Blogs

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R.Seiliog announces his new single 'Cloddio Unterdach' available via digital service platforms on the 12th of October. It's lifted from his forthcoming 'Shedhead' EP released through Turnstile Music on the 18th of November.

“bold and beyond brilliant” Uncut Magazine

R.Seiliog is the alias of North Walian skewed musician/producer Robin Edwards. His forthcoming Shedhead EP is the latest bold futuristic release from a prolific outsider artist with a vivid imagination, to be released via Turnstile Music.

Through its five tracks Edwards forges together pulsing elements of Komische influenced electronics, skittering psych splattered samples, enveloping trance like ambience, underpinned by an appreciation of un-shifting Krautrock time signatures. This is the unique shapeshifting sound of imminent space and time travel, weightless and genreless, interjected by searing moments of revelation.

“It’s like the slipping clutch of a self combustion engine built from mirrors blackened by astral soot reflecting back the whole in each tarnished component. “ Says Edwards “Inspired by the shape of whispering solar winds or a Cage chance conservationist uttering “it looks deliberate, let it dry!"

“There's something for every-single-one unified in the omni shallow depths; A fast one, slow one, happy one, sad one - and another one.” notes Edwards “Instrumental meditations on cats chasing tails, autumnal trips to short sighted opticians and much more, or less”

R.Seiliog emerged from the pine coned hills of Peniel, North Wales.Releasing the warm analog psychedelia of 2012's Shuffles EP, and his debut long player 2013's Doppler which was a wide-eyed homage to Krautrock. Manic Street Preachers were so inspired by his debut album Doppler that the band entrusted Edwards to remix Manic Street Preachers’ single ‘Futurology.’

In 2014 the release of his critically acclaimed second album ‘In Hz’ a masterful work of convoluted drone and electronics. Which led Thump to herald it as “So good it hurts” and Mojo Magazine to say “R.Seiliog presides over a subtle, imaginative record that transcends many genres.” R. Seiliog’s work has received airplay from the likes of Huw Stephens, 6 Music - Mary Anne Hobbs, Radcliffe and Maconie and Lauren Laverne.

To coincide with the release of the Shedhead EP, R.Seiliog is set to perform at a number of Welsh shows this Autumn and Winter, with more UK shows to be announced shortly for the new year.

R.Seiliog’s forthcoming dates:

Oct 14 - Carmarthen, The Parrot

Oct 21 - Newport, Le Pub

Oct 22 - Cardiff, Swn Festival

Nov 12 - Aberystwyth, Rummers

Nov 25 - Pontypridd, Clwb Y Bont

Links:

http://www.turnstilemusic.net/rseiliog-1/

@turnstilemusic

The first book in a new trilogy which tells the compelling story of the early years of Glyndŵr’s uprising is published this week.

Glyndŵr: Son of Prophecy  by the late Moelwyn Jones is an imaginary novel based on the real life and battles of Owain Glyndŵr.

The year is 1401, Owain Glyndŵr and his growing forces are still no more than a thorn in the side of the English crown. But when a force of some forty men succeed in taking the prestigious castle of Conwy from under the nose of King Henry IV, it marks a dramatic shift in the fortunes of Glyndŵr’s great Welsh rebellion.

The book follows a cast of vivid characters – from Rhys ap Tudur on the Welsh side to Hotspur on the English – as they dream of securing glory for their masters.

Author Moelwyn Jones was raised in Bancffosfelen, Carmarthenshire, and had a career as a Welsh teacher in Cardiff before joining the BBC as an Information Officer. He then became Head of Public Relations for Wales and the Marches Postal Board and following his retirement worked in the Welsh Assembly.

Glyndŵr: Son of Prophecy is the first in a trilogy and was completed before the author’s death in 2015.

‘Moelwyn had a great interest in the history of Owain Glyndŵr,’ says Delyth Jones, Moelwyn’s wife ‘He conducted extended research into Owain’s story. He was quite the hero to Moelwyn’.

The cover art was illustrated by Machynlleth based artist Teresa Jenellen.

The book will be launched at the Salem Chapel vestry on Market Road in Canton, Cardiff on the 24 ^th of October at 7pm.

Glyndŵr: Son of Prophecy by Moelwyn Jones (£6.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.

