Photos: Emma Lewis

Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff

Thurs 29 July

The Super Furry Animals have pitched their tent on a certain commercial plateau for several years now without there being much threat of dislodging. As such, it’s tempting – especially if you’re a neophyte in your music listening – to assume that they’re kind of yesterday’s news. Fact is they’re still a pretty big deal, particularly in their adopted home city of Cardiff. So when Gruff Rhys, SFA’s singer and best known member, books two gigs in Clwb Ifor Bach to tie in with his new collaborative album with a Brazilian eccentric named Tony Da Gatorra, they both sell out before almost anyone has actually heard the opus.

Now it’s been released and people can hear it by legal means, the general reaction from SFA acolytes will be interesting to note. This reviewer’s suspicion is that it will be akin to the one at this show, which at least half the audience left early. They missed a treat – again, in the opinion of this writer – but it’s not altogether surprising. The Terror Of Cosmic Loneliness, the album whose tracks are being played tonight, is mental and tuneless and often quite hard to listen to. It’s built around Gatorra’s self-invented instrument, also named the Gatorra, which is a bit like a full-sized version of one of those battery-powered guitars you get in Christmas crackers which have buttons instead of strings. He clawfistedly pounds it while shouting Portugese lyrics of protest and insurrection; Gruff plays yowly psych guitar and sings a bit. It’s pretty much definitive outsider music, but for the fact it features someone from a well-known rock band; if it was a private pressing from the mid-70s, it would be talked about in the same terms as The Shaggs or Mark Tucker or other quasi-talented loons.

A select few people – obviously not that select, as they let me in, but still – get to see a miniature performance by the duo beforehand, in the brand new Spillers Records shop. This allows us to see their odd chemistry up close, as well as revealing that Tony speaks no English – he makes fist-pumping speeches between songs which everyone cheers, even though they can’t understand. “Come and see us play 100 times louder in Clwb Ifor,â€� says Gruff, and so we do, following a support set from Cardiff’s Islet which is typically inventive and even more boisterous than their usual. Gruff puts on a papier mache space helmet on prior to the first song and people cheers; Tony dons a ‘PAZ’ (peace) headband which makes him look even more like he’s in a biker metal band.

By the end of the first song, confusion is evident amidst the crowd. Is it supposed to sound like this? What do you do to it? Dance? Following it with In A House With No Mirrors, by some distance the most tuneful and ‘conventional’ track on the record, is a wise move – sung by Gruff, it’s a sweet, psych-y reading of synthpunk. Thereafter, matters largely centre on Gatorra and the cro-magnon thud of his instrument, with Gruff’s role often limited to holding up laminated placards translating the lyrics into English (“Violence! Impunity! Injustice! Elitism! Capitalists! Mercenaries! That’s what corrupts my country!â€�).

Again, fine from where I’m standing: Tony might well never make it to the UK again, while you’ll doubtless have more than enough chances to see Gruff do his thing in the future. Tell that to the folks who, by about 20 minutes in, are just carelessly talking through the songs and not even noticing when a song finishes. Gruff picks up some electronic drumsticks (the sort you play by striking the air) for Eu Protesto, which piques interest slightly, likewise his other vocal turn, Oh! Warra Hoo! – nevertheless, this degree of grouch and disinterest must be a little disconcerting for the SFA fellow. My hope is that this project will blossom and flourish, and give Gruff and Tony more chances to freak out the squares on lazy festival afternoons and the like. For all that, it wouldn’t be hugely surprising if it ended up being a one-off unheralded by most of the Super Furry fanbase.