Show #2585: Saturday 16th March 2024 - Laila Woodward / Derrero / Chavboy
Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales, 16th March 2024: The Long Song - Laila Woodward / Behind The Track - Derrero 'Radar Intruder' / Reem Muhammed Selects...
Listen again via BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001xf84
PLEASE NOTE: This isn’t an official BBC / BBC Wales post. All words / opinions expressed here are my own.
Rock ’n’ roll is the best part of 70 years old now. It’s not the lingua franca of youth any more, something to unsettle parents and authorities, to give voice to teenage frustrations as they try to wrestle a way into - or out of - the grown up world and the scourge of hormones and emotions that accompany that transition.
And what wonderful scourge it is.
Contradictorily rock ’n’ roll is also ageless and infinitely malleable, a chameleonic shapeshifting power that any of us can fire our imaginations and souls through… but also, a form that is as resonant to young individual creators as it ever was. If anything, the fact that recording and releasing music is more accessible to many people now, means the pop song might be more resonant, more of an expression of youth than it was back when they rioted in the cinemas and dared to grow their hair long.
‘Rock n roll’ and ‘pop song’ aren’t really synonymous phrases, but for the sake of this observation, they both apply to people recording their own compositions, unleashing them into the ether in the hope that they’ll speak the unspoken, bring colour into the universe, and be a rallying call to the similarly disaffected.
Rock n roll pop song is pretty much everything I play on my programme, whether it’s The Gentle Good resurrecting a fragment of lyric or melody from hundreds of years ago through his magic fingers; Kelly Lee Owens arpeggiating us to new levels of electronic heaven; or twst, actually casting new shapes and shadows with ‘pop’ music as literally understood: tuneful, addictive, danceable, transporting.
Last week we celebrated the excellence of Private Party’s debut album ‘Borderless’. I suspect that everyone in Private Party is younger than 20. We’re witnessing a rising force of new original musical creativity in Wales: Phoebe Platt, Y Dail, Shale, Kurios Oranj, Josh Hicks all excellent, young young artists we’ve celebrated in the last month. There are probably more… these are just the ones who volunteered their age.
There’s an extra charge of excitement to hearing - and sharing - music from nascent artists. Age will never ever determine what I play; airplay is always determined by a gut reaction to what I’m hearing, and won’t ever be predicated on a list of demographic checkboxes it’d look good to tick.
Laila Woodward is 17 and from Pontardawe. She calls herself a “hypnotic folk artist” and I can’t better that description. Her debut release ‘She’s Blue’ is our Long Song this week. Laila emanates a naturalistic, magical presence on this recording. It’s a haunting invocation for relief in the aching backwash of a heartbreak, as deceptively simple in its folkish form as it is affecting. Laila mentions - in her introduction - the fact that Mary Hopkin is also from Pontardawe, and there isn’t a million miles between them in musical philosophy or effect, which is heady praise.
There is such a timeless hunger for direct folkish poetry … one only has to listen to Adrianne Lenker, Samantha Crain, Phoebe Bridgers (at her most unadorned) to hear that Laila has a huge potential audience out ‘there’ and many many years in which to find and delight them.
‘She’s Blue’ will feature on Laila’s ‘Hidden Blue EP’ on the Sleepy Town Records label and is released on April 5th 2024.
Laila has been encouraged and guided by the Future Blood youth music project in her hometown. Run by Rich Thair (of Red Snapper fame, amongst others), Future Blood is one of a number of organisations across Wales doing amazing, enabling work with nascent Welsh artists (see also Forte and Anthem).
Elsewhere on this week’s show, in Behind The Track we hear some of the story and inspiration behind Derrero’s classic proto psychedelic single ‘Radar Intruder’ from 1998. It’s space psychedelia, something cryptically poignant being gently beamed into the present from a dimension of poppily psychotropic waves and vibrations. Derrero sounded completely unlike anyone else back then, even their avowed influences (Pavement, Grandaddy, Sparklehorse et al), so this recording still manages the substantial feat of sounding utterly fresh.
It’s a true classic in the Welsh canon that isn’t played anywhere near enough by those of us who celebrate these things. And it’s important - and exciting - to note that Derrero are still ploughing their individualistic and excellent furrow.