The Morgan Hopkin Gallery presents work from four generations of one family. Llew E Morgan, through his own art, inspired his family and descendents to create art and literature from a love of their country. Original paintings, prints and books all available from www.morganhopkin.co.uk

Llew E Morgan was a renaissance man, an innovator in education and photography, the latter a hobby which brought him national recognition. He was the winner of fourteen ‘Firsts’ for his photography at the National Eisteddfod of Wales from his first entry in Treorchy in 1928.

Llew was born in 1885 in Tirwaun, a hamlet outside Ystradgynlais in the Swansea Valley. At the age of ten he was given a camera by his grandmother, a present for passing the scholarship to the local grammar school, and this began a lifelong obsession with photography.

After two near-death experiences as a teenager in the colliery, Llew’s parents encouraged him to try for a university place. He succeeded, and chose Exeter where he excelled at chemistry, biology and no less at rugby. He returned home to marry Blodwen, his long-time sweetheart, who was happy to leave the valley for the more affluent Oxford when Llew was offered a teaching post there. However, the Oxfordshire countryside did not give him the joy he felt when he walked the Brecon Beacons and the Gower peninsular and this hiraeth for Wales brought the family back to Ystradgynlais in 1925.

Llew began teaching in Ynyscedwyn School and spent his evenings writing articles for the local paper , Y Llais , on his skills as a gardener and rearer of chickens, ducks, geese and pigs.

Each article was accompanied by notes from Blodwen on preserving, pickling and cooking the bountiful harvest of their plot. It read like the Good Life but most miners were excellent gardeners and with houses built on the roadside, working class Welsh houses had extremely long gardens with plenty of potential.

Newspapers began to run photographic competitions and Llew became a regular winner with his unique-angle snaps and comic scenes of children at play. Daughter Betty and her friends were always ready to pile into the Ford and enjoy an outing to the seaside with Blodwen supplying a generous picnic.

Llew’s main focus was nature and landscape and he would spend hours in the remote areas of Brecon and Radnor waiting for a Peregrine Falcon to emerge from its nest or a fox to appear at its lair. These two images were his initial prizes at the National Eisteddfod. Hours after supper would be spent in his darkroom, developing and printing the photographs to his very high standards.

During WW2, while still teaching full-time, Llew became an Adviser to the Ministry of Agriculture. Evenings were now spent making slides of pertinent livestock, even making clay models of the innards of rabbits showing how disease can affect an animal, so that he could lecture to communities on how to ‘dig for victory’. His trusty Ford took him often as far as Aberystwyth, almost a three hour journey in those days, to lecture for a few hours and then drive home by the early hours to grab some sleep before leaving for school. These years also saw him as Air Raid Warden as German bombers would fly up the valley after their assault on Swansea, dropping bombs as they made their way back to the Continent.

Llew’s images live on at the St. Fagin’s Museum, Cardiff, through the biography, Full Circle, and through the family archive and website.

Llew's daughter, Betty, had watched her father compose his photographs and had inherited his talent for composition and the same interest in the documentary element in art. When she began to paint it was the story behind the subject which she wished to express. Wartime in Cardiff brought her home to Ystradgynlais. She was now married to the architect, Howel Hopkin, whose father, Will, was the proprietor of the newspaper, The West Wales Observer. Her idea was to train as an interior decorator and to work with Howel in designing ‘ideal’ homes, but motherhood took over and with three children to care for her artistic aspirations were put on hold. She did, however, write children’s stories and continued to draw, encouraging the children in both art forms.

In the 1970s she began to paint pictures depicting life in the valley during her childhood – the carnivals, eisteddfods, Whitsun parades, cinema queues and domestic scenes such as ‘Pig Killing’, ‘Dadcu’s Funeral’, and community events like the 1936 ‘Coronation Street Party’. Betty, now signing herself Elizabeth Hopkin, took sample paintings to the Portal Gallery in Bond Street, and was immediately accepted as one of their stable of artists by the owner, Eric Lister. He was enthralled by her imaginative colours and poetic expression and later wrote in his book on British Naïve and Primitive Artists:

Her paintings are a chronicle of life within the Welsh valley community seen through the eyes of an innocent child, but executed with the formal composition of an adult.

