Blogs
Junior Bill are back with ‘BOYS FROM JUNGLE’, lashing out with wit and riffs against injustice for refugees.
By Ceri Shaw, 2023-01-09
The angular, textured hybrid punk of Junior Bill is set to re-emerge into the spotlight this year. ‘ Boys From Jungle ’ is the first song released from their upcoming debut album ‘Youth Club!’. The track details the bleak fates of asylum seekers after their arrival in the UK. The song’s catchy new wave tunefulness makes for a juxtaposition to the incisive, cynical social comments that spill out as a collage of slogans and thrown away official observations. After airplay on BBC Radio Wales, Adam Walton said that Junior Bill have an “ability to cross pollinate cultures and musical styles but make them entirely their own … they’ve got their own spirit and defiance to them … they’re clearly brilliant”
Cardiff’s Junior Bill is the project of frontman and songwriter Rob Nichols. The band has been thrilling audiences through the small venues, pubs and festivals of the UK & Ireland since 2013. From teenage beginnings rehearsing in Cathays Youth & Community Centre, they have since self-released a string of EPs, singles and an ambitious, award-winning live concert film called 'Above Your Station' in 2017. In the live music scene they’ve made a lasting impression, opening for Supergrass during their reunion shows after a supporting tour with drummer Danny Goffey, then last year making their debut at Glastonbury Festival.
Much of Nichols's writing reaches into the lives of other people with an unusual intellect and an open empathetic spirit. Gigwise said "it's a political maturity set against a childlike honesty that makes Junior Bill so intriguing. " The band are also known for their well crafted concepts with artistic relish surrounding releases. 2017’s self-titled EP saw a guerrilla marketing campaign surrounding the fabled “Wolf In Grangetown” which ended up capturing the imagination through a series of national headlines.
" Boys From Jungle 's jolly sound is a smokescreen for the bleak realities expressed in the lyrics.” says Nichols “It’s a story about the depressing fates that often await those who’ve risked life and limb to make it to the UK. I wrote it years ago after reading a WalesOnline article exposing the grim conditions of an overcrowded hostel for asylum seekers near where I live in Cardiff. The lyrics were intentionally written with bad grammar to evoke a hastily written report."
More singles from their brilliant new album ‘Youth Club!’ are set to follow, culminating in the album’s release later in the year. Pre-save ‘ Boys From Jungle ’ now at
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/juniorbill/boys-from-jungle
LYRICS
Omed said got boys from Jungle
Came through sleet and storm and thunder
Young, black skin and came on boat
Now have found a cold, hard sofa
One boy has got family down here
Waiting for mum to get visa
Paying for sister's education
What about mum well he can't just leave her
One got in a case needing legal aid
Two years now just going in circles
Only three of the boys got papers
Many waiting four years later
Round here people don't believe
Back home he used to be a doctor
Some will have to go to Swindon
Too much people, poor condition
Got to get a wristband if you wanna get fed
Keep your mouth shut for the council inspection
One boy tried to break away
No one else there spoke his lingo
Found him disappeared one day
Smashed the sink and the bathroom window
Omed said got boys from Jungle
Came through sleet and storm and thunder
Young, black skin and came on boat
Now have found a cold, hard sofa
Omed said got boys from Jungle
Welsh alt-pop quartet 'Safari Gold' re-emerge with their latest single Last Chance Addict, released on January 6th 2023.
Lead vocalist's Morgan and Danny - "The song plays on general morality and the less glamorous side of thrill seeking. An up tempo song for the deeper soul'd out there."
'Last Chance Addict' is taken from their forthcoming Album 'The Years Between Dog And Wolf' which will be released on the 20th January 2023.
In the shed of my late father
mortality raises its gentle
terrifying reminding head
among the stilled working
the colonising cobwebs
here in this inner sanctum
of a man’s married years
lie the abandoned hobbies
the casualties of affordability
and changing health
golf clubs beginning to rust
and accrete DIY liquids
transforming into new uses
a club is always a club
no matter how it is wielded
no matter where it is
or how tamed one is
a complete bathroom window
frosted
its opening obedient to a key
that hasn’t turned for decades
a trolley of peeling paint
and complaining metal
castors still compliant
a primitive vehicle from my childhood
upcycled then repurposed
to shelve rough materials
soon to be upcycled again
I was sent there by my father
to find a tool I could never retrieve
today everything is uncovered
in the light of vacating
Georgia Ruth - Week of Pines 10 Year Anniversary Edition. Out 01.03.23. PRE-ORDER NOW
By Ceri Shaw, 2022-12-09
“Mae ‘Week of Pines’ yn albwm am hapusrwydd. A dod adre. Ac ail ennill pethau y credwyd eu bod wedi mynd ar goll. A gras ar ôl gwneud camsyniadau: mae’r elfen o faddeuant a thawelwch wedi bod yn rhan annatod o’r record yma.”
