Folk

Four rising Welsh music acts to set your playlist ablaze

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Wales has a rich musical heritage, and the next generation is ready to take centre stage.

By Vivian Lam

Wales has always had more than its fair share of great musicians. From Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey in the 1960s, to Budgie and Badfinger in the 1970s, The Alarm in the 1980s and Super Furry Animals, Catatonia and Manic Street Preachers during 1990s Britpop.

Since then, Marina, Funeral For a Friend and Bullet For My Valentine have been among the more popular recent music acts to emerge from Wales. And today’s Welsh music scene continues to feature a huge variety of artists who create a plethora of styles.

Here are four rising acts who continue the tradition set by their predecessors.

1. Cerys Hafana

Since the release of her first album Cwmwl in 2020, harpist and multi-instrumentalist Cerys Hafana has emerged as one of the most original voices in contemporary Welsh folk music. Mixing folk with more modern styles, Hafana plays the harp, Wales’ national instrument.

By subverting traditional Welsh folk songs and composing her own, sometimes minimalistic influenced music, Hafana simultaneously continues and breaks with tradition.

On her second album Edyf (2022), Havana used the National Library of Wales archive to resurrect old folk manuscripts. Recordings such as Cilgerran and Comed 1858 display a mystical emotion which somehow combines old melodies with more contemporary arrangements.

2. Minas

Fans of James Minas, or just Minas, call him a hip-hop artist. But the Cardiff-based producer and bandleader sees his work as part of a post-punk lineage that celebrates DIY creative independence and diversity. He’s happy with any number of genre labels, as long as they are meant kindly.

Minas’ music certainly uses a punk energy as a way of relating to and understanding the way the world works. For example, the song All My Love Has Failed Me is a prolonged surge of angry adrenaline, layering monotone rhythms that build into short looped riffs. It takes two minutes to change chord, but the music is constantly building and evolving up to that point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbwXKm5wsfs

Minas’ parents were punks so he heard this kind of music as a child. But as is clear on songs like Payday, he is also influenced by grime, and that helped him hone his production skills before taking his band and music to the stage.

Proud of his Welsh-Greek identity and having grown up around the different accents of the capital city and valleys, Minas never thinks about how to speak or sing when performing. In his discernible Cardiff accent, he won’t do more than three takes of a track when recording. He aims for the opposite of “manufactured” by keeping the live feel, even in the studio.

3. VRï

The trio VRï started in Cardiff when classical music students, Jordan Price Williams and Patrick Rimes, discovered a shared interest in their native Welsh folk music, language and traditions. Together with Aneurin Jones, they fuse the classical music approach and instrumentation of two violins and cello with Welsh folk music and energy. All three sing on tracks too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft0MNreiJ_w

Live, the band helps its fans feel a sense of ownership over the music. They’ve released two albums to date, Tŷ Ein Tadau in 2019 and 2022’s Islais A Genir. The song Cainc Sain Tathan is typical of their style, with its clever arrangements and blend of voices and instruments, song and extemporisation.

The music they play has been through the hands of Welsh people for hundreds of years and is the product of those who have cared for, curated and celebrated it for centuries. The energy and precision of their arrangements and performances put it in safe hands and carry it forward for the next generation.

4. Nogood Boyo

The track One Day says a lot about the band Nogood Boyo, named after a character in Dylan Thomas’ play Under Milk Wood. It’s bilingual with alternating lines in Welsh and English, but the lines are not straight translations and bilingual listeners will experience something different from it. The track fuses electronic dance and rock music with folk-style fiddle and accordion playing. It’s also in an oddly lilting 6/4 beat that catches out the incautious or inebriated dancer.

The video tips a Welsh hat to folk-horror and the supposedly strange stuff that rural people get up to – such as speaking a language that has survived almost 750 years of oppression, reputedly by only being spoken when an English person enters the room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQDMroqAC_U

Live, the band fizzes with energy and galvanises a loyal audience into an energetic dancing mass who hang on, and sing along to, every word of each song. Nogood Boyo has coined itself the label “trash-trad” but this disguises the subtlety of the material. And the band’s commitment to fusing traditional music with contemporary forms neatly sums up the more rap influenced songs such as Not My King. Let’s just say Nogood Boyo is not looking to be on any forthcoming honours lists.

