Noel Gardner and Emma Way bring you the best new Welsh music that may have (most likely, in fact) escaped your attention this January, including Bad Shout, Nookee, Can Kicker, Junior Disprol, Ffranwen, and more…

BAD SHOUT

Riding high off support slots for the likes of Feet and Shlug, three-piece punk newcomers Bad Shout were going to be anything but tedious on their debut EP release if their live show was anything to go by. Fronted by Callum Charman, who moved to Cardiff in 2021 with the aim of forming a new band, Bad Shout’s self-titled four-track stands at just under 10 minutes and packs their frantic live set into smaller, similarly urgent chunks. The first tracks echo safety-pin punk with high-end squealing guitar leads and unaccompanied bass builds, “Wannaballoon, do you want one too?” Charman hollers, his phrasing altering between prolonged howls and primal screams.

When it comes to the drums, thrashing consistent blast beats anchor the track Play With Yourself. Chaotic impulsive guitar lines with the bass propelling from underneath, the influence of DC hardcore to the band is an important addition. The breakneck speed of all four tracks confirms a command over an audience, and this ep is Bad Shout pursuing bodies to fill that eventual sweatfest. 

words EMMA WAY

CAN KICKER

From the list of currently active and actually interesting DIY punk bands in south Wales, which I have written right here on this grain of rice, Can Kicker are top of my pops. The fact they’ve only played a few gigs since forming (in lockdown times, to be fair) yet northern English label Drunken Sailor have jumped in to release their self-titled debut album says a lot! Its nine songs are bizarro lurching diamonds which bundle up hardcore, postpunk, psychedelia and deathrock in a way that make any of those descriptors feel inadequate in isolation. The recording, by another fave rave of this section Alice Low, retains Can Kicker’s essential ruff murk but lets each member’s parts ring out: the twin guitars of Luke Penny, who also supplies the paranoid-yob vocals, and Matt Short do especially good work in elevating Can Kicker beyond punk orthodoxy.

DOUBTSOWER

The second album in just under 18 months by Doubtsower is right up my avenue in sound and genesis. The fella in this one-fella band, Cardiff-based Matthew Strangis, has produced drum’n’bass for several years as Kyam, but came to the genre from a rock-ish background, and had been adding moodier, less dancing-friendly elements to his craft for a while before coining-this-full-on-doom-metal sideline. The slo-mo riffs and growling death-doom vocals on opener Plastic Trail To The Gaping End amount to a declaration of meaning business, and as well as some swish horror-metal keyboards and hard digital drums on Monument To Hypocrisy there are soundscapey moments on mid-album number Trajectory that plot a line back to his recent d’n’b releases. Tip!

FFRANCON

Geraint Ffrancon, to give him his full name, has been home-cooking inspired Welsh-language electronic music for some 20 years now. (When I say ‘Welsh-language’, his productions are most commonly instrumental, but the language is very much a feature of the broader package.) A recent gambit of his, which riffs on the twin-town status of Machynlleth and techno’s arguable birthplace of Belleville near Detroit, has proved inspired; Trais, three new tracks for 2023, continues in that vein of melancholy atmospheres and chuggy, vintage-sounding analogue synth jams. Dwi’n Colli Rheolaeth (O’r Economi) resembles a prototypical take on late-80s Yorkshire bleep techno and is consequently my pick of the trio.

GAFAEL

Matthew Ridgway’s releases as Gafael – Serpentine is his third so far – have all come via a cassette label from Miami called Noir Age, but his north Wales homestead is evidently significant, with field recordings from Gwynedd and Anglesey cited as featuring in his cloudy, solemn ambient drone pieces. It’s titled in reference to Loie Fuller, whose groundbreaking Serpentine Dance performance has also been paid tribute by Taylor Swift, and if one can only take Ridgway’s word that this music aims to emulate Fuller’s movement, it’s rich and spectral enough that it’d be churlish to raise doubts. This is a really special release, recommended to fans of KMRU, Stars Of The Lid or Matthew Shaw but very much with its own identity.

GLASSHOUSE

This Carmarthen sax/drums/keys trio turned my head towards the end of 2022 with their debut five-track release, 5 Panes; quoting a previous review, they claim to be “free jazz … with melodies you could whistle.” Heresy, sheer bloody heresy! I jest, mostly, though I’m not sure I’d independently peg Glasshouse’s style as free jazz even while acknowledging their all-improvisation-all-the-time philosophy. There’s a noir-y quality to the interplay between Lee Relfe’s horn and James Hancock-Evans’ keyboards at times, although a wistful effervescence is at least as prevalent. Drummer John Franks is perhaps the trio’s wildcard, offering a personalised approach to the kit whose rhythmic complexity sometimes sounds like it’s searching for a different band.

I AM DRUG

From Barry, where psychedelic proto-grunge freekout bands are rarely found (that’s a tick in their box), I Am Drug’s members are probably twice the age of most of the bands they play with on their few live dates per year (that’s good too), and in their time on ‘the circuit’ I’ve never quite pinned down what their deal is (another compliment). Two days before Christmas they released a four-song EP – The Crucial Fix, through what I take to be their own label ‘DMT Records’ – and it’s an entertaining pile-up of Mudhoney-type caveman riffs, electronic buggery a la Hawkwind, an angry spin on ‘far out daddio’ beat poetry and frothing synthpunk in roughly that order. Cool.

