Open share drawer
The Super Furry Animals frontmanâs latest is a concept album about an ancient volcano on the China-North Korea border that ranks among his most imaginative solo records.
Featured Tracks:
âLoan Your Lonelinessâ â Gruff RhysVia SoundCloud
Gruff Rhys could have been a schoolteacherâone of those unconventional educators who regale students with skits about historical oddities and scoff at standardized testing. The Super Furry Animals singerâs academic interests are as eclectic as the freewheeling Welsh band he spent most of his adulthood fronting. Thatâs been particularly clear since 2008, when Rhys began digging his way out of a songwriting rut with biographical albums about historical figures. First came a concept album by Rhys side project Neon Neon, about the bizarre life of car designer John DeLorean. Then, after SFA drifted into a lengthy hiatus, Rhys discovered he was a descendant of an 18th-century Welsh explorer named J
by
Rhys tells all about solo album number seven
All photos: Mark James
It was, as they say, a different time. Back in October 2018,
Gruff Rhystook his band on a three week tour of California. Their mission was to knock a series of songs that Rhys – sometime
Super Furry Animals frontman, sometime solo artist – had penned into shape before heading into the studio.
“We had three weeks before recording when we were doing gigs every night and trying out the sounds live and rehearsing them in soundchecks and things,” he recalls, looking back on this time from his front room back in Wales towards the end of lockdown number three. “It’s something that would be difficult to get into that kind of shape during lockdown.“
New Music Reviews (5/24) KEXP
Each week, Music Director Don Yates (joined this week by DJ Alex) shares brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP s rotation. These reviews help our DJs decide on what they want to play. See what we added this week below (and on our Charts page), including new releases from
Mdou Moctar,
Afrique Victime (Matador)
This Agadez, Niger-based guitarist’s sixth studio album is a powerful blend of traditional Tuareg music and fiery psych-rock, combining acoustic and electric guitars (including lots of incendiary, sky-scraping solos) with call-and-response vocals, hypnotic melodies and lyrics blending the political and the personal. DY
This image released by Bleecker Street shows Toni Collette in a scene from Dream Horse. (Kerry Brown/Bleecker Street via AP) This image released by Bleecker Street shows Owen Teale, foreground from left, Toni Collette and Damian Lewis in a scene from Dream Horse. (Kerry Brown/Bleecker Street via AP) This image released by Bleecker Street shows Toni Collette, left, and Owen Teale in a scene from Dream Horse. (Kerry Brown/Bleecker Street via AP) Previous Next
Friday, May 21, 2021 1:00 am
Movie Review: Empty nest, full stable in Wales drama Dream Horse
JAKE COYLE Associated Press
The based-on-a-true-story “Dream Horse,” about a Welsh bartender who turns unlikely race horse breeder, is a feel-good movie that s a little too heavy on the “feel-good to really do the trick.