For twenty years Elizabeth exhibited successfully at the Portal, then at galleries across America and now shows exclusively at the Albany Gallery in Cardiff. She was encouraged by Tom Maschler, then head of Jonathan Cape publishers, to write a book on the stories behind her paintings. This she did in Then the Sirens Sounded followed by Butterflies of the Valley . Both books show how life changed from the rural idyll of the very early 1900s to the mining community of the 1950s.

What Eric Lister and collectors have loved is the humour that is expressed in her work. A typical series of paintings is of Dai Romantic, a miner, who stops to pick wild roses for his wife as he walks home from a shift with his companions, and who paints their terrace house pink which pleases his wife but shocks the neighbours.

Elizabeth painted an era long-gone but never to be forgotten. Her three daughters are all artistic, though Wendy was drawn to the sciences, while Mary followed her love of music, and Carole pursued acting, writing and painting.

Trained at Cardiff College of Art and with an M.A. in Literature from Cardiff University, Carole has travelled widely always carrying with her a sketchbook and notebook. After appearing in The Mousetrap, Dr. Who , and several television dramas she moved to New York and spent five happy years working at the British Trade Office.

On weekends she painted and had her first American Exhibition in Greenwich, Connecticut. A feature on her work in Vogue magazine advertised her talent for portraits of homes and gardens and this set off a chain of commissions from L.A., Palm Beach, and ultimately to portray the home of Ambassador and Mrs. Biddle-Duke in New York.

Family circumstances brought her back to Wales and she began to teach Art and Creative Writing for the University of Wales, Swansea. She became an Associate Tutor in Cultural Studies and now lectures on Llew’s life and work, her mother’s paintings, and the work of Josef Herman, the Polish artist who settled in Ystradgynlais from 1944 to 1955 and became a close family friend.

Carole is a Trustee of the Josef Herman Art Foundation Cymru and also of the Llangiwg Community Association having helped save the ancient parish church of Llangiwg high on the hills above the town of Pontardawe in the Swansea Valley.

After writing, Full Circle, the life of her grandfather, Carole set up Merton Press and published her novel, The Sensualist , three autobiographies illustrated with her paintings – French Adventures, Beatles, Before and Beyond and Aaaah America . This year she wrote and illustrated her first collection of prose-poems in Fantasia.

Creativity runs in everyone’s blood but only with encouragement and inspiration will it flourish. The family website is run by Carole’s niece, Jessica Lee Morgan, who follows her mother’s love of music and singing. As well as work by Llew, Elizabeth and Carole, the website includes drawings and paintings by Mary Hopkin and photographs by her son Morgan Visconti.

Original paintings, prints and books all available from www.morganhopkin.co.uk

One of the first superstars of rugby union, Terry Davies, reveals the truth about his life in rugby in the 1950s as well as the loss of his talented brother to leukaemia at a young age in his long awaited autobiography this week.

He also reveals all about what happened to that crossbar that was stolen from Twickenham in 1958.

Terry Davies - Wales’s First Superstar Fullback  by Terry Davies with Geraint Thomas is a tale of a typical working-class upbringing and coming of age before finding glory on the rugby field – is as much a social commentary as a fascinating insight into the heydays of amateurism.

The post-war period saw top rugby players in Wales achieve the kind of fame once associated with Hollywood movie stars and few captured the headlines more often than Terry Davies. The boy from Bynea, who combined the good looks of a young Robert Redford with silky skills and tough as teak tackling, went on to wow crowds across the rugby playing world through his displays for Wales and the British and Irish Lions.

The book tells of the remarkable life story of the Lions star, encompassing his childhood in Llanelli, learning rugby in Strade School, making his debut as a schoolboy for Swansea, entering the Royal Marines and winning his first cap before going on to become a household name.

From the highs of touring New Zealand and beating the All Blacks in their own back yard to the lows of a career-threatening shoulder injury, his rugby journey, which began as a nervous 17 year old one rainy day up in Ebbw Vale and ended with universal acclaim, is real Roy of the Rovers stuff .

Terry also remains one of the few living Welshmen to have won a test match in New Zealand.

‘Terry is a natural storyteller,’ said co-writer Geraint Thomas, ‘His book is packed with humour. He typifies the Welsh humour once so prevalent amongst the working class,’

‘His tale is both a social commentary and cultural account of Welsh life pre and post war as well as a priceless account of a bygone age of rugby union’ added Geraint.

