Gruff Rhys - Candylion

and it's better than the last Neon Neon album.

I thought it was quite lovely. I always think I don't need another album by him but it turns out I do.

I agree about the Damon and Neon Neon albums.

I only listened once so I don't spoil the whole thing, but I really enjoyed the last couple tracks. The pedal steel was a nice touch and recalls some of my favorite latter day SFA moments. The drumming is also more pronounced than usual. They definitely didn't waste Kliph.

for those who're into this kind of thing, gruff is doing a reddit ama today: http://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/24yaa7/im_welsh_musician_gruff_rhys_my_new_album/

]thegreenman42 2 points 5 days ago*
Firstly thanks for a great gig in Pentyrch. The chapel was very atmospheric. I could imagine John Evans in a similar setting trying to convince the locals to up sticks to the New World back in the 1790's
My Questions: another of my musical heroes is Euros Childs. You and him seem to be having an equally creative and productive time. Is there any chance of a collaboration of any kind in the future?
Oh and as an Archaeologist can I thank you for getting some archaeology into a song (The court of King Arthur). There's not enougth archaeology in music.
permalinksavereportgive goldreply

GruffRhysVerified 2 points 5 days ago
Euros Childs is a genius and one of my favourite recording artists of all time! We've probably sung together when drunk or something - thats good enough for me - I think I fell off my chair.

I like that he sounds like he has no desire to do that. I think it's a bad idea as well.

lol Madoc

i was surprised pitchfork gave it an 8.0, but they've always been pretty fair to sfa

Hapus i gyhoeddi bod fy albym newydd ‘Babelsberg’ yn cael ei rhyddhau ar @roughtraderecords ar Fehefin 8ed! Rhag-archebwch // I am happy to announce that my new album ‘Babelsberg’ will be released on @roughtraderecords on 8th June! Pre-order here https://t.co/KsQwbZG65c pic.twitter.com/XWM4xhmMqC

— Gruff Rhys (@gruffingtonpost) April 10, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y6VLjIKwqQ

very Lee Hazlewood.

Good to see this total ear worm make it on to an album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R_6YB53Wp0

The limited edition record sleeve is insane. Not sure if it's a good insane or if I'd buy it, but it's insane:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/cdn.beggars.com/store_images/gruff_dlx2.jpg

Doesn't fold. Just a long-ass sleeve.

He's touring this with a 72-piece orchestra.

If only SFA could've ever done that.

THIS AUTUMN NOW WAVE IS 10 YEARS OLD.
TO CELEBRATE WE’LL BE ANNOUNCING 10 SPECIAL SHOWS. HERE’S THE FIRST. TICKETS ON SALE 20th APRIL. pic.twitter.com/Y2XKleTz4c

— NOW WAVE (@nowwave) April 11, 2018

Another new one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L09PSR7uQtU

More dates:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dc1NDz-X0AAEl3f.jpg:large

Kinda blah, tbh.

Oh well.

Limited Edition Heart is actually pretty great.

Album's getting "Gruff's best album ever" in multiple reviews. I guess the critics are going all in on Gruff this time. I can't wait to hear the album. Anyone here get a chance to listen yet?

Looking forward to the solo show out here in October. Caught SFA a few times over the years but this'll be the first with just him.

He’s extremely good when he does his solo shows. I wouldn’t rank any of his albums ahead of an SFA album, but I’d probably put any Gruff solo show I’ve seen ahead of SFA. He’s really funny and the way he pieces his songs together is great. I wonder if he’ll be with a band or totally solo. He’s great in either format.

I’m really psyched to hear this. “limited edition heart” has grown on me tremendously and I’d love to figure out what all the lines are anagrams for.

Unfortunately, my 2-year-old has decided “Bing Bong” is his favorite song of all time and I now listen to it at least three times a day, so I’m growing a little bit of enmity for SFA lately. Still think it’s a pretty decent song, though, but not something you want to listen to a thousand times.

I'm still incredibly hyped to hear this. The pre-released tracks are both excellent, and the live rendition of 'Negative Vibes' is great and one of his biggest ear worms in a while. The reviews keep coming in strong, and suggest it's his best album yet. Man oh man, two or three more days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5rZ8faL1cM

I'm totally in for a good Gruff album.

