2013 In Music - Albums - Part 2

Despite what I said I might do in the last part of this review series, this is not EPs and mini- albums of 2013. It is the second tranche of 'albums of 2013'. The former category is proving far more fascinating, and therefore complex, than I imagined even a couple of weeks ago. It will have to await my attention this coming weekend. The first part afforded you one album that was largely sung in a foreign language. This will include another but the comfort is that at least both of them are sung in the same foreign language. I make no excuses about this, the links, or indeed the variety of music included. You won't catch me adding a link to NME very often but here I chose to do so:

• Danni Nicholls - A Little Redemption
• Deap Vally - Sistrionix
• Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo - Dear River
• Ethan Johns - If Not Now Then When?
• Joanna Gruesome - Weird Sister
• Joanne Shaw Taylor - Songs From The Road
• Lanterns on the Lake - Until The Colours Run
• Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin - Mynd
• Siddi - Un Tro
• Texas - The Conversation
• Troubadour Rose - Find An Arrow
• Wild Belle - Isles

I've seen seven of these acts live, four of them more than once, and the other five are well and truly on my list of 'ones to see'. Choose your own favourite, not from these, unless you really want to do that, because it is your turn. Write about it - somewhere, anywhere legal.

New Music - Part 29 - Plu

Only yesterday I wrote that my next my next post on forthcoming albums would be from acts and artists at the rockier, more electric end of the spectrum. That will happen very soon but, in part due to very much consideration of the acoustic aspects of EOTR and particularly sibling acts, that plan got wrecked by discovering this.
My excuse is that on a technicality this album does not contravene the forgoing as it is already released.

Plu is a sibling three-piece comprising Elan, Gwilym and Marged Rhys who hail from Bethel in Gwynedd, North Wales. The best short description of their music I can provide would be of imagining that Sweden's First Aid Kit suddenly discovered they had a brother and then all three decided to write and record in Welsh, rather than English. I know that might be a little tricky even if you are well acquainted with the music of First Aid Kit, so here is a sampling of the music of Plu.


The album Plu has thirteen tracks and the listing is below:

1. sgwennaf lythyr
2. gyfaill
3. cwm pennant
4. tyrd yn ol
5. garth celyn
6. hiraeth
7. geiriau allweddol
8. fyddai'm yn ddiarth
9. glaw du
10. blodau oll
11. fel llwynog
12. yr ysfa
13. tra bo dau

It is released on CD by label Sbrigyn Ymborth (SY016) and the best place to source it is Sadwrn where you can also find a fascinating range of other music from Wales.  If you are aware of of the work of Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog, that includes brothers, another Sbrigyn Ymborth act, and Siddi (again siblings) then you will have a better idea of where I am coming from.

'Plu' is the welsh word for 'feathers'. If you search Google or similar for plu you will also discover that it is an acronym for many and varied things.

New Music - Part 10 - Siddi - Un Tro

There are three terms that frequently cause alarm in many readers and, in no rational order, they are thus...

• folk music
• concept album
• foreign language lyric

I'm delighted to say that I have found one that is so wonderful - it combines all three. That, in itself, is not a particularly difficult quest but this is the one I want to mention specifically...

... and it is constructed around a fairy tale, just to make it even more improbable.

It is the début album by Siddi, the sibling duo of Osian and Branwen Williams. They also have previous convictions for appearing with (fraternal trio Hughes) Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog. That includes live performance. The album Draw Dros Y Mynydd was amongst my favourites of 2012.
I just don't get the problem with things such as this.