‘As a young inspiring player he left a huge impression on me due to the way he stood out from the rest.’ added Sir Gareth Edwards, who wrote the introduction to the book.

The book is presented in memory of Terry’s brother Len, who was caped for Wales before Terry, but died in his 20s of leukaemia.

Geraint Thomas is a Swansea Valley based journalist, writer and playwright. After graduating from Cardiff University's School of Journalism he secured a position as a news reporter on the South Wales Evening Post where he is currently still employed. He also writes the occasional feature for Swansea Life magazine.

His play, the comedy Roofless, which is set around the Welsh rugby Grand Slam of 2005, played in the Grand Theatre Swansea in March 2008.

The book will be launched officially at Parc y Scarlets, Llanelli at 7pm on Thursday the 20 ^th of October.

Terry Davies: Wales’s first superstar fullback by Geraint Thomas (£9.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.

It has been brought to our attention that some members are having difficulty finding the WCE Competition entry pages. Just as an FYI here are the urls:-

Short Story:

https://americymru.net/community/forum/west-coast-eisteddfod-online-short-story-competition-2016

Poetry:

https://americymru.net/community/forum/west-coast-eisteddfod-online-poetry-competition-2016

These urls can also be found in the 'About' section on the AmeriCymru - West Coast Eisteddfod Facebook page.

The competitions are in the forum now (since the platform migration). SO....take a look at the pic below. You can reach the FORUM dropdown from any page on the site:-

BUT please remember you MUST be logged in to post. The + icon can be seen here (The lower one of the 2, where it says 'create') Click the + icon to post a new entry:-

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Alan Bilton is the author of two novels, The Known and Unknown Sea (2014), variously compared to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the 1902 movie, A Trip to the Moon, and Dante’s Inferno, and The Sleepwalkers’ Ball (2009) which one critic described as “Franz Kafka meets Mary Poppins”.

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Alan Bilton never disappoints and he never fails to fascinate. His latest work, an anthology of short stories titled 'Anywhere Out Of The World' is no exception. Billed as 'a collection of short stories of the deeply mysterious and the utterly absurd', these grimly comical tales will transport you from Venice to Walla Walla, Washington and simultaneously to places with no known geographical co ordinates.

In 'The Honeymoon Suite' a young couple arrive at a luxury hotel in Venice only to become separated and lost in a labyrinth of twisting corridors and interconnected stairways. In this tale of mystery and alternate endings one of the honeymooners is left musing:-

"Who was to say what was the end and what was the beginning? Perhaps life didn't travel from A to Z but constantly traded and changed; from here it was Venice which seemed like a dream and the island of tombs which chimed the one true hour."

Superbly constructed and broodingly atmospheric throughout, 'The Honeymoon Suite' is one of the longer tales in this collection as is the title story.

Mr Urbino is a postman attempting to deliver a letter to a non existent address. He is also an amateur artist. His attempts to locate the address and its tenant result in a series of bizarre encounters and ultimately to an unexpected journey or 'escape'. His predicament at the end of this tale invites speculation. As the author put it in a recent interview:- "Has the artist in the title story escaped from the everyday through his art, or stumbled into some kind of metaphysical trap?"

Anywhere Out Of The World is also the title of a poem by Charles Baudelaire. It can be read online here and provides considerable insight into the thematic material of this collection.

Many of the shorter stories in this collection are equally intriguing. In 'The Bridge To Mitte Kuskil' a Tsarist auditor makes a journey to inspect progress at a bridge construction site. What he finds is not at all what he expected and the ultimate fate of his 'report' is not at all what the reader might expect.

In 'Flea Theatre' a womans husband disappears and she begins to receive mysterious parcels each one containing a dead stuffed flea dressed in human clothing. Her attempts to locate her missing husband leave her feeling 'lost and uneasy, a trespasser in somebody else's book.'

Literary references/comparisons? In reading this collection I am constantly reminded of Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Unconsoled', Steve Erickson and Wales' very own Rhys Hughes. All powerful recommendations in my opinion. 

This book is unreservedly recommended to anyone with a taste for the bizarre or an interest in exploring the boundaries (and beyond) of contemporary fiction.