Source: Four rising Welsh music acts to set your playlist ablaze

Album Review: Jake Xerxes Fussell’s “Good and Green Again”

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By Stephen M. Deusner

The son of a renowned historian and writer who learned to play guitar from blues legend Precious Bryant, Jake Xerxes Fussell has been dirtying his hands in history his entire life. With his string of vivid folk albums over the past seven years, he has interpreted old songs with a sense of wonder. He’s gawked at peaches growing on a sweet potato vine and sold fish that just might have diamonds in their mouths, and his wide-eyed awe at such spectacles could make you believe they were real. Even his blues songs have a sense of play to them, a lightness of mood and rhythm that turns a song like “Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues,” about harsh working conditions for spoolers and seamstresses, into something exuberant: Speaking out against exploitation became its own joyful reward, its own act of self-liberation. Because Fussell conveys such a sincere and convivial empathy toward his subjects, his music never comes across like homework.

His fourth album, Good and Green Again, gently upends that equation. Still inventive and imaginative, still grounded in his dexterous picking and robust vocals, it’s his most bittersweet album, with a melancholy lingering in each song, no matter its subject matter. Even “Frolic,” with its crisp Telecaster notes, thick brushstrokes of pedal steel, and choo-choo “vocables,” sounds forlorn, or at least caught up in some daydream; it’s less about running and skipping and more about our memories of childlike abandon, when we had no burdens upon our shoulders. Fussell thrives in this setting, not just because his voice carries such sadness gracefully but because he sounds like he’s responding to the present moment. As with previous albums, he roots these historical songs about marching soldiers, crumbling buildings, sinking ships, and parting lovers squarely in the present, which is no small feat.

Working with producer James Elkington, Fussell splits the folk band that backed him on 2019’s Out of Sight. Most of the musicians return, but rarely together. Drums are almost entirely absent, and most other instruments are flourishes rather than leads. The music, as a result, is somehow both sparser and richer: full of silence and space, but also alive to the ideas and memories that might fill them. Elkington, who also plays guitar and piano, highlights the subtle details in the arrangements, like the brushed snare that sounds like a strummed guitar on “In Florida” or the soft uillean pipes on the closer “Washington” (inspired, in a roundabout way, by the first president, not the 42nd state). “Rolling Mills Are Burning Down” pits Fussell’s gentle guitar picking against Elkington’s sympathetic piano, conveying no sense of emergency. Instead, the song is a eulogy for a world that is crumbling before his eyes, as though he’s watching forces at work that he cannot control or change. That sense of powerlessness only makes the song more painfully relatable.

Loss informs all of these songs, especially the centerpiece, “The Golden Willow Tree.” At nine minutes, it’s the longest song Fussell has ever recorded, an epic saga of seafaring espionage and brutal betrayal. Assembling his version from pieces of different songs associated with the Carter Family, the Child Ballads, and Georgia folklorist Paralee McCloud, Fussell recounts the story of a sailor striving to win his captain’s favor by scuttling an enemy ship, and he sings with a sense of resignation about the misdeeds men commit during wartime. The music drones and crests, as though sloshing against the bow, with Fussell repeating the chorus—“sink her in the low and lonesome water”—and changing it subtly each time. Even at nine minutes, it never tries your patience.

As the album title suggests, with every loss comes some hope of renewal. Mills may burn and boats may sink, but there’s always the chance that we might build something even better in their place. Such disasters become opportunities—a hard lesson in the midst of tragedy, but a comforting thought once the dust settles. Good and Green Again chronicles that cycle of death and rebirth, and Fussell savors the fresh perspective the past gives us on our present.

Source: Jake Xerxes Fussell: Good and Green Again Album Review | Pitchfork

Debating about whether we should be debating folk music

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Ewan MacColl

By Jim Carroll | The Ballad Tree: Traditional Folk Ballads and Songs

I put this up earlier on a thread on this debating and listening to folk music forum, debating about whether we should be debating folk music (you work it out – I can’t)

Rather than it get lost in the ever descending debates, I thought it might be debated here as it affects my decision whether to go on debating Ewan MacColl and the Critics group ( a debatable question for some) Somebody suggested that he will stop attacking MacColl if I will stop debating his work (a debatable proposal, if ever there was one) 😈

Ewan McColl Bert Lloyd and Cecil Sharp were the most industrious and important benefactors, folk song has ever had It has always been nigh on impossible to discus MaColl’s work on singing because of attacks on his character.

