It’s an unlikely scenario for a band who’ve been going over ten years before they even release a debut album, to be shortlisted for a major award. And yet, this exact thing has happened in the world of Breichiau Hir (Long Arms in English). The Cardiff six piece – count ‘em – are delighted to have Hir Oes I’r Cof included as one of the fifteen albums released in the past year to be considered for the Welsh Music Prize, the annual celebration of the best in new music from Wales. When broadcaster and co-founder of the award Huw Stephens spoke to us about the prize earlier this month, he commented on how pleased he was for Breichiau Hir, waiting so long to get a debut out and it doing so well. They are a fine example he says, of how creativity in Wales does not stop.
Steff Dafydd and Rhys Morgan from the band talked to me from Cardiff over Zoom one midweek evening. It’s a few days after the nomination was announced and they’re still well chuffed. ‘One of the reasons me and Steff became friends about 12, 13 years ago,’ recalls Rhys, ‘is because we’re fans of the Manics. And to be in the same list as them is quite surreal.’ Breichiau Hir stand beside more tried and trusted names – Gwenno and Cate Le Bon both had nods from the Mercury Music Prize this year and 2019 respectively, alongside seven other debuts, so it feels pertinent to ask how it feels. ‘It adds a bit more pride,’ replies Steff, after a pause. ‘I mean, we’re proud of the album anyway. We talk about it amongst ourselves, “love this bit, it’s really good isn’t it”, and now “it’s oh right, we weren’t talking shit!”’.
Indeed they were not; Hir Oes I’r Cof is a very powerful album. It’s forceful and passionate but never brutish; dense layers of guitar, melancholy and nostalgia threaded in. They’d had lots of support from both Radio One and 6 Music and their gigs quite frankly, blow the roof off. At Focus Wales this year they played in a tidy carpeted upstairs room typically used for conventions and suits; the reverberations are no doubt still heard months on.
The band I’m told, emerged from teenage years, survived a name change from Just Like Frank and members attending different universities, releasing a handful of self-recorded and produced singles during that time which they claim were ‘terrible’. If one was to search the internet for them, no dice; there was a ‘purge’ some time back. Damn. Breichiau Hir was a casual commitment for a while after working life started, they explain; as Rhys puts it ‘a two or three months a year sort of thing’, the occasional gig but nothing much more. It was around 2017 the band evolved into a more serious proposition. They gelled more than previously, thought deeper and wider about how they wrote, and collectively contributed to songs. “We all got better as musicians”, says Rhys simply.
Having three guitarists one can’t help but think, must be like herding cats? But the set up has made for a big sounding album, ambitious on every level. “Agreed. We’ve had three guitarists in the band for a while. Mostly as a convenience to be honest. If someone can’t do a show…” Rhys laughs. “But then we realised actually, hang on, this works alright. Especially leading up to the album, we thought a lot more about how we would write for guitars. It came quite naturally but subconsciously we took a lot of influences from early 90s grunge like Nirvana, the quiet loud– quiet loud approach and it’s become a part of how we write songs“. Planning alternatives to merely playing the same chords together, and layering instead; asking themselves, how can they make it more interesting. ‘With three guitars it can be competing, who does which part where but with this album it was, I’m happy to take a break here, chill out and not worry about what I’m playing. We were a lot more thoughtful about how we put the songs together. We took our time“.
The no rush approach has proved creatively beneficial, and played out practically as well. There was some pressure to make an album too early, they explain. Resistance against that has been for the better. “About 7 or 8 years ago people were going, ‘when’s the album out’ recalls Steff. “I’m glad we didn’t do it then. It would have been terrible. And we’d probably have split up by now, a case of we’ve done the album…I’m glad we took out time and did it when it felt right“.
