Super Furry Animals |
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Mon. October 30.2000 6:37 PM EST |
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Super Furry Animals' Welsh Language Album Attracts AttentionU.K. rock bands fourth album is its first in native tongue. by sonicnet.coms Doug Levy |
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Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals. The band has released four albums to date, as well an import only B-sides collection, Outspaced. (Maurice Ramirez) |
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With the release of Mwng, Super Furry Animals fourth album, and the first recorded in their native Welsh, the U.K. band found itself unexpectedly receiving praise on the floor of the British Parliament and possibly establishing a new
Mwng (which translates to mane, as in a lions&), hit the shelves last month in the U.K., and the British media are already claiming it holds the record for the best-selling Welsh language album of all time, perhaps mistakenly. In fact, its not yet, said SFA frontman Gruff Rhys, cooling off inside New Yorks Bowery Ballroom after escaping from the sweltering sun on Friday (June 16). The biggest selling album in Welsh is by a guy called Trebor Edwards. Hes a sort of Welsh middle-of-the-road singer, who sings hymns. (RealAudio excerpt of interview) I dont know how much [Mwng] has sold so far, he qualified, but I think its getting there fast. For Gruff, at least, this is not necessarily important. The bands reasons for recording a Welsh-language album were neither nationalistic nor political, and as its lanky, charismatic frontman glanced over the motion read by Welsh national party Plaid Cymru in the House of Commons on June 6, the frustration came through in his voice. It says here that this album is a celebration of Welsh culture & which is completely irrelevant to why we recorded it, said Rhys. & Its bugger all to do with a celebration& Its a very personal album. Its reflecting on a couple of years of my life that have been pretty heavy, and the most immediate way for me to connect with those feelings was through my first language." (RealAudio excerpt of interview) Experimentation has always been at the heart of the SFA aesthetic, from before the release of their first album Fuzzy Logic in 1996, right up until the present. They have released pop gems, psychedelic trip-fests, techno-blast assaults and calypso-tinged dance tunes, with no sign of falling into any kind of a rut, and little danger of categorization. I think every album we make should be different, said Gruff. I get really frustrated listening to bands who release the same album over and over again, and just make a career out of a particular sound. That doesnt interest me really. Id rather that every album takes a different direction. (RealAudio excerpt of interview) Aside from being entirely in Welsh, Mwng also marks a step away from the more elaborate studio tricks of the bands last album, Guerilla. Mwngs ten tracks were recorded for around $10,000, and the album reflects the raw, live sound the band were going for. Drygioni ( Badness) (RealAudio excerpt) is a blast of punk pop that clocks in at under a minute and a half. Ysbeidiau Heulog ( Sunny Intervals) (RealAudio excerpt) is a tribute to 60s pop, full of harmonies, vocal effects and trippy synth noises, and Pan Ddawr Wawr ( When Dawn Breaks) (RealAudio excerpt) is a sadly affecting lament with a sparse backing of keys and percussion. While Super Furry Animals are well known enough in the U.K. to release a foreign language album and maintain their fanbase, in the U.S., theres a chance that Mwng will be some listeners first exposure to the band, a possibility that that doesnt seem to faze them. I think its a good introduction to our songwriting, said Rhys. This album is less dressed-up than the others. The others are more multi-colored. This ones our monochrome & I dont think we have a definitive album, anyway. And when we do make a definitive album, itll be time to give up. (RealAudio excerpt of interview) In a way, were still a very new band in America& so its very exciting for us to be here at all& We did some gigs in England to showcase Mwng as well, and English audiences dont know what the f--- were singing about either, so that was a big challenge. We were really surprised how well we went down in the southeast of England. It was great. (RealAudio excerpt of interview) The U.S. release of Mwng, out Tuesday, June 20, includes a five-song bonus disc, called Mwng Bach, which translates to Little Mane. Gruffs main hope for the release is that people will listen to it with an open mind, as an album of songs in the universal language of music, as opposed to simply as a Welsh-language album. I suppose its unavoidable that people are going to make a novelty of it, to a certain extent, he said, but its not a tokenistic gesture. Its just fairly simple, the logistics of just wanting to sing in your own language. I consider myself a bilingual person — I live in a bilingual society, I speak two languages every day, you know. For me its just normal to do this. (RealAudio excerpt of interview) |
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