Hwyl Nofio

Last updated

Hwyl Nofio
OriginUnited Kingdom
Genres Experimental, industrial, avant-garde, drone
Years active1997–present
LabelsHWYL
Fourier Transform
Members Steve Parry
Past membersTrevor Stainsby
Sandor Szabo
Fredrik Soegaard
Balazs Major
Gorwel Owen,
Mark Beazley

Hwyl Nofio (from Welsh meaning 'swimming fun') is a Welsh experimental music group formed by Steve Parry. [1]

Contents

History

Formed in 1997, Hwyl Nofios' approach touches on various diverse styles and genres, [2] including, industrial music, drone, ambient and noise. Hwyl Nofio is an evolving ensemble based around its originator Steve Parry, who previously had been a founding member of the Surrealist music group Neu Electrikk [3] and also worked with Matt Johnson of The The [4] and Colin Potter of Nurse with Wound. [5] Hwyl Nofio referred to the approach as a marriage of dilemmas being resolved in another space whereby the music explores and exploits an ongoing collision between harmony and disharmony. Hwyl Nofios' influences include The Velvet Underground, Neu, Jimi Hendrix, John Cage and Harry Partch, The band has over the years has consisted of Steve Parry avant-garde guitarist and multi-instrumentalist with Trevor Stainsby, Sandor Szabo, Fredrik Soegaard, Balazs Major, and Mark Beazley of the instrumental ambient group Rothko, and Gorwel Owen. [6] In 2012, Hwyl Nofio released "DARK". [7] [8] In 2020, as Hwyl Nofio Parry also collaborated with artists such as Rhodri Davies and Steve James Sherlock on "Isolate". [9]

Installations and performance art

In 2016, Parry he was commissioned to create a sound/visual installation, called The Beholder's Share. [10] The installation was a play on perception where the ambiguity in the piece elicits both a conscious and unconscious process of recognition in the observer, who responds emotionally and emphatically to the work in terms of their own life experience, therefore the artist creates the work based on their own personal sensory information and the beholder re-creates it by responding to its inherent ambiguity and makes it personal to them. His installation was exhibited at the Art Market in York. [11]

Discography

Compilation albums

Unreleased, limited edition and promo-only albums

The following full-length albums have never seen commercial release. Despite their unavailability on disc, they are included in almost every official discography issued by the band.

See also

Related Research Articles

Intelligent dance music is a style of electronic music originating in the early 1990s that is regarded as "cerebral" and better suited to home listening than dancing. Emerging from electronic and rave music styles such as ambient techno, acid house, and breakbeat, IDM tended to rely upon individualistic experimentation rather than adhering to characteristics associated with specific genres. Prominent artists associated with the genre include Aphex Twin, μ-Ziq, the Black Dog, the Orb, the Future Sound of London, Autechre, Luke Vibert, Squarepusher, Venetian Snares, and Boards of Canada.

Dark ambient is a genre of post-industrial music that features an ominous, dark droning and often gloomy, monumental or catacombal atmosphere, partially with discordant overtones. It shows similarities toward ambient music, a genre that has been cited as a main influence by many dark ambient artists, both conceptually and compositionally. Although mostly electronically generated, dark ambient also includes the sampling of hand-played instruments and semi-acoustic recording procedures, and is strongly related to ritual industrial music.

<i>Neu! 75</i> 1975 studio album by Neu!

Neu! 75 is the third studio album by the krautrock band Neu!. It was recorded and mixed at Conny Plank's studio between December 1974 and January 1975. It was released in 1975 by Brain Records, and officially reissued on CD on 29 May 2001 by Astralwerks in the US and by Grönland Records in the UK.

Labradford is a U.S. post-rock musical group from Richmond, Virginia, founded in 1991. They have released six full albums from 1993 to 2001. Though not disbanded, its members have since been active with separate projects.

Marconi Union are an English musical trio consisting of Richard Talbot, Jamie Crossley and Duncan Meadows.

Gorwel Owen is a Welsh producer and musician. He has worked with Datblygu, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Super Furry Animals, Hwyl Nofio, Ffa Coffi Pawb, Gwenno, Steve Eaves, Melys, Bob Delyn a'r Ebillion, Llio Rhydderch and many others. He also co-writes, records and performs with his wife, the poet Fiona Owen; their third album Releasing Birds was released in 2015 via their label Yamoosh!. He is also involved in other music and sound-making activities such as free improvisation, composition and sound installation.

<i>Some Bizzare Album</i> 1981 compilation album by various artists

Some Bizzare Album was the first album by Some Bizzare Records. It was released in 1981 as a sampler of the label's musical ethos. The acts were not actually signed exclusively to the label at the time.

Panteg Human settlement in Wales

Panteg is a large village and community in the county borough of Torfaen, Wales. It is adjacent to Griffithstown, between the towns of Cwmbran and Pontypool. The village is best known for Panteg Steel Works, which finally closed in 2004.

<i>Destination Beyond</i> 2009 studio album by Steve Roach

Destination Beyond is an album by the American ambient musician Steve Roach, released in 2009. Roach infuses his signature atmospheric fabric of sound with a springy, trance-like groove reminiscent of the rhythm found in Arc of Passion.

