Show #2601: Saturday 6th July 2024 - Rona Mac & Dan Bettridge / Yr Anhrefn / Georgia Ruth
Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales, 6th July 2024: Georgia Ruth - Fossil Record of 'Cool Head'; The Long Song: Ron Mac & Dan Bettridge 'Heavy Motion'; Behind the Track: Yr Anhrefn 'Rhedig i Paris';
Listen again via BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0020v0l
PLEASE NOTE: This isn’t an official BBC / BBC Wales post. All words / opinions expressed here are my own.
This week’s show was a pre-recorded affair. I don’t like recording programmes but there was good reason for this dereliction of duty: I spent Saturday afternoon and evening in conversation with Huw Stephens about his excellent book ‘Wales - 100 Records’ in Mold and Llangollen.
Please don’t let the fact that the programme wasn’t blasted live on the Radio Wales airwaves detract from the music that it celebrates. It’s a great selection, if a little more backwards-looking than usual.
The Long Song comes from Pembrokeshire’s Rona Mac and Dan Bettridge. There’s a real chemistry at work in their collaboration. This isn’t just one of them guesting vocals onto the other’s song. There are powerful eddies of emotion and colour between them on their debut single, ‘Heavy Motion’. Movement is a theme of this week’s programme (see also our Behind The Track and Georgia Ruth’s contribution detailed below).
Movement can mean a lot of things, and - in this instance - one meaning is the movement of ideas between two great artists, the passing of a shuttle betwixt and between the threads of a song to build up a compelling tapestry of melody and heart.
When a male and a female voice are paired in embersome circumstances, it’s hard to not bring to mind Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra, or Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. Rona and Dan stand alongside these forebears. It’s that good.
The movement in Yr Anhrefn’s ‘Rhedeg i Paris’ is more frantic and energising. Few Welsh artists have been as inspirational to their countryfolk as Yr Anhrefn. But their scope and intention was always international. As their guitarist Sion Sebon says in this week’s Behind The Track, “there’s no such thing as Welsh music, just music”.
Their internationalism inspired Gruff Rhys to see beyond Wales’ borders; their record label gave a platform for Y Cyrff (Mark and Paul, who’d go on to form Catatonia) and - very notably - Datblygu and Llwybr Llaethog. And Rhys Mwyn’s trip to London to give John Peel a bag full of Welsh demos and records, is the stuff of legend.
The 1990 single ‘Rhedeg i Paris’ isn’t Yr Anhrefn’s most insurrectionary song but it is one of their most urgent and anthemic. It became part of the soundtrack to Y Wal Goch’s adventures at the Euro’s in 2016 and 2020, and Wales’ historic qualification for the World Cup in 2022.
Sion Sebon gives a fascinating insight into the song and some of the principals that guided Yr Anhrefn in this week’s Behind the Track.
Hopefully it hasn’t escaped your notice that Georgia Ruth has released a new album. ‘Cool Head’ is magnificent on many levels. This week Georgia shares some of the musical DNA that informed the album in an extended feature called Fossil Record.
Here’s a piece I wrote about the album that I haven’t had a chance to post yet.
Now seems like as good as time as any…
When AI has appropriated every means of expression open to us, and just does it better, without the danger and clumsiness of ego, pain and creativity getting in the way, won’t we all be in a better place? More time to concentrate on being properly productive… more time to comply, buy, build stuff, move things, love franchises, eat, shit, pay taxes…
Art is just a wrinkle in our being… it’s our soul’s appendix… completely unnecessary. The sooner we evolve beyond it, the better for all concerned.
Consider the amount of time that must have gone into Georgia Ruth’s new album ‘Cool Head’. Instead of - I don’t know - doing something constructive in the real world, Georgia has daydreamed an album of such substantial heart and soul that a lot of people are going to find succour in its humane realms… some of the blighters might even be moved to resonate with music of their own.
Obviously we need more estate agents and hedge fund managers not more of these prissy, sentimental wokeflakes.
