1) Bwyd Time
2) Miss Trudy
3) Paid Cheto Ar Pam
4) Oraphis Yn Delphie
5) Eating Salt Is Easy
6) Gewn Ni Gorffen
7) Iechyd Da
8) Ymwelwyr A Gwrachod
9) The Telescope And The Bonfire
10) The Man With Salt Hair
11) The Game Of Eyes
12) Blood Chant
13) Ffarm-Wr

Gorky’s third album, released in 1995, presents the group at a key moment in their development, with their youthful enthusiasm and anything goes attitude coupled with a developing understanding of making cohesive recordings.

Two of the songs (Miss Trudy and The Game Of Eyes) had appeared on earlier EP releases* but are welcome additions to the album. Miss Trudy is a melodic song about a violin teacher who loses her cool, while The Game Of Eyes is a freak-out rocker complete with open-to-interpretation lyrics and pantomime voices that wouldn’t seem out of place on an Arthur Brown LP.

The rest of the album is an entertaining mix of unrestrained psychedlia, brooding folk and joyful spontaneity. The opener Bwyd Time (Welsh for “Food Time”) is a funky throwaway party tune which plays like a radio jingle, popping up from time to time to give the album a peculiar running identity. Iechyd Da** (Welsh for “Good Health” or “Cheers”) is a boozy drinking song featuring clinking glasses, a pub sing-along and ending like a slowly passing out old man who can’t quite find his feet to leave. Blood Chant is a mantra-like horror show of repetitive folk. One voice pleads to us to answer his question; “Take out your eyes and your ears and what would you be?” only to receive a terrifying scream of “Blooooood!” in reply. Paid Cheto’r Pam (Don’t Cheat On Pam) returns to the band’s delicate side, both lyrically and musically.

No idea is reigned in for “the next release” leaving the band free to live out their fantasies. Think we should put some elves on that track? Why not! How about some machine guns and two songs about salt? Only if we can fit in an instrumental about witches! The cover art is equally unrestrained, featuring a psychedelic swirl of a drawing by Alan Holmes of fellow Welsh experimentalists Ectogram. Inside you’ll find a photo that left the band with a stereotype they found woefully hard to shake off, standing in a forest dressed in wizard outfits. It suits the album perfectly.

This is the zenith of the early Gorky’s sound, before their steady evolution into a beautiful acoustic country/folk band following the departure of guitarist John Lawrence. The violin playing of Megan Childs had by this time become a permanent fixture and this album really benefits from the variety of instruments Gorky’s squeeze in as opposed to the bland guitar/bass/drums setup of their contemporaries at the time. It’s due for re-release soon and well worth tracking down immediately.

* Gorky’s series of hugely creative EP releases from this period are collected on the excellent “20” album released on Castle in 2003. Get it!

** Iechyd Da was co-written with Rheinallt H. Rowlands whose Bukowski album is a highly recommended curio.