DON LEISURE
Kicking off this month’s new Welsh music column is Don Leisure. Shaboo Strikes Back, an LP on First Word, is a beatcrafter’s showcase assembled in Cardiff – with the presumed exception of All Praises Due, a feature for the clarinet of Chicago’s esteemed spiritual jazzer Angel Bat Dawid. Don, aka Aly Jamal, has rustled up a proper banquet for anyone who likes psychedelic patchwork hip-hop bricolage, or even just the idea of it. Shaboo features 25 tracks, most often under two minutes long, and a deep reserve of caramel-rich string samples, breakbeats, dialogue snippets (everything from 70s movies to 90s radio ads) and the general feeling of being taken on a journey through terrain you don’t recognise. As well as Dawid, there are guest appearances from Gruff Rhys, Boy Azooga’s Davey Newington and, it says here, Don’s small daughter Naima. Aw.
BOBBY BLUFF
This is probably stretching the definition of a ‘Welsh release’ past its limit but what are you going to do, write to your MP? Bobby Bluff is a band of three, none of them named Bobby Bluff: our connection, if you will, is Jon Tregenna, a Welsh playwright/writer/muso resident in Laugharne where Introducing Bobby Bluff was partly recorded. The other two members, Matt Armstrong and Jude Montague, have done some interesting stuff together and separately; Armstrong affects what I assume is the character of Bobby through his London wideboy vocal and lurid underbelly-of-the-city lyrics. Musically this is oddly tricky to pin down: there are dustings of electric folk and jazz, and I catch Ian Dury and Auteurs vibes at times, but it’s all pleasingly vivid and theatrical in the good sense.
CHARLIE J
Now for some Welsh hip-hop with outside assistance – transatlantic, no less, with Cardiff MC Charlie J graced by production from a Columbus, OH beatmaker named KwanLi. The languid, melodic vintage soul flips that make up the six tracks on A Moment’s Notice may well be a familiar style to you, with Dilla and early Kanye cited as influences, but it’s done impeccably stylishly, and Charlie is a more than suitable match: romantic without being syrupy, relatable without being trite and augmented on the final two tracks by fellow south Wales hip-hop scenesters Ogun and Mezcal.
GOODPARLEY
Meditations Vol. 1 by Goodparley has no words but a detailed backstory. Oli Richards began recording under this name a couple of years ago as a sort of ambient/synth sideline from his more established band, postpunkish Cardiffians Silent Forum; Goodparley slowly became his main focus, what with its home-taped nature suiting lockdown nicely. Richards wanted to get back into playing guitar, and also become better at getting up in the morning – the five instrumental tracks on this CDR, released by the Wormhole World label, combine both these things, in that they’re recordings made right after waking up. That drowsy vibe is palpable, in a good way, with these sheets of abstract guitar drift. I especially like the bend towards desert-blues twang on the final Meditation Twelve.
HEDDLU
Based on precisely four words – the musical alias and the song title, which is repeated throughout as its sole lyric – you might like to think of Heddlu as a new Welsh language act on the block. You may also have encountered the person behind it before, too, Rhodri Daniel previously playing guitar in south Wales indie band Estrons. Daw Eto Haul, the first taste of an already written album, is a showcase for a borrowed haul of analogue synths and a maximalist psych-dance sensibility akin to a meeting of Kelly Lee Owens and Surrender-era Chemical Brothers. This is also Daniel’s return to music after taking time off to deal with the onset of tinnitus, so fair play.
HOLY COVES
Holy Coves’ The Hurt Within is again the first taste of an LP due in the second half of 2022 – in this case, it’ll be the Snowdonia band’s third, and first for a decade. Their chief vibe seems to be anguished blokey psychedelia – think The Black Angels etc – although this leaves room for Oasis-style key-changing and an Alice In Chains bassline. Essentially, Holy Coves is a vehicle for Scott Marsden, with an entirely new lineup this time out including ex-Gorky’s guitarist John Lawrence and Spike T Smith. Spike has an absolutely mad drumming CV that also comprises Sacrilege’s Turn Back Trilobite, four years touring with Morrissey and – the last thing he did before this by the looks – the 2021 album by Karl Willetts’ post-Bolt Thrower band Memoriam.
