reviews WELSH


RELEASES


A grip of new releases from all over Wales begins for alphabetical reasons in Cardigan, and on a high, with the Inta 12” by Aloka, aka Jake O’Regan. Aloka has previously appeared on cool


South Wales trio Exit_ International


Aussie rave imprint Steel City Dance Discs but releases through his own label Typeless here, and comes good with four tracks built from calming (if distortion- flecked) synths and aggier, punchy breakbeats. Chroma is my pick of the quartet, probably mad tough to dance to but you’d have fun trying.


formally split up, I don’t think, but are dormant on account of vocalist Scott Lee Andrews living in Australia. Here, though, is a remastered reissue of their debut album Black Junk, released on CD 10 years ago and vinyl now (via the SaySomething label), and it remains an entertaining half-hour of frothy noiserock. Featuring two bassists and no guitars, the better for a glut of bottom end, Black Junk recalls the absurdism of McLusky and Les Savy Fav, with added nods to industrial metal and a sly pop sensibility. One song is titled Bowie’s Ghost, a mere five years before David Bowie’s death – talk about eerily prescient!


The debut album by Asbjorn Daemonium De Noctis was released last year, but has just had a cassette release on an American label, the pleasingly named Virescent Spider Records, so I’m using that as an excuse to write about it now. Asbjorn Daemonium De Noctis is the solo alias of one William Philpot, who also plays in Cardiff band Black Pyre. They are straight- up black metal and so is this, although it has blackened punk-y leanings at certain points


ambient passages. I think the drums are all programmed but the guitars sound great and the whole vibe is very much my early 90s bag.


as well as murky never


ONES TO WATCH: Skunkadelic


Consumption where one or both members fails to stifle a giggle. Dropping Krautrock rhythms and spacerock synths into the mix here and there, it’s on the more surreal end of DIY country psychedelica, indeed could be described as whimsical at times (though rocks harder at others), but is never overly zany.


The debut album by Papur Wal, a trio of north Wales lads living in Cardiff, arrives via the Libertino label, and is by no means the only thing they’ve released to retool the more classic rock-friendly side of Pavement for the Welsh language set. isn’t


on Amser Mynd Adra, which has its janglepop and psych moments too, but describes album centrepiece Haul Chewfror and closing number Anifeiliaid Anwes (Fi, Efo Hi) well enough. An injection of pedal steel on penultimate song Nôl Ac Yn Ôl is nice, in the way pedal steel invariably is.


Are you in the correct headspace to handle an album of Celtic folk balladry by four siblings named Fantasia, Harvey, Melody and Titania? You are? Great! The press release also wants you to know the names of each member’s dog: Hugo, Eowyn, Merry and Gawain. This is Dreamless Days by The Meadows, from Carmarthenshire and on their own Pokey Cupboard label; its recording (by Steve Balsamo) is polished to a fault,


classical grounding


Changing tack with whiplash abruptness, we ascend to Conwy and the first album in seven years by Denuo. The self-released Through Life comes with a nostalgically wide choice of formats, although you’ll have to wait until 2022 for the vinyl, and it moves from soft rock- leaning indie to chart-friendly 80s sophistipop – Helen, No, could almost be A-ha in its sad effervescence. This column’s favourite smoothly experimental Margate-based saxophonist, Jorja Chalmers, makes a guest appearance on album closer June, and is a judicious addition.


the expense of the folk heart perhaps. Certain moments, like the flute-led Gelli Aur, seem to echo Clannad’s spin on Irish trad.


at the only thing done This


Finally, another archive release by Cardiff resident Jaxson Payne, this time from 2015 and under the name Xutatek. It’s fully electronic tackle but pretty different from


releases, his recent


illuminating their but


Stated to currently be living in Snowdonia by Cue Dot, the label releasing his latest missive, R. Seiliog (Robin Edwards) has taken a turn for the isolationist on the seven- track Ash Dome. Past produce of his was more motoriky, euphoric, Kraut(rock)-with-a- dance-element, but here all is low-key ambience, keyboards sliding across each other and very little you’d describe as a beat. Features “binaural field recordings” collected in a Gwynedd nature reserve, according to the credits, though whether anyone other than Edwards could correctly identify them is another matter.


No Thee No Ess, a roughly Cardiffian duo, follow up a couple of anticipatory singles with an album, Dimmer Switch (Surk) – their eighth, it says here. The evident fun they had recording it, with Frank Naughton of Rocketgoldstar and other projects as an extra member of sorts, is clearest on mid-album song


Compositions tapes – rather, Xutatek is nine pieces of oddly funky glitch house with an early 00s sort of vibe. Could imagine this coming out on a label like Forcetracks rather vividly – a compliment, for the avoidance of doubt. Payne has turned it into a continuous mix and this has, I think, accentuated the urge to hear this music or something like it out of a stack in a dangerously small basement. But not tonight, darling!


the MIDI-Drum series of


is trying to pull a fast one on me by soliciting regional coverage of an act whose connection to the region is tenuous. Then I remember that people probably aren’t desperate for our custom to bother with all that. Are they? Anyway, Sleep Outside’s debut EP This Won’t Ever Last has a song about Cathays Community Centre and the singer works in Kongs. More relevantly, their music is slick, transitional emo-rock with a yen for the twinkly, heart- rending 90s types as well as the post-millennial acts who took the term into the mainstream. They chuck in a few wonky time signatures (Skeleton) but their riffs can soar poppishly.


Skunkadelic, aka Tumi Williams, is a Cardiff hip-hop MC whose vocals take centre stage in many- membered funk ensemble Afro Cluster. He’s got a solid rep in solo mode too, with a new single No Time out this month and teeming with anger and optimism alike over the events of the last year and a half. In respect to his Nigerian heritage, he also cooks up a mean jollof rice – as in, for a job. Find out more below…


The lyrics to No Time cover a few hot topics – were there any specific incidents that inspired you to write them?


I wrote this song in December 2020, after a turbulent year just like most of us. It was certainly triggered by the loss of loved ones to COVID and the rise of the BLM movement.


You’ve got Mesijo on production here who is a new name, at least to me. Mesijo,


aka Joe Beardwood, is an incredibly talented musician/producer. Highly recommend you check out Running Wild, his track with Jon Lilygreen. I’ve known him for a few years now – we’ve always wanted to collaborate and decided it was time to write an EP. This is the first instalment.


As Skunkadelic, what do you see yourself as doing differently in solo mode than as part of Afro Cluster, and vice versa? I love collaborating both with Afro Cluster and on my own but going solo perhaps gives me the chance to experiment more, particularly with other genres and even other creative artforms. I recently worked on my first opera – commissioned by Music Theatre Wales – with some incredible artists. The House Of Jollof Opera is released at the end of September.


NOEL GARDNER


Is there a Skunkadelic album in the works and can you tell us anything about that if so? I’m currently working on an EP with Mesijo, which should be out early 2022, as well as writing my next album. Afro Cluster have just started writing again too, really excited to see where we go next.


Outside of music, you started up Nigerian street food operation Jollof House Party last year. Yes, I’ve been so pleased by it all, although this year’s been a bit of a rollercoaster with being booked at festivals and then lots of them getting cancelled. My next residency will be at Sticky Fingers on selected dates in October.


Sleep Outside are “based between Cardiff and London,” it says here. This often makes me suspicious that someone


41


Skunkadelic plays FOCUS Wales, Wrexham on Fri 8 Oct and the Attic Bar, Bristol on Sat 16 Oct. skunkadelic.bandcamp.com


NOEL GARDNER


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