Ruins/Adfeilion

This is very highbrow folk. Gareth Bonello – aka The Gentle Good – is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and general thinker. He is also an ornithological specialist who worked for the Welsh Natural History Museum. It was within the museum environment that he first discovered Welsh traditional music and there's a rarified quality to this album.

The layers of this music are enriched by Dylan Fowler's mandocello and lap steel, Georgia Ruth Williams’ harp and Ceri Jones’ trombone. There are even strings from the Mavron Quartet on the track ‘Bound for Lampedusa’ – a song from the perspective of refugees drifting towards the Italian isle off the Libyan coast. The curiosity of this album lies in the way such hard-hitting contemporary issues appear. The atmosphere is relentlessly serene, with the sound of seagulls and rolling thunder complementing Bonello's high, delicate vocals. This sits very comfortably with such tracks as ‘Gwen Lliw’r Lili’ from Maria Jane Williams’ 1844 Collection of Welsh Folk Songs. But on ‘Bound for Lampedusa’ or ‘Rivers of Gold’ – about austerity Britain and income inequality – the mix jars strangely. A surreal listen, indeed.