Bilingual pop treasures from Welsh singer-songwriter Y Dail, aka Huw Griffiths, on his debut album

Release Date:  5^th April 2024

Label: Self Release

Formats: CD, Digital

Y Dail is the alter-ego of bilingual Welsh singer-songwriter Huw Griffiths, and Teigr is his debut album.  It’s an album with a long gestation – several years, in fact – and many of the tracks collected here have already seen light of day as singles, as a cursory glance at Y Dail’s Bandcamp page will testify.  And those early appetisers, along with Y Dail’s copious live appearances around his South Wales stamping ground, have attracted the attention of a host of high-profile mentors, including Cerys Matthews, Marc Riley, Gideon Coe and Richard Davies.  Indeed, Cerys M has referred to Y Dail’s music as “Perfect pop.”  She’s not wrong, for reasons to be shortly make clear.

Y Dail (it means “The leaves”) hails from a musical family – The Beatles, Kraftwerk, Motown were amongst the sounds on heavy rotation in the Griffiths’ Pontypridd family home as Huw (as I’m sure his mother still calls him) was growing up and both he and his sister benefited hugely from that environment.  His sister is an accomplished violinist; she also plays baroque recorder and bass and, until she departed Wales to study in London, was a key component of Y Dail’s live band.

Huw cites his parents’ record collection, along with the Welsh language pop that he remembers from school discos and the eclectic sounds of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Joe Meek, Television and early Prefab Sprout as formative influences during the years in which the songs that now comprise Teigr came together. 

As he recalls: “I wrote the songs in a sort of fever in a small bedroom at the back of our house with a small Spanish guitar and a computer, and one of the things that strikes me listening to the songs now is the language.  I’m happy that the glamour of the language I like – from Burroughs to Bowie, Paddy McAloon to Dylan Thomas, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, Baudelaire and Joyce – is reflected to an extent in my songs.  I remember a line from Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone), an early Prefab Sprout single “You’re living in Eden where apples are good,” which is a line that comes back to me all the time and it’s almost a talisman; me telling myself the language has to be fresh.”

And, speaking of language, the young Huw was raised with Welsh as his mother tongue and he’s long had a tendency to compose his lyrics in both Welsh and English, whichever seems to suit when the song first comes to him.  As a result, his work is split – almost 50/50 between the two languages.  It makes for an interesting combination.

Tegir is produced by former Super Furry Animal, Kris Jenkins, and Y Dail is truly grateful for the techniques and experience that Kris brought to the studio, as he explains: “It was a really quick, enjoyable experience to have Kris on board to improve and develop my original productions – he was my secret weapon.  He’s got all sorts of techniques for bringing things out, a million vinyl records in his room, and we’re always on the same wavelength.  Kris wants the song to shine, to keep things nice and uncluttered.  He doesn’t impose any restrictions and he doesn’t have preconceptions.”

Well – if it’s a sound that captures that magical period of late 1965-early 1966, when pop was starting to develop a degree of sophistication but hadn’t yet started to evolve into experimental rock, that Y Dail and Kris Jenkins were after when they embarked upon this venture, then it’s mission accomplished, I’d say.  Teigr is a thoroughly enjoyable album, tight and well-balanced with lots of space given to Y Dail’s versatile vocals, choppy guitars, solos that entice yet never overstay their welcome, a great deal of good humour and several references to The Beach Boys of Pet Sounds and beyond.  It’s a poptastic pleasure!

I admit that the album’s five Welsh titles had me reaching for Google Translate, but that’s how you learn, isn’t it?  At least I now know that O’n I’n Meddwl Bod Ti’n Fod Yn Wahanol means “I thought you were different,” Pedwar Weithiau Pump means “Four times five” and Y Tywysog a’r Teigr translates as “The Prince and the Tiger.”  But, what’s really important, is that, whether they’re sung in Welsh or English, these are all songs that are bright, breezy, tight and punchy; maybe too melodic to be described as punky, but edging far enough in that direction to be interesting and, always, refreshing.

There aren’t any dull moments on Teigr, but, if pressed to pick out a few highlights, I’d go for the bouncy garage pop of You Don’t Have to be Blue Forever; it’s impossible to dislike a song that contains lines like “Saw you lying down with the harmless clown, laughing like crazy,” and the innocence of Y Dail’s vocal tones contrasts wonderfully with the slightly sinister undertones of the song’s lyrics.  Y Tywysog a’r Teigr, the album’s near-title track, sounds like fun, even to someone who doesn’t understand the lyrics, and I love how the occasional dramatic guitar flourishes offer the clues that there’s something interesting going on.

Peak-period Beach Boys ride again in the quaint, loveable, highly retro Whizz Kids, and there’s more glorious lyrical daftness in the bright, light, My Baby’s in the FBI: try “My baby’s in the FBI, and that’s the reason she flew away on a jet – and I can never forget” for size…

But what I particularly like about Teigr is that it’s one of those albums that saves the very best until last – always a reliable indicator of a good album.  Penultimate track Feel the Sun sounds like a merger of the pastoral musings of Pink Floyd with the psychedelic seascapes of pre-Smile Beach Boys, as the acoustic guitars, tinkley keyboards and harmony vocals all come together in a lovely slice of perfectly-crafted pop.  But, just maybe, it’s closing track Tarth y Bore that is the real crowning glory of Teigr.  The song’s title means “The dawn of the morning” and that’s a phrase that’s captured in music as the track gathers depth and momentum as it grows from humble beginnings of light vocal and strummed electric guitar into a full-blown band anthem, complete with recorders and string effects.  It feels like the perfect ending to a wonderfully quirky, poppy, album.

Watch the official video to Y Tywysog a’r Teigr – one of the many highlights of Teigr – here:

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