East Coast Dates Announced (Durban & South Coast)

Hey friends, Happy New Year from the Cape Peninsula! I hope you had an amazing start to 2024 and that this year brings with it peace, love and joy.

Last year was a real adventure, releasing 'Don't Die in the Bundu', on Bella Union, performing the most special venues and heading out to the the UK for the very first time in September for a couple Bella Union shows with fellow label-mates Colouring & War Violet. It makes me so happy to see this record taking on a life of it's own in the world and in people's lives.

I'm glad and grateful to say there are good things unfolding this year, but for now I'd like to tell you about a few shows I'll be doing up the east coast in January, kicking off with a one-night-only in Durban (Jan 19 - St.Clements). Then two more dates announced in my hometown- Ramsgate (Jan 25 - Teahouse of the Blue Lagoon) and Umzumbe (Jan 27 - Mantis & Moon). 

Love & Blessings x
Wren

News from the Road (plus exclusive Cape Town show announcement)

Hello beautiful humans! I'm back home in Cape Town after two sold-out Bella Union shows in the UK last month where I performed alongside label-mates War Violet and Colouring. We took the show to The Folklore Rooms in Brighton where I found myself trapped behind a secret bookshelf door mere minutes before taking to the stage. Brighton is such a gem of a place and I'm so glad I had plenty of time to explore this beautiful seaside city loaded with record stores and art galleries- my feet are still on the mend from all the walking. I also dropped by Bella Union Vinyl Shop to sign some records after the Brighton show, hit them up if you’d like a signed copy.

The second show went down in Soho, London. Hosted by The Society of the Golden Slippers nestled within the old walls of an unmarked building known as Blacks Club. A showcase that has in the past featured artists such as The Civil Wars, Liz Fraser, John Grant, 

Lisa Marie Presley, Michael Kiwanuka, KT Tunstall and Billie Marten to name a few, 

I feel so honoured to have been part of the lineup with my Bella Union family. 

We've got some exciting things unfolding in 2024, but for now I'd love to tell you about my Cape Town show this summer. On December 12th I'll be performing songs from the new record, 'Don't Die in the Bundu' in a gorgeous intimate setting at Café Roux. Tickets available here.

My heartfelt thanks and appreciation to you for sharing this ever-evolving journey with me, it's such a ride and I couldn't imagine doing it without you.

Big love as always xx

Wren 

Don't Die In The Bundu - out now via Bella Union

Don't Die In The Bundu is out now via the great Bella Union label! (Available here)

It's pure joy to hand this record over, it's my fourth studio album and it's been a real journey witnessing it unfold into what it is. Huge gratitude and thanks to Simon Raymonde and the Bella Union family for believing in me and for all the work that has gone into each avenue of preparing for and releasing this album! To the musicians who made such beautiful contributions, thank you Guy Buttery, Moodship & Oddo Bam. To the artists who helped conceptualize and create the artwork Femi Kali, Andre Swart & Luke Jarvis. To the filmmakers and animators, Calvin Thompson & Thabang Lehobye- you guys brought such visual beauty to this thing- Thank you! 

Keith Erasmus, for trusting me, once again, with one of your poems!

To my family, friends & wellwishers who always encourage and inspire me to C R E A T E .

For River & Gaia 

New Album Announcement

'Don't Die In The Bundu', the fourth studio album is out on Bella Union
July 21st! 

In celebration of July's release, the first single, 'Dream State' is out today, everywhere!

In many ways, I can't help but feel this is one of my most significant offerings yet, and it brings me great joy to finally hand this body of work over to you, my friends and wellwishers!

The title alone has been in the back of my mind for a few years,  and I guess it was a culmination of experiences and initiations I had to go through to fully realize the title- 'Don't Die In The Bundu'.

This record was conceived amidst the backdrop of global lockdowns, curfews, tumultuous weather and uprisings, a record deal, a publishing deal, coupled with the promise of new life through the conception, pregnancy and birth of my son, River, who made his appearance on a stormy morning in the very same timber cabin the album was recorded in! And the same cabin in which I came head to head with a mighty, golden Cape Cobra, forever imprinted in my minds eye.

