91Èȱ¬

This week's show is, by happenstance rather than design, mostly a celebration of unamplified vibrations from the leftfield of Welsh folk (with intermittent loud interludes).

If you were to play a drinking game with this week's show, and neck a finger's worth of a booze of your choice each time I describe the music as "beautiful", you'd be in a sorry state before we get halfway through. But so much of the music this week is 'beautiful'. Swig, Poncey, Thesaurus-sourced synonyms just will not do. Oh, this is a theoretical drinking game. DO NOT TRY IT AT HOME.

bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00syz63/Adam_Walton_04_07_2010/

Wrexham's Simon and the Witch - a.k.a. Andrew Salomon - brings his acoustic guitar into our Bangor studio and delights us with three songs forged from his yearning heart and big, quiet voice. It's beautiful. Slurp.

Richard James is a founder member of one of Wales' finest groups of all time: Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. The musical accomplishments of the band's individual members as solo artists are just as significant: Euros Childs' Chops, John Lawrence's Rainy Night and Richard James' The Seven Sleepers Den are particular, personal favourites.

Add to that canon Richard's crafted, kaleidoscopic and - yes - beautiful (slurp) second album, We Went Riding. It's a mind (and heart) expanding trip through folkishly plucked strings, bluegrass stomps and lilting sweeps of lapsteel, with occasional roadside stops in garage freakbeat and the blues. An excellent album that is available NOW on the esteemed Gwymon record label.

Allow me, please, to weld an unwieldy analogy to our next guest. If much of modern folk music is as fantastic and alluring as the sanitised, bedtime story versions of fairy tales, filled with innocent wonders embroidered with harmonies and arrangements to please the listener, David Wrench and Black Sheep's treatment of the same songs reaches down to their dark roots - the Brothers Grimm originals.

They're songs of insurrection and rebellion and the instrumentation treats them as such. There are restless shadows of noise animating these histories for modern ears. The album is called Spades & Hoes & Plows and it is uneasy listening at its most uncompromising, fascinating and - sheesh, it's unavoidable - beautiful. Hesitant swallow.

Alan Holmes - the godfather of the Welsh underground, which is a handy soundbite of a description for a man who has been a founder member of Fflaps and Ectogram, the artist responsible for some of the finest Welsh record sleeves of all time, record producer, and mine of information on which-second-hand-LPs-to-spend-your-hard-earned-cash-on in Cob Records, Bangor. See, that's not a handy soundbite anymore. I think I'll stick with Godfather of the Welsh Underground from now on.

Anyway, Alan comes aboard every other week to illuminate almost forgotten moments of North Wales' musical past. This week, his magic torch focuses on Human Trapped Rhythms. It's not classically beautiful... what? I still have to drink? You pedant! Three teensy sips with belches in between.

A Man Called Ben (Hayes) tests me for my advanced Super Furry Animals badge (I fail). See, I thought Wendy and Bonnie were Blue Peter dogs... do you know their connection to Super Furry Animals? Whatever the connection, the crackly piece of vinyl Ben brings in is - I'm dreading this - beautiful. Slurp. Hic.

Lara Catrin translates something very (face goes unhealthy shade of light green. Looks around for plant pot in easy reach) beautiful from Huw M (pretend sip / gag).

Exchuse me? Where'sh the choilet? Quick... quick...

(Eight hours later...)

I warned you not to play that drinking game. I should have followed my own advice.

Here's the playlist for this week's show. Debut plays for artists I've never played before are denoted by an asterisk.

I love hearing bands I've never heard before. Please send me some. Digital aspirin and soothing (or otherwise) .mp3s to themysterytour@gmail.com.

Thank you / diolch yn fawr!

Adam

[New England via Wrexham]
Hero

[Dyffryn Nantlle]
Past Lives

ANNA GRAM & DULL PENNY [Bangor]*
Love Handle

[Wrexham]
Train Ride [session Track]

[Newport]
Debauchery And Revel

THE TAKE [Cardiff]
Rubber Pigs

[Pembrokeshire]
Blues (hey Hey Hey)

[Pembrokeshire]*
St Annes

[Pembrokeshire]
Bubblegum Icecream

[Camarthenshire]
Daw'r Nos, Daw'r Haf

[Rhyl]*
Untitled 1

[Cardiff]*
Shall True

[Caernarfon]
Cur

HUMAN TRAPPED RHYTHMS [Bangor]*
Drowning And Falling In You

SIMON AND THE WITCH [Wrexham]
Gentle Waves On The Show [session Version]

RICHARD JAMES [Pembrokeshire]
When You See Me [in The Pouring Rain]

[Wrexham]*
Specks Of Blue

[Ewloe]
Finders Keepers

[Cardiff]
Very Ape

[Bangor]
A Diggers' Song

THE DRAINS [Newport]*
Sleepless In The New Seattle

SIMON AND THE WITCH [Wrexham]
Sniper's Range [session Track]

RICHARD JAMES [Pembrokeshire]
We Went Riding

[Cardiff]
Hiraeth Mawr A Hiraeth Creulon

WENDY AND BONNIE
The Paisley Window Pane

THE MOUSE ORGAN [Mold]*
Birds Above Parades