Asenath Blake

Asenath Blake joins Revenant Marquis in the ranks of recent black metal solo artists from Wales – if we take them at their word – who offer zero clues as to who they really are. A woman who lives alone in a remote Welsh cottage, practices witchcraft and avoids people due to agoraphobia, is what we’re presented with – oh, and a new EP (Asenath Blake’s third), Tribeckoning Songs. I love this! Buzzing, haunted lo-fi murk with a folky swing buried beneath, gauzy electronic textures and a general epic feel despite all five songs being about three minutes long.

Chris Kelly

Chris Kelly has been off my radar for considerably longer: he used to be in a Cardiff band, The Scooters, who traded in hyper-chipper powerpop-tinged 60s style jangle. The Songs I Wrote Last Year is his first solo album, I think, and apart from being largely acoustic, the solo apple hasn’t fallen far from the Scooters tree. Melody-forward and harmony-heavy, plaintive piano parts and lyrical platitudes can have this album bordering MOR, but if you like classic songwriters’ pop a la Badfinger, this might harbour jewels.

Defod

Back to black (metal), and it’s another solo belter! The Lengthening Shadow is the debut album by Defod – a north Walian, Raz, who’s played in a couple of other gnarly bands up that way and also released an EP earlier this year. A nicely scuzzy (self-)recording complements guitars which churn forth almost psychedelically; Raz’s vocals, perhaps controversially, are nearly always intelligible, and his riffs are pretty chunkily defined, in that early 2000s style when BL bands were slickening up a bit. This is pretty raw at root, though.

Dope Smoker

Dope Smoker are from Pembroke, have existed since the mid-2010s and to my knowledge have never played live in the UK (but have toured Eastern Europe). Regarding Devil’s Bridge, their new album, would you double-take in astonishment if I told you it was a highly changed-sounding hybrid of stoner, sludge and doom metal, with clattering production like Electric Wizard at their grimiest? Likely not! Yet as much as the band name tells you to expect something generic or cloddish, there are subtleties to Dope Smoker’s doings, with a halo-clad ethereality fed into Nirvana/Tad style sloth-pummel.

Ian Watson

Cardiff noise geezer Ian Watson has been releasing strange and obscure music-not-music in various formats and incarnations for, what, 15 years now? Recent weeks have brought a burst of three CDRs under his name, released in {tiny} editions and in cool packaging that probably won’t fit with most of the rest of your collection. I’ll single out Further Variations, a disc of “feedback modulated recordings” as long as 20 minutes apiece, beguiling with extended bouts of drifting electronic drone formed from, well, Ian may know what but laypeople like us have no chance! But I’m feeling it, so no matter.

The Mighty Observer

Listening to a song like Sunkiss by The Mighty Observer (Garmon Rhys from the Cardiff/London band Melin Melyn), with its languid tempo and twinkly yacht-rock synth, it feels pretty middle of the road too, although in tune with a certain recent trend in indie sonics. It’s one of five songs on new TMO EP Okay, Cool (Cae Gwyn): Aros Am Yr Haul could have been a Balearic poolside DJ hit in another lifetime, and overall this feels more my bag than the Melin Melyn stuff I’ve encountered to date.

Po Griff

I’ve experienced, enjoyed and endorsed west Wales wyrd-rap trio Culture Vultures before, but Brown Dragon, the second EP from CV MC Po Griff, is even more up my avenue I think. Released in their in-house label Winger, it’s five tracks of muggy, sometimes uncomfortable un-urban hip-hop storytelling over sideways-leaning, sludgy beats: Griff chunters about drugs, school, Wales, funerals, more drugs and more Wales. “Land of my fathers / Half the fathers have left,” muses Laverbread, with production by elder statesman DJ Jaffa.

Spider Kitten

Major Label Debut, by Newport heavy rockers Spider Kitten, is in fact self-released and shares its sarcastic title with a Screeching Weasel EP from the late 90s, a few years before Spider Kitten formed. Fronted by Chi Lameo, SK’s sole continuous member in what is currently a trio, their longevity has led them down many paths, wearing many stylistic hats, but the punked-up grunge thud – think the early Sub Pop roster, with Maladjusted’s riff distinctly resembling Nirvana’s Negative Creep – offered up here is perhaps the closest the band come to a default mode. There’s even a Wipers cover (Over The Edge) and a song called Self-Care (Makes Me Wanna Die) that sounds a bit like GG Allin, cos why not.

Unity

Another side of 2021 Welsh rap, Diving Deeper by Cardiff MC Unity has a sunnier disposition than Po Griff but is no less ‘real’ whatever that means. I dug her previous two EPs, but this 10-song album, on local label Bard Picasso, feels like a big step up. Production, handled by several names including Unity herself, stitches folk, jazz and hip-hop together in a consistently interesting and undiluted way, and there’s a solid soul and spoken word element thanks to the vocals – Cara Elise’s lush pipes on Only You standing out, to take nothing away from Amelia Unity’s own chatty delivery.

From The Mountains To The Sea

Finally, a compilation released by the Lavender Sweep label, titled From The Mountains To The Sea and consisting of – to call back to an earlier point in the column – stoner, sludge and doom metal from the Swansea area, from the late 90s to date. There’s been a lot of it over time: many bands, including some among these 18 songs, never made it past the demo stage, but plentiful enough that I wondered if there might have been room for Black Eye Riot, Estuary Blacks or Woven Man. Any road, this is a great idea for a great collection, inducing nostalgia in me but full of good music in its own right from Acrimony to Taint to Suns Of Thunder. Bong on!

words NOEL GARDNER