Gruff Rhys has made a few Welsh albums since disbanding the Super Furry Animals. “Sadness Sets Me Free” is a chanson-soul-country record that Lee Hazlewood, Serge Gainsbourg or Jarvis Cocker could have recorded. Or the band Felt, if anyone remembers, playing Burt Bacharach songs. A Welsh orchestra, piano, double bass and lush choirs illuminate Rhys’ ballads for Christmas. “The songs feel melancholic or about things that are fucked up,” says Gruff Rhys. In other words, it’s an uplifting album.
It sounds fantastic
Rhys had earlier records mixed in America. The mix in New York sounded different than the mix in London, he noted. Sound engineer John Dent, who died in 2017 and worked on records by Bob Marley, PJ Harvey and Radiohead, told him that American electricity powered devices differently than English electricity. Now Gruff Rhys has tried out what French electricity sounds like. He had the album mixed in Paris. It sounds fantastic.