Culture

Welsh alt-pop singer turns heartbreak into ‘colourful, chaotic’ new EP

06 Oct 2026 4 minute read

Nation.Cymru Staff

A Welsh alt-pop artist is releasing a new EP charting the emotional fallout of a life-changing breakup, from bitterness and anger to eventual acceptance.

Combining the sounds of ‘90s teen movie soundtrack, riot grrrl, and alt-pop, Aderyn has garnered national support from BBC Radio 1 – Future Alternative, BBC 6 Music, BBC Introducing, BBC Radio Wales, Radio X, and KEXP.

Lisa Martin, dubbed ‘Cardiff’s Queen of Indie Pop’ by Radar Magazine, was brought up on a sheep farm in Bannau Brycheiniog, before she became the drummer in a grunge band at 16.

Martin went on to launch her solo career as Aderyn, establishing herself as an alt-pop singer-songwriter. She has since received support from the BBC Horizons Project and PRS Momentum Accelerator Fund, as well as a Welsh Music Prize Triskel Award.

Her first EP, Foreverever, featured tracks including “Hangxiety” and “Foreverever”, and received airplay on BBC 6 Music from presenters including Amy Lamé and Nathan Shepherd.

Now her newest EP, HOT PINK!, provides a “colourful, chaotic confessional diary of a life-altering breakup”, which Aderyn says she created for girls going through a breakup to “feel all the feelings along with me”.

Though she has tended to write “diaristic” songs, the artist explained that HOT PINK! has pushed her into experimental territory, combining swagger, anger, and humour.

The four-track EP, released on 30 September 2026, was recorded in west Wales with Gethin Pearson, who helped Aderyn experiment with a more electronic sound, pushing past the live-band roots of her earlier music.

HOT PINK! opens with Please, which was written in a 12 minute voice note. Here Aderyn asks for a sign that the love is requited, with the song building tension until the final outro, when Owain Fleetwood Jenkins’ organ (recorded in a welsh chapel) brings a feeling of rapture.

Aderyn said: “I have a voice memo of me writing this song, and top to bottom I wrote it in twelve minutes. That’s how you know there’s a monster of emotion inside you that needs to work its way out.”

On the second track, Cross Your Mind, Aderyn said she explored “the sassy, confident feeling of knowing you live rent free in your ex’s head.”

The chorus references her signature ‘thigh high glitter boots’, which she wears for big live shows, a wink for fans and those who attend her gigs to recognise.

FEEL NOTHING!, which was released as a single in August, is the third track. A “scathing indictment of the state of play in the current dating scene”, here Aderyn proclaims that heartbreak is better than feeling nothing.

Finally, the newest single, Victorians, closes the EP. The “rawest, most painful track on the record”, dealing with feelings of failure and loss.

The track was recorded with a band who sat with Aderyn on the floor “talking about our (admittedly quite woeful) love lives”, which the artist said makes the track special personally.

Despite the pain, Aderyn intended to end the EP on a hopeful note, leaving listeners with a sense of catharsis and the feeling that “it’s better to have big chaotic feelings than none at all”.

“Even though it’s a heartbreak EP,” she said, “it holds its head up high and owns it!”

Loud Women praised Aderyn for turning “the agony of loving someone who may not love you back into something grungy, intimate and faintly devotional,” while God Is In The TV praised the “Nagging riffs, glistening keyboards and Aderyn’s playful earworm choruses.”

The HOT PINK! EP is available to stream now, and is also available to purchase on limited edition 7″ pink vinyl and cassette.

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