Founded by experimental folk artist
Richard Dawson and avant-garde harpist
Rhodri Davies in 2012,
Hen Ogledd went through many expansions and shifts in sound as they evolved. Growing in numbers with each new release, they welcomed Dawn Bothwell to the band on vocals and electronics for their explosive 2016 live album, Bronze, and the addition of vocalist
Sally Pilkington took things from improvised weirdness to polished electro-pop and organic songcraft on album's like 2020's extensive
Free Humans.
Hen Ogledd borrowed their band name from the Welsh term for the region between Southern Scotland and Northern England, and the group originally consisted of guitarist/vocalist
Richard Dawson and harp improviser
Rhodri Davies. Their first recordings were shared in the form of a limited vinyl-only release in 2013 simply entitled Dawson-Davies: Hen Ogledd. In 2016, the band performed their second-ever live gig, adding vocalist/electronic musician Dawn Bothwell to the fold and capturing the cacophonous performance to tape. The edited form of this noisy performance was issued later that year as
Hen Ogledd's second album, Bronze, again in a limited vinyl release.
Hen Ogledd signed to Domino Records offshoot Weird World for the release of their third album, 2018's
Mogic. Now a quartet with the addition of vocalist/multi-instrumentalist
Sally Pilkington,
Hen Ogledd took a drastic turn away from their largely formless beginnings on
Mogic, a collection of more traditionally structured and pop-friendly songs that included newfound electronic elements. Two years later, the band returned with
Free Humans, a double album that moved away from the colder, more robotic tones of the previous LP for a slightly more organic sound. ~ Fred Thomas