Following the release of recent singles Gorwel and Amrant, as featured on BBC 6 Music, Carw (real name Owain Griffiths) releases his second album Maske today (21 August) via BLINC Records.

The album is available to download and stream from iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, etc, and from the Blinc Records online shop https://blincrecords.com/product/carw-maske-mp3-wav-album

A brand new video is also released today for the track AM from the album, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI5_dnqWMcI

Owing to Owain’s recent change on environment, Maske – mastered by Llion Roberston (Cotton Wolf) – marks a slight departure from his previous work on this 7-track instrumental album, with firmer beats and darker synth sounds, bringing moods of Depeche Mode and touches of the early 90s works of Orbital and Aphex Twin.

Photo: Dana Ersing

Maske is born out of the emotions of leaving a familiar setting where Owain had forged many connections, and carving a new life for himself in a country where he knew no-one. With the album title – the German word for mask – Owain reacts to the feeling of being invisible, unknown.

He recalls the first year of life in Germany, mistaking faces on the streets of Leipzig for familiar faces back home, and unreciprocated acknowledgements giving rise to the innate sense that he was hidden behind a disguise, or a mask. Each track off the album is a facet of that curious, if often agreeable, emotion.

Carw – Welsh for ‘deer’ – emerges from a world of music, art and literature with a determinedly focused and self-initiated project. His creative vision has been to cherry pick nature’s influence, having grown up in rural isolation, whilst suffusing deep breaths of clean air with the dust kicked-up in the vibrant cycle of city life.

As well as repeated radio plays on BBC 6 Music, Amazing Radio, BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru, Carw has attracted much attention for his live performances, joined onstage by an assemblage of machines and instruments.

Carw’s previous collaborations and live appearances have been as part of Cotton Wolf, Eugene Capper & Rhodri Brooks, Winter Villains and the electronic synth trio, Hlemma.

Gently glistening electro pop from Wales’ minimalist maestro Carw, with new single and promo video, Amrant released via BLINC Records on Friday 31 July 2020.

Mastered by Llion Roberston (Cotton Wolf), Amrant – Welsh for ‘Eyelid’ – is taken from the forthcoming album Maske, out 21 August. Owain’s recent change of environment marks a slight departure from his previous work on this 7-track instrumental album, with firmer beats and darker synth sounds, bringing moods of Depeche Mode and touches of the early 90s works of Orbital and Aphex Twin.

Amrant and Maske will be available digitally only, from the main downloading and streaming services.

Photo Credit: Dana Ersing

Maske is born out of the emotions of leaving a familiar setting where Owain had forged many connections, and carving a new life for himself in a country where he knew no-one. With the album title – the German word for mask – Owain reacts to the feeling of being invisible, unknown.

He recalls the first year of life in Germany, mistaking faces on the streets of Leipzig for familiar faces back home, and unreciprocated acknowledgements giving rise to the innate sense that he was hidden behind a disguise, or a mask. Each track off the album is a facet of that curious, if often agreeable, emotion.

Carw – Welsh for deer – emerges from a world of music, art and literature with a determinedly focused and self-initiated project. His creative vision has been to cherry pick nature’s influence, having grown up in rural isolation, whilst suffusing deep breaths of clean air with the dust kicked-up in the vibrant cycle of city life. As well as repeated radio plays on BBC 6 Music, Amazing Radio, BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru, Carw has attracted much attention for his live performances, joined onstage by an assemblage of machines and instruments.

Carw’s previous collaborations and live appearances have been as part of Cotton Wolf, Eugene Capper & Rhodri Brooks, Winter Villains and the electronic synth trio, Hlemma.

Gleaming electro minimalism from the DIY studio set-up of Welsh composer Carw, as he releases new single and promo video Gorwel via BLINC Records on Friday 19 June 2020.

Carw’s hiatus since 2018’s critically acclaimed debut, Skin Shed in 2018 has seen the emigration of songwriter and producer Owain Griffiths to Leipzig, Germany where the Carw project has been breaking new ground.

Mastered by Llion Roberston (Cotton Wolf), Gorwel – Welsh for ‘Horizon’ – is taken from the forthcoming album Maske, out in late summer. Owain’s recent change of environment marks a slight departure from his previous work on this 7-track instrumental album, with firmer beats and darker synth sounds, bringing moods of Depeche Mode and touches of the early 90s works of Orbital and Aphex Twin.

As well as repeated radio plays on BBC 6 Music, Amazing Radio, BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru, Carw has attracted much attention for his live performances, joined onstage by an assemblage of machines and instruments.

Carw – Welsh for ‘deer’ – emerges from a world of music, art and literature with a determinedly focused and self-initiated project. His creative vision has been to cherry pick nature’s influence, having grown up in rural isolation, whilst suffusing deep breaths of clean air with the dust kicked-up in the vibrant cycle of city life.

Carw’s previous collaborations and live appearances have been as part of Cotton Wolf, Eugene Capper & Rhodri Brooks, Winter Villains and the electronic synth trio, Hlemma.

Based in North Wales and serving at the vanguard of new music of Welsh origin and contemporary Welsh language music, BLINC Records will release the upcoming Carw album in late summer, following previous releases by Welsh Music Prize nominees, HMS Morris husband and wife soundsmiths Rogue Jones, and OSHH.

Dim the dancefloor lights as Welsh electro-jangle maestro releases a cut of low-key electro-pop majesty…

Pulse-quickening, infectiously irresistible electro-indie-pop tiptoes from the DIY studio set-up of Cardiff-based singer-songwriter Carw, as he releases his third single, FEATHERS via BLINC Records on Friday 28 September 2018 to prelude his anticipated, debut LP, Skin Shed.

