decade's best #24

24. Super Furry Animals
Mwng [Flydaddy, 2000]
Inside the Super Furry Animals canon, Mwng stands out and not only because it’s an album sung entirely in their native Welsh tongue – how often have their songs sounded as spontaneous, cohesive and purposefully inscrutable as on this priceless, somewhat underrated psychedelic pop record? The creative infrastructure of Mwng is loose but immense, pulling all of the band’s strange misshapen ideas and musical eccentricities into an alluring whole. Of course, a big part of the intrigue is in not being able to comprehend a word of what Gruff Rhys is singing. Rhys still sounds pathologically mellow as ever, but there is a sense of stridency to his vocals on Mwng, perhaps buoyed by the rarefied song material. “Drygioni”, an 1½-minute prog-rock flight of fancy, marks a meaningful start of something for this psychedelic troupe, while adenoidal tunes such as “Ymaelodi A’r Ymylon” and “Dacw Hi” romp into new enchanting dimensions, unpredictable and carefree in the knowledge that there is method to the madness of Mwng and its unusual medley of songs.

silence kit #3

Super Furry Animals
Mwng [Flydaddy, 2000]

I have been debating myself about whether it should be considered a moot point or a merit that Mwng, unlike any of the other Super Furry Animals releases, is an album sung completely in their native Welsh tongue. Gruff Rhys and his bandmates have always fashioned themselves as pop eccentrics, and not comprehending a word out of songs bearing zonky titles like "Dacw Hi" must be a big part of the intrigue and appeal, right? It's probably truer though that I still enjoy listening to Mwng today, provincial Welsh or not, because this is by far their most cohesive piece of work. There is a rather deceptive, overly relaxed vibe about this album, especially in contrast with the flourish overload on the likes of Guerrilla (1999) or Rings Around The World (2001), so much so that the rose-tinted pop songs on Mwng somehow end up sounding not unlike unfinished demo recordings. But makeshift sounding or not, and no matter if you have misgivings as to being under the influence of anything from ELO to Welsh cult hero Meic Stevens or not, Mwng is one strange and glorious psychedelic trip all the way.