As you say, “the real point, people need to talk about the songs as songs, traditions as traditions, and techniques as techniques.” MacColl and the Critics Group took that further than anybody on the folk scene has ever done – how can we possibly discuss if is that work is a no-go area ?

I’ve just experienced a somewhat unpleasant interval here because I criticised what I believe to be bad singing – my criticism was deleted – It was rationally laid out in detail and put in polite terms yet it was removed Today’s folk scene wants only praise for its stars – I learned that the hard way, that does not help either the songs we are here to promote nor those who have put in he work to preserve them

Since Dave Harker’s ‘Fakelore’, all Sharp’s work has been changed from England’s introduction to it’s folk culture to “the invention of Victorian Middle Class ladies and gentlemen on bicycles” – this by the academics who are now claiming that “the “Voice of the People” was really the work of bad poets scribbling songs in hurry, not only does this undermine working people as culture makers – it raises the question “Why the hell should we waste our time defending yesterday’s pop songs written by the fore-runners of today’s gutter press?

Recently A L Lloyd has been exhumed in order to prove he was a fake who sold us forged folk songs.

Pretty soon we will have no academic folk history just as Britain no longer has a folk scene worth talking about

The recent raise in membership shows that our problems lie within our own ranks – the potential is obvious and to me, the answer is just as obvious.

We need to discuss it critically and openly. If we don’t this site may as become an “all good fellows and fellowesses backslapping brigade.

Make up your mind time, I think. Discussion, even argument is the way we share ideas – it has been part of my education for as long as I have been on the folk scene; without it, I’d probably have become bored with listening to the same old same old songs and gone and joined my mates in Mathew Street paying homage to The Beatles. I’ve been around folk song for over sixty years now and I’m still learning – a permanent student, you might say.

Can I just add one more thing to this over-long ramble, In the 1970s Pat and I got involved in a rather disturbing discussion regarding the singing of two Traveler brothers – both had their family’s traditional songs, one sang them using a superb traditional style, the other preferred County and Western Americanese – the songs included The Outlandish Knight and The Grey Cock

As so-called ‘experts’ we were asked to judge – we declined,

The argument continued – while we watched – it got more and more heated till we began to think it was time to leave.

It suddenly stopped – arms were thrown around shoulders and pints were consumed amicably – I went home pissed – Pat was driving.

These were the non-literate “Nackers” who are regarded as violent and dishonest sub-humans not fit to live among ‘decent human beings like us”.

Makes you think, doesn’t it, it does me.

I shall go on discussing and arguing as long as I have puff – if not here, somewhere else.

https://ewanmaccoll.bandcamp.com/…/lang-johnny-more…

Lankum wins RTÉ Choice Music Prize Album of the Year

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Lankum
RTÉ Award-winners Lankum

Folk music group Lankum has won the RTÉ Choice Music Prize Irish Album of the Year for their album False Lankum.

Folk music group Lankum has won the RTÉ Choice Music Prize Irish Album of the Year for their album False Lankum.

The announcement was made by a former winner, Denise Chalia, at Vicar Street in Dublin tonight.

Hosted by Tracy Clifford, the event featured performances from eight of the ten nominated artists and was broadcast live on RTÉ 2FM.

The win caps a remarkable twelve months for Lankum, who previously won the Album Of The Year prize in 2019 for The Live Long Day. In February, False Lankum won the Best Folk Album prize at this RTÉ Irish Folk Awards; the record was also shortlisted for the UK’s Mercury Prize.

Chosen by a panel of 11 Irish music media professionals and industry experts, the band received an award, and a cheque for €10,000, provided by the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) and the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA).

Dance-pop singer Jazzy was named Irish Artist of the Year and Irish Breakthrough Artist of the Year at tonight’s event.

CMAT, Cian Ducrot, Hozier and Lankum were the other nominees in the artist of the year category.

The other nominees in the breakthrough category were John Francis Flynn, ØXN, The Scratch and 49th & Main.

The Classic Irish Album prize, for U2’s Achtung Baby, was presented by Dave Fanning, with Adam Clayton and The Edge accepting the award in a recorded message from Las Vegas, where the band have been in residency at state-of-the-art live venue The Sphere, performing Achtung Baby in its entirity.

