To go back can be to heal. To go back can be to self-destruct. To go back you can go forwards. Returning to someone, some place, or something can be a misguided strategy full of potholes and picked scabs yet when we feel the need for healing or for a comfort our lives are not giving us, our heart and soul often craves a return to a previous state provided in a myriad of different ways whether that be via location, drugs, family or the arts.
Dychwelyd is the Welsh word for Returning and it is this subject which Welsh folk duo Peiriant (Rose and Dan Linn-Pearl) explore on their newest album. Inspired by a return to the Welsh heartlands, to raise a young family and to strengthen roots, Peiriant explores the vast emotional and sensory experiences one has when surrounded by children, vast hills and snaking rivers.
This is a folk album that allows for darkness and experimentation to knot together its DNA. It has moments of traditional sounding beauty (‘Llethyr’, ‘Cân Idris’) where arrangements feel ancient and seeped in folklore and others where electronic undercurrents rip away at the piece, throwing them off balance and never letting them settle on one standout emotive idea. There’s a closeness to the latter part of Low’s output, or the albums of saxophonist Colin Stetson, in Dychwelyd where beauty and beast merge sometimes cohesively and other times with sheer abrasiveness. You are not walking the traditional twee folk route here. This is where hills offer protection in one light and threaten danger in another. Rivers can provide life, or they can flood you out. One of the best examples of which can be found on closer ‘Llwyfan Dir’ which rotates in Riley minimalism before varying instrumentation gives the song a swing and attitude. It is a beautifully upbeat finale that somehow manages to merge post-rock, country, and krautrock into one pop-filled sunkissed send off.
A major factor in the brilliance of Dychwelyd is the production as it allows space for every element to showcase its necessity to the instrumentals. Nothing is smothered or drowned out and as a listener you can follow many trails depending on where your mind is at any given time. You can absorb into the deep droning electronic elements or fly high on the beautiful melodies provided by the violins. As a listener you can allow yourself to choose between the darker elements or the lighter path which shows that Peiriant have faith in their audience.
Peiriant have created an extraordinary album which is proudly Welsh yet universal in emotional appeal. Dychwelyd feels like the future and our ancient past colliding in symbiosis and whilst it is all instrumental, it is an album full of the finest storytelling. It could leave you smiling, it could leave you crying but that is the beautiful risk you take when you return to something.
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Review by Simon Tucker
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