Show #2599: Saturday 22nd June 2024 - Dactyl Terra / The Joy Formidable / Himalayas
Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales, 22nd June 2024: Dactyl Terra interview; The Long Song: Himalayas 'Hung Up'; Behind the Track: The Joy Formidable 'The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade';
Listen again via BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0020f8z
PLEASE NOTE: This isn’t an official BBC / BBC Wales post. All words / opinions expressed here are my own.
I love writing these pieces and I'm very grateful that you take the time to read them. Thank you / diolch yn fawr. If they direct you towards an interesting piece of music from an independent Welsh artist, they're worth the time it takes to write them.
Time - however - has been in particularly short supply recently. Work is intense and there is a lot for me to do at home so that my house doesn't fall into complete disrepair; jobs that have needed to be done for a decade or more.
Please bear with me if I miss a programme, or post so late in the week that my words arrive like yesterday's papers. There is always something - many things - to hear in any given show that I think are worth your attention and your love, things that have a shelf life beyond 7 days.
I've half written a piece about last week's special guests, Samana, and their current album of naturalistic, sweeping wonders. I will finish that in due course, soon as the tigers hiding in the back garden jungle are persuaded back into the hedge from whence they came by my strimmer. Soon as the gutters have been cleared enough to let some rainwater through (when the rains return, as they will). Soon as we can see the floor in the middle room for fx pedals, jack-to-jack cables and empty bags of Hot and Spicy Nik Naks.
There's a lot to write about currently. Have you noticed the rising, foaming crest of young Welsh bands currently breaking on the country, shaking things up? They're whole dimensions away from the rather aspirational and polished 'indie' pop of recent times... where 'indie' <> to how your granddad and I defined indie. This tide of new excellence is unhinged from looper pedal repetition; it laughs in the face of Sheeran and Swift. It has subversion at its core and a desire to burn down stereotypes in a hail of fevered, imaginative creativity.
It's not punk. It's not psych. It's not garage. It's not prog. Or goth. It's a nameless, non-prescriptive energy of imagination and soul that encompasses all of those things and more, that finds its heat in rehearsal rooms and garages, exploring and furthering the decades old alchemy of people-playing-together-in-a-room.
It's a different philosophy from music woven on an Ableton grid. But it's not Luddite, faux authentic (shiver), traditional or in thrall to crumbling archetypes.
The finest, most celebrated smiths of these molten new shapes - someone like Minas, who combines the unstable chaotic energy of hardcore with an intuitive love for beats, synths, pads and textures - are elevating us to new, thrilling territories that have not been traversed before.
I won't try to reduce what's happening to a list, but whatever it is that Bad Shout, Crinc and Monet are doing has an originality and incandescence that will either burn out quickly while the music industry tries to handbrake turn its beached oil tanker into position, or will - regardless - catalyse a new revolution.
Dactyl Terra are a fine example of this new fierce breed. They're more than the sum of their parts... whatever musical forces swirl around them as they play and create are a perpetual motion machine of reclaimed riffs, psychedelic rushes, adrenaline-pumping aural thrills and the sound of a new being wrought from musical ore gathered in their crucible over short lifetimes digging music from here, there and everywhere: parents' music collections; word of mouth; streaming platform deep dives; YouTube rabbit holes; well-curated festival bills... all sparks to the tinder.
It's a very different - and much more inspirational - musical world than the one I grew up in, having to rely on Peel, NME or Melody Maker, or slowing down records to learn how to play them.
Perhaps we're starting to hear the first full harvest from a generation that have grown up with all music ever at its fingertips, and more ready access to the means of production and distribution than ever before.
There's also much less prescriptive 'gate-keeping'. Personally it's a relief to hear bands that don't just adhere to the principals of cool dictated by a generation of former NME journalists and musicians of a certain vintage, still stuck in a rut of Fall and Joy Division records.
Dactyl Terra's debut album 'Fee Fi Fo Fum' is an absolute riot. It's shreds of The Groundhogs, The Stooges, The Oh Sees, Tyrannosaurus Rex, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, Goat, Television, The Doors and a thousand other riff-driven psychonauts, but the patterns, the riffs, the unshakeable tunes are resolutely Dactyl Terra's. It's an album with a psychotropic giddiness and darkness... as much fun as it is on the verge of bad trip scary, when the modulating echoes gather over the void... but you're only every a handful of seconds from another hook back to their groovy reality.
And I'm not channeling Austin Powers. There is groove here. Throughout. A rhythm section that will move a summerful of festival audiences.
I like 'Fee Fi Fo Fum' an awful lot. And if the blood they smell is mine, my bones are theirs to grind.
Elsewhere The Joy Formidable go Behind The Track with 'The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade'. I wrote at length about this song here. Quick précis: of all the many thousands of pieces of music that I have ever played on the radio, this is the one that's eternal, because of the times it saved me; because of the times I witnessed it levitate thousands of people in rooms half way-ish round the world; because it resonates my heart and soul like nothing else. And because the people who made it have become some of the best friends I've ever had. But that came afterwards and has no real bearing on my love for their thunder.
Rhydian and Ritzy go deep into how they wrote and recorded the song, and talk about its place in their hearts and their canon.
There's so much to learn about partnership in their words. It's genuinely inspirational and aching sides funny.
Check it out.