AI can stamp this nonsense out once and for all. We’re living in the age of the algorithm. There is no place for the actual rhythm of the human heart.
‘Cool Head’ is an AI-free zone. I mean, technically I’m sure that producer Iwan Morgan has deployed some AI-engaging plug-ins to create just the right soundscape for the album… but no AI was involved in the composition of this album, of that I’m certain. You won’t find an extra eye or questionably positioned arm anywhere in ‘Cool Head’s’ proceedings.
‘Cool Head’ is the album where Georgia’s ability to message the universe through the medium of lyrics and music, complicated and simplified by life and everyday blues, has reached an apotheosis. She could always tell a great story in her songs, but it feels to me - a couple of weeks into knowing ‘Cool Head’ - that these songs, particularly, needed to be captured and sung. The recordings here are substantially more than kaleidoscope reflections of influences, or flights of imagination and musicality.
I might be wrong.
The album is such a rich listening experience that it’s impossible to not muddy its waters with my own dropped breezeblock interpretations.
I’ve loved every album that Georgia has released, often for different reasons. Her Welsh Music Prize-winning debut was a triumph of vision and motion; the follow-up ‘Fossil Scale’ confounded expectations of a new folk artist for the ages by also illuminating Georgia’s love of leftfield 21st century pop music; 2020’s ‘Mai’ was bucolic and sounded like a settling and a renewal.
It’s clear that much has happened between 2020 and now. For a start, these songs feel less like the stories shared on previous albums, and more like parcels of Georgia’s soul. There’s a stoic restlessness to the prevailing atmosphere. Life is precious, it is what it is, and the wonders come quiet and true on ‘Cool Head’. There’s a wisdom here… nothing remotely didactic, just emotive and experiential home truths… maybe that’s what ‘Cool Head’ alludes to? It probably alludes to a lot of things.
And there’s an immediacy and grain here, too. ‘Cool Head’ sounds exquisite but it’s not perfect… it’s not been polished to the point of transparency… far more Marvin Gaye than Boyz II Men… I’ve no idea why that analogy springs to mind, but I haven’t got time to think up a better one.
Georgia’s voice is crystalline but not faceted. It carries with it an emotive light… the weariness of long nights on the road, of a life dedicated to family, and realising that the fuel that is left for you - maybe just fumes - is enough to get you where you need to go, and all the more precious for it.
Travel is both explicit and a metaphor throughout ‘Cool Head’. There is also a leavening sense of humour, the debut single from the album - ‘Driving Dreams’ - is (on the surface) a self-effacing ode to Georgia’s failure to learn to drive, a joyous melody echoed in the counterpoint string arrangement: “it’ll be like Thelma and Louise, when I get behind the wheel…”
Throughout the album the strings - arranged by Gruff ab Arwel - are a happy companion to the songs. When Georgia takes a rest - for dynamic reasons - the strings take their turn behind the wheel, to great effect. The same can be said for all of the other players involved. It’s an exquisitely arranged and recorded album. A true ensemble piece.
‘Better Off Blue’ might be the finest song that Georgia has yet recorded. Vince Guaraldi and Van Dyke Parks freewheeling home in the back of Georgia’s tour van, while she sings a revelatory song about self acceptance.
She’s not in the driving seat, though.
And the second AI can dream up the rollicking coda to the song, I’ll resign and never waste another word on genius like this again. You have my word.
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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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0020v0l
If you have a chance, you can check out other recent editions of the programme:
29.06.24 Johanna Warren announcement & exclusive; Tony Bourge from Budgie goes Behind The Track with 'Parents'; The Long Song goes to Yellow Belly: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020md0
22.06.24 Dactyl Terra talk about their debut album 'Fee Fi Fo Fum'; Ritzy and Rhydian from The Joy Formidable go Behind The Track with 'The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade'; Hialayas are recipients of The Long Song: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0020f8z
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
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
The Nightmares - 'Something In The Dark'
Newport
Hana Lili - 'Figure It Out'
Sully
http://hanalili.os.fan
Lizzy Farrall - 'BodyInYourBasement'
Cynwyd / Wrexham
http://facebook.com/LizzyFarrallmusic
SageTodz - 'Love??'