Review by Ceri Shaw

Alan Bilton is the author of two novels, The Known and Unknown Sea (2014), variously compared to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the 1902 movie, A Trip to the Moon, and Dante’s Inferno, and The Sleepwalkers’ Ball (2009) which one critic described as “Franz Kafka meets Mary Poppins”. As a writer, he is obviously a hard man to pin down. He is also the author of books on Silent Film Comedy, Contemporary Fiction, and America in the 1920s. He teaches Creative Writing, Contemporary Literature, and Film at Swansea University in Wales.

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AmeriCymru: Hi Alan and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Care to tell us a little about your latest book:- 'Anywhere Out Of The World'?

Alan: I wanted to come up with a collection of short stories poised somewhere between horror and comedy – odd bedfellows, I know, but that was part of the attraction. Conventional wisdom says that the comic comforts rather than unsettles, and that humour stops dread in its tracks. At the same time though both are linked by a sense of anxiety and surprise: comedy and horror bypass the rational, logical parts of the brain to generate an immediate physical response – whether a laugh or a shudder.

I also wanted to write a series of stories which played with the Surrealist idea of the marvellous. The Surrealists believed – and they’re probably right – that we’re essentially conservative creatures who travel the same paths and perform the same tasks day in, day out – what the Surrealists called ‘the habitual’. Crucially however, they also suggested that reality isn’t as stable or solid as such routines might suggest. One false move, one random slip, and we stumble headfirst into a strange space outside of the familiar – the twilight zone of ‘the marvellous’.

Now the marvellous sounds marvellous, but the experience of the marvellous is profoundly unsettling – Breton called it ‘convulsive’ - in the sense that we’ve fallen through a trap door into a wholly alien realm. Or if not alien, then the familiar rendered strange – as in a dream.

I wanted to write a collection of short stories which functioned as a kind of crooked house with secret passages between stories, mysterious port-holes and hidden staircases and abandoned lift shafts, which take one both from one story to another and from the everyday world to the kingdom of the uncanny. The stories are set in all sorts of places – Wales, Russia, Paris, Venice – but a sense of estrangement is central to all of them – the sense that characters are somehow in the wrong place.

AmeriCymru: One of the stories in this collection is set in Walla Walla, Washington. What inspired this tale?

Alan: Although the story involves the ghost of Princess Diana and a hungry bear, much of it did really happen to me – more or less. I was invited to give a lecture on silent film comedy at Walla Walla while on a University recruitment trip. I really was picked up at the airport by a Native American guy who asked me whether I thought that Princess Di was beautiful, and in the next breath why I (by which I guess he meant, the British) killed her. He really did give me his card and say ‘Wherever you are, I will come and get you” in a strangely menacing tone of voice. And then when I got there, there were posters advertising my talk everywhere – somebody had done a really terrific job in terms of promotion. The night of my lecture, the campus was full of crowds of students and locals, all of them discussing some talk a visiting speaker was due to give. Anyway, I went to the bath room, and when I emerged, everybody was gone: I went to my lecture theatre and there was only one old lady sitting there, waiting rather grumpily. It turned out that all the crowds were heading to a talk on climate change – as if global warming is more important than Buster Keaton, I know! – and I ended up playing my movie clips in a vast darkened auditorium to an audience of one. So there you go, all those bits were true. The bear, I made up.  

AmeriCymru: In your first novel 'The Sleepwalkers Ball' we find the following passage:-"Or is it that alongside this track runs other lines - repetitions, variations, contradictions - echoes of all those lives we failed to live and the things we failed to do?" To what extent are the stories in this anthology an exploration of the profound disconnect between peoples real lives and their possibilities and potential.

Alan: Well, the default position for all my writing is the subjunctive – what is wished for, or feared, or what might have been. I’m not a realist. My fiction is all about how the imagination rebels against the real – whether for good or ill. The unspoken question in The Sleepwalkers Ball is whether one’s fantasy life is more meaningful than mundane life, or merely a kind of infantile escape from it. The same notion pops up in several of the stories too. Has the artist in the title story escaped from the everyday through his art, or stumbled into some kind of metaphysical trap? It’s also there in the dual endings of ‘The Honeymoon Suite’ – the notion that the question of what happened is more of a labyrinth than a straight line.

AmeriCymru: In your online interview with Jon Gower re: 'The Known and Unknown Sea' you talk about things being taken in the wrong context and 'fever dreams'. How much of that applies to the stories in this collection? Are there thematic  parallells between these stories and your earlier novels?

