As ‘Glass’ hopscotches around my headphones for the twelfth time this afternoon, I can hear the obnoxious, fuzzy drawl of Best Coast’s debut on the office stereo, a juxtaposition that only further demonstrates the abject beauty, clarity and ingenuity of Rhosyn. Formerly known as Wap Wap Wow, Rose Dagul’s cello and vocal loop-based project morphed into this band/solo jaunt after spending a month in a cottage in Anglesey, writing and recording by herself. The results are phenomenal. Rose’s voice reminds me of the first time I heard Bat For Lashes or Sarah Nixey, but with the frosty Proper English upper layer thawed by regional warmth.
“Living is eeeeaaaa-sy with eyes closed,” the song opens, as a cute little frog chorus of layered Roses hiccups underneath. There’s an element of Arthur Russell in there – as there seems to be in a lot of these Oxfordian Blessing Force bands, of which Rhosyn is one – but with less icy disco influence, and more regal, pastoral lushness thanks to the friendly burr of her cello. Indeed, the end of the song skips faster and the voices coo almost burningly bright, like a beaming Austen heroine running through the British countryside. And most importantly, it’s gloriously fun, elegantly, uniquely structured, and just absurdly beautiful.
Related posts
Love this, and the other tracks on the Rhosyn Myspace, and all those on Wap Wap Wow’s for that matter (one of which is produced by Yannis Phillipakis and Jonquil/Chad Valley’s Hugo Manuel). Really think they’re on their way to setting themselves apart from pretty much everything around them in Britain already.
Brilliant.
So stunning, and very true about the ‘heroine running through the British countryside’. I can’t wait for more!
There’s a nice amount of harking back to a pastoral, childhood innocence here much like in the acid-frazzled take on Haight-Ashbury that British acts responded with. Most noticeably on ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ which the line “Living is easy with eyes closed” comes from.