Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Chop Chop!
Euros Childs is the sometime singer in cult Welsh group, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, who have released an impressive nine albums since 1992, most of which have songs in both Welsh and English. Euros (pronounded Eehrros) wrote a solo album last year, titled Chops which was released this year through Wichita. He is currently on tour with Isobel Campbell (see below!) and I did an interview with him which will shortly be appearing over at Rockbeatstone.
Chops is an interesting affair - at some points it sounds like ancient folk music, the peculiar loveliness of the Welsh lyrics making them sound more interesting. Euros said of them: I’ve no problem with people not understanding completely what the song is about. When I listen to songs in other languages I don’t think “how dare they sing it in a language I don’t understand”, that’d be arrogant and ignorant. I don’t think it’s at all bad people are subjected to other languages and enjoying the songs. And quite right too. As a native English speaker you can quite easily take it for granted hearing songs and appreciating the subtelties of the English language which might not otherwise register with non-native or fluent speakers. So it's refreshing to be in this position.
There are other points in the album where Euros' notion of not making a record that sounded like one person really. I wasn’t into that. I just wanted to make it like a compilation can be clearly heard, most notably on Donkey Island and Hi Mewn Socasau, which sound like Scissor-Sisters-meets-Welsh-village-fête, in a good way. It was these songs which really got the Berlin crowd dancing, showing clearly that you don't have to understand what the songs are about to enjoy them, though he did tell a short story to explain what most songs meant. He got an altogether good reaction and should hopefully get many of those punters along to their performance at the Cooperative Music night at Berlin's British Music Week, when they play Lido on 19th May. You should go.
posted by Unknown at 5/10/2006 04:57:00 pm
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