Gruff Rhys

A Welshman best known for his fronting of Super Furry Animals, has released two solo albums to date. Having release numerous albums with Super Furry Animals and previously in Ffa Coffi Pawb he part of a wave of Welsh musicians to achieve notoriety outside of their native country. In 2005 Rhys, while still penning the songs for SFA, released Yr Atal Genhedlaeth. The album is done completely in his country's language, which is obliviously Welsh. He also played most of the instruments heard on the album, including of course his left-handed upside down guitar playing. Reportedly, much of the use of puns and other language devices are completely lost to the non-Welsh speaking world like myself, but it is pleasurable nevertheless. The Welsh language, at least as Rhys sings it, is gorgeous. The tracks have a psychedelic quality at times, but are not very abstract. The whole thing feels like an extension of the fantastic album Mwng that he did with SFA, yet I won't complain about that. 2007's Candylion was his second solo attempt and is considerably different. Save for a humorous intro track, the album is acoustic, although not without accompaniment. An especially pleasant surprise for me was his singing in English, Welsh and Spanish. He makes some beautiful, and sometimes fanciful, songs for this album and it grows in enjoyability with a few listens. Personally, I find that hearing music in other languages is greatly pleasing, because I feel it allows for exposure vocalizations that English can't provide properly. Just because I don't know exactly what somebody says doesn't mean it isn't pretty and interesting.

To be had here:





Yr Atal Genhedlaeth (2005) @ 192 kbps












Candylion (2007) @ 192 VBR kbps