The Comedy of Errors: Llwybr Llaethog - Osmosis (1 May 1992)

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On what would have been his 79th birthday, it’s a pleasure to serve up a slice of genre that John Peel was, for many years, the only real outlet for - Welsh language music.  Until the BBC started to throw its weight behind their BBC Introducing strand on both Radio 1 and its local radio networks, it seems unthinkable to imagine it but for many years, Peel was the only person playing Welsh language rock and rap on the radio, a fact confirmed in this interview with one of Llwybr Llaethog’s founder members, John Griffiths from 2013.

Not being a Welsh speaker, I can tell you very little about what the track is about, although given that it’s called Osmosis, it may refer to how the Manchester-born Griffiths learnt Welsh after moving to Blaenau Ffestiniog when he was 12, learning words from friends at school and in and around his local environment.  I clearly picked out “Tom Jones” and “curriculum vitae”, but it doesn’t matter much because this ends up being possibly my favourite Welsh language piece on the blog so far.  I’ve spoken about Welsh language rap either falling into two camps: Paul Gascoigne on helium or Bernard Bresslaw on mogadon.  But the vocal here avoids either of those.  It’s silly, sexy and disarmingly confident.  Wrapped around it are fast dub-guitars, manipulated bass lines and what my notes describe as “calls to prayer” transposing Mecca to Blaenau Ffestiniog.  Towards the end, David R. Edwards from Datblygu contributes a guest rap.

Pen-blywdd hapus, John!

Video courtesy of ffarout