Croeso Y Cymru: Kaleidoscopic Havens

Neil Jones on the latest Welsh pop intrigues

Like a humble red kite leading her fleet on ever ebbing tangents, Welsh Pop continues to branch off in interesting directions. In my lap for January are a bunch of releases from the Cardiff-based Complete Control label and two compilation LPs from Community Music Wales, and while the nucleus of bands continue to rock it to a world mercifully beyond the ostentatious and prosaic, a cunning, starry-eyed faction set out to subvert us in the finest tradition of eccentric Celtic troubadours.

Post-Christmas/New Year is often a time of existential blues and wasted braincells, so there’s possibly no greater time to dance with a devil or two, though the minimally-named Bob are angry in a way that doesn’t exclude and patronise the listener with simplicity, striving as they do for something more, and achieving it with a certain bright-eyed shimmer. Tentatively approaching the pioneering guitar poetry of Yo La Tengo, Bob’s punchy and labyrinthine ‘Defaid’ goes a long way to providing a new guitar-Pop structure to contrast the current hegemony of prosaic and poetically amateur doom-rockers.

The Poppies also point towards new planets of hope and constellations of melodies. The leading song on their three-track ‘Dau Bys’ CD spills over with Ash-like lustre, guitar solos and driving drums pushing it on its way with a fine and ebullient sense of occasion. Poppies lead singer Sam James revels in his band’s concise tunes in a way that Tim Wheeler would have done in his pomp. Indeed, listening to this reminds me of the time when a post-Nu-Clear Sounds Ash tore Jools Holland’s BBC set to shreds with a set of shimmering, existential rock ‘n’ roll that was informed coolness to its core, and it’s great to see bands like The Poppies pushing the boat out into similarly contrary waters.

Pontypridd’s SaidMike are the types to tear up sets literally, with a licence for unreason, and while their early efforts have a little too much of the Happy Shopper crescendo of the Lost Prophets about them, the fervent excitement they seem to generate makes them a strangely fascinating proposition. But is this the excitement of the genuinely enthralled, or the cheap thrills of the eternally numbed? Probing further, B-side ‘The Alleyways’ evokes faint impressions of an early ACDC about to shred their late-teen pretensions for something more glorious, but SaidMike you feel will have to ride the rollercoaster of conventional expectation before they find their truest sound.

Plant Duw take us into a world already shorn of commercial hazards and ambitions, and pretty grand for it. Fresh from their teeming, kaleidoscopic haven, lead track ‘Talach Na Iesu’ is like The Super Furries playing a primary school disco, all fuzzy rock and eccentric quirks (as opposed to mere quirks), and, as ‘Nerth Dy Draed’ rolls by with a similarly hazy beauty, it’s obvious that here is a band standing statuesque in a scene etched out by the twin genius of SFA and Gorky’s. Brilliant.

Credit to Huw Stephens for leading the Nu-Welsh avant-garde and alt-Poppers onto the national airwaves like the Pied Piper with his new late-night Radio 1 slot, and his compilations for Community Music Wales have given a number of playlist favourites a recorded voice. The second of these has just been released for our general pleasure, but Dan Y Cownter 1 is worth a belated mention for the melancholy gems thrown up by the likes of Texas Radio Band, Ashokan, Alun Tan Lan, Frizbee, Winabego and Jakokoyak.

Texas Radio Band is a name that harks back to times when Stephens habituated the Thursday night “In the Nations” Radio 1 slot, and their ‘Chwaraeon’ is a blissfully unaffected cut that shimmers with underplayed beauty, floating serenely above the turbulent whirlpool of popular culture like a lost line from Basil the Great (yes, him). Texas Radio Band can be slotted snugly into that terrific sub-plot of the Welsh music scene that comprises the likes of The Loves and Melys, never threatening any kind of hierarchy, but continuing to release low-key records of utter allure.

