Free delivery on many items.   Same-day despatch, no-question returns.   Authorised dealers - full technical support.   Online since 1997. Shop categories Information Gruff RHYS (Don't) Welcome The Plague As A Blessing/The Babelsberg Basement Files (Record Store Day 2020)(limited black & white split coloured vinyl LP + insert) Rough Trade

Cat: RT 0120LP. Rel: 21 Sep 20
Indie/Alternative

Side 1 - Track 1. Frontier Man Side 1 - Track 2. The Club Side 1 - Track 3. Oh Dear! Side 1 - Track 4. Limited Edition Heart Side 1 - Track 5. Take That Call Side 1 - Track 6. Drones In The City Side 2 - Track 1. Negative Vibes Side 2 - Track 2. Same Old Song Side 2 - Track 3. Architecture Of Amnesia Side 2 - Track 4. Selfies In The Sunset

Welsh multi-instrumental troubadour Gruff Rhys has never shied away from tackling expansive subjects, whether that's the American Interior or the plight of 21st Century Britain, as seems to be the case here. The germination for this collection of original recordings, demos and songs happened back in 2016, a year when Brexit was beginning to loom large, Bowie died, and this album become the last thing recorded at Ali Chant's studio - another creative space bulldozed to make way for redevelopment.




The tracks themselves are less obtuse about that backdrop than the 'Plague' in the title, but the classic intensity of Rhys is very much at play here. A guy who manages to hook us in with a very gentle kind of witchcraft, tracks built around locked guitar hooks and smoothly give way to sprawling overtures, but there's also a potent campfire intimacy here, too - the hushed master storyteller holding his audience from beginning to end.