Penygroes
http://instagram.com/Manliketodz
Ben Banjo Field - 'Vibin''
Cardiff
http://facebook.com/djbenbanjofield
Ffatri Jam - 'Chemical Paradise'
Caernarfon / Ynys Môn
http://facebook.com/ffatrijamband
Until The Ribbon Breaks - 'Back From The Blue (with Emoni Wilkins)'
Penarth
http://untiltheribbonbreaks.com
HARD DRIVE DEEP DIVE
Red Stripe - 'Reggae Cymraeg (Adam Walton Session 2009)
Ynys Môn / Bangor
Kelly Lee Owens - 'Moebius'
Bagillt
Koreless - 'Seven'
Bangor
http://facebook.com/Koreless
Audiobooks - 'The Doll'
Bangor
http://facebook.com/audiobookshq
Caribou - 'Broke My Heart'
London
http://caribou.fm
Manlikevision - 'Backstage ft. Benny Flowz'
Newport
http://facebook.com/ManLikeVision
The Bug Club - 'Lonsdale Slipons'
Caldicot
Johanna Warren - 'Hungry Ghost'
Castell-paen, Powys
http://johannawarren.bandcamp.com
Mali Hâf - 'Esgusodion'
Cardiff / Merthyr Tydfil
http://instagram.com/malihahahaf
THE LONG SONG
Rona Mac and Dan Bettridge - 'Heavy Motion'
Pembrokeshire
http://ronamacmusic.com
Gwenifer Raymond - 'Ruben's Song (live)'
Cardiff
Helldown - 'March of the Damned'
Swansea
http://musicglue.com/helldownofficial/
Murry The Hump - 'Don't Slip Up'
Aberystwyth
http://murrythehump.co.uk
Keys - 'There's No I In Teams'
Cardiff
http://keysofficial.com
Dadleoli - 'Ail Gyfle'
Cardiff
BEHIND THE TRACK #018 - YR ANHREFN 'RHEDEG I PARIS'
Yr Anhrefn - 'Rhedeg i Paris'
Caernarfon
Fleur De Lys - 'Gad Ni Fod'
Anglesey
http://facebook.com/Fleurdelysband
Bau Cat - 'Feel'
Rhuddlan
http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100079657726785
Georgia Ruth - 'Eucalyptus'
Aberystwyth
http://georgiaruth.co.uk
GEORGIA RUTH - FOSSIL RECORD OF 'COOL HEAD'
Aimee Mann - 'Lost In Space'
Richmond, Virginia, USA
Neko Case - 'Calling Cards'
Alexandria, Virginia, United States
http://nekocase.com
Kim Deal - 'Wish I Was'
USA
Glen Campbell - 'Wichita Lineman'
Nashville, USA
Emmylou Harris - 'Where Will I Be'
Alabama, USA
Lucinda Williams - 'Side of the Road'
Louisiana, USA
Françoise Hardy - 'Tu Ressembles A Tous Ceux Qui Ont Eu Du Chagrin'
France
The Grateful Dead - 'Peggy O (Live at Palladium, New York, NY, April 30, 1977)'
USA
Spice Girls - '2 Become 1'
London
Georgia Ruth - 'Falling'
Aberystwyth
http://georgiaruth.co.uk
Joe Kelly & The Royal Pharmacy - 'Kingsroad'
Newport
Toby Hay & Aidan Thorne - 'Draw'
Rhayader / Cardiff
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SHOW STATS
922 diff songs/ 1025 Total. 595 Artists in 27 shows since 1st, Jan '24 (~Songs per:38, Unique artists per:22) Welsh:98% 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