JUNIOR DISPROL

One of the most prominent movers in early-00s Welsh hip-hop, MCing in Cardiff’s Fleapit collective among zillions of other spots, Matt ‘Junior Disprol’ Herbert released a couple of LPs last year that both escaped what passes for my attention. However, a two-track 7” single has just dropped via the Plague label: Mugshots, which is also on the Def II album and which sees Disprol share the mic with Brooklyn cult rap legend Thirstin Howl III, and Indeedy, exclusive to this release. Evil Ed, a UK hip-hop producer of comparable vintage to Disprol, handles the beats on that one, and Cardiff’s evergreen DJ Jaffa chips in with scratches on both tracks. Tidy.

NOOKEE

During the past year, you might have come across the name Nookee on a festival lineup or two, and with the band releasing their first single You’ve Got Your Story (An’ I Got Mine) on the second day of the year, this identical twin-fronted, blues-roots collective have surfaced early, assuring 2023 is the year of retro garms and fierce Janis Joplin-worthy belts. The high energy, tightly woven with time band have been named one of talent development scheme Forté’s artists on the rise for this year, and you can see why. From their live recorded session taken from Rockfield Studios you can hear the sun-kissed in both lyrics and instrumentation: reverb-dripping guitars, locked grooves, percussive sprinklings and effortless harmonies. This is a band who have already forged a path for themselves – they’re just getting to walk it now.

words EMMA WAY

POPE JOHN PAUL VAN DAMME

Cardiff raver Tom Wallace released three albums as Pope John Paul Van Damme in 2022, all seemingly linked by Wallace’s gambit of titling their tracks after characters from film and TV. How Am I Not Myself, which has been issued on vinyl courtesy of Berlin label Last Riot, doesn’t do this, but is probably the best example of PJPVD’s brisk, wistful, melodic IDM yet. His beats, though they dial back the intensity compared to previous releases, are the main thing keeping HAINM from functioning as ambient, or ambient techno at least (think Warp’s recently re-released Artificial Intelligence compilation): his synths most often sigh and soothe, although as with many IDM originators there’s often a hit of punchy acid just round the corner. Would be good to hear this played live through big speakers at some point.

RHYS LLWYD JONES

Rhys lives in Cardiff and also makes music as part of Art Bandini, who released an album shortly before Rhys’ bilingual solo effort, Caneuon I’r Adar / Songs For The Birds. When he emailed me about the latter, he suggested I might prefer the Art Bandini album on the grounds that Caneuon… is “depressing”: can confirm he misjudged my tastes there, but I appreciate the thoughtfulness all the same. As it happens I find his solo mode quite appealing, mostly naught but voice and guitar (Frank Naughton adds some post-production touches here and there) on tips that might make you think of Laurel Canyon folk-rock, or Van Morrison at his most stripped-down, or a more contemporary name like Damien Jurado whose cleancut sound harbours a dark undertone.

SHLUG

A sharp, subversive juggernaut, three-piece self-identifying meatgrinder-lugging noise outfit Shlug hand over new single Baby Teef to the outcasts with the bellows of Ellis Acton-Dyer’s broody reflection, “Born a leech, just like me.” Filling six minutes and 20 seconds of industrial noise-punk with the clatterings of thunderous drums, bloody-throated vocals and growling guitars, the Cardiff group are menacing as ever, channelling their uncontainable live sound. Confident in knowing their audience’s attention will be brought back by the next breakdown, these serve as pillars for the song’s demanding injections of feedbacking guitars and furious, unruly yet cinematic drum segments. Baby Teef rages on with no intention other than to build and release in its own time, and expects nothing of you other than to withstand it.

words EMMA WAY

SHREDDIES

Josh Dickins, a Cardiff resident with a varied list of rock-ish bands also on his CV, has developed a nice line in atmospheric electronic music, some of which you can dance to and some of which invites vegetation. Wethersongs, on his own New Haven Tapes label, is his third cassette as Shreddies, and announces itself as a game of two halves. Its first, Wethersong parts one to three, is inspired – says Dickins – by a visit to Lisbon, and sits at the intersection of deep house and ambient, with the final section introducing disquiet via a phalanx of weird FX. On the second side, Small Animal (committed to tape while looking after someone’s dog) leans into Dickins’ sleepier, syrupier tendencies with arpeggiated keyboards, fuzz-edged tones and beats pushed further down into the mix. He’s also just debuted a new alias, Clansi: a two-track release under that name is more ‘classic’ ambient, if you will, like Eno if he’d become a full-scale new age guy.

WITHOUT HISTORY

I semi-regularly get promo emails concerning music described as ‘neofolk’, by which the people involved seem to mean folk-rock with modern digital production methods, and definitely not the – shall we say – divisive subgenre of that name. Without History, a solo project from north Wales is self-described as neofolk, and accurately in this case – although somewhat atypical of the style, going by Solstice Songs, two tracks available on cassette. The artist behind Without History is a trans woman and brings this identity to bear on these songs’ lyrics, which imagine the tribulations of queer people in centuries past via doomladen vocals and a musical backing that’s clanging, gothic and dirgeful as you like.

words NOEL GARDNER