Arenig

Hailing from Snowdonia, the young singer, song collector and instrumentalist Gwilym Bowen Rhys was a member of rock band Y Bandana and his own sibling folk trio, Plu, before setting out as a solo artist with his Welsh Folk Award-winning debut of traditional and original songs, O Groth y Ddaear (From the Womb of the Earth). Arenig sports a sizeable guest list of players adding supple instrumental layers to Rhys' collection of songs and tunes, some drawn from poems dating back to the 16th century (in the case of ‘Cardod’, whose lyric is by the Rev Rhys Pritchard, born 1577).

The May carol ‘O Deuwch Deulu Mwynion’ is from the pen of Huw Morys (born 1622) and set to an old fiddle tune, while ‘Jeri Bach Gogerddan’ is his own musical ode to the Welsh Romani Gypsies, who, like the English Romanies and Scottish and Irish Travellers, were invaluable carriers of traditional song. It's dedicated to the ‘king of the Welsh Gypsies’, Abram Wood, who purportedly brought the fiddle to Wales in the 18th century. With textures of harp, shruti box, harmonium, fiddles, trombones and trumpet, Rhys' album sets forth into the Welsh traditions of folk music and poetry and returns with fine booty.