Gruff Rhys – Candylion
January 12th, 2007 by rui
Gruff Rhys’ first solo album was a good example of why people should generally stay away from solo albums – songs which were probably rejected by their band, cheap production because there’s no big record company bucks behind it, and wilfully obtuse. Solo albums rarely fulfill their potential. Freed from the constraints of their band, they could give an amazing insight into what the artist is really about. Over the past year, though the revived Rough Trade seems to be bucking this trend. Jarvis Cocker’s album was almost like having Pulp back, and Cery Matthews (ex of Catatonia) also put out a fantastic folk pop album, redeeming her previous foray into country. And now Gruff Rhys has released Candylion.
At the end of last year, amid all the December best-of releases, a 7" was put out of the title track. Lilting guitars, twinkling xylophones and a video guaranteed to make you warm inside.
Candylion is one of the strongest tracks on the album, and the rest is up to scratch too. While his first album was all in Welsh, and the sleeve notes are doubled up in his native tongue (as are all SFA releases), just three songs on here are in Welsh.
A lot of the time, the record still sounds quite stripped down, with just Gruff’s acoustic guitar driving the songs but every now and then gorgeous strings sweep you away, and that’s down to the two producers. The initial production was done in Wales with Gorwel Owen (who’s worked with the likes of Super Furries, Catatonia, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and Brave Captain), but the post-production was done in South America with Mario Caldato jr, famous for working with the Beastie Boys, but who was since worked with Bebel Gilberto, and has provided the glossy sheen on recent Super Furry Animals output. It certainly gives some of the tracks a very individual sound, albeit one that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of his band’s albums.
In my opinion, the real triumph of the album lies in the final third, which is taken up with just one song, Skylon. 14 minutes sounds far too long for a song. Common sense would dictate that 14 minutes would drag on and that you’d be bored within the first five minutes, especially a song based on such a simple riff. But then this is a song by Gruff Rhys – someone who’s got into the charts with an song about Albert Einstein (Herman loves Pauline), who started a guitar based pop song with steel drums (Northern Lites) and got samples for their Rings Around the World album by dialling random numbers and recording whoever answered the phone. There’s a lot of ideas going on which have always been superbly executed. Skylon is the story of how Gruff Rhys’ plane flight gets hijacked. I won’t say any more about the lyrics, but to say that there’s a happy ending. Over the course of the song, the acoustic guitar builds up with each verse adding drums, bass, strings, jazz flute, backward guitar… Amazing stuff!!!
Solo albums are back with some credibilty. And who’d have thought five years ago that it would have britpop’s escapees who would have made that possible.
King Rob.
Candylion by Gruff Rhys is out now on Rough Trade.