<i>Dynamic Stillness</i> 2009 studio album by Steve Roach

Dynamic Stillness is a 2-disc album by the American ambient musician Steve Roach, released in 2009.

Nemesis is a Finnish music group formed in Kokkola in 1987 by Ami Hassinen and Jyrki Kastman. In 1994 they released their debut album Xcelsior, the first Finnish electronic/ambient album to be released internationally. In 1996 Nemesis was commissioned by Finnish national radio YLE to create the long-form work Evolution, and from then on followed a series of critically acclaimed albums, as well as live concerts.

Benjamin Anderson (musician) American musician and songwriter

Benjamin Anderson is an American musician and songwriter. His musical styles range from hard rock and industrial to electronic and Ambient Music.

Neu Electrikk is a British experimental music group that were based in Croydon, England, formed in 1978.

Stephen John Parry, is a Welsh guitarist and composer who was a founder member of the experimental rock band Hwyl nofio.

Max Eastley is a British visual and sound artist. He is part of the Cape Farewell Climate Change project. He studied painting and graphic art at Newton Abbot Art School and then went on to gain a BA in Fine Art (1969–1972) at Middlesex University. He is a sculptor (kinetic), musician and composer. His primary instrument is a unique electro-acoustic monochord, developed from an aeolian sculpture. 'The Arc' consists of a single string stretched lengthwise across a long piece of wood which can be played with a bow, fingers or short glass rods. The end of the instrument has a microphone attached so the basic sound can be amplified, recorded and run through sound effect programs.

Hounded by Fury is an album by the Welsh experimental music group, Hwyl Nofio, released in 2006.

Steve James Sherlock is a British composer, musician, saxophone player who was a founder member of Neu Electrikk, joined Matt Johnson in the Post punk band The The and notably Marc Almond in Marc and the Mambas.

Dark is an album by experimental music group Hwyl Nofio, released in 2012. Dark explores a landscape steeped in Parry's own personal experience, inspired by walking through his home region of South Wales with a camera and field recorder in hand. Parry provides tangible evidence of this landscape in an accompanying book that introduces the listener to a world of chilling folk myths and the resonances of his own family histories, as well as timely references to the forgotten legacies of local artists/writers.

Caryl Parry Jones

Caryl Parry Jones is a Welsh singer-songwriter, broadcaster, actress, author and composer. She was born in the Flintshire village of Ffynnongroyw and attended Ysgol Glan Clwyd in St. Asaph, but now lives in Cowbridge, in the Vale of Glamorgan.

From Elevated Gangways Rivers of Molten Metal Flow is an album by Welsh experimental music group Hwyl Nofio, released in 2017. From Elevated Gangways Rivers of Molten Metal Flow is an avant-garde, drone, noise composition, at once a deeply personal tribute to a long lost family member and an elegy for the death of the steel industry in the place of Parry's birth - Panteg. Steve Parry originally had composed the music as a kind of soundtrack about the life of his Grandfather Herbert Parry – who worked as a Steel roller at Panteg Steel Works in Pontypool, South Wales The recording process took place over the period 1983 – 2008. In an interview with the journalist Dave McGonigle in 2004 Parry refers to having discovered lost recordings and working on the project. The project remained a work in progress until its official release in 2017.

References

  1. "Hwyl Nofio". BBC. Retrieved 25 September 2011.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  2. "Musique Machine". Musiquemachine. Retrieved 29 March 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  3. Panciera, Mario (2008). 45 Revolutions, The Bible of Punk/Mod/Powerpop/New Wave/NWOBHM/Indie Singles(1976/79).Volume 1 UK/Ireland. Italy: Hurdy Gurdy Books. p. 446. ISBN   978-88-95592-00-8.
  4. Fraser, Neil (2018). Long Shadows and High Hopes, The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & The The.UK/Ireland. United Kingdom: Omnibus Press. p. 120. ISBN   978-1-78558-230-1.
  5. "Mixing It/BBC Radio 3". BBC.co..uk. Retrieved 27 September 2011.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  6. "Wire Tapper". Wire. Retrieved 23 December 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  7. "Hwyl Nofio – The Lay of the Land". The Quietus. Retrieved 23 June 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  8. "Hwyl Nofio – The Licence of Dark Spaces". One&Other. p. 16,17. Retrieved 24 March 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  9. "Hwyl Nofio - Isolate" . Retrieved 23 September 2020.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  10. "The Beholders Share". Vimeo.com. Retrieved 12 April 2017.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  11. "Hwyl Nofio – avant garde immersion". One&Other. Retrieved 12 April 2017.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  12. "The Singers And Harp Players Are Dumb". AllMusic. Retrieved 7 October 2011.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  13. "Hwyl Nofio-Hounded By Fury". Allmusic Guide. Retrieved 25 March 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  14. "Hwyl Nofio Garden of Earthly Delights". garden of earthly delights.com. Retrieved 28 September 2011.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  15. "Wire Tapper". The Wire Magazine/Issue 268. Retrieved 25 September 2011.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)