Ashokan seem at first to eat from the same magic fruit bowl, before exploding into a chorus one part Furries’ scuzzed eccentricity, another Manics’ scarred activism. ‘Dim Coes, Dim Brec’ moves on to a place where the likes of SaidMike would do well to head next, a realm of crazily accomplished musical innovation and really - genuinely -don’t-give-a-shit Death Metal choruses. Devil signs have rarely been flashed as convincingly, and I’ll even throw one myself for the cause, before shyly thrusting my hand back into my pocket and hoping no-one noticed.

Alun Tan Lan’s ‘Can Beic Dau’ meanwhile is a rustic beauty in the tradition of numerous recent nuggets from gloriously enigmatic Welsh bands [think Big Leaves, Pink Assassin, It’s Jo and Danny], twinkling away like the sky on clear winter nights, while Frizbee’s ‘Ti (Si Hei Lw)’ is the song that the BMX Bandits never got round to recording in Welsh.

Listening to these two compilations, there seems to be a wealth of exquisite alt Pop influences propelling its bands to greater heights. Winabego could be the bastard sons of Idaho heroes Built To Spill, and Jakokoyak, with their beguilingly poised atmospherica, quietly drift in the artfully shaded trails of Boards of Canada and Broadcast.

Of Dan Y Cownter 2, tracks by Swci Boscawan, Mim Twm Llai, Genod Droog, Stitches, Richard James and others are equally inviting, with a number of gems to keep the mouth watering. The LP is kicked off by Radio Luxembourg, a band attracting some deserved media attention, judging by their track ‘Pwer Y Fflwer’, which spins with immaculate adrenalin-fuelled gusto. Y Diwygaid’s ‘Mewn Can Mlynedd’ meanwhile conjures all the poised and cut-knife atmosphere of classic Massive Attack, the haunting female vocals of guest singer Lleuwen Steffan creating a beguiling fissure in the Diwygaid retinue’s flowery hip hop landscape.

Genod Droog are, somewhat disappointingly, a group of itinerant members brought together from other bands, with vocals drawn from Welsh country/folk singer Gwyneth Glyn. I say disappointingly, because ‘Breuddwyd Der’ is a track of such effortless wonder that I wish the band were together every minute of every day, forever conjuring more tracks with which to soothe the devil’s soul. Thankfully it seems that they’re currently playing together a lot and are garnering a good live reputation, so there’s at least hope of more from where this startlingly elegant cut came from, and an album might be on the way.

Swci Boscawan is a pseudonym for Carmarthen singer Mared Lenny, and her ‘Adar Y Nefoedd’ drifts on similarly ethereal tracks, wrapping itself around you until you’d never want to escape. ‘… Nefoedd’ takes off from its sultry piano base into a chorus of spectral sonic beauty, only coming down in preparation for another shot at the stars. Just as we like it.

It’s hard to underestimate the twin influence of the Super Furries and Gorky’s on the Welsh music scene, and so Richard James’ journey up the Yellow Brick Road that leads away from the latter is both tantalising and intrepid. ‘Tir A Mor’ is a track taken from an acclaimed solo LP entitled The Seven Sleepers Den, and speaks with the same sense of mystery and melody as the feted creations of Euros Childs.

A few more cuts gleam with winter lights and cry out for our attention. Osh and Mei from Sibrydion made up two-parts of the happily esoteric Welsh indie-poppers Big Leaves, and their track ‘Blithdraphlith’ exquisitely achieves the Leaves’ trademark pitch in a land of colourful obscurity, while Miw Twm Llai and Stitches join them in a conjurer’s paradise.

Heading into the Valleys, and a sonic wave I tripped on while surfing the web sounds like it should have been there at the front of any of the Dan Y Cownter releases. Lucky Delucci’s ‘The Room That Never Sleeps’ is a rhythmic slice of pure Pop heroism that swims the frothy waters of early Feelies, and points the way ever forward into labyrinthine lands of mystery and beguilement. It all makes for a heady mix of the best in alternative Pop, proving that the parallel door to the world of pastoral Welsh beauty remains tantalisingly ajar.

© 2007 Neil Jones

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