In 2013, after the breakup of both his relationship and his band, Race Horses, Meilyr Jones went to Rome. That visit helped inspire his first solo album, in which euphoria and despair sit side by side. 2013 It fits snugly into the line of cosmic Welsh music, alongside the work of Gruff Rhys and Euros Childs, although its weirdness comes not from it being mindbendingly psychedelic, so much as it being completely unexpected.
After the Dexysish indie-soul of the opener, How to Recognise a Work of Art, the bulk of the record consists of orchestrated chamber pop – harpsichord is prominent – at times reminiscent of the Left Banke, at times of the early-90s cult hero Eric Matthews, with lyrics that sometimes tip over into florid (“Wavy hair like Byron / Big nose, Berlioz / He was tall and thin / Nothing troubling him / And what he said / I feel / For stars to shine takes loving and time,” he suggests on Return to Life). But Jones’s insistent tenor changes the tone and texture of the words slightly: he sounds not like a man wallowing in self-pity, but someone trying to scourge his soul in search of a different life. What a lovely record this is.
