A CURIOUS MIX OF BRITISH FOLK MUSIC AND AMERICAN POLITICS
Harpist Catrin Finch chats to Wynne about her collaboration with Columbian band Cimarron.
The interview starts an hour into the BBC Wales program, roughly at 01:08.
Listen to the interview at: Wynne Evans – 27/01/2020 – BBC Sounds
Carmarthen band win award previously won by Gwenno and Gruff Rhys for album described by Huw Stephens as ‘personal, beautiful music’
Welsh-language post-punk trio Adwaith have won the 2019 Welsh Music prize for their album Melyn.
Announcing their win, BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens said the album was “a very exciting and deserved winner from an exceptional shortlist. Adwaith have made a real impact with their personal, beautiful music that captures what it’s like to be young, female, frustrated and bewildered at the world we live in.”
The band, made up of Hollie Singer, Gwenllian Anthony and Heledd Owen, and whose name translates as Reaction, formed in 2015 in Carmarthen. They beat more established artists such as Cate Le Bon, whose album Reward was also nominated for the Mercury music prize.
The Welsh Music prize, founded in 2011 and voted for by music industry figures, “celebrates the finest music made in Wales or by Welsh people around the world”. Previous winners are Boy Azooga (2018), the Gentle Good (2017), Meilyr Jones (2016), Gwenno (2015), Joanna Gruesome (2014), Georgia Ruth (2013), Future of the Left (2012) and Gruff Rhys (2011).
Receiving the Welsh Music Inspiration award were Phyllis Kinney and the late Meredydd Evans, who together charted the history of Welsh folk music and were Welsh language activists.
Adwaith released two new songs this month, including a relatively rare foray into English called Orange Sofa.
Accü – Echo The Red
audiobooks – Now! (in a minute)
Carwyn Ellis – Joia!
Cate Le Bon – Reward
Deyah – Lover Loner
Estrons – You Say I’m Too Much I Say You’re Not Enough
HMS Morris – Inspirational Talks,
Lleuwen – Gwn Flan Beibl
Lucas J Rowe – Touchy Love
Mr – Oesoedd
Adwaith – Melyn
VRï – Tŷ ein Tadau
Source: Welsh Music prize won by post-punk trio Adwaith | Music | The Guardian
Autumn Shades Of Gold is a remarkable debut by Welsh singer-songwriter Osian Rhys, a thing of grace, elegance and beauty.
Backwater Records – 13 December 2019
The release of the Autumn Shades Of Gold marks the recording debut of Welsh singer-songwriter Osian Rhys. Produced by Richard Woodcraft, (Neil Young, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead) it will be released across a variety of formats.
Blessed with a disarmingly irresistible voice, the music presented across the four tracks in many ways defies categorisation, suffice to say that Autumn Shades Of Gold is a thing of grace, elegance and beauty, bringing a welcome warm breath of folk-psych air to the rapidly falling winter temperatures.
The opening track, The Ballad of Mr Withers, is, in essence, a waltz, albeit a foreboding waltz like no other. The opening gentle guitar notes entice the listener in and before long one is enveloped and snared by the soaring strings which herald the chorus to maximum ethereal effect. Each stanza presents an almost photographic scene, a device echoed in the official video release, created on Super 8 by artist Clare Marie Bailey, which accompanies the song. Whilst the chorus melody and arrangement are tenderness and sweetness personified, this belies the somewhat dark lyrics
‘Lovers embracing on bridges
Her jumper lies about the bruises on her arms’
The next track up, Tour Of Bedlam, presents almost as a modern-take on plainsong, celestial layers of vocals effortlessly weaving their way, for an all too brief two minutes and ten seconds, creating an alluring, hypnotic effect. If there is such a thing as ‘diaphanous sounding music’, then this is surely it, although, once again there is an intriguing incongruence between the music and the lyrics, the somewhat bleak words painting grim dystopic pictures, in a rather stark contrast to the sound
‘Come stroll through the slum
A tour of Bedlam
See how we live
Behind the pain and misery
There’s a crumbling country’
Track three, or first track on side B of the vinyl, is a re-recording of Osian’s debut single, ‘Long Time Gone’. The opening harmonica notes, sharply