Hen Ogledd share video for new single "Crimson Star"

As they continue on their journey to the release of their new album Free Humans on September 25 via Weird World, the cosmic quartet of Hen Ogledd—Richard Dawson, Rhodri Davies, Sally Pilkington and Dawn Bothwell—have shared a brand new single and video, “Crimson Star.” The video, featuring the full band, was directed by Deborah Bower.

Underpinned by the melodic tones of Davies’ electric harp (recorded in Atlantis Studios, where ABBA also recorded in their early days), the kaleidoscopic new track explores space and time travel. As Dawson notes, “‘Crimson Star’ is a gentle, pungent pop song about a retired entertainer looking back on their adventures during the heyday of space tourism.”

“Crimson Star” follows lead single “Trouble,” propelled by percussion and voluptuous synths alongside Bothwell’s unmistakable vocals. Listen below.

Free Humans is an album of seamless, glorious contradictions: inspired as much by ABBA as the work of 12th century mystic-composer-naturalist-visionary Hildegard von Bingen, touched equally by the spirits of radical philosophical plumber Mary Midgley and PC Music star Hannah Diamond, as quiet as the paintings of Agnes Martin, yet bombastic like a Werner Herzog documentary.

Tackling themes of love, friendship, Gaia theory, sewers, the nature of time, human stench, and the thrills of wild swimming, it’s remarkable that, given the intense collision of influences and wide-ranging ideas at play, Free Humans somehow coheres into a marvelous whole.

Free Humans doesn’t shy away from the fact humans are killing the earth, but it does so with spiky wit. In their hands, Hen Ogledd manages to hold the tragedy of the wrongs happening in the world, as well as a sense of hope and liberation, at the same time.