Among these experiences, and when my son was around 6 months old, I was out doing the official album photo shoot with a dear friend, and during this shoot we had an encounter with two gun wielding masked bandits, the ordeal ended with an ominous  fully clothed wade into the freezing Cape winter ocean which the bandits used as their escape- my friends great negotiating skills allowed us to keep the memory card in which the photos were stored, so the shots all carry the mood leading up to that fateful encounter. It took a good few months before I actually processed what had happened, I felt close to death that night in June, it could've turned out very differently, but it did help me settle on the title.

This also happens to be my first official @bella_union release since signing with the UK label in 2021- and its been amazing to have a team of really wonderful humans who believe in what I do, helping out with so many aspects of my career and this release.

It's quite astonishing at just how much can happen in such a short timeframe which makes me curious and inspired about the future.

Big love, as always to you all xx

'A Thousand Hearts' - Bella Union Vinyl Release (Out 25th November)

Wren Hinds will release his second album “A Thousand Hearts” on vinyl via Bella Union Private Pressing on November 25th. 

Relocated from Durban to Simon’s Town, Cape Town, Wren Hinds recorded his second album in 2018. A small-town kind in a big city, he channelled his sense of displacement into a fluent range of songs, linked by a feeling for place and space. Drawn from a poem by his uncle Keith Erasmus, the lovelorn waltz of ‘Sadness in the Wind’ is a beatific stand-out, Wren evoking Karen Dalton in his wavering, multi-tracked voice. Elsewhere, an ear for layered details and discreet tonal shifts asserts itself. On ‘Run’, a piano and a finger-picked guitar share mutually supportive space. On ‘Lights’, the guitar displays just a hint of swagger. Meanwhile, also drawing on Erasmus’s poetry, the title-track’s wonky ballroom lament sums up the album at a soothing stroke: “There’s beauty in the sadness, and there’s beauty in the pain/ And in the melancholic madness and its bittersweet refrain.” Wherever you listen, essentially.

Wren Hinds comments that… “A Thousand Hearts is a body of work that is very dear to me, it’s an album that embraces the age old tale of a small town kid in the big city, set within the walls of an unpredictable and volatile country. I am immensely grateful and overjoyed for this record to have found the most perfect home with Bella Union”

Hailing from the South-east coast of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, Wren Hinds grew up with a musician for a father and a landscape painter for a mother. As a kid, watching his dad recording and overdubbing inspired Wren to keep a tape recorder with him, recording whatever and wherever he could. Later, he would compare the layering of instruments and textures to the mediums and paints of his mother’s chosen artform. For Wren, songwriting became “painting with sound”, using light, shade and a sense of space to communicate powerful impressions and feelings.

Wren brought this schooling to gorgeous fruition across his first three albums, initially available on Bandcamp and now released on vinyl through Bella Union Private Pressings. Made with an eco-friendly manufacturing company, each record will be available as a special edition limited to 200 copies, available through mail order and the Bella Union store. Either way, the trilogy plots the growth curve of a major talent, released in readiness for the now Bella Union-signed artist’s incoming fourth album.

Pre-order / listen to “A Thousand Hearts” HERE.

(Article taken from Bella Union's website)

https://bellaunion.com/2022/11/wren-hinds-to-release-a-thousand-hearts-vinyl/

Bella Union

 Around 2012 I stumbled upon a compilation titled 'White Winter Hymnals - 15 brilliant tracks from the Bella Union Label', my brother had a copy, it was one of those Uncut Magazine compilations, this one however was something special, each and every track on this mixtape seemed to have been carefully & thoughtfully curated and I remember being blown away by what I heard, the voices, sounds and textures, one song after the other, artist after artist, so blown away in fact that I had this sense we were entering into a new 'golden age' of music. The compilation featured and introduced me to the likes of Fleet Foxes, Midlake, Explosions in the Sky, Andrew Bird, Vetiver, Beach House to name a few, and since then I had filled my cup with M Ward, John Grant and Father John Misty, artists who I took an immediate liking to. 

