Reviews
*Sianed Jones has a voice that sounds like
a Wailing Welsh Banshee calling from the mountains
a Soft Seducer whispering in your ear
a Passionate Revolutionary
a voice that is Raw, Vital & deeply soulful*
“exceptional and versatile voice”
- The Scotsman, Edinburgh Festival
“…. a roaring near falsetto, a cavernous chest register, a terrifying wail”
- The Sunday Observer
“ a stream of global echoes draped around slinky beats, helping carry the political and ethical weight of words……”
- The Wire.
Reviews of Surrender Album:
“Surrender allows numerous musics to cross-fertilise while words and wordless vocalising transmit sensitivity and intelligence.”
- The Wire
“Having being brought up with Welsh choral singing, Sianed Jones subsequently travelled extensively taking in Egypt, Madagascar and Mongolia. These influences can be heard throughout this, her debut album. Sianed performs on a myriad of instruments – voice / violin / harmonium / bass viol / bass / drum samples / marimba / piano – and the material is probably the most intriguing of all the recordings reviewed in this edition of Musician.”
“The first impression is one of character and personality as illustrated by the fascinating cover photography and professional CD art. The lyrics prove interesting too:
‘Rain crack heavy sleep, wishing for a blue eyed dream.’ Shining through musically is ‘Sut Wyt Ti? its folk fiddle mixing perfectly with funk bass, and ‘Under the Flyover’, which manages to blend arpeggio plucking with a very sensual message to great effect.”
“For those who can make it, the CD is being launched on 11th Sept at Delaney’s Irish bar, 39 –41 St Andrews St, Norwich. “
- Musician (2004)
“A debut release according to the accompanying press release, which may seem a little strange to listeners long familiar with Sianed Jones’s violin and vocal work with flautist Clive Bell, guitarist Peter Cusack and others in Kahondo Style, and in the excellent trio Slant with poet Cris Cheek and turntable artist Philip Jeck. A new and welcome departure anyway – Surrender is a strong set of nine songs with imaginative arrangements for a fluent group with Sianed at their heart.”
“She’s a widely travelled musician and has listened openly, assimilating vocal techniques and expanding her sense of possible musical relationships. That’s reflected here in a stream of global echoes draped around slinky beats, helping carry the political and ethical weight of words she quotes from Virginia Wolf: “As a woman I have no country / as a woman I have no country / as a woman my country is the Whole world.””
“This declaration reverberates through the gesture of identity made in two songs one with a reggae pulse, which have texts in Welsh. Stepping back into English, Sianed sings of love and desire without cliché or clumsiness and that’s rare enough. Cris Cheeks’s text “What’s The Time Mr Wolf?” addresses the events of 11 September 2001 in a way that’s moving and thought provoking. Surrender allows numerous musics to cross-fertilise while words and wordless vocalising transmit sensitivity and intelligence. Anyone seriously interested in the current state of song should pay it the attention it deserves.”
- Julian Cowley The Wire (2005):
“This long overdue solo showing of Sianed Jones’s work is a suite of seven songs book-ended by matching passionate wordless crooning pieces. All the tracks have driving beats –”
““locked in grooves that keep changing rhythm”, to quote one of the lyrics over which Sianed navigates effortlessly in the sizzling waters of ethno punk virtuosity. Her vocal style varies between husky jazz lowers notes through the hard edged Bulgarian side of India to a soaring clear soprano, occasionally exquisitely quiet up there in the stratosphere. This diva chants rhythmic psalm like patterns, repeating key phrases as the music requires. “
“Subjects vary from the tragic horror of the attacks on the World Trade Centre to an erotic if somewhat over-explicit song about making love under a flyover. However the lyrics don’t always sit comfortably in the music, with poetry lines of uneven length inhibiting the vocal line. “
“By contrast, in the wordless sections the voice is free to be melodically inspired, dipping and flying in wide arcs. Sianed plays most of the instruments herself: warm coloured guitars, bass viol and harmonium are displayed sumptuously on the cover against deep reds and browns of ethnic fabrics, while punk haired Sianed is dripping with ethnic jewellery. “
“The brilliance of her violin playing is appropriately prominent throughout, providing light pizzicato backing tracks, jabbing reggae off beats, or soloing with deft articulation on a devilishly sinuous celtic style reel. “
“My favourite is the Scandinavian three – part fiddle piece in the middle of the welsh song Sut Wyt Ti? (sorry no translation provided). The album structure holds together, the voice, violin and compelling grooves uniting otherwise disparate elements of salsa piano and heavy metal guitar distortion. “
“Totally unique. “
- Sylvia Hallet Resonance (2005)
Mynd a Shakespeare i Rio Cymraes, Shakespeare a Brasil
Merch o Geredigion sy’n cyfansoddi cerddoriaeth I gynyrchiadau’r Royal Shakespeare Company ac mae newydd fod yn Rio de Janeiro yn ymarfer gyda chwmni Theatre ieuenctid.