I know everyone's dying to hear my opinion on this one. It's one of the most heavily orchestrated, string-laden pop albums I've ever heard. Kind of makes it hard to get a feel for the songs. 'Negative Vibes' is one of the best Gruff songs I've heard in years, and I adore the two singles.

More thoughts to come.

I heard it a couple of times at work yesterday, there were definitely a few nice moments but overall it sounded a bit bland to me. I'll try again today. American Interior took a while to grow on me.

One thing I like a lot about it is he is singing in lower and higher register than he usually does.

“Mel Gibson howls with rage, the worst Hamlet of his age.”

Might be the best Gruff lyric yet.

But "does Will Smith lie, does he ever cave in and cry?" comes to mind and maybe not.

So no one is listening to this?

After living with it for a few days, I’ve decided “The Club” is almost as unpleasant as anything on the Tony Da Gators album. Otherwise, this is one of Gruff’s best sets of songs in years. “Frontier Man” and “Limited Edition Heart” sound better every time I hear them. “Selfies in the Sunset” is a great duet, with incredible lyrics.

Well done, Gruff. Apparently they scrapped a song from his Candylion show but recorded the arrangement, so I look forward to taking out The Club and swapping songs.

The new album is his best one since Hotel Shampoo, but the highlights of American Interior are stronger than anything on Babelsberg. It's okay - listenable, but good rather than great, and not quite up there with his best stuff.

'Negative Vibes' sounds like an exercise in trying to write a song for Coldplay, but getting it slightly wrong.

While it doesn't sound like Coldplay on a superficial level, the vocal melody and chord progression - particularly on the chorus - are very Chris Martin-like. This, combined with music that's stylistically in Mojo Magazine dadmusic territory, are alarming developments. It's probably his straightest, most quirk-free record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGRK6ZB7VQg

Another one-off song. Not an album cut. Just came out for NHS's 70th.

^^rad

He wrote a nice editorial that accompanied the release of the song/video:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jul/05/gruff-rhys-song-for-nhs-no-profit-in-pain

New one should be good:

