Cult Welsh band makes rare return 20 years after only album

Nation.Cymru Staff

A Welsh experimental music collective is returning for a rare live performance as it marks the 20th anniversary of its only album with its first-ever vinyl release.

Electronic music collective Acid Casuals are marking the anniversary of the release of their sole album, Omni, with a vinyl reissue and remaster on Friday 30 October 2026.

To celebrate the reissue, the group, which featured members of Big Leaves and Super Furry Animals, together with Llyr Evans, have also released new visuals for the album’s closer, Bowl Me Over.

History in the making

A loose Cardiff community of musicians, artists and friends, Acid Casuals was born in 1994 with SFA keyboardist Cian Ciarán, former Big Leaves bassist Kev Tame, and Evans at its original centre.

“Deliberately fluid”, the lineup changed with the availability of members, though Evans stood up to be the project’s public face at a time when other members were busy or deliberately private.

The group began a fashion label, AC Fashion Division, in 1997, alongside The AC Capsule Gallery in 2002 which showcased various works of art.

Though they released singles throughout the 90s, their full-length album Omni would not be released until 30 January 2006, the same year they launched their sOMbOM club night in Cardiff.

Omni

Arriving between the SFA albums Love Kraft and Hey Venus!, Omni’s ten tracks featured an “adventurous musical outlook” combining electronic, ambient, experimental pop and psychedelic music.

Following its release and premiere at Cardiff Planetarium, The Times praised the record as “diverse and intriguing”. Pitchfork went further, describing Ciarán and Tame’s work as something that could stand as “a career highlight for many of their peers.”

The range of the record’s ideas is apparent through track titles alone, from the Richard Burton-indebted If I’m A Selt, You’re A Sunt and 132a Column Road, to Wa Da Da, Kraken and Luciano.

Kev Tame says: “Recording ‘Omni’ was the first time we’d spent more than a few days in the studio on an Acid Casuals record.

“Cian always seemed to be writing and coming up with incredible ideas and sounds, so we had all this stuff to work with and managed to pull it together in between various band tours.

“It was a real pleasure and fun record to work on, which was a perfect tonic for me at the time, as I’d just lost my dad – a real labour of love record – none of us really had any ambition for it beyond getting it out there.”

Now Omni is returning in remastered form on CD and digital formats, as well as receiving its first-ever vinyl release on blue audiophile vinyl.

The rerelease will bring back into circulation “a singular record that has long been established as a vital, if undercelebrated chapter of Welsh music folklore.”

With a new video for Bowl Me Over having been released on 2 September 2026, Ciarán shared some lore behind the “sweetly melancholic closer”.

He said: “This was written on the ferry back from Ireland on a 4am crossing. I’d met a girl called Niamh backstage at some festival and… she bowled me over.

“I wrote it on the journey back after too much whiskey and full of regret for not asking her out. Quite apt, as the song itself turned out to be quite radiant and bright just like the name.

“I was in the middle of exploring the history of doo wop as well at the time. Who’d have thought it?”

Two decades on

Acid Casuals have also announced a special, one-off performance of Omni in Cardiff as part of Cardiff Music City Festival.

Joined by an expanded Acid Casuals family, including Kris Jenkins on percussion, Rhys Edwards on synths, and a self-playing piano, the show on Friday 2 October at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama will be the first time Omni has been performed in its entirety.

The 20th-anniversary reissue of Omni will be released on 30 October 2026. For more updates, follow the collective on Instagram here.

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