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About Bryde
Hometown
London, England
Born
2015
Genre
Alternative
This emotive indie rock solo vehicle was created in 2015 by the Welsh singer/songwriter Sarah Howells. She had spent the previous seven years dividing her time between the folk-pop duo Paper Aeroplanes and performing guest vocals on trance hits for the likes of Lange and Paul Van Dyk. Building on this experience, she issued Like an Island in 2017, her dynamic debut album as Bryde on her own Seahorse Music imprint. The record was nominated for the Welsh Music Prize. She followed it in 2020 with the more focused and tailored The Volume of Things.
Even before leaving her Pembrokeshire school, Howells was involved with several bands. Initially these were grunge-focused outfits, but as her final school act, JYLT, morphed into Cardiff-based Halflight and ultimately Paper Aeroplanes alongside Richard Llewellyn, their repertoire became a balance of sprightly folk-pop and acoustic melancholia. In due course, this gained them national radio airplay, as did her trance excursions, particularly the 2009 John O'Callaghan collaboration "Find Yourself." However, by 2015, both Howells and Llewellyn were ready for a change. Touring had taken its toll and following German dates in promotion of their fourth album, JOY, Howells decided to take full control of her next musical endeavor. By this point, she was London-based and had recently gone through a major relationship breakup.
Howells' first material recorded as Bryde was October 2015's Chocolate Factory Sessions EP. Her songwriting on this release, betrayed an open and confessional style recalling that of Laura Marling. Perhaps most striking was her use of electric guitar, a Burns Cobra, in a solo context. It was an instrument that she'd placed on hold since her school days. Howells' first Seahorse release was 2016's EP1, and the lead track "Help Yourself" went for the full band sound that would define the bulk of her Bryde material. While promoting it on a visit to the U.S. she recorded "Transparent" in L.A., a track which appeared on that November's EP2, a joint release with Tipping Point. The remainder of the EP was laid down back in the U.K. at Liverpool's Parr Street studios with ex-Coral member, Bill Ryder-Jones. 2016 also brought an appearance at Green Man and a support slot for Rufus Wainwright, as well as two sold-out London dates.
Although 2017 wasn't as publicly eventful, it did bring "Less", a Nirvana-inspired single with a definite loud/quiet dynamic. Much of the year was spent recording Like an Island, issued the subsequent summer after a brace of singles. The final product was mixed by Catherine J. Marks, known for working with The Big Moon, and was promoted with a tour of the U.K. and mainland Europe. Before the year's end, "On the Subject of Breathing", a non-album single appeared, followed in January by a cover of Paul Weller's "You Do Something to Me". The rest of 2019 was spent recording The Volume of Things, which enjoyed a May 2020 release on Jamie Osman's Easy Life Records. ~ James Wilkinson
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