woensdag 30 december 2015

360 records from 2000: 40. Super furry animals: Mwng


Country: UK
Artist: Band
Career: recording since 1995
Language: Welsh
Genre: psychedelic pop / rock


I never saw eye to eye with fellow SFA fans. The first album’s alright, though I can’t recall the title or any of the songs right now. Radiator was a boring let-down. But then it started: Guerrilla is exactly the dizzying thrill ride I expect from a pop record at century’s end. And with Mwng they made a satisfyingly weird detour. It’s not the fact that all the songs are in Welsh – though any record called Mwng starts off well in the weird department (no idea what it means, but I like to say it). It’s not that the primitive recording situation (after label bankruptcy etc., you may know the story better than me) makes for an enjoyably compact sound, all instruments bleeding into each other’s tracks, though that does give it a nice chaotic and disorienting atmosphere. It’s not that several of the tracks use warped folk-like melodies – though, you know I’ve never heard the Wicker Man soundtrack, but I imagine it’s filled with melodies like this, only sung by evil people and not the inscrutably jolly natured Gruff Rhys. It’s of course all those things together and the impression that all these things somehow come natural to these guys. SFA’s basement tapes.




At its best: Ymaelodi a’r ymylon, Pan Ddaw’r Wawr, Ysbeidiau Heulog, Sarn Helen, Mawrth oer ar y blaned neifion

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