Hay-on-Wye duo Peiriant — violinist Rose Linn-Pearl and guitarist Dan Linn-Pearl — return with their third studio album, “Plant”. Released on 27 February, this is built as a close conversation between their two instruments; the record deepens the pair’s distinctive interplay with earthy low-end frequencies, unexpected rhythms, and an undercurrent of sampled sound that feels more sensed than heard.
The result is the fullest realisation yet of Peiriant’s creative practice: an instinct to embrace the freedom of experimenting and improvising, while still beginning from a musical bedrock of warmth and familiarity. There’s a groundedness at the heart of “Plant”, but it’s constantly being reshaped—stretched, interrupted, reassembled—into something quietly adventurous.
The album follows the duo’s acclaimed previous release, “Dychwelyd”, which explored the act of returning to Cymru to raise a family, fusing its music with the landscape of their home and the surrounding Black Mountains of Bannau Brycheiniog. That record was named Folk Album of the Month by The Guardian and later included in the publication’s top ten folk albums of 2024, cementing Peiriant as a project capable of making instrumental music feel intensely personal and place-bound.
“Plant” — meaning “children” in Welsh — is described as a sequel, shaped by the tensions many of us carry about the future, alongside the joy of living as fully as possible in the present. Across eight purposeful, lyrical instrumental pieces, the duo expands their sonic palette while keeping the emotional focus intimate. Parts of every track were improvised in the studio, creating a sense of openness and space, with early ideas often cultivated in the smaller, slower windows of time that appear at the end of the day—those brief moments that become a refuge for creativity.
In spirit, “Plant” plays like a set of tone poems, informed by the cadences and rhythms of Cymraeg: a language Rose speaks fluently, and one Dan is still finding his way through. That influence is felt not through lyrics, but through phrasing and flow—instrumental music that mirrors the connective nature of Welsh speech in a wordless dialogue between violin and guitar. It’s a conversation that doesn’t require translation, understood wherever you are in the world, whatever language you speak.
For this record, Peiriant broadened their sound by exploring new sources, both electronic and acoustic. Alongside the now-familiar bass swell of the Moog Grandmother, Korg Volca units bring textured melodic detail, while chopped and re-sampled noise arrives via the Fieldtone Weaver. A fresh approach to percussion also pushes the duo onto new rhythmic, metronomic ground, giving “Plant” a subtle sense of forward motion—music that feels lived-in, yet always searching.
“Plant” was produced by Sam Grant (Richard Dawson, Pigs x7, Hen Ogledd) and recorded at Blank Studios in Newcastle upon Tyne
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Image courtesy of Beast PR
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