and collaborations. Pryce also records and performs with several other musical acts including his band Gulp. He is part of the era of Welsh music prominence known as Cool Cymru.
Ankst was a Welsh independent record label formed in 1988 at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth by Alun Llwyd, Gruffudd Jones and Emyr Glyn Williams. After a handful of low key cassette releases, the label relocated to Cardiff and became a more serious concern, providing a launch-pad for several popular Welsh artists, including Llwybr Llaethog, Super Furry Animals and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. The Rough Guide to Wales described Ankst as "one of the most prolific, eclectic and innovative" of the 1990s Welsh music labels.
The Music of Wales, particularly singing, is a significant part of Welsh national identity, and the country is traditionally referred to as "the land of song".
Datblygu were a Welsh experimental rock group formed in 1982. They are regarded as a catalyst of the new wave of Welsh rock in the early 1980s.
Nansi Richards Jones was a Welsh harpist, sometimes known as the "Queen of the Harp" or by her bardic name "Telynores Maldwyn".
Celtic rock is a genre of folk rock, as well as a form of Celtic fusion which incorporates Celtic music, instrumentation and themes into a rock music context. It has been prolific since the early 1970s and can be seen as a key foundation of the development of successful mainstream Celtic bands and popular musical performers, as well as creating important derivatives through further fusions. It has played a major role in the maintenance and definition of regional and national identities and in fostering a pan-Celtic culture. It has also helped to communicate those cultures to external audiences.
Mwng is the fourth studio album by Welsh rock band the Super Furry Animals, and the first by the group to have lyrics written entirely in the Welsh language. Mwng was released on 15 May 2000 on the band's own record label, Placid Casual, following the demise of their former label, Creation. The album includes the single "Ysbeidiau Heulog", and reached number 11 on the UK Albums Chart following its release—the first Welsh-language album to reach the top 20. This success led to Mwng being mentioned in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom by Elfyn Llwyd, who described the record as a celebration of a "new wave of confidence in the Welsh nation".
Meic Stevens is a Welsh singer-songwriter. He has been one of the most prominent figures in the Welsh music scene for over five decades, and played a key role in establishing the popular music scene in Wales. He is described by some as "the Welsh Bob Dylan" and has also been compared favorably with musicians such as Syd Barrett. Stevens's songs are mostly sung in his native Welsh language and have a mystical, faintly psychedelic flavour. His work has influenced groups such as Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Super Furry Animals. He is largely unknown outside Wales.
Recordiau Anhrefn was a record label established in 1983 by Rhys Mwyn.
Sain, in full – Sain (Recordiau) Cyf. is a Welsh record label, which took part in the Welsh folk revival.
Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog are a folk band consisting of three brothers from Rhos Botwnnog, between the villages of Botwnnog and Llaniestyn on the Llyn Peninsula, Gwynedd, Wales, and accompanying musicians and singers. They experiment with country, folk and rock music. Most of their lyrics are in Welsh.
Ceri Rhys Matthews is a Welsh traditional musician, record producer, and teacher.
Yr Anhrefn, also known simply as Anhrefn, were an influential Welsh punk rock group of the 1980s and 1990s.
Post-Britpop is an alternative rock subgenre and is the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, following Britpop, when the media were identifying a "new generation" or "second wave" of guitar bands influenced by acts like Oasis and Blur, but with less overt British concerns in their lyrics and making more use of American rock and indie influences, as well as experimental music. Bands in the post-Britpop era that had been established acts, but gained greater prominence after the decline of Britpop, such as Radiohead and the Verve, and new acts such as Travis, Keane, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics, Feeder, and particularly Coldplay, achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The Tivy-Side Advertiser is a Welsh newspaper that serves the Cardigan, Newcastle Emlyn, the Teifi Valley regions and parts of Pembrokeshire in West Wales. It is published by Newsquest weekly in print with an online edition. The editor in 2018 was Steve Adams, while Welsh post-punk singer Richard 'Fflach' Jones of the band Ail Symudiad used to work at the paper as a printer.
Geraint Jarman is a Welsh musician, poet and television producer whose career dates back to the early years of Welsh popular music. He has recorded many albums as a solo artist and with his band Geraint Jarman a'r Cynganeddwyr.
