Known for shared stages with the likes of Cate Le Bon, H. Hawkline and Gruff Rhys (he also wrote all of the strings on Gruff’s new record, ‘Sadness Sets Me Free‘), Welsh musician Gruff ab Arwel (a.k.a. BITW) took in the end of 2023 with the release of a new album, ‘Rehearse‘ (out via Klep Dim Trep).
Featuring clarinet, flute and saxophone assistance from fellow countryman Sweet Baboo and with album artwork from H. Hawkline, ‘Rehearse‘ is a lovely record to get lost in for half hour, reminiscent of all the fine musicians he’s worked with within the wonky Welsh pop scene and beyond. Here he takes us through the album, track by track. Nice one, Gruff.
“Cobbled together from demos of various ages, the main riff changes time signature constantly, which I don’t usually love in pop music if it’s done for its own sake – here it was due to the number of notes in the melody rather than a purposeful attempt to appeal to the prog market. Working titles included ‘Here Today Gone Tomorrow’ and ‘How Does It Feel To Be a Lonely Eel?’ (all in all I’m glad I went with the admittedly more conservative ‘The Hive’).“
“Another song crafted from pretty old ideas, I’d recorded many different versions of this track under various titles (my favourite of which was ‘Month of Money‘). Its final form – a disco protest song against rampant capitalism – revolves around a sequencer line; at one point I was worried that I’d accidentally ripped off a H. Hawkline track but all credit to him he declined to sue.“
“Written during lockdown around the ring of my parents’ house phone – someone called while I was recording a voice memo and that kind of became a rhythmic backbone for the song. I tried to do sort of a free writing exercise while looking at a bunch of old photos, but the song later became more about that process than about the photos themselves.“
“The song’s working title was ‘Beard’, later dropped but survived by a reference in the lyrics to a man with a beard (possibly me, or it might have been a neighbour I was having trouble with at the time; either works). For a fairly non-guitary song, the song features quite a lot of different guitar parts – some recorded at half speed then doubled up, some recorded without listening to the track (I think I might have hit a creative lull and trying to overcompensate). The end guitar riff is impossible to play (for me anyway) – I had to cheat and use a special tuning for that bit.“
“Written and recorded on a nylon string acoustic restrung to baritone tuning, the title was inspired by / stolen from Georgia Ruth’s ‘When I Was Blue‘. I spent a few days working on the album’s lyrics in my local arts centre, who kindly lent me a room to use during the summer of 2021. I was keen to record other people singing because I’d convinced myself that recording my own BVs would sound too lonely (again I think I might have overthought this).“
“The melodramatic intro lyrics were originally written for a now (wisely) abandoned side project, in which I took on the persona of a crooner called King Prawn. The drums were largely recorded on a phone in the kitchen next door to the drum room in September 2020. It was one of the first times I’d been indoors with anyone other than my family for six months or so. I’d initially hoped to record most of this album as ‘live’ as possible but shit happens and this session ended up being the first thing recorded. Shout out to Stephen ‘Sweet Baboo‘ Black for the beautiful clarinet work – pandemically recorded at home by Steve.“
“One of the first songs written after finishing the first album – as such it’s the only track on ‘Rehearse’ that features the Crumar synth which was heavily overused on the first record. Working titles included ‘07861493377‘ – the idea being I’d sing this phone number over the track inviting phonecalls at any time of day or night. I eventually settled on ‘All Time Is Now‘, a phrase I came across via a stage show about a failed cult. After some research I discovered it was a quote from Elizabeth Smart’s ‘By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept‘ which I subsequently read. It’s an intense and beautiful novel – I later found out Morrissey was a big fan so expect some dubious views expressed on Bitw’s albums in 25-30 years’ time.“
“I felt a little uncertain at first about having two “The” songs on the album but later found out it’s the most frequently used word in the English language so thought why not. As for the the saxophone solo, I was a bit nervous about directing someone to “just rip one out” especially as it was on such a potentially evil instrument but I think Steve did a fantasic job and I thought it was fitting to fade the rest of the track out early and give him centre stage. Incidentally I forgot to record drums for this song in the drum tracking session so ended up recycling the drums from ‘Old Hands‘ (sorry people who don’t like that sort of thing).“
“This was the last song composed for the record, written partly because I couldn’t bring myself to make a 9-track album, and is loosely based on chords borrowed from the background music of a scene in Elfed Saunders Jones’ ‘Ar Hyd i Bawb a Fynno’ (or was it the other way round?). It has the lowest lyric:minute ratio of any song on the album.“
“Another song based on an idea originally intended for King Prawn, the video was shot by Daf Hughes and edited in a hurry using a 1-week free trial of Premiere Pro. I don’t think poor Alex (who plays bass in the video) expected to spend the whole afternoon tucked under my arse with his hands sticking out of my trouser legs. The ‘egg shaker’ proved very hard to break – we had 12 glitter eggs ready to go but in the end we only managed to break one.“
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