And what of the Welsh? - the most elusive music in Britain

Since the spine-tingling performance by 9Bach I described in May, and the deserved recognition they’ve been building in the mainstream press ever since, I’ve found myself repeatedly musing on the curious state of creative Welsh-rooted music more generally. Wales resolutely remains a place apart within the UK despite its intimately close proximity to its dominant English neighbour, a situation long sustained by geography and history. That the only motorway links between the two run along the north and south coasts like the rods in a wall hanging, neatly isolating and preserving the vast rural heartland in between, surely assists this even into modern times.

Llanthony Priory, in the peaceful Vale of Ewyas

As to the people, I should first declare a piece of personal baggage:

Some twenty or so years ago a couple of friends and I found ourselves in Caenarfon, the epicentre of Welsh-speaking North Wales, early on a Saturday evening after a long day on the hills of Snowdonia, dishevelled and in search of food and drink. We went into a busy, promising looking pub in the main square, whereupon the place fell silent within seconds. Undeterred we strolled to the bar and waited for the oddly absent staff to reappear, to no avail. As the minutes passed customers quietly and smugly peered round at us, and after a while we realised this was going nowhere and headed for the door. As we opened the door to leave, the banter in the main bar smartly rose, the apparent culmination of an impressive and well-practiced piece of communal passive aggression. Given that we knew that if we’d strolled into a similar establishment in Scotland or Ireland we would have been new best mates with the locals at the bar within minutes, it all seemed rather sad. Fortunately the staff at the Chinese takeaway in a nearby side street had no such hang-ups and did us proud.

While possibly an overreaction, I’ve never entirely shaken off the sense this gave me of a certain wilful insularity in parts of Wales, and particularly in the Welsh speaking areas that also currently provide the source of much of its finest and most exciting music. This combination does however seem to have created a strange situation where that music is held very close, and rarely strays outside the homeland, which is why 9Bachs uninhibited recent breakout into England and the stir they’re currently causing at a number of major festivals has been so striking. Many with even a casual interest in the locally rooted but creative music of Britain and Ireland will be able to name major singers or bands that represent most geographic regions whether singing in English or Gaelic; but for Wales?

I’m still in the early stages of my exploring, but two key things I’ve discovered are (a) there is absolutely no shortage of terrific Welsh-rooted music whether instrumental or sung in Welsh and/or English, and ( b) if you currently want to hear the best Welsh music live you are (with very rare exceptions) going to have to go to it because it’s not coming to you. This second issue even extends to the difficulty of buying recordings of the music, a number of the best artists I’ve found being unavailable via mainstream websites or shops, and only obtainable via an individual specialised website that needs seeking out. Deliberate insularity? Lack of confidence? If the music was so-so it might be understandable, but it’s absolutely wonderful! So to stop whinging and start promoting, here are some current favourites:

 

The harp permeates much Welsh music, giving it a unique and often gentle or delicate texture, and to enjoy it in its purest form with spell-binding compositions and playing of the highest order you can do no better than to savour the work of Anglesey-based Llio Rhydderch. Don’t be fooled that she looks like everyones favourite bright-eyed gran, this woman is exceptional and mentors a number of young up and coming players. Blending harp with exhilarating Welsh vocals, soaring and gentle by turns, Sian James is an established and justly major artist within Wales but has been inexplicably absent much further afield down the years. Her 1993 album Distaw remains her clear masterpiece and is well worth seeking out. More outward looking is harpist Catrin Finch from Aberystwyth who has teamed up with renowned Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita to recently create the mesmerising intricate instrumental album Clychau Dibon, so good that in a coup for Welsh music it won this years highly prestigious fRoots magazine album of the year award.

So far, so refined, but Wales does edgy and pulse-racing too. I won’t rave any more about 9Bach here but the absurdly unknown Taran really do need some trumpeting. This is varied, innovative and energetic pulsing dance/house-influenced music with a sharp Welsh cultural edge, with both Welsh and English lyrics and occasional powerful use of the spoken word. At the heart of the spine-tingling final track of their recent captivating album Hotel Rex is a riveting reading of the Dylan Thomas poem And Death Shall Have No Dominion, the gravitas of which is quite something. Good luck finding this album which comes on a particularly home-recorded looking CD!

 

And so to Fernhill, named after another fine Dylan Thomas poem. Not so much a case of Wales reaching out, as of someone reaching in. Core singer Julie Murphy hails from Essex but married a Welshman, moved to deepest rural Wales, and speaks fluent Welsh (better than her husband!). I’ve found it impossible to liken Fernhill's style to anyone else’s; it is quiet, complex, often jazz-influenced and sung in an intriguing mix of Welsh and English. As such it has over the years become a unique and sophisticated Welsh sound. It is certainly not “easy listening”, but if the listener has the appetite it is hugely rewarding, more like the musical equivalent of a good piece of literary fiction than a lightweight chick-lit novel. With time I’ve got the hang of this music, and perhaps it has also been made a little more accessible, certainly the most recent album Amser is proving particularly stimulating as the layers and subtleties emerge with each new listening, marvellous intelligent stuff! Once again, you won’t yet find this on Amazon.

The diversity and pleasure to be had from all the above music is considerable, and interestingly they all have a distinctly Welsh feel in their own individual ways which are hard to nail with any single glib explanation and it’s probably foolhardy to try. Nonetheless, appreciating it all, I’m drawn strongly to the dark suspicion that they all thrive on a degree of apartness and otherness that a measure of insularity may be necessary to preserve. Maybe the Welsh know exactly what they’re doing!

Useful Welsh music source: www.sadwrn.com

Afon Cwm Llan, Snowdonia