BREICHIAU HIR Release Stirring ‘Sesiwn Byw (Live Session) Y Dwylo Uwchben’
Stream and share - https://ditto.fm/sesiwn-byw-y-dwylo-uwchben-live-session
Watch live session video playlist - HERE
New Album Y Dwylo Uwchben Nominated For Welsh Music Prize 2025
Welsh Language Alternative Rock Pioneers’ Latest Out Now via Halen Records
Stream and share - https://ditto.fm/y-dwylo-uwchben
Autumn 2025 Support Dates With Goldie Lookin Chain Continue This Week
Tickets - https://www.seetickets.com
Cardiff-based Welsh language alternative rock six-piece, Breichiau Hir, have released a stirring 5 song live session, recorded at One Louder Studios in Newport, engineered, produced, and mixed by Phil Smith.
Out now on all good streaming services, the band have also revealed a 3 track live video playlist from the ‘Sesiwn Byw Y Dwylo Uwchben’ which is available to watch on YouTube now.
The band’s critically-acclaimed second album, Y Dwylo Uwchben (The Hands Above), is out now via Halen Records, and was nominated for the recent Welsh Music Prize 2025.
Commenting on the news, front man Steffan Dafydd says: “We’re very proud that Y Dwylo Uwchben was shortlisted for the Welsh Music Prize. A lot of hard work went into making this album, and we’re already proud of what we’ve created. We self-released this album completely DIY with help from just a handful of close collaborators, so it means a huge amount to us to have that effort acknowledged alongside such brilliant Welsh talent and heroes."
Revealing the nominations on air earlier this year, BBC Radio Wales presenter Adam Walton said of the band: "Sonically speaking, they’re sort of outsiders in Welsh music in a really good way. They don’t fit in any obvious scene which makes them fascinating. A band who collide shoegaze with dreamscapes from the likes of Ride and Slowdive, with post-rock muscularity like Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky, and the punkish songwriting of Fontaines DC."
The album’s lead single ‘Cuddio Tu Ôl Y Llen’ was released earlier this year, with the music video for follow up single ‘Paid Trio’ (Don’t Try) premiering with S4C’s new Welsh music and contemporary culture show Lŵp.
Combining the visceral and the vulnerable, Breichiau Hir have distinguished themselves within Cardiff’s vibrant music scene with their distinctive take on Welsh-language rock music. Their intense live shows invite catharsis through introspection and unbridled energy. Their ability to switch from explosive walls of sound to gossamer ostinato allow the band to resonate from the most intimate of venues to the festival stage.
The release of their sophomore album in 2025 this time seeks to look to the future by contemplating predestination and individual agency—a series of orchestrations that question the script that has been written for you. Y Dwylo Uwchben promises to build upon Breichiau Hir’s reputation for authentic and personal songwriting, whilst delivering gritty hooks and expansive soundscapes.
After an appearance at Sŵn Festival last month, the group will finish up their support tour with fellow Welsh crew Goldie Lookin Chain on their Autumn 2025 UK tour dates this week, with tickets on sale now (see below for listings).
New album Y Dwylo Uwchben is out now via Halen Records
Live dates:
07.11.25 - Reading - Sub89 *
08.11.25 - Southampton - Engine Rooms *
* w/ Goldie Lookin Chain
Breichiau Hir online:
http://www.breichiauhir.com
https://www.facebook.com/BreichiauHir
https://breichiauhir.bandcamp.com
https://twitter.com/breichiauhir
https://www.instagram.com/breichiauhir
More info:
A band who blend cathartic intensity, dense layers of guitar, and fragile melancholic moments, Breichiau Hir’s sole mission is to move and connect to their audience. Bursting with melody, fragility and aggression, the sextet often jump from fierce energy to delicate passages to crashing waves of noise.
Tackling the theme of a melancholy nostalgia with poignant lyrics, self-deprecating humour and surreal wordplay, every song on Hir Oes I’r Cof is performed proudly in the band’s native Welsh language.
“Halfway through writing the album, I noticed my lyrics were all following a narrative and theme around nostalgia,” expands Dafydd on the record. “It’s a journey that follows the narrator getting totally engrossed in that feeling and losing grasp of reality. The theme of a river as a metaphor for time runs through the album.”
In a scene that’s given birth to internationally renowned and respected names, Breichiau Hir are, surprisingly, the first modern rock band from Wales to break from the long-established tradition of emulating their American and English contemporaries and forbears to stride confidently out in their own lane, and their own language.
The new album will be the first batch of new material from the sextet in 4 years, since the release of their Welsh Music Prize-nominated 2021 debut album Hir Oes I’r Cof, which delivered the resonant lyrics of a band reflecting on adulthood and its inherent antithesis to idealism. As if being forced forward by the currents of the river Taf, the album’s narrative reflects on the escapist power of nostalgia and the weight of expectation.
Launching their debut EP Mae’r Angerdd Yma Yn Troi In Gas in 2015, the band went on to release a string of standalone singles including ‘Mewn Darnau / Halen’ (2018), ‘Portread O Ddyn Yn Bwyta Ei Hun’ (2018), ‘Penblwydd Hapus Iawn’ (2019), ‘Yn Dawel Bach / Saethu Tri’ (2019), ‘Preseb O Ias’ (2020), and their cover of Bryn Fôn classic ‘Y Bardd O Montreal’ (2020).
This slow-drip of material bore fruit for the boys from Wales, with a wave of support both at home and beyond from Huw Stephens at BBC 6music, Daniel P Carter and Alyx Holcombe at BBC R1, KEXP, Adam Walton at BBC Radio Wales, NME, Rock Sound Magazine, Bandcamp Daily, BUZZ Magazine, God Is In The TV Zine, Planet Mosh, Punktastic, For The Rabbits, Circuit Sweet and more.
On the live side, they’ve kept busy building notoriety on the Welsh festival circuit with appearances at Green Man, Sŵn, FOCUS Wales, HUB Festival, The Swansea Fringe, supported The Joy Formidable, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Modern Color and Single Mothers, and their track ‘Yn Dawel Bach’ was even used by FA Wales in their Euro 2020 hype videos.
Y Dwylo Uwchben album tracklist:
01 - Syllu Mewn I'r Gwagle
02 - Paid Trio
03 - Cuddio Tu Ol Y Llen
04 - Tymor Hela
05 - Yn Tynnu Fi Fel Cortyn
06 - Llusgo Ar Lawr Y Llwybr
07 - Siarad Gyda'r Waliau
08 - Dim Ymladd Nol
09 - Poeri At Yr Haul
10 - Tyllau Llygad
11 - Cyn I Fi Fynd