Alan: I actually don’t have any problem with readers taking things in the wrong context – the beauty of mystery is that you’re free to decide to what extent you want to interpret or ‘solve’ it. Much of what I’ve written so far can be seen as a fever dream or an extended anxiety attack: the short stories perhaps even more so. Short stories often deal with writers’ main concerns in a very direct and undiluted form – which can be good or bad, of course. All my books are slapstick comedies which can be read as uncanny and terrifying or farcical and light hearted – I’m happy for the reader to juggle these two ideas or moods, as they wish.

AmeriCymru: What is your take on the art of short story writing? What, for you, makes a good short story?

Alan: There is a school of thought that the short story and the novel are in fact wholly different disciplines, and that the short story is closer to poetry than prose. I’m afraid that in my philistine way I’ve never felt this, though. A story should be as long as it takes the teller to tell it. And for all the experimental aspects of the stories – their absurdism, irreality and sense of crossed paths – each of the stories is intended to work as a well told tale. They’re not slices of life or impressionistic snapshots: they’re complete entities, with a sense of order, meaning and shape we rarely encounter in real life. I tend to like a sense of structure in fiction – it’s a lie, but a necessary lie, something which we turn to fiction to supply because it’s terribly absent from everyday life.

AmeriCymru: You have a keen appreciation of early silent film comedy. Does this inform or influence your writing? To what extent does what you are currently watching or reading influence your prose?

Alan: Yes, I spent nearly ten years writing a book on silent film comedy, and talking about them with students. As a kid I adored Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin and so on – Buster Keaton came later. It’s amazing to think that such antique films were still being shown on TV when I was a kid – although I guess they weren’t so ancient then. I loved their dreamlike sense that anything could happen, that they were a kind of cartoon occupied by real people, a black and white and soundless universe, cut off from real life, from realism. And I liked the idea that this universe was separate, even if, for me, these films were also full of anxiety: I worried about Stan and Ollie when they screwed things up, anxiously worried about what might happen next. They seemed to me to be both a dream and a nightmare – which is what I’ve tried to translate into fiction.  

For a long time I was an incredible film buff and pretty much watched a film every day – these days family life isn’t so conducive such idleness, alas. Film – from silent comedy to European New Wave cinema – still influences a lot of what I write though. Anywhere Out of the World – which is a Chagall painting as well as a Baudelaire poem – was also very influenced by early 20 ^th Century Modern Art. Visual things tend to be easier to import into fiction than music – or at least that’s how I find it. I still try and read a novel every week – and no doubt whatever I’m reading affects the imaginative weather of whatever I’m scribbling away at.

AmeriCymru: Care to tell us something about your first novel 'Sleepwalkers Ball'?

Alan: Sleepwalker is, I guess, my most dreamlike book – in the original draft none of the characters had names, until my editor put me straight – but I never saw it as a difficult or experimental book, still less as some intellectual puzzle to be solved. It’s a love story set in the same black and white, slapstick comedy universe I talked about earlier. The four stories are all versions of the same romance, and inter-connect, or contradict, or question, each other at will. It was also my first stab at creating a world in which the imagination is allowed to wander where it likes – where what might have happened, or what you wanted to happen, or what you were worried about happening, are all given the same narrative weight. I intended it to be sweet and funny, although one reviewer described it as a grotesque horror show and ended the review with the prediction ‘I’m sure there’ll be more of this unreadable rubbish to come’. They were right too…

AmeriCymru: Your second novel 'The Known and Unknown Sea' has been described as "a beautiful and heartbreaking journey through memory, loss and imagination". How would you describe it?

Alan: It was an attempt – just before my first child was born – to write a novel exploring the imaginative world of a child. It’s about how resilient a child’s imagination is, and how flexible too – how they can accept and process impossible or inexplicable things and yet maintain their own internal buoyancy.

So, on the one hand it’s a book about what children fear most, but also a playful, comic adventure – another juxtaposition of contrary ideas, just like Anywhere Out of the World.

It’s also a book made out of materials you might find a school art room – the sets all sticky with glue, the paint applied with a stick. So the houses are very square and blocky, the figures stick men or scribbled beards. The aesthetic or form of the book came out of this basic idea – crooked lines, primary colours, a distorted perspective where the sky is just a thick blue line above the earth. A child’s point of view is very hard to capture via language alone, so I tried to find the right visual match: readers can let me know whether or not I managed it.

