Peiriant (pronounced pie-ree-ant) is a Welsh word for a machine or an engine, a fittingly eerie name for the atmospheric duo of violinist Rose and sound artist Dan Linn-Pearl. A couple who returned to their native Wales in recent years, and co-founded the Nawr concert series in Swansea and Hay-on-Wye (alongside free improvising harpist and Richard Dawson collaborator Rhodri Davies), their second album, Dychwelyd (pronounced Duh-ch-wel-id – returning), explores the idea of going back to a source in sound, marrying folk textures and techniques with shimmery, modulated guitars and post-rock drones.
Living in the mountainous Bannau Brycheiniog, through which the rivers Wye and Usk flow, Peiriant make music that is anchored to that landscape, revelling in its drama and delicacy, frills and fissures. Opener Taflu Dŵr (Throwing Water) begins with Rose hacking at her strings before her notes build to a cascade, her violin bursts sounding like the sprays of a river careering into the sea. Then come her folk-evoking fiddle melodies, giving a human dimension to tracks such as Carreg (Stone) and Llethr (Slope). They scrape and fight in the former against Dan’s subaquatic pulses, conveying a mighty power. In the latter, they soar blissfully above subtler, iridescent electronics, suggesting a kite in gentle flight.
These are not long tracks. Out of eight of them, only the throbbing Toriad-Agoriad (Cut-Opening) and the quivering Gors (Swamp) are over four minutes long. Nevertheless, all act as portals to places that sound primeval and profound, building towards the blissful finale, Llwyfan Dir (Plateau). A moment on top of the world with violin and guitar pedals working together, its summery sheen brings an almost Balearic glisten to the idea of folk music, lighting it up like a beacon.
Also out this month
Jake Xerxes Fussell’s When I’m Called (Fat Possum) is a beautiful album of songs close to Fussell’s heart. Produced by James Elkington, it includes sea shanties, mountain ballads and compositions by outsider cowboy singers, folklorists and Benjamin Britten. Fussell’s delivery has a magical familiarity to it throughout. Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds’ Strange News Has Come to Town (self-released) is the duo’s first offering of UK-spangled Americana in five years. Tracks including The Lapwing’s Call and I Love You Too (a co-write with Del Amitri’s Justin Currie) cosset the listener with soft guitar jangle and Bedford’s warm, easy vocals. Don’t miss The Complete Friends of Old-Time Music Concert (Smithsonian Folkways) either, featuring the brilliant Bessie Jones, John Davis and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ed Young, a thrilling document of a 1965 gig at the meeting point of Black folk traditions and civil rights activism.