HOSKINS PHENOMENON
I don’t think I can describe what this band’s deal is with any degree of authority, and will probably get some details wrong, but here goes anyway. They come from Port Talbot or Pontardawe, or both, and seem to be related to or peers of Brian Karrot, whose band The Karrots date from the late 80s and who I reviewed a single by with similar impressed puzzlement a while back. Hoskins Phenomenon’s Hoskins The Halbum appears to have a running theme or concept, hitched to eight songs of lo-fi psych-rock burble. Of the acts that come even tenuously to mind as I listen – the Mothers Of Invention, Ween, The Olivia Tremor Control, Kevin Ayers – some strike me as more plausible influences than others, but again I am excitingly rudderless out here.
JON RUDDICK
More blanketing ambient soothe from the Welsh capital, this time by a fellow who has been making synth-originated beatlessness for a good decade now and is also one of the main people who oversees DIY artspace Shift. Ergo, a big hand for Jon Ruddick! Companions is described, in full, as an “exploration of space populated by moving bodies” – it’s not further explained how this relates to the music, which favours solemn, drawn-out drone parts bedecked with a layer of fuzz, although the closing Borders & Customs includes the sounds of what I assume is an airport, making things a little more concrete. These are affecting tones if you’re into ambient artists like Stars Of The Lid or KMRU.
KING GOON
Swansea’s King Goon muse “I feel so ordinary” on this debut album’s second song, Three Cheers For The Fat Italian, and I can only hear it as a nod to New Order’s True Faith. They certainly don’t sound like New Order, in fairness: the culmination of a decade’s activity, Admit Nothing! Deny Everything! Lie! Lie! Lie! has a ska foundation (the previously mentioned song is a bit Dexy’s) and punk leanings, though when these manifest it’s more like moody post-hardcore than ska-punk. The cumulative sounds on this album will probably ensure that no one except King Goon themselves enjoys all of it, and kudos to them for that.
PARCS
Released through Rose Parade, this is the first new music in a few years from this Newport three-piece; I reviewed, in a 2021 column, a release featuring one member, George Goom. This is a bit more pop-centric than his ambient-ish compositions in that context, but Parcs’ In The Night nevertheless has an expansive dreaminess, as electro-indie quasi-balladry goes. Feel like this is a sound that blew up around the late 00s and has never really updated itself aesthetically, but you could say that about a lot of musical styles.
RHODRI DAVIES
DWA DNI and For Simon H. Fell are the first releases by Swansea-dwelling experimental harp manipulator and general class act Rhodri Davies for over 18 months. Released concurrently on Amgen, his own label, the first of these albums features 15 instrumental pieces which mostly come in under three minutes, have all-Polish track titles, and are performed on what’s referred to as the MOGIC lap harp. The playing is raw and clustery, but with the instrument’s melodic potential exploited.
Simon H. Fell, a UK jazz musician, was a longstanding cohort of Davies until his death in 2020: this hour-long piece was recorded very shortly before that sad event, in the knowledge of his condition. Performing here on a concert harp, Davies largely eschews melody, attending to strings in unconventional fashion and imbuing silence/deep quiet with emotional heft. A continuation of, and tribute to, the British peculiarities inherent to free improv.
SECONDSON
Back to Cardiff guys who you’d be smart to hit up for a beat, well Leon ‘Secondson’ West has certainly been one of those in his time – in the early 00s his instrumentals pretty much kept south Wales rappers’ collective motor running. His latest offering, Any Other Place, was recorded in Cathays Park’s Temple Of Peace and is entirely performed on an instrument, the halldorophone, which didn’t even exist when West was recording with Fleapit and the like. It is, for the most part, extremely quiet and sedate, string drones evolving incrementally with assistance from the temple’s acoustics: headphones recommended as standard, and maybe try cleansing your mind of all thoughts too. I’m sure you hogs will find that rather simple!
words NOEL GARDNER

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