The cover of U2’s Achtung Baby, named Classic Irish Album

Earlier, Cian Ducrot’s song Heaven was chosen as RTÉ Choice Music Prize Irish Song of The Year, as selected from a shortlist of ten by public vote on the RTÉ 2FM and Choice Music Prize websites.

Highlights of the Choice Music Prize event will be broadcast on RTÉ2 television next Thursday at 10.30pm.

Source: Lankum wins RTÉ Choice Music Prize Album of the Year

The 10 best folk albums of 2023

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Irish label Nyahh captured the sounds of rowdy pub backrooms, the Gentle Good reimagined folk songs from the National Library of Wales and a legend revisited her past

By Jude Rogers

10. Tamsin Elliott/Tarek Elazhary – So Far We Have Come

The maqams (melodic modes) of classical Arabic music meet with English folk flourishes in this exploratory project between Bristolian multi-instrumentalist Elliott and Egyptian oud player Elazhary. They bonded in Cairo before the pandemic and their musical connection feels affectingly deep. Sixteen tracks whirl between seductive elegies on an accordion (tuned to achieve microtonality), Playford dances, twitchy field recordings, and pastoral reveries. Accompanying players also add gorgeous touches, including singer Leila El Balouty on Palestinian song Amy Abu El Fanous (The Lantern Bearer) and Daniel Gouly’s interventions on clarinet. Read the full review

9. Hack-Poets Guild – Blackletter Garland

The tangling of the characterful voices of Marry Waterson (brilliantly continuing the legacy of her mother Lal) and Lisa Knapp (architect of 2017 modern folk classic, Till April Is Dead: A Garland of May) was always going to result in something special. Add Nathaniel Mann’s soft delivery and sound design and Gerry Diver’s quivery, cinematic production and this set of broadside ballads grows fresh, sturdy roots in the present day. Intriguing textures like the bed of plucked, bare strings on Cruel Mother and the spectral layering of voices on Laying the Ghost keep on surprising. Read the full review

8. Various artists – A Collection of Songs in the Traditional & Sean-Nós Style

An electrifying anthology of unfiltered contemporary traditional singing, captured in echoey kitchens and rowdy pub backrooms. Nyahh is one of Ireland’s most exciting small independent labels and this beautifully curated set reminds us of the many talented individuals that bubble up in local scenes who remain under-promoted. The many gorgeous performances include Michael Frank Ó Confhaola’s take on Róisín Dubh, his voice flitting and fluttering like a skittish bird, Thomas McCarthy’s clear storytelling and Nell Ní Chróinín’s joltingly warm Banks of Sullane. Read the full review

7. Brìghde Chaimbeul – Carry Them With Us

A collaboration with avant-garde saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Colin Stetson, Chaimbeul’s second solo album sees her smallpipes blending bitingly but beautifully with his less muscular than usual but nonetheless magical playing. These arresting, hypnotic compositions explore folkloric tropes like the dark recesses of the childlike imagination and communication with birds. With dissonance often stuttering next to moments of deep beauty, this feels like an album both of its time and out of time.

6. John Francis Flynn – Look Over the Wall, See the Sky

An excitingly singular figure on the Irish music scene, Flynn departs from the ancient atmospheres of his 2021 debut, I Would Not Live Always, to embrace the essential weirdness and cross-genre potential of old songs. Harry Smith anthology staple Mole in the Ground becomes a propulsive, post-rock excursion, carrying shadows of the work of Will Oldham. The Seasons slumbers in a mood of spare, haunted jazz. Within a Mile of Dublin’s playful reel collapses surprisingly, and brilliantly, into anarchic fuzz. So many ideas bristle here.

John Francis Flynn
Anarchic … John Francis Flynn. Photograph: Steve Gullick

5. The Gentle Good – Galargan

Taking folk songs from the National Library of Wales, Gareth Bonello’s genius is to create a deceptively simple soundworld spanning various shades of the blues. He gives these Welsh-language songs Sandy Denny-like moods of dimly lit, humane clarity: dressing them gently with beautiful arrangements on the guitar, piano and cello, his singing voice is precise yet gentle. This album lands like an evergreen classic. Read the full review

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