Little did my 23 year old self back then know that someday I would be joining that very family of incredible artists, and it gives me the greatest pleasure to announce that I've officially signed with Bella Union, and I couldn't be happier to have found the perfect home and family for my work. It is indeed a truly beautiful union and I can only look forward to the journey ahead!

Bella Union will be releasing all three of my previous solo records in the form of limited edition vinyl pressings through their new imprint Private Pressings which will be consecutively released in readiness for the incoming 4th full length album which is well underway!

My heartfelt thanks and appreciation to a wonderful human being and friend, the immensely talented Simon Raymonde, and the Bella Union family for taking in this small town South African boy.

Thank you to each and every one of you who have supported and shared in this journey with me from the beginning, may the music continue to reach and touch even more hearts!

Thanks to my beautiful supportive, creative family for sharing the gift of life with me, I am so grateful to have you all by my side.

For now, head on over to Bella Union and get yourself the limited red vinyl edition of 'A Child's Chant for the New Millennium' pressed by DeepGrooves, the greenest vinyl pressing plant in the world! 

Child's Chant for the New Millennium Limited Red Vinyl Edition Out Now on Bella Union

Limited Red Vinyl Edition Out Now on Bella Union

“Absolutely thrilled to be putting out ‘A Child’s Chant for the New Millennium’ with Bella Union! At the end of 2019 through early 2020 I buried myself amongst instruments, wires, synths, guitars and whatever I could get my hands on, I lost myself in the layering of textures, sounds and vocal overtones, armed with the scribbles of a couple new songs, ‘A Child’s Chant’ was born”.

Hailing from the South-east coast of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, Wren Hinds grew up with a musician for a father and a landscape painter for a mother. As a kid, watching h
is dad recording and overdubbing inspired Wren to keep a tape recorder with him, recording whatever and wherever he could. Later, he would compare the layering of instruments and textures to the mediums and paints of his mother’s chosen artform. For Wren, songwriting became “painting with sound”, using light, shade and a sense of space to communicate powerful impressions and feelings.

Wren brought this schooling to gorgeous fruition across his first three albums, initially available on Bandcamp and now released on vinyl through Bella Union Private Pressings. Made with an eco-friendly manufacturing company, each record will be available as a special edition limited to 200 copies, available through mail order and the Bella Union store. Either way, the trilogy plots the growth curve of a major talent, released in readiness for the now Bella Union-signed artist’s incoming fourth album. The first of the three retroactive releases will be “A Child’s Chant For The New Millennium”.

"I wanted to start releasing some brand new artists via our new imprint Private Pressing, a limited vinyl-only eco-friendly edition, working with DeepGrooves who claim to be 'the world's greenest pressing plant'. These pressings will be limited to 200-300 copies and only available through the artists' Bandcamp pages, our own vinyl and online store". - Simon Raymonde (Bella Union)

Wren Hinds brought fresh thematic cogency to his third album, recorded in early 2020. The linking matter is his unerring ability to apply himself to each new situation, in this case a longing for connection – to humanity, nature – in a world tilted towards digital disconnection. While the lockdowns intensified the album’s dystopian fears, the beauty and artistry in Wren’s songcraft counterpoint the shadows eloquently. The title-track laments “digital modification” over gamelan-ish flutters across six delicate minutes. All spectral voices and pining, ‘Sign of Life’ yearns for “some act of human kindness” to a wind-caressed cowboy lollop. ‘The Pearl’ longs for blissful quietude, while ‘Wrenbird’ evokes Sam Beam at his dreamiest. ‘River’s Song’ adds soft, sure layers of accordion and guitar, before ‘The Path’ marshals misty harmonies and finger-picked guitar for a gentle declaration of resistance. “Bang your freedom drum,” sings Wren, mapping out a singular path with understated assurance.

“A Child’s Chant For The New Millennium” is available HERE