Welsh power station closes with a flourish of inspired neo-trad from Calan.

Release Date: 22nd November 2024

Label: Recordiau Sienco

Format: CD / digital

They’ll be missed…

We seem to be losing a fair few faithfuls this year, with the end of Oysterband and Niteworks, and, even if the end of the former seems ever more extended, each represent a huge loss. Add now the name Calan to this list. Possibly of slightly less acclaim than their (broadly, if Mssrs. Jones and Telfer will forgive me) English and Scottish named contemporaries, their demise is no less felt hard. One of a small, and until now, increasing body of Welsh language bands, tapping into the tradition of their homeland, to conjure up modern effervescent folk music.

Around since 2006, when some of the band were incredibly youthful, their near two decade history has seen them grace stages at most of the legendary folk festivals: Cambridge, Shrewsbury, Cropredy included. However, few could deny their greatest claim to fame was their winning the international best band prize at L’Orient’s Festival Interceltique, in 2008, the first Welsh band so to do. They’ll be missed.

Reasons why…

Why Calan will be missed becomes immediately apparent with Brwcsod, the opener, which fires straight off with a dense multi-faceted layering of sounds, the array of instrumentation combining in a joyous melée, yet with the autonomy of each participant maintained. This can’t fail but lift the spirits, especially as the tight harmony of their collective voice piles in. Now, my knowledge of Welsh is as strong as my Swahili, but that reduces not the impact a jot. The vocals shimmer over a backing of harp and fiddle, crashing drums a backdrop of some power, the whole like a storm breaking over one of the wilder Llyns, probably Idwal, for the reason offered below.

Hiraeth is a word I know, it popular with the tourist board to mean a longing for home, or one’s spiritual home, and this is the name of the song up next, a folk rock contemplative with whistles and fiddle. The vocals again start as solo female, ahead a warm burr of male dropping in alongside. Once again the harp is prominent, mixed high in the mix, notes cascading like a waterfall. Hallfway it changes tack, becoming a warm torrent of ensemble sound. Pipes are in there somewhere, gentler than their Scottish equivalent, more akin to the Breton binioù.

adding warmth

Oddly, I am reminded of the much covered Music For A Found Harmonium as Llechi opens, a tune I cannot normally abide. Oddly in the sense that I love this long lost cousin, the accordion adding warmth to a cosy hearthside fire, that added to by the calming vocal of Patrick Rimes. which is as good a place as any to introduce the band. Nominally a quartet, here they are five. Rimes plays fiddle, whistle and bagpipes, with Bethan Rhiannon playing accordion and singing the lead female vocals. She is joined by Angharad Sian on fiddle and Shelley Musker-Turner on a variety of harps.

The fifth member is Samiwel Humphries who provides guitar and percussion, as well as being the album producer. (It can get confusing, looking online, as the publicity pictures tend toward showing quartet mode, without showing Sian, who may, or not, be any longer in the band, as they carry out their farewell tour.)

a brief oasis

A brief oasis for anglophones is brought about by Love Don’t Cost A Thing, a fiddle and accordion led jig, with the two instruments weaving about each other, harp also in clear evidence. When the pipes drift in it becomes quite the complex beast. And is that the sound of clog dancing contributing to the rhythm? Given Rhiannon breaks frequently into clog during live shows, I like to hope this was not just my ears hoping. Jaw’s harp jumps in and the feel is now a jig on horseback.

Anyone expecting a verse or two in English will have to be disappointed, as there are none, just the English title. As this triad of tunes continues, there is an extraordinary moment where a chiming passage invokes the Chime, by Orbital. whether by chance or intended, it is a wonderful moment. The track then near bleeds, after a brief guitar/keyboard intro, into Mel Seiniau, the instrumental cavalcade now in full gallop. The bagpipe frenzy toward the end is terrific, with footprints that are positively Breton, possibly unsurprising with Wales, Cornwall and Brittany make up the Brittonic subdivision of the Celts.

brakes on

Mi Warais is all a wash of harmony vocals, and the Breton feel is stronger still, a loping melody fit for a bal. Harp and pipes wind around the chorale, bass guitar pinning it in place. It feels very pre-christian and pagan, so very apt for the current season. The title track has a a no-nonsense gated percussion track, whislt maintaining the massed vocal assault. Here I am minded of the vocal sound of Clannad, matched to the rhythm section of the Levellers. Wails and ululations add to the celebratory atmosphere; an early Alban Arthan, mayvbe.

The brakes come on for Nerth, a delicate harp piece, that, once a pulsating rhythm track joins in, imparts a new age chill factor. Fiddle restores the traditional to the additional, the mix and match working well.

here be monsters?

Orof Y Gwydd begins with the suggestion of there be monsters, a looming sense of dread, bass guitar amplifying the apprehension. Accordion wafts in, as if a procession is coming through the woods, appearing through a mist. The duration retains this imagery, I gagging to establish the tale of Orof and Gwydd. (Google helpfully translates Orof Y Gwydd, Welsh to English, as Orof Y Gwydd……) Rali Wali is keening fiddle over a dance rhythm and discordant keys. And that is definitely step dancing, this time there being no doubt whatsoever. Either that or a bodhran is being played with clogs, or danced upon by elves. I love it, not least as it goes all ceremonial at the end, with multi-tracked distant choirs and whiplashes.

Undegnawiaid reprises the clashing percussion and jaws harp, together with the band conjuring up the end of a pagan feast day, with the bagpipes leading the organised chaos. This is the sound of the band at their concentrated best. Play loud and play proud, rather than play nicely. Yr Utcorn may be the morning after, a bright dawn and no hangover, with Rhiannon singing purer and clearer than she has throughout, a clarion call that cuts through the preceding bluster, it making an enchanting conclusion to this record.

a concept album?

It seems Nefydd may be a concept album, hoping I’ll be forgiven if wrong. Nefydd was a psychopathic Welsh knight, the uncle of Prince Idwal, with malign intent on his nephew’s rank, drowning him in the lake that now bears the name of the fated princeling. Legend has it that, even now, birds are too feared to fly across it’s waters. It is a lake I have yet to swim in, uncertain, now, whether I should. Are the other songs related? And maybe is the best answer I can offer, but I am led to believe that they are each steeped in equivalent myths and legends. Whether it is or isn’t, however, should be no barrier to the investigation of this exhilarating ride through a pan-Celtic odyssey of modern folk music. Clocking in at just under an hour, it is recommended.

Here’s the title track:

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