Gruff Rhys will release a solo album entitled Yr Atal Genhedlaeth(The Stuttering Generation) on SFA's label Placid Casual on 24 January 2005. The album will have eleven songs, is 29 minutes long, and was recorded with Gorwel Owen at Stiwdio Ofn during 2003-4.
Tracklisting: Yr Atal Genhedlaeth (The Stuttering Generation)
Gwn Mi Wn (Yes I Know)
Epynt (a mountain in mid-Wales) Rhagluniaeth Ysgafn (May My Destiny Be Light)
Pwidin Wy 1 (Egg Pudding 1)
Pwidin Wy 2 (Egg Pudding 2)
Y Gwybodusion (Experts)
Caerffosiaeth (Sewage City)
Ambell Waith (Remembering)
Ni Yw Y Byd (We Are The World)
Chwarea'n Troi'n Chwerw (When Play Turns Sour) [cover]
Gruff Rhys, of Super Furry Animals, releases his first solo album Yr Atal
Genhedlaeth on 24 January 2005 on the band's own label Placid Casual. It was recorded between summer 2003 and spring 2004 at Stiwdio Ofn in Wales with Gorwel Owen who has worked on many of the Super Furry Animals albums including Radiator and Mwng. Gruff is planning a short tour of Wales to accompany its release.
Gruff has said this about Yr Atal Genhedlaeth.
"Yr Atal Genhedlaeth came together quite accidentally. I didn't initially plan to make a record; I usually go to Gorwel Owen's house in North Wales once a year for a couple of days partly for social reasons and partly to put down demos in his studio. I'll normally get about twenty songs out of my system.
"I went there in the summer of 2003 and put about twenty songs down, and it became apparent that about five of them sounded finished. They were pretty simple but they didn't need working on, didn't need to be developed further: they sounded pretty immediate as they were. We're in a luxurious position as a
band (Super Furry Animals) where we always have far too many songs anyway. I thought it would be interesting to record a whole album in the same vein as these songs, so between August 2003 and February 2004 I got another five tracks together. Overall it took about a week to record and five days to mix.
"All the tracks are fairly new, but often they came from ideas that are quite old. Pwdin Wy 1 and Pwdin Wy 2, which are connected, they're ten years old, and I've never had the chance to record them. I've been trying to write Gwn Mi Wn for about ten years too, but I could never work out how to record
it. The general idea for the whole record was based around this song: to get music down to its elemental state where possible, just using the rhythm and the vocal melody.
Gruff plays everything on the record except for the trumpet on Ambell Waith(by Edwin Humphries) and banjo by Gorwel Owen on Chwarae'n Troi'n Chwerw, which is a cover version of a Welsh language standard. "It's the equivalent of perhaps a countryfied China In Your Hands by T'Pau. It's a song by
Caryl Parry-Jones, who is an institution of Welsh songwriting. She concentrated on mostly disco and country and western power ballads. That track haunted me through my childhood. Recording it was very cathartic!"
"Since we did Mwng five years ago I've been collecting ideas for lyrics, and it took this long to get together. I don't know if it's as immediately melodic, but it's a very different record obviously. Rhagluniaeth Ysgafn for example is heavily dependent on the lyrics ~ it's like Heaven's Gate: a list of sins. Yr Atal Genhedlaeth is very lyrically heavy ~ the sleeve is all text as well ~ but I think there are some songs that are melodic enough to grasp, even if you haven't got a clue what I'm going on about.
"Yr Atal Genhedlaeth is about various characters in the stuttering generation, a fictional town, two fictional MC's, Pwdin Wy, fictional pundits, all the sins of the age. There's not much advice for the stuttering generation, more a series of observations.
"And I'm considering splitting up after this record. I'm not sure exactly where, horizontally, or vertically."
