Gruff Rhys
Sadness Sets Me Free
★★★★
ROUGH TRADE
THOUGH IT stops well short of the ardent self-loathing that fired Radiohead’s Creep, a pronounced seam of self-criticism runs through Gruff Rhys’s latest. It’s there in the frank fessup which offsets Bad Friend’s spry, buoyant chamber-pop, and it’s embedded in I Tendered My Resignation, an inventively-titled break-up song which builds and builds around piano and pedal-steel while its protagonist deems himself “unworthy” of his partner’s love/commitment. Is the resignee Rhys? Was this one of the “bad policy decisions” he alludes to in the LP’s accompanying notes? What’s clear is that fucking up – or thinking we have – gets good people down. What to do, then, but embrace the sweet sadness ’til it sets you free?
If you’re already striking Rhys’s 25th (or so) LP from your festive playlist, then don’t. “I’m going for euphoric melancholy,” he has said, and as our sonically and geographically omnivorous host taps breezy, uptempo Tropicália (They Sold My Home To Build A Skyscraper), ’70s pop-soul (Celestial Candyfloss), and ports a no-nonsense call for political revolution inside Cover Up The Cover Up’s pretty Trojan horse, the transcendence his latest LP’s title hints at is never far away. Elsewhere, the title track’s gingham-clad honky-tonking proves something of a red herring, but country is built for confession and Rhys digs in again: “Come and set me free from my vain and selfish ways,” he sings, like Pembrokeshire’s answer to Conway Twitty.
Sadness Sets Me Free was nailed in just three days in the 19th century mansion house setting of La Frette Studios, just outside Paris. Well drilled from recent touring, Rhys and his core band – pianist Osian Gwynedd; double bassist Huw Williams; former Flaming Lips drummer Kliph Scurlock – were joined by labelmate Kate Stables of This Is The Kit, who sings backing vocals, and Rhodri Brooks of Welsh psychcountry act Melin Melyn, a pedal steel player who can do trippy ambience and Sweetheart Of The Rodeo-style traditionalism.
With La Frette’s owner Olivier Bloch-Lainé regaling Rhys and co with tales of his work with Jean-Claude Vannier and Brigitte Fontaine during dinner breaks from the sessions, inspirational batteries got fully charged, and you can hear it. Rhys’s melodies stay with you, and his wordplay is as pleasingly idiosyncratic as ever: “I said ‘I’m a barista’/She heard ‘barrister’”, begins Celestial Candyfloss.
“These songs feel melancholic, or deal with shit things,” Rhys notes, but the music is often uplifting; a stoical and pro-active salve against troubles local and global. Lovely, too, that Rhys opted to master Sadness Set Me Free in France because “he wanted to hear what French electricity sounds like.” Turns out French electricity sounds good – very good.
Sadness Sets Me Free is out now on Rough Trade, you can order a copy here: Amazon/Rough Trade
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