Fe aeth I Brazil gyda hyfforddwr llais enwog y cwmni Cisely Berry, am ddeg diwrnod I weithio gyda chriw ‘Nos do Morro’ – Pobol y Bryniau – cwmni sy’n rhoi cyfle I bobol ifanc o ardaloedd tlota’ Rio I berfformio a chanu “Maen nhw’n ceisio’u hannog I beidio cymryd y ffordd gyflym allan o’r tlodi, sef trwy wneud gwaith i’r Mafia un cario cyffuriau,” meddai Sianed Jones,sy’n ferch artist Mary Lloyd Jones. “Maen nhw’n gorfod arwyddo llw na fyddan nhw’n ymdrin a chyffuriau.”
Mae Nos do Morro’n cydweithio gyda chwmni Gallery 37 o Birmingham a byddan nhw’n perfformio The Two Gentlemen of Verona yn Stratford ym mis Awst. Hyfforddi’r bobol ifanc ar ddefnyddio’r corff a’r llais mewn dull byrfyfyr y mae Sianed Jones, sy’n canu, yn canu’r ffidil, y fiola bas ac offerynnau o Asia. “Roedd e’n ffantastig. Mae cymaint o egni ac ymroddiad gyda nhw. Roedden nhw’n awchu am syniadau.”Bob nos yn Rio, fe fyddai’r bobol ifanc yn amarfer capoeira, y grefft o ymladd drwy dawns byrfyfyr, ac fe fyddai hithau’n rhoi cynnig arni.
Fe ddechreuodd Sianed Jones ei gyrfa broffesiynol mewn cerddoriaeth. Tua diwedd y 1970au, fe ddaeth yn rhan o’r byd bohemaidd yn Llundain gan weithio ar theatr y stryd, a theithio’r byd yn dawnsio a chreu. “O’n ni’n gwneud pob math o bethe,” meddai, “yn dawns, cabaret,grwp a cappella, pethe ar y stryd….ro’n I’n mynd I lefydd yn Ewrop efo bands experimental…..” “Fe fu’n teithio Affrica am chew mis hefyd, yna I Mongolia, croesi anialwch y Gobi gyda cherddorion o Loegr, a chyfeilio I storiw’r yn Kasakstahn.
“Symydodd I Suffolk rai blynyddoedd nol I fyw wrth y mor er mwyn magu ei mab, sy’n bellach 17 oed ac wedi symud i America at ei dad. “O fod wedi byw yn Aberaeron, o’ni’n eisie cael swn y mor – dal eisie gweithio yn Llyndain,” meddai.
Fe roddodd hi flas blues a jazz I gyfleu’r mor yng nghynhyrchiad yr RSC o Twelfth Night y llynedd. Mae hi nawr am setlo yng Nghaerdydd ac ailgydio yn ei Chymraeg, sydd rwyfaint yn rhydlyd ar ol byw yn Llundain am 12 mlynedd.
“Roedd yn dda iawn i fi dyfu lan mewn ty’n llawn o bobol yn gwneud pethe a bod yn greadigol,” meddai. “ Yn ifanc ifanc, roedd mam yn fy helpu fi gyda’r piano.”
Fe gyfansoddodd hi gerddoriaeth ar gyfer arddangosfa ei mam, ‘Lliwio’r Gair, yn Aberystwyth rai blynyddoedd yn ol
- Non Tudur Golwg (2006)