AmeriCymru: What's next for Alan Bilton? Any new titles in the pipeline?

Alan: The next book is my big Russian novel – all Russian novels are big, of course, it’s a contractual obligation. My elevator pitch for the book is ‘the bastard child of Agatha Christie and Mikhail Bulgakov’. It’s a murder mystery set during the Russian Civil War, though the atmosphere and setting are not entirely realistic, you’ll be astonish to hear.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?

Alan: At a time when countries are either building walls or burning bridges, cross-cultural links have never been more important. Exploring different cultures is always a mix of the known and the unknown, the familiar and the foreign – which is to say, part of the adventure of life. We all need to keep our imaginative doors as wide open as we can. 

Interview by Ceri Shaw

AmeriCymru:  Hi Dan/Laura? and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Care to tell us a little about your new album 'Overture'?

Dan: The album consists of twenty-five artists from the West End and Broadway who have come together to be part of one of the largest collections of new music to ever be released. The album comes out across the World on October 24 ^th .

The album features; Marc Broussard ( Magnolias and Mistletoe , 2015 album), Earl Carpenter ( Les Miserables , Broadway), Melinda Doolittle (American Idol), Matt Doyle ( Book Of Mormon , Broadway), Hannah Elless ( Bright Star , Broadway), Jason Forbach ( Les Miserables , Broadway), Matthew Ford Gershwin In Hollywood ) Ashleigh Gray ( Wicked , UK Tour), Emma Hatton ( Wicked , West End), Samantha Hill ( Phantom Of The Opera , Broadway), James M Iglehart ( Aladdin , Broadway), Adam Jacobs ( Aladdin , Broadway), Arielle Jacobs ( Aladdin , Australia), Charlotte Jaconelli ( She Loves Me , West End), Rachel John ( The Bodyguard , West End), Adam Kaplan ( Newsies , US Tour), Emmanuel Kojo ( Showboat , West End), Kara Lily-Hayworth ( I See Fire , 2015 single), Rebecca Luker ( Fun Home , Broadway), Jai McDowall ( I Begin Again , 2014 single), Bryce Pinkham ( A Gentleman's Guide To Love and Murder , Broadway), Courtney Reed ( Aladdin , Broadway), Krysta Rodriguez ( Smash , NBC), Will Swenson (Les Miserables , Broadway) and Natalie Weiss (Les Miserables , US Tour).

AmeriCymru:  What can you tell us about the title? Why 'Overture'?

Dan: Our last album title ‘Love on 42 ^nd Street’ was a reflection of the stories and people we interacted with on a trip to New York City. Those stories shaped the music on the album through the ever powerful message of love.

We came up with ‘Overture’ quite quickly as the message of this album is how music connects everyone. It doesn’t matter where you are from you can still enjoy the same piece of music. It is the only true universal language. Within a traditional show’s overture, you hear snippets of songs or themes from the production and we felt it summed up the message that we were trying to put across. Hopefully other people will agree!

AmeriCymru:  The featured performers list reads like a who's who of Musical Theatre. What was it like working with so many talented artists?

Dan: We have certainly been fortunate both on this album and previous projects to work with some of the most celebrated performers of their generation. The amazing thing is that each artist’s voice and style is a completely individual. Even if they have performed the same roles there is still a big difference in how they approach a song. The hardest thing is trying to maintain the electric buzz of a live performance and capture that on a recording.

The recording process for this album has been a little like a working rehearsal that ends up being recorded. During the recording sessions we have had the chance to break down each song and work with the artists on shaping the recording. The vocal performances are truly very special.

AmeriCymru:  What can you tell us about the individual tracks on the album? Are they original compositions or Broadway standards?

Dan: There are twenty-one songs on the album and a further two overtures, all of which are brand new compositions. The majority of the songs were actually written for the artists who have recorded them.

We have though tried to capture the true essence of what makes the West End and Broadway theatre great and we hope the musical styles will familiar even though they are completely new songs. We have been heavily inspired by the great Hollywood musicals and there are a few throwback moments within the album where we get to nod to some of our heroes like the great Fred Astaire.

AmeriCymru:  What can you tell us about your song-writing/compositional style?

