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Mai
From: £10.00
(CD/LP/DL)
VINYL BACK IN STOCK!
140g Black Vinyl in a 3mm sleeve + Lyric insert and download code for the full album PLUS ‘Mai:2’: A collection of reworks/remixes by Gwenno, Accu, Quodega & Cotton Wolf
On her third album, Welsh Music Prize winner Georgia Ruth returns to her roots. Having moved back to her native Aberystwyth following the birth of her son, Mai was recorded in the town’s Grade-II listed Joseph Parry Hall over the course of one week in Spring 2019. Named after the renowned composer and professor, the room was used as a venue for chamber concerts throughout the twentieth century and offered musicians a view of the sun setting over the castle as they worked.
Description
“Lovingly embellished with richly-floral imagery, listening…is like getting agreeably lost in a beautiful garden of flowers, some nodding gently in soft summer breeze, others bobbing brightly.” – ★★★★★ Jon Lusk, BBC Music Magazine
“Lush Welsh pastorals and other odes to spring” – Neil Spencer, The Guardian
“Atmospheric spirituality runs through an album underpinned with natural world imagery, poetic lyrics and subtle soundscapes” – Mojo
“Textures of piano, guitars, synths, violins, cello, flute and pedal steel, arranged like new blooms in a May garden. By turns lyrical and lush, Mai marks a welcome return to the studio” Tim Cumming, Songlines
“an unobtrusive delight where the alternately lush and sparse conjured textures beguile the attentive listener in their careful response to Georgia’s ever-intriguing lyrical vision.” – David Kidman, Folk Radio UK
“Fans of Vashti Bunyan, the quieter moments of Talk Talk and gentle indie-pop will find succour here.” – Jude Rogers, tinyletter.com
“Utterly transfixing… beautifully arranged, played and recorded” – Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales
Mai (meaning May) is an intimate collection of songs. Songs written from within the depths of a house, during stolen moments.
Songs detailing new motherhood, and the search for ritual. About being lost, and being found again. About gardens growing under doors in the depths of night. Days streaming in through a window, and the strange comfort offered by a terracotta sun hanging in a west Wales kitchen.
At its heart sits a beautiful and simple setting of Eifion Wyn’s poem – “Gwn ei ddyfod, fis y mêl”. (‘I know it’s coming, month-of-honey’).
Mai is a meditation on finding hope and renewal in the seasons, in a world where the certainty of spring feels increasingly fragile. It is a search for wildness and love.
The album was produced with Iwan Morgan (Meilyr Jones, Cate Le Bon, Richard James) who also engineered, mixed and mastered. Additional parts were recorded at his studio in Liverpool. It features a dynamic group of musicians including Iwan and Dafydd Huws, Stephen Black, Ailsa Mair Hughes, Angharad Davies, Rhodri Brooks, and Laura J Martin. With improvised strings, pedal steel and saxophone sitting alongside harp, the album presents a sound which is both lush and sparse in turn.
The album was recorded with support from Help Musicians, and with the generosity of Aberystwyth University.
Additional information
Bottle Clear Vinyl, Black Vinyl, CD