Welsh Soul, Latin Heat: Carwyn Ellis and the global pulse of Rio 18

It was Chrissie Hynde’s idea for me to work with her friends in Brazil, and she told me to do it in Welsh”, confides Carwyn Ellis. “And I just laughed it off at first. I thought it was daft. I mean, who would do that? But she kept reminding me and kind of made me do it. I’m so glad that she did.”

A Welsh singer, songwriter and musician, Carwyn is recalling the time in 2018 when he was a member of the Pretenders during a tour of South America. The group’s lead singer, Hynde, had seen all the old Brazilian records he was buying and recommended that he contact musician friends she knew in Brazil. After Carwyn met one of those friends, Kassin, he was back in Brazil by the end of the year, recording Joia! with him, the first album credited to Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18.

Although the idea might have seemed unlikely at first, that album, recorded by a mixed Brazilian and British band in Rio de Janeiro, hit on something. There was the analogue, rhythmic, alive sound of classic 70s tropicália, but there was also the more direct, urgent grooves of the cumbia that Carwyn first discovered in Mexico City, and then there were those vocals in Welsh, adding a bucolic wistfulness. There was something in the water.

Mas, also recorded in Rio, followed in 2021, before Carwyn was commissioned to perform this new material with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, resulting in Yn Rio, also in 2021. Radio Chévere (2024), a kaleidoscopic album recorded all over the world, saw him broaden the project’s scope with musicians from Venezuela and Mexico joining the troupe. Now comes Fontana Rosa, and a new twist.

“I was in Japan at the beginning of 2023, visiting a record shop in Nara,” says Carwyn. “And I got talking with the owner of the shop. I said, ‘I like Latin music’, and, you know, his frame of reference was totally different to mine. He said, ‘Do you like Chicano music? Chicano soul?’ I was like, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘all this stuff’, and he had a bunch of records, mostly on the Penrose label, but Big Crown Records as well. It opened a new door to what’s happening at the moment, the Latin diaspora in the US. That has subconsciously been the main influence on what I’m doing on this new album, a US filter for the Latin diaspora.” He namechecks Thee Sacred Souls and The Altans as two key influences, modern soul bands based on the US’ West Coast. “‘Float’ by the Altans is a dreamy, beautiful tune”, says Carwyn. “It’s just lovely harmonies. I definitely wanted simple narrative songs about love, for the new album, and heartache and longing and these things that have real tropes in Latin music for sure.”

Whereas Radio Chévere was recorded all over the place, Fontana Rosa would once more see the group record in just one locale, a place with special meaning for Carwyn: “I was in Mexico City again with Baldo from our band – Baldo’s been a big influence on me too, so that’s worth noting; he’s Venezuelan and turned me on to music out of his country and his world and his culture – and a friend of mine said ‘have you heard? Toe Rag [Studios] is about to shut.’ For the folks at home, Toe Rag is London’s famous analogue place. It’s just tape machines; it’s all about live recording. I’d been playing sessions there on and off for 20-odd years since a James Hunter record, People Gonna Talk, in the early noughties. So I phoned the owner, Liam, a dear friend, and he said, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna shut.’ So I started thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to go out in a blaze of glory, put a lovely band together, have a good time and make some good music for Liam?’ So that’s what we did.”

The Rio 18 band he put together this time included Brazil’s Kassin on bass, eclectic US producer Shawn Lee on drums, Baldo Verdú on percussion and vocals, Cuban-trained Rupert Brown on even more percussion and VRi’s Patrick Rimes and Aneirin Jones on violin. In addition, Elan Rhys from Welsh folk group Plu takes lead vocals on more than half of the tracks, departing from the singing she’s known for. “It’s only on our last album that she sang for the first time in English”, says Carwyn. “So, for her to come in and shine like she has, I’m very happy about that, because they’re very American, the sort of songs she’s singing. But I knew she could do it, she’s that versatile. She’s one of my favourite singers.”

It’s Elan Rhys who takes the lead vocal on the bossa-inflected ballad ‘Impossible’, on the bluesier ‘Heartbreaker’ – which Carwyn admits has Carlos Santana as a reference point – but also on the stomping Welsh-language opening track, ‘Hei Ti’, a future northern soul floor-filler. Carwyn continues: “Also, the element of femininity and joie de vivre was something I wanted to put across as much as I could. It’s important for what Rio 18 is about, because it’s not just about music, it’s about anybody and everybody being able to do something together and to have fun and to create something positive. It’s all part of this little universe that we’ve got.”

Since his first musical credits in the late 90s, Carwyn has played all manner of instruments with a litany of British and US artists including Shane MacGowan, Oasis, Roddy Frame, the aforementioned Pretenders, North Mississippi Allstars and Edwyn Collins – with whom he still performs – though it’s with the transatlantic Rio 18 group that he seems to have found his calling card.

It’s a project tied to his thirst for discovering music from around the world. He tells me that right now, he’s fascinated by the Ecuadorian music on CAIFE Records being reissued by Honest Jon’s Records, by Mexico’s norteño legends Los Tigres del Norte, by organist supremos like Colombia’s Jaime Llano González and Venezuela’s Tulio Enrique León and by Analog Africa (“it’s my favourite label, so I listen to a lot of that stuff, whatever it is and wherever it comes from”)… He hints that his next project could see him dive into tropical organ music, or equally, could be a long-awaited Japanese project he’s been working on. I ask if he’ll tour Fontana Rosa, but it’s clear that he’s having too much fun doing things his own way, and not worrying about the typical marketing cycles of the music industry. “I like the idea of an album existing as an album in its own right,” he says. “We’ll go out and play these songs if people want us to… but it’s difficult as well to keep up with myself because I’m constantly wanting to do different projects”, he adds, before listing another project he’s been in the studio working on. Expect to hear even more from Carwyn Ellis & Rio 18 soon.