The Long Song this week is awarded - with no ceremony or prize whatsoever, because I'm a tight bugger - to Cardiff's Himalayas. Now they're fresh from having supported Foo Fighters at that big stadium in Cardiff which must have been the most unimaginable headfuck of a vindication and inspirational experience. These words - my slap on the back - will barely register... a Tibetan mosquito landing on one of their titular slopes. Still, though, I can't contain my verbose enthusiasm: their new single 'Hung Up' is a rip current of urgent riffs and impassioned, soulful vocals... more than those things, though - cos they're just the frame upon which the whole thing throbs and insists - it's a great song. I've always liked Himalayas but here it sounds like they're emerging from the long shadows... I can hear Queens of the Stone Age in there somewhere, but this time round, the bands they might have been in thrall to before, will be making notes and taking inspiration. The apprentices are becoming the masters.
Please do send new music excellence to me via the BBC Introducing Uploader or as a download link to my BBC email address. You'll work it out. It has a dot between my first name and my last name.
Keep on trucking x
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Feel free to share the link below:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0020f8z
And you can read more about this week's show on my Substack (for free) here: https://adamwalton.substack.com/p/show-2597-saturday-8th-june-2024
And if you have a chance, you can check out other recent editions of the programme:
15.06.24 Samana talk about their beautiful eponymous third album; Me One / Eric Martin goes Behind The Track with Jeff Beck; Ruby Kelly is the recipient of The Long Song: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0020825
08.06.24 The Allergies go Behind The Track with Koliko ft. K.O.G; Elkka releases our album of the week; Moletrap are the recipient of The Long Song: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001zzgw
01.06.24 Georgia Ruth goes Behind the Track with 'In Luna'; Ivor Woods is the recipient of The Long Song; Hard Drive Deep Dive from Chloe Leavers: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001zsd9
If you would like information about any of the featured artists, please don’t hesitate to reply.
More information about BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds
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THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST
Helen Love - 'Long Hot Summer Pt. 1'
Swansea
http://ilovealcopop.co.uk/collections/helen-love
Big Leaves - 'Racing Birds'
Waunfawr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Leaves
Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18 - 'Tywydd Hufen Iâ'
Benllech / Cardiff
http://carwynellis.com
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - 'Patio Song'
Carmarthen
http://ankstmusik.bandcamp.com
Georgia Ruth - 'Signs'
Aberystwyth
http://georgiaruth.co.uk
Until The Ribbon Breaks - 'For The Birds'
Penarth
http://untiltheribbonbreaks.com/
SageTodz - 'Love??'
Penygroes
http://instagram.com/Manliketodz
Elkka - 'surrender2me'
Cardiff
Mr Bewlay - 'Honey'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/mrbewlay
Hana Lili - 'Figure It Out'
Sully
http://hanalili.os.fan
Griff Lynch Jones - 'Kombucha'
Bangor
http://instagram.com/grifflynch
doomsdaycult - 'No Evil'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/people/Doomsdaycult/100095428531822
Malika Blu - 'Change'
Cardiff
http://instagram.com/Mblue333
Knuckle MC - 'Anadlu'
Llanrug
http://www.instagram.com/foulkes1
Tops Off - 'Small Hours'
Cardiff
http://instagram.com/topsoff_music
The Eggmen Whoooooo! - 'I Don’t Care'
Neath / Resolven
http://facebook.com/p/The-Eggmen-Whooo-100083374175439/
HARD DRIVE DEEP DIVE
Anelog - 'Y Môr'
Denbighshire
http://soundcloud.com/anelog
Chroma - 'I Wanna Be Where You Are [2024]'
Pontypridd
http://chroma.band
Half Happy - 'Slow Down'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/wearehalfhappy
Ruby Kelly - 'The Roots'
Newport
http://facebook.com/rubykelly2002
THE LONG SONG
Himalayas - 'Hung Up'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/Himalayasofficial
Rona Mac and Dan Bettridge - 'Heavy Motion'
Pembrokeshire
http://ronamacmusic.com
Ailsa Mair - '5 Miles Long'
Dyfi Valley
Bedford Falls - 'Work the Room'
Cardiff
http://bedfordfallsrock.co.uk
The Joy Formidable - 'Rhedeg yn y grug'
Mold
http://thejoyformidable.com
BEHIND THE TRACK - THE JOY FORMIDABLE 'THE GREATEST LIGHT IS THE GREATEST SHADE'
The Joy Formidable - 'The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade (A Balloon Called Moaning reissue version)'
Mold
http://thejoyformidable.com
Manilla Times - 'Mona Lisa'
Nannerch
http://linktr.ee/manillatimes
BJC - 'Coach'
Cardiff
http://instagram.com/bjcmusicc
Ynys - 'Gyda Ni'
Aberystwyth
http://facebook.com/YnysMusic
DACTYL TERRA INTERVIEW
Dactyl Terra - 'Submarine'
Cardiff
http://dactylterra.com
Dactyl Terra - 'Mountain Shaking'
Cardiff
http://dactylterra.com
Dactyl Terra - 'Animal Soup'
Cardiff
http://dactylterra.com
Llŷr Williams - 'Contrasts: II. In A Mechanical Style'
Wrexham
http://facebook.com/Llyrwilliamspianist
Stuart Moxham - 'Suburban Monochrome'
Cardiff
Taff Rapids - 'Honco Monco'
Cardiff
http://taffrapidsstringband.com/
Georgia Ruth - 'Dim'
Aberystwyth
http://georgiaruth.co.uk
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SHOW STATS
858 diff songs/ 949 Total. 553 Artists in 25 shows since 1st, Jan '24 (~Songs per:38, Unique artists per:22) Welsh:99% Cymraeg:11% (feat. lyrics in Welsh); Source: Uploader:39%, Direct:17%, Bought:18%, Plugger:21%, Commission:4%
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Comprehensive Session / Interview List: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w-rIPj0l0QhUcbEm08PUPLUWh-416mwlteG_8wpNWtQ/edit?usp=sharing
Subscribe to my Substack: https://adamwalton.substack.com
Diolch o galon,
Adam Walton