It seems apt the album’s main theme is nostalgia, another organic natural direction. Steff as lyric writer noticed nostalgic elements kept seeping through, nudging into songs. As more came, it solidified into a theme. “There is a narrative there. Not like a rock opera or anything like that!” he adds. Perish the thought. The way Breichiau Hir put songs together, ideas ‘float around’ for a while before they start fleshing them out. ‘” wrote a lot of the lyrics when I was 27, 28 and that’s the end of your twenties so it’s an odd coming of age theme. Work takes over, you’re thinking about maybe what you wanted to do. Things you haven’t done. People you used to hang out with, you think, ‘what happened there?’. There’s a lot of that“.
The album has moments of stillness and reflection. ‘07-04-17’ is spoken word, a short story very much summing up the message behind the entire album. It is, Steff confesses, one of the favourite thing he’s ever written. And it’s pretty dark and from the point of view of a man sitting in a pub with a friend he doesn’t like too much. The horrible realization they are only still friends of sorts because everyone else has moved on with their lives. “It sets the tone for looking back and always wanting more. It leads to reminiscing, we’re only friends because everyone else went away, we ended up just being in the same room a lot.“
That’s quite bleak.
“Oh yeah, 100%. It ties everything together quite nicely I think! The other theme on the album is the river. Location-wise it’s the Taff river, a metaphor for time passing in Cardiff, where we grew up.The chorus is, ‘take us back to the river where we used to play’, essentially,’” says Rhys. “That idea of what we used to do at the river when we were younger. When everything was alright, before we grew up and realized everything. How the hell did we end up here. In a shit pub drinking piss out of a stained glass.
Then he gets up in the middle of the night and in his head he goes to the river and all his friends are there,” adds Steff. “It ends with he’s looking at the sun and ‘I laugh at the world and then at myself’. It sounds really shit when I translate it!”
Album closer ‘Dal Lan Gyda’n Hun’ (Keeping Up With Myself) is a genuinely beautiful song, one with different origins than usual for Breichiau Hir. The seeds came from guitarist Nat playing jazzy diminished chords, which led to the rest of the band jamming. There’s an 1990s emo-inspired singalong chorus, with scratchy vocals at the end. The band were all big fans of emo music growing up, they themselves can feel and hear the mark of Fugazi present.
“The day we finished the song off we knew it was the album closer. It sounds like an ending. I think it’s a beautiful song. It’s the only one on the album that has hope and positivity. In a dark emo way. We can’t be happy!” jokes Steff.
Breichiau Hir proudly write and perform their songs in Welsh and it’s interesting to hear of them performing the inevitably family friendly festivals tied in with the Welsh language – they cringe at the word – scene. Having face painted children running to the stage and sticking fingers in their ears whilst Steff is screaming into the mic sounds both amusing and frustrating in equal measures. “We’ve played with folk, psychedelic, hip-hop bands before and it’s great to have that diversity. But if we’re playing a family friendly festival it’s a shock to the system and we’ve always struggled to find our place really,” explains Rhys. “I think the reasons we’ve kept going for so long is because we enjoy it, but we’ve had awkward gigs. I think it’s diversifying now, 6 Music have done a really good job not only playing Welsh language but also Gwenno singing in Cornish as well. I think people are realising it’s just music that happens to be sung in Welsh. Someone in work came up to me the other day and said ‘I’ve been listening to your band. You’re really heavy, aren’t you’, I was, well yes, maybe comparatively we are“.
Hir Oes I’r Cof was recorded over four or five months, in the new year they’re writing and demoing the new record, going off to stay in a remote part of West Wales. With the debut it was a relaxed process, no pressure or deadline. They recorded in the evenings after work, fully rehearsed and prepped.
“It’d be interesting if we did the next album the opposite way. Have bits of ideas then experiment in the studio” interjects Steff.
It would cost a lot of money, but you could do that if you win the Welsh Music Prize. “
We could make our Kid A!”
Now there’s an idea…
Hir Oes I’r Cof by Breichiau Hir is out now on Libertino Records.
The winner of the Welsh Music Prize 2022 is announced on Weds 26 Oct in the Donald Gordon Theatre at Wales Millenium Centre, and features live performances from Adwaith, Buzzard Buzzard, Dead Method, Sage Todz and Aderyn. The event officially open this year’s Llais festival. Tickets available here.
