Folk, folks. *UPDATE* Look look I've updated woohoo come n read it. Its changed a bit. How long can (Barfundle - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci)

Member Name: hulahoop

Product:	Barfundle - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
Date:	15/05/01 (308 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Read my pretties.

Disadvantages: Gosh you are impatient children!

'Awake awake to love and work luck is in the sky', pursue interest in all things nice, kitsch, paint your toenails candy-floss pink and wear fluffy green sandals out in the grassy fields. Don a pair of paper 3-D specs and pound around the village with an old classical guitar hanging from your shoulders, covered in old monkey stickers, dangling on a knitted guitar strap.

Icnym citogyz s'ykrog is gorky's zygotic myncI backwards.

Barafundle is the name of their album that I have. I'm not very good at Welsh, but I think bara means bread. Indeed.

If you can, picture a day in a Welsh valley with daffodils and bachwydds surrounding your head. A few quaintly beautiful youngsters sit around with their instruments, acoustic guitar, ice cream piano, jew's harp, wurlitzer, monk voices, legs in trousers. Lots of singing from a young man with a gorgeous throaty colloquial voice. Bless him! He says "I know this place where we can go, the birds and trees they talk to me."

The album goes like this:

"Awake awake" to 'Diamond dew', the song about morning and its beauty. It is beautiful with its organs, houses by the sea and burning fires. The day goes on and yet more Spanish guitar, organs twinkle and shimmer alongside Euros Childs' smiling voice. "The giant sun soars up".

Then we take a sinister trip into the 'Barafundle Bumbler'. Indeed it bumbles through instruments, layering guitar with harmonium and ice cream piano. 'Starmoonsun' - "I'll tell you something, you can dance till you don't exist" - and Euros can sing about sunsets "and when you cry there is no sky" like a child, superceded by winding shawm and Pinky-and-Perky type backing vocals, harmonising in consellation.

Go and see the Gorky's live and at least ten young girls will scream 'Patio Song' at them until they relent. Featuring those ev
eryday lyrics "Well isn't it a lovely day, my patio's on fire", the cheery music brightens the soul. They like to sprinkle a little Welsh into their songs.

Oh! Too many songs to describe. There are sixteen excellent ones on this album, each as intricate and eccentric on the next.

'Better Rooms' is certainly my favourite with haunting harmonies accompanied simply with a couple of guitars and percussion. There's also a violin and medieval sounding recorders later on, with the sound of Euros Childs 'legs in trousers' which I'm not sure about.

They continue passing enthusiastically through plinky-plonky songs and funny words. They seem to like recorders which remind me of haystacks, market stalls selling turnips and rosy cheeked children in a nativity play.

A jubilant 'Heywood Lane' folk song leads to
... la la la la la la la-la-la laa la - and a man drops the piano lid on his finger
. . . . 'pen gwag glas' a slightly melancholic start with Welsh monks harmonising till dawn before the "la la la" Euros and the guitars ........

'la la la la la la la la la'

Sing along in Welsh! I do. . . . .

'Bola bola' let's all cry into our leek and potato broth and skip along old cobbled lanes. Am I being sentimental? Mental? Om pom pom. Like frogs "pom bom bom" the backing vocals jump over gates past smooth worn paths of 'bola bola' repetitions . . .

I can play 'Cursed, coined and crucified' on my guitar! Woo! It's my party piece (as long as I haven't had too much Parsnip wine) and typifies Gorky's little friendly, warning, warming ditties. No words in this one . . .

Only a good introduction to 'Sometimes the father is the son' which is touching and the guitars are beautiful . . .

Gosh! I do go on.

I think I've made the Gorky's sound a litt
le eccentric and quaint. Well that would be an understatement. What I couldn't overstate is how interesting their music is to listen to. Layered and experimental. Odd. Interesting. Welsh. They become your scruffy brown pet dog. Except your scruffy brown pet dog couldn't sing in Welsh nearly as well.

There are lots more songs on Barafundle for you to explore. They go up. They go down. They go sideways, inside out and do a hoop-a-loop just for the fun of it. They talk about mice, wizards, castles. Balmy. Lovely.

There's even a talking lizard.

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OK NOW FOR THE BORING BIT:
(I'd skip past if I were you)

The Gorkys formed in the mid-80s, so were before all that Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals (why do they all have to have 3 word silly names?) stuff. They've always made lovely little music bits and bobs - listen to the recent album 'The Blue Trees'. 'Barafundle' is their third major album, released in 1997 after Patio and Introducing Gorkys Zygotic Mynci, and soon to be followed by Gorky 5, which I am told is not a good album, and is certainly never rated particularly well. They later released Spanish Dance Troupe, after splitting from their label, Mercury, an album which seems to have brought them more fame than they have encountered previously.

People compare their music to the likes of Nick Drake, Donovan (not Jason - perrrlease!!), Beck and the Flaming Lips, all of which I would agree with.

The band features Euros Childs on vocals and keyboards, Megan Childs on violin, John Lawrence on guitar, Richard James on bass, and a BIG HAND FOR Euros Rowlans on drums. But they do love their experimentation, these chaps and chapsticks, so there are loads and loads of other artists whom I cannae be arsed to write about right now (it is actually past my bed time).

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SO - LOOK WHAT YOU'VE MA
DE ME DO!! I have gone against my brand new principles and written a long opinion. Well I hope you're bloomin happy

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