Pang! Developed unexpectedly over about 18 months. A solo album of songs by Gruff Rhys. Produced and mixed by South African electronic artist Muzi.
Gruff Rhys on Pang!:
I met the producer Muzi during the recording of the Africa Express track Vessels in Johannesburg in early 2018.
Combining the cut up guitar of South African guitar legend Phuzekhemisi and his own beats, I got to spend a memorable time with members of BCUC figuring out some melodies and lyrics for Muzi to record over his beats. Occasionally things were going so well that he would burst away from his computer screen, out of the door and embark on a celebratory lap of the weird Motel compound we were recording in. The pace was fast and it was one of the most joyful recording experiences I’ve ever had – in my experience if you’re having fun in the studio it’s usually a very good signifier for the health and rigour of the music – even with emotionally heavy songs. Pang!
A few months later I was involved in a recording project where I live in Cardiff, Wales for a video installation which involved incredible dancers from the cities’ Butetown Carnival and local musicians such as the Balafon player N’famady Kouyaté. They needed to dance to my track so I sent it on a whim to Muzi to remix. He sent back the finished track, (a Welsh Language song called Bae Bae Bae – English for Bay, Bay, Bay ) as if from a distant future. I was astounded by the song’s transformation – I suggested we make a whole album. Muzi responded that he would be interested as long as all the songs were in Welsh. Pang!
I continued to record songs in Cardiff at producer and percussionist Kris Jenkins’s Studio, Wings for Jesus and invited N’famady back with his Balafon along with Cardiff based American drumming legend Kliph Scurlock and the brass player Gavin Fitzjohn. Over a few months we gradually cut an album by stealth during my kids school hours and sent the results to Muzi. Pang!
I felt I had somehow found a way of combining my clumsy trad Spanish guitar songwriting with something resembling progress or even experimentation. I love pop music and a good tune – but I’m also drawn to the repetitive and dissonant. A cook friend pointed out that it’s all about Sweet and Sour. Continually trying to figure out how to bridge that canyon keeps us going. Pang!
In between these occasional recording sessions I had embarked on an American tour, the highlight of which was a tourist visit to Prince’s old studio and home, Paisley Park. It turned into a pilgrimage for me – with my fellow musicians I listened to Prince’s back catalogue on Kliph’s hi-res player the entire way from the East Coast to Minneapolis. It seemed to wake me out of the bad funk of a decade of dour ballads. (I stand by the ballads – but sometimes need a holiday). Pang!
Visiting the gloss of Prince’s democratic music palace confirmed in me that my move into day-glo processed pop with this record was justified and in particular, albums like Around the World in a Day (and in particular the title track) became a reference point for attempting to make psychedelically joyful, internationalist and deeply personal digital pop music. Staring at Prince’s ashes in a Perspex box perched next to a cage of live doves on a cloudy blue sky mural backdrop was an unexpected and moving moment. Pang!
Muzi was touring in Europe last March (2019) and came to Cardiff to sift through the tracks with his producer hat on and we mixed an early version of the album and even did a bit of sight-seeing. Sometimes like on Eli Haul he would leave songs alone – often simplifying them further. On occasion he would jump to the mic and join in with some vocals. Some songs he would take a loop of a particularly interesting section, build a beat and rework the song from scratch and by the song Ôl Bys / Nodau Clust – which we mixed by coincidence following a conversation about Daft Punk and industrial music, Muzi completely takes over, scrapping my bad bossa guitars, only retaining the original’s vocals. In that sense it’s a kind of remix album where adventure is favoured over predictability and where the radical remixes are the finished articles. Pang!
By the way the lyrics deal with the negative pangs amongst the joy of daily life (Pang!) radioactivity in Cardiff bay,(Bae Bae Bae) , digital community happenings (Digidigol), the snail’s pace of inspiration (Ara Deg), Sun Screen abstraction (Eli Haul), navigating the fog of lies that is mass media misinformation – in a car (Niwl o Anwiredd), life in a storm (Taranau Mai), surveillance culture head-fucks (Ôl Bys/ Nodau Clust) and that my mouth is a house for my teeth (Anedd i’m Danedd). Pang!
Muzi returned to Johannesburg and stayed up for a couple of days and nights giving the album a final sheen and here it is. A short sharp album, a pang of positivity that jolted me personally out of the omni-present political gloom and out of my musical coma. Pang!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM7JUbbKe-4

Really hoping they announce the Guerilla reissue soon.

They’re definitely working on it...

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByIQCBLD9kr/?igshid=1km43p107vrzu

I heard through the grapevine they got massively fucked by Pledge Music on the BBC set so I wonder how they’re going to handle this reissue.

i just want SFA albums on Spotify so i can do the artist poll already.

are SFA not on spotify in the US? all their albums are here except for Love Kraft

i like the new Gruff track, never really listened to much of his solo work but this one has quite a nice sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qYSfaNJVic

US Spotify only has Fuzzy Logic then jumps to Mwng to Hey Venus!

I don't think you'll hear or see anything new on Spotify until the next reissue, which will be Guerrilla. Could've sworn Radiator was on there, though.

SFA discussion sans Turrican should be interesting

He's... gone?

Anyway, I'm really pleased with how these new songs sound and I'm glad he went for something new. He's also on four tracks on the new Africa Express album that's out on Friday. Looking forward to listening to that as well.

He's in a time out because of Radiohead, lol. He'll be back.

I've known him for a long time.

He's an emotional individual.

oh this is so good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEwPfg5eVnY

Oh man, this one is wonderful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieWdmqTXtkI

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-culture-fix-gruff-rhys-kdxgpktjf?shareToken=2288bb30a86ce63fada94af401916a8b

I liked this. Always good to see recommendations from Gruff.

Another pretty good album by Gruff.

The last one was also really good.

Seems he's found his sound.

Re-visiting the older albums. Candylion was pretty good too, wasn't it?

Gruff Rhys is playing in town in about 10 days. I think I need to go to this.

Saw SFA once in San Francisco at the Bottom of the Hill. Guerrilla tour.