Tom Emlyn

Tom Emlyn crafts honest, swirling songs; tall tales and dark jokes that cut straight to the bone. His current solo work maps an alternative Southwalian landscape, a hallucinated community drawn from psychogeography and local history. Written on foot and by bus, his observational, poetic lyrics and simple 60s-folk influenced melodies explore what it means to belong to a place – the bitterness, the love and the humour. In the particular is contained the universal; and Tom Emlyn’s captivating songs explore the particularity and peculiarity of human experience in a unique way. His sound, while rooted in garage rock, is tinged with psychedelia, folk, and jazz/blues overtones – including a recent adoption of the harmonica as a lead instrument. In summer 2022, Tom released his debut solo album News From Nowhere, a bittersweet love letter to his hometown of Swansea, described by Adam Walton (BBC Radio Wales) as a record of “undoubted brilliance, eloquence and energy”. It has been hugely positively received, with airplay and support from Radio Wales, BBC Horizons, R.E.P.E.A.T. fanzine, God Is In The TV, and Joyzine, among others. Tom’s second album I’ve Seen You In Town followed hot on the heels of the first – a more mellow, acoustic affair which was similarly well received. He is currently promoting these records with intimately explosive solo and band performances across Wales and beyond, and more long-awaited releases planned for 2023.