Yr Atal Genhedlaeth (The Stuttering Generation)
The title is a play on words that doesn't really translate. Contraception in Welsh is 'atal-genhedlaeth'; it literally means, 'stop the next generation'. By adding 'the' it becomes 'the stopped generation', but 'atal' also means stuttering, so it becomes 'the stuttering generation'. So it's quite a vicious title, to define a generation. It's also just a dirty pun.
Gwn Mi Wn (Yes I Know)
It's a bit of a long story. It literally means, 'yes I know'. It's also a play on words; extended. It's about this MC called Glyn Kysgod Angau, which means The Valley Of Death, and his mate called D Chwaeth (Ob Scene). So it's kind of biblical. It's a track about these two fictional MCs who have a battle with bows and arrows that shoot words, and they pour beer on their cornflakes in the morning. It's just bragging really.
Epynt
Epynt is a mountain in Mid Wales. It's also about the battle between the Euro (the E in Epynt) and the pound (pynt in Welsh). The conclusion is that it's better to get rid of money altogether.
Rhagluniaeth Ysgafn (May My Destiny Be Light)
Another play on words - the title literally means 'may my destiny be light', but because of the nature of the Welsh language, 'lluniaeth ysgafn' also means 'light snack'. So this could also mean 'may my destiny be easily digested', or 'may my precooked destiny be lite'. I'm singing this at the gates of heaven, confessing all of my sins. It's a pisstake, obviously. I'm an atheist, but it's a song so there are elements of my life in it. I'm saying, "whatever your decision, I'm cool with, but if it's punishment, please make it a light snack".
Pwdin Ŵy 1 (Egg Pudding 1)
Pwdin Ŵy 2 (Egg Pudding 2)
This means 'egg pudding', one and two. The first song is about falling in love with a woman called Egg Pudding, and the lust at the beginning of a relationship. The second song is about the relationship falling apart, and Egg Pudding has caught a really bad disease and she's dying, and we're miles apart, and it's a tragic ending after a euphoric beginning. It's a song I've been trying to get out of my system for about 10 years.
Y Gwybodusion (Experts)
This means 'pundits' or 'experts'. "Where are the experts?" it's asking. "Looking for answers" is the reply.
Caerffosiaeth (Sewage City)
A tale of a fictional city, Caerffosiaeth is based on various cities in Wales. I get through a lot of moans that I've got about living in Wales in 2005, but also some of the good bits. There's nothing like having a good moan.
Ambell Waith (Remembering)
This is about leaving Sewage City and going out on tour. It's about nostalgia and the occasional longing for home, but not a lot! It's about waking up in a different country every day. It's biographical: everything is, to a certain extent, but it's one of the most straight up songs. And it's got loads of car noises on it ~ provided by a �25 synth I bought from a garage on the A55.
Ni Yw Y Byd (We Are The World)
This is like We Are The World or I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, except a skewed version of that with a different world view, with lines like "Let's confuse our contemporaries, because we are the world", and "Let's prepare for revolution, because we are the world". Totally ridiculous, with a melody to try and explode people's heads, and get people dancing. It's a euphoric song to dance to - to celebrate the person you're with at the time.
Chwarea'n Troi'n Chwerw (When Play Turn Sour)
It's a cathartic exercise to cover a song that haunted me through my childhood, changing the odd word here and there, to make it sound a bit more psychopathic. It literally means 'when play turns sour' ~ it's a Welsh proverb. "Play turns sour, when you're playing with fire." The song is about when lying becomes easier than telling the truth ~ to contradict the euphoria of Ni Yw Y Byd. There's enough soft pop out there ~ we don't need any more!
Tracklisting:
From the 
"All the tracks are fairly new, but often they came from ideas that are quite old. Pwdin Wy 1 and Pwdin Wy 2, which are connected, they're ten years old, and I've never had the chance to record them. I've been trying to write Gwn Mi Wn for about ten years too, but I could never work out how to record
it. The general idea for the whole record was based around this song: to get music down to its elemental state where possible, just using the rhythm and the vocal melody.
Gruff's Track by Track (courtesy 
Epynt