Llinos Emanuel shares wintery ballad in Welsh and English

Stephen Price

Carmarthen-born singer-songwriter, Llinos Emanuel has released Welsh and English versions of her touching harmony-laden new single, Share a Dance With Me / Cadwa Ddawns i Mi today.

Llinos recently moved back to Wales from London, ahead of the release of her debut English and Welsh single, Golden/Unlle which achieved a two week run on Radio Wales’ coveted ‘A List’.

Following her heartstopping debut and second single, ‘Lover of Mine’ – Llinos was determined to record and release dual versions of the song in her native Welsh and English to celebrate her love for the Welsh language and to bring out different sides to the same song – a feature that no doubt helped propel her debut ‘Golden/Unlle’ to its runaway success.

An enchanting blend of angelic vocals, waterfall harmonies, and impressionistic songwriting, Llinos Emanuel is asserting herself as an emerging talent after years of lending her voice to the likes of Jacob Collier, Tom Odell, and Paris Paloma.

Think Eva Cassidy, Emily King, The Staves. An effortless blend of jazz, folk and heartbreak, woven together with layers of vocal harmonies.

Success

Born and bred in Carmarthen and a native Welsh speaker, Llinos attended Bro Myrddin Secondary School where she regularly competed in the Urdd National Eisteddfod.

Following school, Llinos moved to Cardiff to study Classical singing, before moving to London, and headed to Trinity College of Music to study a master’s in jazz singing.

Llinos remained in London for several years working in the music industry as a singer, songwriter, composer, and arranger.

After a successful career working for other musicians, Llinos decided to move back to west Wales to begin concentrating on her own music.

Feeling inspired by the rolling hills of Carmarthenshire, and the golden sands of Cefn Sidan, Llinos began writing her best songs to date.

Llinos told Nation.Cymru: “The new single, my third and final single of the year is called ‘Share a Dance With Me’. As soon as I wrote it I knew it was special.

“The writing process came so easily, and that’s often not the case with me, but with this song it just flowed right out of me as if it needed to come out. It was written in September, just after I released my second single ‘Lover of Mine’.

“I had no intention of releasing another song this year, I’ve been working on an EP that’s set to come out next year and all my energy has been poured into that, but one evening I was messing around on the piano and the song just came to life. I played the first verse to my partner Twm Dylan, who is also a musician and we finished the song together.”

She continued: “The first two singles I released, ‘Golden’ and ‘Lover of Mine’ took over a year to record and release but with this song I knew it needed to come out as soon as possible. It’s not explicitly a Christmas song, but it feels wintery, and I like to think of it as a New Years Eve song so I knew I had to move fast with the recording process to get it out before December.

“Three months sounds like a long time but when you have to record instruments, record the lead vocals, the layers of layers of backing vocals, produce, mix and master a track time flies. I was lucky enough to work with Harry Tarlton, an incredible producer based in Swansea who helped me turn the song around in time.”

A captured moment

‘Share a Dance With Me’ is the story of the night Llinos met her now fiancé Twm while they were studying at music college in London, almost ten years ago.

Llinos shared: “Although the song is a romantic, jazzy ballad, we met at a party, and the music was anything but that, nonetheless we did ‘share a dance’ and we have been together ever since.

“With the song being about our meet cute it felt right to finish writing it with Twm, he then recorded the piano and bass parts, so it truly was a collaboration and a labour of love.

“Although this song is about our story, I think many people can relate to the feelings of vulnerability, excitement, and possibility that stem from a chance encounter. 

Like Llinos’ first release, this track has a dual release, with equally beautiful Welsh and English versions which each offer a new layer for listeners.

Llinos said: “This song is so special to me that despite the short timeframe I knew I had to release a Welsh version too, called ‘Cadwa Ddawns i Mi’.

“This one really did push us to our limits, we quite literally finished the song last week and immediately had it sent out to Spotify and all the other streaming platforms, usually these things take months.

“I had a pre-booked trip to France during the recording process so some of the vocals were recorded in a hotel room in Provence under layers of duvets for the soundproofing. Not a very relaxing trip I must say but all worth it to have both versions out in the world.

“I’ve been blown away by the support that ‘Cadwa Ddawns i Mi’ has received already from BBC Radio Cymru, and the lovely Mirain Iwerydd picking the song as her hottest track of the week. 

Golden years

Llinos has a busy 2025 ahead of her. She is currently working on EP set to be released next year, and there will be more live dates announced soon.

She told us: “This will be my first larger body of work, all my other releases have been singles and weren’t written as a cohesive project, so I’m really excited about releasing something of substance.

“It’s still very early days in terms of the recording process but I have been gigging the songs and posting snippets on social media to see what seems to do well and I think I’ve got a really lovely mix of sounds on the record.

“I’ll be staggering the EP release throughout the year so I’ve got a busy year ahead of me, but I think a Christmas single to top it all off will be inevitable, I’ll just have to make sure I’m a little more organised next year and not leave it until the very last minute.”

Listen to Cadwa Ddawns i Mi and Share a Dance with Me here.

Website – www.llinosemanuel.com

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/llinosemanuel

TikTok – https://tiktok.com/@llinosemanuel

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/llinosemanuel

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@llinosemanuel

Spotify Artist Page – https://tinyurl.com/llinos-spotify