Stream Feathers here:  https://soundcloud.com/recordiaublinc/carw-feathers/s-02Y5U

There’s always a summit at the top of every glistening mountain slope and Feathers provides a breathtaking view from the album’s peak (released Fri 12 October 2018), bringing Carw’s pop sensibilities rushing to the surface of his understated songcraft. Carw’s lo-fi masterpiece (co-produced with Llion Roberston, producer of Gruff Rhys’ Babelsberg) has already offered two, radio-charming singles in Lanterns and Lovers with repeated plays on BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio Wales.

Carw, Welsh for ‘deer’, emerges from a world of music, art and literature with a determinedly focused and self-initiated project influenced by 1980s electronic pop, the expansive dream worlds painted by Cocteau Twins’ guitars and the sun-setting grooves of Balearic House. Carw’s creative vision has been to cherry-pick nature’s influence, having grown up in rural isolation, whilst suffusing deep breaths of clean air with the dust kicked-up in the vibrant cycle of city life.

Under his real name of Owain Griffiths, Carw’s previous collaborations and live appearances have been as part of Cotton Wolf, Eugene Capper & Rhodri Brooks, Winter Villains and the electronic synth trio, Hlemma.

Enduring myths, romantic literature, lost French sailors and endless tea powers the gently glistening electro pop of Wales’ most elusive singer-songwriter, now revealed on his minimalist eleven-track, debut album…

A reclusive light shining from the vibrant fringes of music, art and performance in Wales’ pulsing capital, Cardiff-based singer-songwriter, Carw follows up the release of radio-charming singles, Lanterns and Lovers (all supported by BBC 6 Music, Amazing Radio, BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru) with the release of his ten-track debut album, Skin Shed, released on BLINC Records on Fri 12 October 2018.

Sparse with eccentric discipline, swelled with understated melody and rich with an innate sense of lo-fi, DIY integrity, Carw (Welsh for ‘deer’ and pseudonym of Owain Griffiths, solo artist and live member of Eugene Capper & Rhodri Brooks and Winter Villains) wrote and recorded the majority of Skin Shed in his home studio, before collaborating with producer, Llion Robertson (producer of Gruff Rhys’ Babelsberg and member of Welsh Music Prize nominees, Cotton Wolf) in bottomless tea-powered polishing sessions. The result is a record that glides through the low gears, washing over listeners with rare tranquility before striking with the rush of heightened, 80s-inspired synth pop.

Wide open about his influences, Skin Shed bears the hallmarks of Carw’s record collection, picking up Vince Clarke programmed sound, the symphonic guitars of Cocteau Twins and Durruti Column and the sun-setting beats of Balearic house. ‘Opening’ track (pushing past the sci-fi, 1m 30s ‘Intro’) Lovers is symptomatic of the artist’s face-value approach to his finely-tuned craft, being a straight-faced love song painted over metronomic beats and a looped, jangling guitar riff. Jerome, where Carw’s voice receives rare, lone-female backing, recalls the story of Nova Scotia’s Jerome of Sandy Cove, an early 20^th century castaway whose origins and life story remained a mystery until his death.

Y Galon Hon (transalation: This Heart) finds Montgomeryshire-raised Carw performing in his native Welsh to damn societal hierarchies and mourn the powerlessness of being unable to find a way out, before Trac 3 (translation: Track 3) restores his and Robertson’s playfulness, putting the ‘yacht pop’ instrumental, confusingly, at track five. A mystery to the writer himself, it’s meaning lost in time, the album’s debut single, Lanterns, shines as a shard of clean-cut pop, followed by Au Revior, which Carw says is a song about “a dream I had about three French sailors in a rowing boat on the sea who were singing a lullaby to their dying pet Doberman.”

There’s always a summit at the top of every glistening mountain slope and Feathers provides a breathtaking view from Skin Shed’s peak, bringing Carw’s pop sensibilities bubbling to the surface without hint of shame. Inspired by the R S Thomas poem, Comparisons, it’s an exercise in potent brevity that links the two masterpieces. As the album closes, Carw leaves the meaning or significance of the Gregorian chant of Meirw (translation: The Dead) and the lost meaning of Perfume Haze in the ears of the listener before waving into the distance with the deft, butter-soft love song, Asennau (translation: Ribs).

Skin Shed Tracklisting: 

1. Intro
2. Lovers
3. Jerome
4. Y Galon Hon
5. Trac 3
6. Lanterns
7. Au Revior
8. Feathers
9. Meirw
10. Perfume Haze
11. Asennau

More information on singles to accompany the album release to follow.

Crystalline guitars, persistent bleeps and ethereal vocals dapple the second single from elusive, Cardiff-based singer songwriter…

A second dose of 80s electro-inspired, shimmering pop from Welsh singer-songwriter, Carw arrives in the form of Lovers, his latest single to be released on August 10th on Blinc Records. Accruing radio support for his debut spring time release, Lanterns, from BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Radio Wales, the lone Cardiff-based artist picked up comparisons to both early Depeche Mode and Cocteau Twins.

Carw, Welsh for ‘deer’, opens the door on a determinedly focused, self-initiated and largely self-produced project influenced by classic electronic pop, the symphonic guitars of Robin Guthrie and Durruti Column and sun-setting Balearic House. Charming introspection and acutely disciplined melody marries waves of airy instrumentation and shrouded vocals, perfecting a style of sun-flecked electronica that sets nature’s beauty alongside the dark nights and bright lights of the big city.

Lovers is taken from the debut Carw album. Blinc Records are proud to announce that the album is entitled Skin Shed, and will be released on October 12th.