Georgia Ruth - Week of Pines 10 Year Anniversary Edition. Out 01.03.23. PRE-ORDER NOW
“The Welsh harpist Georgia Ruth is a rare talent, able to transcend borders of language, style and age with apparent ease ... A dazzling debut, rich with sweet pain and joy.”
- Andy Gill, The Independent ****
“while Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch and Van Morrison all linger on the horizon, Georgia Ruth comes over as more of a true original than most of the young hopefuls roaming these isles” - Songlines ****
An interesting basic factual account of Welsh history in the Viking era. Part 1 of this series can be found here: Celtic Britons: the Origins of Medieval Wales - YouTube
The channel features several videos on the history of the Celts in Europe and Britain. Click here for a complete listing.
Ritual Cloak's sublime new 'Shell' single out now via Bubblewrap Collective
By Ceri Shaw, 2022-11-23
Following on from their second album (Divine Invasions), collaborations with Welsh poet Autumn Juvenile and Polish Artist Michal Iwanowski, plus an R.E.M cover, electronic post-rock duo Ritual Cloak are back with a brand new single. ‘Shell’ will be released on 23rd November across all digital platforms.
Bethan Lloyd unveils hypnotic 'Cutting Circuits' single via Soulpunx Berlin
By Ceri Shaw, 2022-11-21
Bethan Lloyd is a Welsh artist whose trance inducing vocals expand over an ocean of rave inspired production, harmonic layering and otherworldly ecstasy. Working within the unseen realms, Bethan has engaged deeply in the art of relinquishing control.
Cutting Circuits is a celebration of relinquishing control, both internally and externally. Changing the pathways of one’s life and opening up to genuine and powerful experiences of awe. This song is a blueprint for cutting the circuits of control and returning to true purpose, to the web and to the void.
(For Owain Ddantgwyn
our Owen of the white tooth
in battle a bear
Arth/Ursus/Arthursus/Arthur
to his family a comfort
to his kingdom
a worthy leader
warlike as the age demands)
so meet me at the forum
in old Viroconium city
that vacated shell we fitted
like a glove of mail
of might
of shade of light
those men of Rome left in a hurry
and tonight we can have our fill
from their amphora
so have a glass with me
a toast for declining empires
in the morning we will sharpen
our minds and our blade edges
ready for the latest wave of pagan invaders
to imprint the sand of our beaches
with such heavy footfall
and cruel design
we will meet them at the heights of Badon
and claim a hopeful victory
split wrong heads asunder
in a war that we will ultimately lose
and which will be forgotten
as those who will subjugate us
in turn will kneel in obedience
and kiss the ring of their oppressor
leaving us to be onlookers
in our own isle
sulky in our ale
liminal
in the far margins
the unforgiving terrain
where seed fails to shine
in the harshness of our tears’ rain
not knowing that scant numbers
of dreamers and word launchers
will meditate on our time
in their leaderless day
believing as we did
that they are near to the end of all time
“What Jeremy Gluck has brought and continues to bring to music is what nobody else can bring, i.e. lyrical innovation and artistic integrity that goes far beyond the constraints of a business model.” Brendon Moeller (Beat Pharmacy, Echologist)
Released in the wake of their debut collaboration on Plan for a Performance for Gluck's album The Self , and the subsequent SWND single Love/I Left the Left Page Blank, their new single The Benefactor is both intense and uncompromising, comprising one eleven-minute spoken word ambient electronic soundscape that builds to a juddering climax. This powerful new work cements a working relationship between Gluck and Hazel that sees the release of a full album early in 2023.
Lead singer of cult surf-punk band The Barracudas - the subject shortly of a 3CD retrospective on Cherry Red Records - Jeremy Gluck as a solo artist has had songs covered by artists including Lydia Lunch and Rowland S. Howard (The Birthday Party, Crime and the City Solution, These Immortal Souls), and Nikki Sudden (Swell Maps), with whom two latter artists in 1987 he recorded the first supergroup alt.country album, ‘I Knew Buffalo Bill’ .
Currently a recording artist, NFT artist, spoken word artist, and prolific electronic music and video art collaborator, Gluck continues his journey into experimental electronica...
Paul Hazel has had many releases on labels such as Rising High, Rotation, Inspiral, 2Kool, Masters At Work, Welsh Modular Alliance, and SWND. He has composed and produced the music for a number of commercial films and TV programmes and exhibited several short films of his own in Japan, Venice, and at several galleries across Wales.
The video for The Benefactor is a generative art piece created by American live coder Northwoods (Charlie Kramer), with whom Gluck and Hazel have collaborated before. Taking the audio and text and feeding it into software to algorithmically trigger imagery, an otherworldly ‘scape emerges evoking The Benefactor in binary, mind and spirit.
LINKS
https://bambooradical.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/JeremyGluckArt
https://www.facebook.com/paul.hazel.31/
https://twitter.com/nonceptualism
https://objkt.com/profile/tz2JPVuwvUZyq1LyFwNz2ghXbJ62pQ1rd9f2/activity
