Early career (2002–2010)

In the years before she joined the Pipettes, she had been a solo electropop singer, mostly in the Welsh and Cornish languages, releasing two solo EPs, Môr Hud^[17] (2002) and Vodya^[18] (2004).^[19] Saunders represented Cornwall in the Liet International song contest, 2003, and won the People's Choice Award for her performance of "Vodya". In December 2004 Gwenno filmed the song "Ysolt y'nn Gweinten" by Celtic Legend for Classic FM TV. It is claimed to be the first video produced in the Cornish language, the text having been written by her father Tim Saunders with music by Cornish composer and ex Gary Numan keyboard player Chris John Payne.

Gwenno joined the Pipettes in April 2005 after founding member Julia left. She is most notable for her lead vocals on the single "Pull Shapes" and the chorus of "Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me". She later posted solo material to her Myspace page and made a free download of a mini album titled U & I available in October 2007. In April 2008, Gwenno's younger sister Ani joined the Pipettes, after the departure of singers Rosay and RiotBecki. Ani now also releases music with the band The Lovely Wars and solo under the name Ani Glass.

Solo career (2010–present)

Gwenno toured as a synth player with Pnau and Elton John in 2012.^[20][21]

In June 2012, Saunders released a five-song Welsh language EP, Ymbelydredd, available on hand-painted cassettes on Peski Records.^[22]

Gwenno appears on The Boy Least Likely To's 2013 album The Great Perhaps, contributing vocals to the track "It Could Have Been Me".

She released her first solo full-length album, the Welsh-language Y Dydd Olaf, in October 2014 on Peski Records.^[23] In May 2015 Gwenno was signed to Heavenly Recordings. The label re-released her debut album in July.^[24][25] The album won Best Welsh Album at the 2015 National Eisteddfod^[26] and in November 2015 won the 2014–2015 Welsh Music Prize.^[27]

Gwenno also co-produced and co-hosted a Welsh radio show on Cardiff Radio titled "Cam O'r Tywyllwch" ("A Step Away from the Darkness") with her Peski Records colleagues.^[28] The team was also behind the CAM '15 music festival in Cardiff, which took place in April 2015 and featured the first live performance in over 20 years by Welsh music post-punk pioneers Datblygu.^[29]

She released her second solo album Le Kov in 2018, which was an all-Cornish language album. It centred on themes of "the struggle of Kernewek [the Cornish language] and the concerns of Cornish cultural visibility as the perceptions of a timeless and haunted landscape often clash with the reality of intense poverty and an economy devastated by the demands of tourism." The album saw Gwenno touring and headlining in Europe and Australia, and supporting acts such as Suede and the Manic Street Preachers, with whom she re-recorded a verse of the song "Spectators of Suicide" in Welsh, as well as singing on an English version of the song with the band.^[30] A successful performance of "Tir Ha Mor" on Later... with Jools Holland prompted wider conversations on the state of the Cornish language with Michael Portillo, Jon Snow, and Nina Nannar.^[31] Le Kov was named one of the best albums of 2018 by The Guardian, Uncut and Mojo.^[32]

Her third solo album Tresor, also a Cornish language album, releases on 1 July 2022 on Heavenly Recordings.^[33] It is inspired by powerful woman writers and artists such as Ithell Colquhoun, the Cornish language poet Phoebe Proctor, Maya Deren and Monica Sjöö, Tresor is an intimate view of the feminine interior experience, of domesticity and desire, a rare glimmer of life lived in and expressed through Cornish.^[31] On 26 July, Tresor became Gwenno's first album to be nominated for the Mercury Prize,^[34] and it was named one of the albums of the year by BBC Radio 6 Music.^[35]

Solo

With the Pipettes

Appears on