What Gruff did next

In the last few years it has seemed that recent Super Furry Animals albums were the diversionary side projects to Gruff Rhys‘ increasingly fertile solo efforts and collaborations; in particular his second solo album Candylion and his inspired collaboration with Boom Bip (that’s the second time I’ve mentioned it this week – must be something in the air).

Next up for the Welshman is a collaboration with experimental Brazilian musician Tony Da Gatorra. Apparently the Brazilian invented his own musical instrument called The Gatorra, which is part drum machine, part guitar. DrownedinSound have helpfully found a video of it in action.

Their new record is called The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness and is due on 26 July. DrownedinSound has a video for the first track to emerge from it; “In A House With No Mirrors (You’ll Never Get Old)”. Whereas Rhys’ solo records have gone in lo-fi electro and acoustic pop directions, while Neon Neon was an 80s synth-led opus, this track picks up on the infectious psych rock side of the Super Furry Animals. It’s been suggested that the record is generally quite experimental but this first track is actually rather poppy.

Finally, I must note Gruff’s website – gruffrhys.com. It seems to be rather new and there is not much content on it yet; however, quite brilliantly, he has called the site “The Gruffington Post”, which is good enough for me.

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