More more and still flicking back through the year, making a list, checking it more than twice, who really did stand out in 2024? And you realise there are some albums you just never got around to writing anything more than maybe a first taste piece about or sharing a track and the release news, probably because the band, the label or their people weren’t on the case and maybe because we were overrun here and the distraction of throwing paint and pigeons and we said all this yesterday and the mostly thankless distracting task of writing about other people’s visual art and making that the priority these days while the music mounts up and well… More catching up before the year ends, the list that is indeed being made is posted and it all almost certainly starts again. The 2025 releases are already piling up in the inbox and waiting until we clear out and catch up with this year. Here’s another couple of albums that should have been covered already…

Tristwch Y Fenywod – Tristwch Y Fenywod (Night School Records) – Tristwch y Fenywod’s self-titled album, their rather deliciously enchanting debut studio recording, has been dipped in to here in the Organ bunker so so many times since it came out back at the end of August, really should have said a little more by now. Tristwch y Fenywod (their name translates as The Sadness of Women) record exclusively in the Welsh language, a language that really works in terms of the way it sounds here, the way it flows, and no, I rather strongly suspect you don’t need to understand Welsh to get it (I just about can, I grew up on Anglesey so I can only suspect you don’t need to understand), this is as much about atmosphere and feeling as it is about the words. These songs sound like the kind of rituals you’d encounter all the time in the Northern Wales hinterlands, well no, not really, not all the time, but they do sound strangely familiar even though they do sound rather unique. Tristwch y Fenywod feel rather quietly mysteriously Pagan, they sound like they’re somewhere out there beyond the trees, out there half-hidden in the mists and yes, they are indeed singing “black-lit liturgies of bog bodies caked in mud”. Seems they are actually from the depths of the Leeds experimental underground, not sure how that works, it sounds like Bangor would be too big a city for them, the three of them are Gwretsien Ferch Lisbeth (Guttersnipe, The Ephemeron Loop), Leila Lygad (Hawthonn) and Sidni Sarffwraig (Slaylor Moon, The Courtneys). It all sounds like a ritual you’ve maybe encroached on, that you maybe would be wise to stay away from whatever is going on when the reality is, you just can’t. I guess we could mention the less obvious sides of The Cure along with This Mortal Coil, Dead Can Dance and maybe the more left field moments of Siouxsie And The Banshees as vague (lazy) reference points but then you really don’t need reference points these days, the music is just down there and who needs a review? These are edgy, atmospheric, occult feminist goth emissions, they are mysteriously enchanting, a powerfully commanding sway that is maybe kind of repeated a little too much over the eight pieces? Eight pieces of music that when you can get with it all are deliciously intoxicating, warmly hypnotic and encasing, and on days when you can’t quite get with them, maybe just a little bit too repetitive and slightly all the same but then no one ever complains when they walk into an art gallery and all eight paintings are closely related variations or muses on the same theme and all kind of look the same. We’re talking strange Pagan-like folk music played on dual zither, electronic drums and bass guitar and yes, excellent…

There are two Tristwch Y Fenywod Upset The Rhythm London shows happening next year on January 30th/31st (2025) at St Pancras Old Church – Facebook event page

Previously – ORGAN: Five music things – M(h)aol have something new, this is good news. Who are Papangu? They just had most of their stuff stolen at gunpoint, the rather unique instrumental duo The Happy Couple have a new album, meanwhile Tristwch Y Fenywod are a Welsh-language gothic rock power-coven and Iggy Pop just announced a new live album…

Chris Corsano – The Key (Became the Important Thing [and Then Just Faded Away​]​) – (Drag City) – And talking of albums from 2024 that really should have been covered already, especially after that fine performance with Earth Ball at Cafe Oto a few months back, Chris Corsano released a solo album back in June (not that anyone mentioned it to us). he was rather thrilling at Cafe Oto back there and this is a “feverish essay of transcendent drumming: Chris’ solo approach, rooted in the exploration of elements of extended technique, sought another level, via possibilities facilitated by a self-made string drum! The Key (Became The Important Thing [& Then Just Faded Away]) brings his encompassing focus on free improvisation and noise into a granular fusion with acoustic experiments and hot-wired ideations of hard rock riffing and the post-punk sound”. yes, lazy of me again but stolen bit of Pritt Stick powered cut ‘n paste does say pretty much everything that needs to be said and writing about improve really is beyond dancing around architecture especially when you can just follow the links and go listen. Do listen, it is a fine noise, a fine set of sounds, fine pieces of music, never too hard-boiled or alienating, challenging yes, but not violently so, welcoming, crafted, at times jagged, painterly, always engaging, never demanding, sometimes minimal, other times not quite so much, Chris Corsano is a percussionist drummer with something a little different to offer, there’s something compelling about his art…  

Bandcamp

Previously – ORGAN THING: Earth Ball and Chris Corsano kick off a tour at Cafe Oto, London in impressive style – that was intense, that was good, that was avant jazz no wave noise intense, that was serious commitment…