Rocks In The Attic #60: Super Furry Animals - ‘Mwng’ (2000)

I was so happy when I bought this album - on white vinyl - that I played songs from it when I was DJing that evening. Local boy done good and ex-Inspiral Carpet Clint Boon was doing a homecoming show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Oldham, and I was asked to DJ. Hardly anybody turned up but I do remember that I played a few songs off this album. I was even approached by one of members of the support bands playing that night (somebody fairly minor, but a known act all the same), when I was playing Ysbeidiau Heulog, and asked who this was.

Apparently this is the best-selling Welsh-language album of all time. I couldn’t care less that it’s sung in a different language. In fact, I think it gives it charm. I hardly listen to lyrics anyway, so it doesn’t mean a thing to me. The music and the melody is where I’m at.

Hit: Ysbeidiau Heulog

Hidden Gem: Ymaelodi Â'r Ymylon

Rocks In The Attic #10: Super Furry Animals - ‘Rings Around The World’ (2001)

I must admit I didn’t really love the Super Furrys until this album. I definitely liked them - my housemates at University in my third year used to play them to death, especially the Outspaced album which had just come out that year. In fact, I think I bought Outspaced first, on vinyl, and then I started buying all the others.


They were a handy band to have when DJing too - they’re probably the band I was asked “Hey mate, who’s this?” most when playing them.


By the time Rings Around The World came out, I had been buying their albums as they came out - Guerilla after Outspaced, and then Mwng - partly becase they’re an awesome band, but also because they always did something nice with their vinyl releases.


On Rings Around The World, side C, the side with Juxtapozed With U on it, plays ‘backwards’ - that is, you drop the needle in the centre, where the run-out groove usually is, and it plays from centre out to the edge. Sure, it’s gimmicky, but at least it’s something that sets the record apart from others. You just need to be bloody fast, when side C finishes, to save your needle before it does a suicide leap off the record.


I used to listen to this a lot when I drove over to Ireland to see my long-distance girlfriend in Wexford. As the band are Welsh, it’s quite nice that the album became my soundtrack for driving through that country to get to the ferry port in Fishguard.


Paul McCartney appears on this album too, on Receptacle For The Respectable, channelling his earlier role on one of the Beach Boys’ albums by crunching on some celery and carrots. Nice!


Hit: Juxtapozed With U


Hidden Gem: Receptacle For The Respectable