MUSIC
Compiled by Noel Gardner and Chris Andrews
LUCAS J ROWE
By the time this issue is in your hands, the winner of the 2019 Welsh Music Prize will have been announced, with Cardiff’s Lucas J Rowe one of the dozen contenders. Instinct tells me that he’s an outsider in this environment – his eight-song EP Touchy Love is a digital-only self-release, and he’d be the first quote-unquote urban winner – but it’d be great to be wrong here. Rowe’s blend of clipped, trappy beats, Autotuned dancehall/bashment vocals, Drake-ish croon-rap and an unmistakable south Walian twang has several ingredients of a recipe for success; his biggest showcase to date was a Sean Paul support slot at the Motorpoint Arena, with gigs with newer stars like Not3s also under his belt.
Info: twitter.com/lucasjrowe91
ALFFA
Two youngish Caernarfon-area fellows who were chosen as one of 12 acts to be promoted by the BBC’s Horizons scheme in 2018, and have built a decent rep on the Welsh-language indie circuit to boot. However, Alffa are still best known for benefiting from some algorithmic happenstance, Spotify adding their song Gwenwyn to a playlist and boosting its streams into the millions – unique for music yn Gymraeg. All of which puts the onus on the duo to release an album that renders them more than a quirky stat, and in debut Rhyddid O’r Cysgodion Gwenwynig they might have done so. Its wailing bluesy rattle has a surprisingly heavy Sabbath-like undercarriage that would surely play well with heavy rock fans everywhere.
Info: facebook.com/alffaband
BLACKELVIS
“Wavy”, this Cardiff band call themselves, and like the streetwear also prefixed thus, they usher in the return of styles some might have struggled to imagine ever again being fashionable. Sometimes styled as Black3lvis, the four-piece’s debut release See Love, a seven-song EP released by local label Newsoundwales, offers a soulful spin on the sort of slick funk-rock whose boom period was long before half the band were born. They’re dab hands at it, though, frontman Levi Johnson boasting strong singer’s pipes and MC’s flow alike, and have proved a popular draw locally. A hometown Christmas gig in the NosDa bar on Sat 21 Dec should be busy.
Info: facebook.com/blackelvisband
HANA2K
As per Hana Evans’ musical pseudonym, the Penarth solo artist deals in pointedly millennial concept pop, honed since embarking on a bedroom-bound self-penning/producing jag aged 14. Five years on, the Hana2k project is coming on very nicely, with two singles (Daydreaming and Call My Name) finding favour in useful places during 2019. Electronic, minimal and melancholy, Evans lists Britney and Max Martin as influences, and that once globe-conquering pair can certainly be detected in Hana2k’s broad aesthetic.
Info: www.hana2k.com
OBEY COBRA
Heavy feedbacker psychedelia with punk and electronic touches – all of Obey Cobra’s five members play in other projects, some of which answer to those genre descriptors – and an improvisatory angle that’s been sharpened into excellence over the last two years or so. The band, based in various parts of south Wales, have taken a perfectionist approach to actually releasing music, but an album is finally ready and will drop in late January. Some record labels dug by the sort of people who like this sort of music are warm for ‘em, and there’s a strong chance Obey Cobra product might appear on one later, but for now it’s a self-release to get it out in the wild.
Info: facebook.com/obeycobramusic
THOSE DAMN CROWS
It seems that 2020 may see the next big thing in Welsh rock stand up, and Bridgend’s Those Damn Crows are that band. In new album Point Of No Return, out in early February, the band have a bagful of classic-sounding metal anthems, recorded with legendary producers Colin Richardson and Andy Sneap, that should see them reach the next level on their journey. With appearances at festivals including Steelhouse and Download behind them, the five-piece will shortly be embarking on a full UK tour. As new track Sin On Skin says “The moment has arrived.”
Info: thosedamncrows.com