Get ready for 2 hours of @superfurry hits and hidden gems with our listening party for Corona Logic this Friday at 7pm!

The album is the brainchild of @jon_safari and is in aid of @LlamauUK

Free to download via Bandcamp from Friday, but please donate at https://t.co/ByWeXABrn5 pic.twitter.com/yLGe7uDpWB

— Welsh Music Podcast | Podlediad Miwsig Cymreig (@welshmusicpod) March 23, 2021

Mlynarsk spoke about the idea behind the album in an interview with Nation.Cymru, saying “The whole premise of this is that it gives musicians who don’t have anything to do because they’re in lockdown, it gives them something to do. It keeps them busy and gives them something to focus on. It also raises a few quid for a brilliant charity and it’s a nice way to say thank you to the Super Furries for being amazing.”

He added “I approached the bands and asked them to give me two song choices. I then gave them one song to work on, and worked so that there was no duplication. Everyone loved the idea, because let’s face it, everyone loves Super Furry Animals and was keen to pay tribute to them.”

28 different artists feature on the covers album, which is divided into two volumes of fourteen songs. Volume One includes contributions from 2019 Welsh Music Prize winners Adwaith (covering 1997 Super Furry Animals single Demons), Sheffield-based bilingual four-piece Sister Wives (covering Pan ddaw’r wawr from 2000 Welsh language album Mwng) and Carmarthen noise-poppers Los Blancos, who cover the Furries’ second single God! Show Me Magic. Volume One also features contributions from the likes of Dutch-Welsh singer-songwriter Accü; Swansea rockers Bandicoot; Cardiff-based post-punk outfit Sybs; Colorama vocalist Carwyn Ellis; and Wibidi, the side-project of former Super Furry Animals band members Dafydd Ieuan and Cian Ciaran.

Volume Two includes covers of the band’s stunning 2001 electronic soul-pop number Juxtapozed with U (performed by Church Village psychedelic rockers CVC); alleged tribute to hard-tackling Welsh midfielder Robbie Savage Golden Retriever (covered by Carys Eleri and Branwen Munn); and seminal 1996 track The Man Don’t Give a Fuck (performed by South Walian grunge-punk quartet Clwb Fuzz). Among the other contributors to Volume Two are Llanelli indie veterans The Hepburns; Boo Radleys guitarist Martin Carr; Merthyr rock collective Al Moses; and Scott Howells, formerly the frontman for Aberdare band The Broken Vinyl Club.

Corona Logic, which is accompanied by new artwork from longtime Super Furry Animals’ collaborator Pete Fowler, is available to stream and download on Bandcamp this Friday 26th March 2021. Whilst the band themselves remain on hiatus, singer Gruff Rhys is gearing up to release his seventh studio album as a solo artist. The new LP – Seeking New Gods – arrives on May 21st via Rough Trade, with Rhys unveiling lead single Loan Your Loneliness earlier this month.

Speaking to NME about the new record, the Haverfordwest-born troubadour said “The album is about people and the civilizations, and the spaces people inhabit over periods of time. How people come and go but the geology sticks around and changes more slowly. I think it’s about memory and time.“

‘Most of what you want to read about Gruff Rhys is not going to be in this book’ Graham Erickson

Yes that right, this is an announcement that my new book

Resist Phony Encores!

Is being released via @hatandbeardbks / @AntenneBooks on February 21st, 2021 pic.twitter.com/FwZPrbZQQH

— Gruff Rhys (@gruffingtonpost) October 19, 2020

Announcing news of the upcoming book release on Twitter this week, the North Walian singer-songwriter promised fans “a selective memoir“, with the inclusion of graphics and photographs from long-time collaborator Mark James. The publishers, Antennae Books, have hailed a biography that will “appeal to students of linguistics, propaganda, and graphic design, and anyone interested in music and live performance.”

Rhys has been one of the most prolific figures on the indie, folk and electronic pop-rock scenes in recent years. The Gwynedd product’s burgeoning discography now contains six solo albums – most recently 2019’s Pang – nine studio albums with the Super Furry Animals; two LPs with Neon Neon; and a plethora of collaborations with an eclectic mix of acts including De La Soul, Simian Mobile Disco, Mogwai and Goldie Lookin’ Chain. He also composed the acclaimed soundtrack for the 2014 film Set Fire To The Stars, inspired by Dylan Thomas’ infamous reading tours in the United States.

Rhys contrasted the differing challenges of book and song-writing in an interview with Rolling Stone this week, saying “Maybe songs are more fun in that you can be really playful and not spend all day on it – more like solving a crossword puzzle – but then to write a good song you have to be really concise – which is really tricky. Whereas with a longer book you can mainline coffee from 9 am till and midnight and ramble on as long as you like – but then you have to proof read and verify facts and things like that which doesn’t really come into song writing. You can use incorrect spelling and really mangle and destroy language in songwriting in a way that seems completely acceptable.”

Resist Phony Encores! is not Rhys’ first foray into the literary world. His 2014 travelogue American Interior, a study of 18th Century Welsh explorer John Evans who traversed America’s Great Plains in search of a Welsh-speaking Native American tribe, was listed for The Wales Book of the Year, a Guardian First Book Award and The Gordon Burn Prize.

The multi-talented Rhys has also penned two musical plays – Praxis Makes Perfect and Candylion – with National Theatre Wales. He worked with the company again on his stunning 2018 song No Profit In Pain, which celebrated the 70th anniversary of the NHS. The melodic and poignantly political track, which Rhys has described as an “agit-synth power ballad” was re-released this year.