MASCOT MOTH – N​ô​l i Annwfn (2024, CD Foetal Orange)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Foetal Orange

Format: CDR, Album

Release Date: 21 June 2024

Llanfyllin is a very small town – 1586 inhabitants – in the northeast of Wales. This collective called Mascot Moth is centered around Llanfilyn, Powys, Wales. Their great love for The Elevators runs out in the cover of their new CD album “N​ô​l i Annwfn”… They also like to sing – sometimes – in their native language… The main force behind Mascot Moth is flutist/saxophonist Rob Harrison (British multi-instrumentalist from Swansea, being in groups Attercopus, Strap The Button, Z Machine, Mascot Moth). Rob also self-released a solo LP album “Explode My Head” in June 2024. Mascot Moth consists of Sioned Camlin (Drums/Vocals/Ukelele), Iris Gordijn (Vocals/Accordion), Eric Heath (Ondes Martenot), Rob Harrison (Flute/Saxophone), Jack Hunter (Bass/Vocals/Keys/Noise), Gavin Williamson-King (Synths), and David Thomas (Guitar/Vocals/Viola/Violin). 

“N​ô​l i Annwfn” consists of 10 tracks. The opener “Psychedelynores” is a magnificent song full of “harpings”, wondrous flute, and some abstracted percussion, starting gradually, but slowly transforming into a mid-tempo flourishing kind of jazzy tune with lots of space for the musicians to improvise, a fantastic and almost hippy-like flute sound is leading the track in a sort of a psychedelicized let-loose atmos! It gives you the sense of a warm-up in the studio just before a recording session… “Cetyn Uchelwydd” has a tribal almost Reggae-ish acoustic rhythm that blends with a “hippy” flute sound along with double male/female vocals, it surely gives you the feel of some “African” thing going on. The guitar is quite trip-a-delic tending to flirt with a more oriented Santana sound, how cool… On the instrumental “Annwfn” the band dives into PROGRESSIVE Rock with a sense of improvisation and a cool necessity to experiment and I may have sensed a bit of Krauty influences in here. “Treiglad Meddwl” is a cool proggy tune (with lyrics this time) with a free-jazzy edge while “Trwmgwsg” is another instro starting in an improvisational and experimental but dreamy trippy way with a lovely sax sound that adds a New Age edge, giving you the feel of a New Age Spacey experiment… With “Y-Twll” we go back to the cool trippy Reggae-ish rhythms, lyrics flirting with hip-hop along with a dreamy flute sound making this song a wonderful let-loose kind of Rock Steady tune! The next one is my personal favorite, it is called “Mwynder”, is one of the strongest moments in the album, it literally blew my mind, a track that (at least inside my mind), I have placed it as the second part of that tremendous track “Ready For Take Off” (by Rocky F. Holiche, 1973, Austria). I can’t explain it with words, you’ll have to listen to get an idea, Kraut Rock couldn’t sound more Kraut these days!!! “Crafangav” is a strangely jazzy proggy structured track with weird lyrics… “Stafell Gynddylan” starts with backward spoken lyrics under a fantastic cinematic early 70s Blaxploitation movie atmosphere, this is another brilliantly cool eerie track flirting with Art Rock, maybe… The album comes to an end with the self-titled “N​ô​l i Annwfn”, blending jazz rock and prog rock under an Uncle Frank (!!!) kind of sophisticated soundscape, resulting in an intoxicated New Orleans jazzy scenery, mind-bending for sure, and yes, this is another pretty weird track! Love it! So, “N​ô​l i Annwfn” is a cool adventurous album, an album “out of the Box”, “N​ô​l i Annwfn” is the most “old-fashioned” fresh and extremely interesting multidimensional thing I heard in the last months… These lads deserve your attention… Go get a copy… TimeLord Michalis

Tracklist

Listen / Get it through MASCOT MOTH Bandcamp

Visit MASCOT MOTH Facebook