A personal dispatch and a musical petition to maintain a language, culture and way of life. Cynefin transcends understanding of the language, through the beauty of its construction.
Release Date: 30th January 2025
Label: Self Released
Format: CD / digital
SECOND RELEASE
One of those names I have seen, if never quite explored beyond that, this is ideal opportunity to share the discovery of this visionary, a singer, in Welsh, of his deeply personal songs, all of which draw on his history and heritage, in the heart of his homeland, Ceredigion, or Cardiganshire, in West Wales. The “enw ysgrifennu“, or writing name, of one Owen Shiers, Cynefin has no direct translation, a word to describe the the habitual tracks and trails worn by animals in hillsides. Shiers, who is also a researcher, grain grower and cultural historian, first used this handle for his 2020 debut, Dilyn Afon (Following A River), a collection of otherwise obscure and forgotten folk songs, drawn from, if you will, his personal cynefin. This, now, is his second release.
VIGILS OF POETRY & MUSIC
This time the thread is of Shimli: the now obsolete West Walian practice of all night musical and poetic vigils, which used to take place in mills and workshops, an intersection between music, poetry, food and the natural world. As such, Shiers stakes his claim as a petitioner for the preservation of these older ways, enrolling, along the way, some witness of that way of life. But, rather than giving a dusty document, by also utilising a host of premier Welsh musicians, including triple harp exponent, Cerys Hafana, it is given compelling life. Plus, if you are boggled by the langage barrier, a hefty sleeve insert contains full bilingual exposition. Time to dig in?
DIG IN…
Helmi is the opening track, and sets the tone, both musically and in terms of subject matter. The music is a rich and warm blend of vocals and largely acoustic arrangements; guitar and piano, mainly. Shiers has one of those voices that oozes a glowing compassion, and, even in Welsh, one can hear every word, whether you understand a word or not. Comparisons with Nick Drake have been made, but fall short, Drake being always a little more distant, an observer, whereas this singer feels integral to the skyline he is part of. A mix between the chorister like vocals of Pye Hastings (Caravan) and Gordon Lightfoot seems more apt, if hard to contemplate other than by ear.
Alongside his guitar, piano and delicate bass give structure, with the cello of Ailsa Mair Hughes cutting through in the first moments. Helmi are the corn ricks, or cornstacks, that used to populate much arable land in the principality. Now, along with the crops, the fields are empty of each. Words come from Evan Jones, one of the hill poets, the agricultural bards who combined their work on the land with poetry or song, his song, and the message, ending with a military drumbeat of warning.
When the corn is gone, so too the wildlife, including the Cornicyll, or Lapwing, that being the name of the second track. A lyrical ode; go check out the translation, to their disappearance, with rippling, again, guitars and piano, introduced by Shiers whistling, and ending with birdsong. Chris Roberts shares guitar duties, with the piano from either Maria Chiara Argìro or Laurence Greed, each credited, with acoustic bass from Alfie Weedon, Fred Harper and Charles Van Kirk offering deft cymbal heavy percussion. Greed is also the producer for this recording, with mixing by Van Kirk.
IRRESISTIBLE SOUNDS
A blast of brass, as in a silver band rather than a horn section, opens Mae’r Nen Yn Ei Glesni. An irresistable sound, a brisk drumbeat sweeps it all too quickly away, with the breathier jazzy trumpet of Steve Chadwick taking up the slack. A livelier tempo by far, folk/jazz/rock fumes aplenty. remarkably, this is a hymn, in the Welsh tradition of May hymns, to welcome in the Spring. This breaks to some captured conversation, two aged brothers, farmers both, discussing the medicinal properties of the hedgerows. before the song, with words of another ‘beirdd gwlad’ (folk poet), Dafydd Isfoel, around one such plant, wormwood, or Shili Ga Bwd in Welsh. That the song’s name, and Chadwick is again prominent here, as is a small string section. Shiers also adds some chiming notes of glockenspiel.
The hypnotic Y Medelwr (The Reaper) is up next, just voice and guitar to start, if with a subtle layering of additional instrumentation. It refers to the old reaping parties, roving farmworkers bring in collective crops. Now surplus to purpose, reaped themselves, grimly, by the waste of and in the fields. But, if the fields are empty, what so the deeper countryside, prompting Cwm Alltcafan, a paean to a deep wooded gorge where nature had always ruled. T. Lew Jones, the Welsh author and poet regaled the schoolboy Shiers, and his class, of such wonderlands, undiscovered on their doorstep, his the words used to Shier’s tune. Strings add lustre to a melody gilded by the lyrical bass, it is a song that offers more hope than many of the others here, if through the broad lack of human interference.
FISH & POACHERS
From said gorge, a river meanders to the wide Teifi estuary, the river once abundant with fish. Where there are fish, there are poachers, and, based on the reminisces of Caradog Jones, onetime bailiff of the river, the age old battle between a hungry populace and the landowners gets a telling, Pryd Y Potsiwr, or The Poacher’s Meal. But changed days now, as we will later discover. Before that, however, a song entitled Cwrw Bach, Small Beer, the local custom of homebrew, made to be sold at small gatherings, in support of the community and for the benefit of the community both. The words come from another bard, ‘Amnon’, or Rees Jones, to a melody by Kate Davies, it is another deceptively sweet song, needing little beyond voice, guitar,bass and skeletal piano. The simple structure makes for one of the more beautiful pieces within this project.
Perhaps the saddest song follows, Prt Llanio, beginning with more captured conversation. It is here that Cerys Hafana makes her presence, her harp gilding the mournful cadence of this lament to milk. To milk? Port Llanio is a long disused milk processing plant, now derelict and decaying. Thriving until a heyday in the 1970s, once Beeching had cut a swathe through, especially, rural railways, with the station close by closing, any distribution possibilities became redundant. Even with the absence of language, the mood is irredeemably of despair.
Psygota means fishing, and the current state of the onetime active weight netting industry of St Dogmaels, as the end of the Teifi estuary. Now no longer is the reality, courtesy the dwindling numbers of migratory salmon and sea trout. Maybe not a direct result of human interference, nonetheless a local small industry has been decimated. Shiers’s unemotional rendition speaks volumes around the tears shed.
THE ROAD TO HAPPY DONKEY HILL
Finally, and to close, he gives us Faerdre Fach, a tale to defy belief, at least within keeping alive any due sense of heritage. Over a sparse piano pattern, outlined is the outcome of the once busy eponymous farm, in the shadow of Pencoed Foel Hillfort. One of the disputed birthplaces of Owain Glyndŵr, leader of the Welsh revolt against the English occupation of their country, 1400 – 1415, the farm too shares some of that historic significance. However, should you go seek it now, there you will only find directions to Happy Donkey Hill, with holiday cottages and a petting zoo. Shiers’ calm delivery totally belies his rage and disappointment in this cultural vandalism, and it is a bittersweet end to this absorbing long player.
Try the opener, Helmi:
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