Tom Emlyn returns with ‘Like a Cigarette’ out today, the first single from a new archive album
By Ceri Shaw, 2023-03-25
Swansea born songwriter Tom Emlyn vividly depicts why he is one of the most prolific and inventive songwriters emerging songwriters in Wales, with his new album ‘Return Journey Revisited: Scaredycat Vol 1’ recorded at BBC studios in 2018 and mastered by Charlie Francis (R.E.M., Pixies). The album is a peek inside his treasure trove of recordings dating back to 2017 and 2018, with songs showing the sheer scope of his songwriting talent.
Built upon a cyclical strum and raw vocals recorded live in one performance, Emlyn’s new single ‘Like a Cigarette’ released on the 24th of March, poetically sketches out the scene as he spends his days busking outside a café in Frankfurt, shot through with the corrosive power of imagery, and acts as a living and breathing earworm that charts his travels around Europe and Germany in 2017.
Tom Emlyn says : “I ran out of money on something like the second day of the trip, so didn't have the opportunity to be lazy and had to rely on busking for survival, which turned out to be amazing practice and one of the best things I've done. I was watching people smoking and drinking and wondering why people smoke. I started thinking about advertising and the seductive power of images. Images which are far removed from the rhythm of everyday life and the monologues of our interior minds eyes. Images which are ultimately disposable, carcinogenic and affect the way we treat other people.”
About The ‘Hollowing Out’ Album
“Very nicely layered. Has a bit of early 80s melodrama; a sort of Pet Shop Boys croon and a Krautrock halo.”
– Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music
“Something brilliantly dark about this, with their synth psych noir with a pulse. Real potential to go big.”
- Chris Hawkins, BBC 6 Music
“Great Welsh psych!”
– Amy Lame, BBC 6 Music
"It's a stunning sounding single from Red Telephone, my artist of the week”
– Huw Stephens, BBC Radio Wales
“This direction pegs Roxy Music/Sparks playfulness to their neo-psych and Suede-aping past selves, turning it into something thoroughly intriguing. They have the skills to match the ambition.”
– Under the Radar Magazine
“Veers between being a paranoiac industrial rock hammering and shimmering, escapist 60s psychedelia.”
– Gigwise
“That sounds momentous to me. The imagination is bubbling over the sides of the recording, it cannot be contained. I love the way the singer sounds a little bit like Marc Bolan, he’s got that real sense of wonder and playfulness in his voice.”
– Adam Walton, BBC Introducing Wales
“A lot of splendid noises packed into just under three minutes.”
– Gideon Coe, BBC 6 Music
Bethan Lloyd Debut Album 'Metamorphosis' released 7th of April via Soulpunx Records
By Ceri Shaw, 2023-03-24
Bethan Lloyd is a Welsh artist whose trance inducing vocals expand over an ocean of rave inspired production, harmonic layering and otherworldly ecstasy. Her sonic exploration has taken her from training as a classical singer, immersing herself in Berlin’s experimental music scene, to learning with shamans, masters and the ancient teachings of the natural world. In her latest album, Metamorphosis, Bethan, producing alongside Pre-Human bandmate and master of noise Isaac Ray, takes her intense explorations of the spirit and emotional realms and blends them into something playful and danceable, a gritty experimental pop.
Introducing: Finding Aurora with their explosive new single 'The Never-Ending' Out 24th March
By Ceri Shaw, 2023-03-20
Finding Aurora Their explosive new single 'The Never-Ending' is released on Friday 24th March
Alternative rock band 'Finding Aurora' release their stunning new single entitled 'The Ever-Lasting' on the 24th of March.
This year has seen the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sam Phillips and the 70th anniversary of the first releases on Sun Records. Released in the wake of their collaborations The Benefactor, Love, and Plan for a Performance, Jeremy and Paul offer a skewed but reverent homage to those who started it all, a collision driven comeback from the dynamic duo of rad deconstruction.
Recording artist, digital fine artist, and prolific electronic music and video art collaborator, Jeremy Gluck is perhaps best known as lead singer of cult surf-punk band The Barracudas, the subject of a recently released 3CD retrospective on Cherry Red Records. As a solo artist he has had songs covered by artists such as 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 he recorded the first supergroup alt.country album, ‘I Knew Buffalo Bill’ in 1987. In 1997 Gluck began a journey into experimental electronica that led to him working with some of the genre’s leading lights, including Martin Rev, Brendan Moeller, Dub Gabriel, and Youth.
Paul Hazel is a music producer and multi-instrumentalist. He has studied electro-acoustic composition with Simon Emmerson and been through the ‘Search and Reflect’ method with free jazz drummer John Stevens. He has had many releases on labels such as Rising High, Rotation, Inspiral, 2Kool, Welsh Modular Alliance, and SWND. As part of the band Blue Train he hit the Billboard dance charts with Get Movin’, released on Masters At Work. He has composed and produced the music for a number of commercial films and TV programmes. Short films of his own have been exhibited in Japan, Venice, and at several galleries across Wales.
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
17th Annual Malad Valley Welsh Festival - Celebrating 159 Years of Welsh Heritage
By Ceri Shaw, 2023-03-14
Rogue Jones - "Dos Bebés" Their brand album is available now - Yr albwm newydd allan nawr
By Ceri Shaw, 2023-03-13
Recorded during a 5 year period which started whilst Bethan and Ynyr (Rogue Jones) were expecting their first child and ended just before the birth of their second child. Dau Fabi. Two Babies. Dos Bebés, is an album exploring life in all its messy glory – light and dark, profound and ridiculous….Raw, bombastic, vulnerable, gentle, big, playful. LIFE and LIVING….BEING ALIVE, embracing the imperfections and seeing the beauty in every moment.
Also, Huw Chiswell’s (Welsh language singer songwriter) Greatest Hits compilation has the most varied track-listing by mood of any collection of songs ever. It oscillates between sombre and ecstatic from one song to the next and I realised how much I enjoy that variety of moods in one album.
Thu 23rd March - The Parish, Wrexham.
Fri 24th March - Cwrw, Carmarthen.
Sat 25th March - Cader Rocks Torrent Walk, Dolgellau
* FREE ENTRY *
Sat 25th March - 1pm - The Second 45 Record Shop - Acoustic instore gig
*FREE ENTRY*
Please come a long and support the bands & the venues!