Since the demise of The Beta Band last year, it appears Super Furry Animals are the only band left in the UK with an idea of two which aren't derivitive of something very cool from a very cool period in New York's very cool history.
Their new album is rumoured to be with us later this year, but
until then we have this Milky Way (think about it) of a debut offering from main man GRUFF RHYS. Arguably the UK's most interesting and prolific songwriter of the last seven or eight years, its a pleasure to hear him revert to his native Welsh tongue for a quick lo-fi glimpse at eleven songs that won't be coming to a SFA album near you in the coming months.
Sent to earth by Placid Casual (SFA's own label), and packaged in a moderately psychedelic, multi folding card and band-that-holds-it-all-together sleeve concoction, this album's appearance
alone contains more ideas than the next Keane album will. It's lo to the fi and, in the most part, played entirely by Gruff, but from the opening drums and looped backing vocals of "Gwn Mi Wn" there's a charm here that demands it's taken far more seriously than it's most recent noteworthy peer, Damon Albarn's "Demo Crazy".
"Epynt" follows and enters familiar SFA rockerterritory, albeit in a more stripped down fashion, whilst "Rhagluniaeth Ysgafn", an electro shuffle, retains the minimal approach and still manages
to push the album well away from any potential "demos and throwaways" jibes that detractors might be hiding round the corner waiting to throw at it.
Three songs in and we've already covered more ground than the Manics ever will, no matter how long they manage to drag their career out for. With a record like this, though, you feel you can afford to take a brief glimpse down your nose at a good 90% or more of HMV's current stock, safe in the knowledge that this is the sound of a genuine talent at work, and without an enormous publicity machine (with "cool hair" attachment) operating on its behalf.
The two part "Pwdin Wy" (I must apologise for the Welsh "Y" with a hat on it character my keyboard and probably your browser
can't accommodate here) starts life as a solid slab of phased out pop, eventually melting into a gorgeous ballad reminiscent of something from the fantastic SFA Welsh language album "Mwng", and "Caerffosiaeth" takes a second swipe at electro, this time accompanied by a host of vocal tricks, delays, and a repetitive chant of some kind.
(INTERLUDE - I must point out, for our viewers in England and Scotland, that I'm not a Welsh language speaker (except for "Cymru" and the equivalent of "Cheers" which sounds something like "Yakki Dar"), so I can't really delve too far into the lyrical content of this record (hence the aforementioned
use of the phrase "a repetitive chant of some kind"). I have to say, though, I've always enjoyed the sound of the language and spent many childhood holidays on a farm in Carmarthen listening to Welsh radio and wondering why my voice sounded so bland compared to our hosts'. Don't be scared - the likes of Gorkys, SFA and MC Mabon can try as they might to fend me off with occasional recordings in a language I can't understand, but I'm going nowhere. Nowhere, I tells ya!
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Anyway, there's something very positive to be found in listening to music purely as sound and with no bias towards the lyrical content and how your enjoyment of that content may or may not reflect on you as a person and whether that girl in the pub will still like you if you don't agree with what the band says and maybe you should read that book they mention in case she brings it up.
(Disclaimer - this theory doesn't work so well when you try to produce records in Finnish, as I learnt to my own discomfort a couple of years ago, and I'll take no responsibility for any damage to persons or property that may result from trying).
Anyhow, back to Gruff. Terrible habit I must get out of, that. The latter half of the album continues on in the "come what may" tradition of the first half (can the first half of a record have become a tradition by the time you listen to the second half ?) - the ghost of the Super Furries is never far away, whether its in the 1m 52s telecaster crunch of "Y Gwybodusion" (complete with a very to the point synth solo) or the, dare i say it, "baggy" groove that "Ni Yw Y Byd" radiates, all fuzz bass, congas and fret noise. The harmonies and adventurous backing vocals are also a constant companion, and we even get a flute solo thrown in, something which can be
said of far too few records today for my money. A couple of ballads also find their way into the stew (I resist the temptation to refer to an album as a "pottage") - the bird chatter laden "Ambel Waith" again harks back to the mood and ambience nailed so well on "Mwng", whilst "Chwarae'n Troi'n Chwerw" (the only non-Gruff original here) provides the meandering, crumbling, are we there yet kind of ending an album like this deserves.
Due to the language barrier issue, I feel I can only really half grasp this record and not really review it in full, although maybe only Gruff himself can tell us whether or not the lyrics need to be heard, but the half that I can hear is absolutely fantastic. Admittedly, I am a self confessed lover of demos, offcuts and lo-fi solo albums by talented frontmen, and perhaps this isn't the logical next step for those who only just met SFA via the "Songbook" compilation, but for anyone with more than a passing interest in
either his band, genuine hype free talent or just interesting music that hasn't got half an eye on "Top of the Pops", 1982, or America, Gruff Rhys has given us a real treasure here.
Oh yeah, and somebody who speaks Welsh should definitely review this album too.
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