Customer Reviews

Yr Atal Genhedlaeth

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mwng, it is not, all the reviewers agree, but moreover this is like a novelty compared to the perfection of the SFA catalog. I am not Welsh, but I certainly gravitated towards Mwng in terms of flowing. Not once, since May have I said "hmm, let me throw in Yr Atal Genhedlaeth." I rate all REAL SFA records 4 1/2 to 5 stars. This record is not even on the same level. Other reviewers say it is a stripped down to demo-like recording. I'll agree, but it has been down to a five star capacity...like any Syd Barrett or Nick Drake outtake.

I have been a fan of SFA since Fuzzy Logic, and Gruff's voice is one of the driving forces obviously. There is something good and something missing here. As a concept, it might be great, but this should not have been a finished product.

the cd is great! you don't have to really listen per-say, you can just feel the beat and the melody...which is a nice change.

"Egg pudding," more or less, being the title in English. I have a promo copy, so I'm unsure how the commercial packaging differs, but if you'd like to read the liner notes and background of each song, almost like a Welsh "Village Green," visit the Placid Casual (label) or SFA (band) sites. Opening up YAG after being rather dissatisfied with Gruff Rhys' band's output recently, I hoped for a more experimental, psychedelic, expansive sound that I loved in their earlier, eclectic career.

Well, this item delivers, more forcefully in the latter six songs. It's very brief, less than half-an-hour perhaps. The first track is suitably "scrambled" eggishly but takes only a few seconds. The last, on the other hand, takes its magnificent time to build up marvellously into a lysergic landscape. Rhys, with rather minimal accompaniment by his longtime pal Gorwel Owen (see also the not dissimilar Ffa Coffi anthology on Placid Casual for 1988-93 roots of these two and their pals) on three tracks and others on a few other tracks, especially that closing tune, conveys a home-studio ambiance to the album that is like many a singer-songwriter's first solo effort away from a band.

If you have heard SFA, then you know generally what to expect. But these songs, more nakedly presented, force you to pay attention to their more wistful, even delicate, rough-hewn delivery, without such busy beats and volume. Freed of so many other instruments, however, Rhys' less polished voice gains centerstage, and at times recalls the Gorkys (not their more mellifluous singer, but the ambiance of that band as it evolved its more pastoral, no longer acid-tinged, vision). A woozy album for your first rising hour--in the morning or otherwise.