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
THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST
Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard - 'In My Egg'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/buzzardbuzzardbuzzard/
Hemes - 'Fire'
Rhondda Cynon Taff
http://facebook.com/hemesmusic
Dactyl Terra - 'Sugar'
Cardiff
http://dactylterra.com
World Party - 'Is It Like Today?'
Prestatyn
Campfire Social - 'Swim Swam Swum'
Chester / Newbridge
http://campfiresocial.co.uk
Fortune Teller - 'Drop The Act'
Rhondda Valleys
http://facebook.com/fortunetellermusic.uk
The Anchoress - 'Show Your Face'
Merthyr Tydfil
Rufus Mufasa - 'Foxglove'
Ammanford / Pontypridd
Cliffords, The - 'Feels Like a Man'
Cork / Swansea
http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553884242792
Shell - 'Close Your Eyes'
Dinas Powys
http://bestliferecords.com/products/shell-the-need-to-separate-lp-blr013
Gruff Rhys - 'Silver Lining Lead Balloons'
Bethesda / Cardiff
http://gruffrhys.com
Pys Melyn - 'Dyn Doeth O'r Dwyrain'
Pen Llyn
Strawberry Guy - 'Taking My Time To Be'
Wales
King Hannah - 'Big Swimmer'
Tan Lan / Liverpool
http://kinghannah.com
THE LONG SONG #035… LAILA WOODWARD ‘She’s Blue’
Laila Woodward - 'She's Blue'
Pontardawe
http://lailawoodward.com
Tom Warren - 'Pistol'
Cardiff
http://instagram.com/tomwarrenmusic
Georgia Ruth - 'Driving Dreams'
Aberystwyth
http://georgiaruth.co.uk
The Meritones - 'Ashdown Sales'
Cardiff
http://instagram.com/themeritones
Bodhi - 'Tri-Fold'
Cardiff
http://hotflush.bandcamp.com
REEM MUHAMMED SELECTS... SAGETODZ ‘Respectfully’
SageTodz - 'Respectfully'
Penygroes
http://instagram.com/Manliketodz
Bird - 'She's Like a Rainbow - Pot of Gold Remix (Radio Edit)'
Wales
http://birdofficial.com
M. Yesekaon - 'Sunshine ft. The Honest Poet'
Colwyn Bay
http://www.instagram.com/m.yesekaon/
Private Party - 'Space Cowboy'
Swansea-ish
HARD DRIVE DEEP DIVE #003… CHAVBOY ‘Don’t Wanna Waste’
Chavboy - 'Don't Wanna Waste'
Swansea
Caitlin Lavagna - 'Gold'
Porth, Rhondda
http://instagram.com/caitlinlavagna
Donna Lewis and Holmes Ives - 'The Messenger'
Cardiff
http://donnalewis.com
throwaway. - 'Deceit'
Newport
http://instagram.com/throwawayofficial_
Tommy Wilson - 'Reflections'
Laugharne
http://instagram.com/tommy_wilson42
Yellow Belly - 'Signal'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/YellowBellyMus
Magi - 'Never Let You Go ft. Olivia Locke'
Pontypridd
http://linktr.ee/magi_sounds
Em Koko - 'Take Me As I Am'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555557547871
BEHIND THE TRACK #005… DERRERO ‘Radar Intruder’
Derrero - 'Radar Intruder'
Bangor / Cardiff / Newport
http://derrero.bandcamp.com
Twst - 'Off - World (Babii’s Fantasy)'
Barry
http://instagram.com/twstwstwstwst
Sustinere - 'Non Tempus'
St Asaph
https://www.facebook.com/sustinereuk
J.C.'s Hopeless Sinners - 'Let It Shine'
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/jcshopelesssinners
Pedair - 'Y Môr'
Wales
http://facebook.com/pedair
SHOW STATS
363 diff songs/ 409 Total. 285 Artists in 11 shows since 1st, Jan '24 (~Songs per:37, Unique artists per:26) Welsh:99% Cymraeg:10% (feat. lyrics in Welsh); Source: Uploader:43%, Direct:17%, Bought:16%, Plugger:21%, Commission:3%
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
Adam Walton