Dan: Generally with most songs Dan starts with the basis of the melodic idea and then Laura takes over and throws it all out! Only joking. We have a unique way of working where we are both very in tune with what we are trying to bring across within the song. Laura adds to the melodic idea and then does a piano arrangement. We then work on it together and write the lyrics together.

AmeriCymru:  Where will our readers be able to hear/buy the album online?

Dan: The best place is to go onto www.danandlauracurtis.com where you can currently stream a snippet of every song on the album. The CD is also available to buy on the site. Online stores like iTunes currently have a pre-order option from the download across the World. 

AmeriCymru:  What's next for Dan and Laura Curtis?

Dan: We are currently in the process of writing a musical which is certainly going to take up the rest of the year and the first part of 2017. Once the music is completed there is a long road ahead to get that across to production. We are not able to say that much about the idea at the moment but promise to keep everyone informed.

We are also starting a video series where we will record live videos with Broadway and West End stars singing our songs with Laura at the piano. Along with a few big concerts it promises to be a busy year.

AmeriCymru:  Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Dan: It is always a joy to come and speak with you Ceri. We have been fortunate to have been showered with support and good wishes from the readers of AmeriCymru in the past and we are extremely indebted to you for that. We would like to say a massive thank you for that support and to say that it never goes unappreciated. If anyone would like to connect on social media then on twitter we are @danlauracurtis

BUY THE ALBUM HERE

Overture - An Interview With Welsh Composers, Dan & Laura Curtis https://t.co/ZAXSSABIGU pic.twitter.com/M1ZHXbnMaA

— americymru (@americymru) October 4, 2016

A Plaid Cymru candidate, who travelled to Libya with a delegation from the party in 1976 reveals that the party received £25,000 from the Libyan government. Carl Clowes, a well known anti-nuclear activist and candidate for Plaid Cymru in many elections, reveals this information in his autobiography published this week.

In the book, called Super Furries, Prins Seeiso, Miss Siberia – a Fi , Carl Clowes recalls the research trip in 1976 to Libya with Dr Phil Williams, Brian Morgan Edwards and John Lewis. After watching Gaddafi speak a representative asked how could they contribute towards their cause for independence. Carl explains how he understood through Brian Morgan Edwards “that £25,000 had come through to Plaid Cymru”.

This is one of many revelations in Carl’s honest autobiography – a lifelong campaigner for the Welsh language and also the father of two members of the Super Furry Animals.

Carl Clowes moved from his specialist occupation in Manchester to a one man practice in Pen Llŷn in 1970 to raise the family in a rural and Welsh community. There he saw the community and its populace deteriorating and the health of the area suffering.

‘It was a new vision and personal awakening in regards to the relationshop between people’s living conditions and people’s health that led me to change my career and specialise in social healthcare’ said Carl.

There was a threat that the Llanaelhaearn village school would close and a great need for for employment opportunities if the area was to survive. This led to the creation of several initiatives include establishing Nant Gwrtheyrn language centre in 1982 which has since seen over 30,000 experience the unique atmosphere of the Welsh learning centre.

Carl Clowes found himself embroiled in several Welsh language campaigns including unifying several organisations and forums in the campaign for a new language act and developing the first comprehensive strategy for the future of the Welsh language.

He was also the election candidate for Plaid Cymru in Montgomeryshire in 1979, 1983 and 1987.

‘After I realised that politicans are in the best place to influence the health of a society, I ventured to the political work of Westminster three times in Montgomeryshire,’ says Carl, ‘I had remarkable experiences but without election success.’

He is also a firm campaigner against Wylfa B and drew a manifesto for Anglesey outlining a proposed plan for sustainable employment and energy on the island.

He led the twinning between Wales and Lesotho in 1985 and established Dolen Cymru – the first of its kind in the world. He is now the Honorary Vice Consul for Lesotho in Wales. Carl has also worked in the third sector in countries such as Siberia , Cambodia, and Mizoram in India.

He has also been honoured by the White Robe by the National Eisteddfod for his local, national and international contributions. He is married to Dorothi and they have four children - Dafydd, Rhiannon, Angharad and Cian.

Super Furries, Prins Seeiso, Miss Siberia a Fi by Carl Clowes (£12.99, Y Lolfa) is out on October 1 ^st .