Gruff Rhys "Lonesome Words"

1. “Lonesome Words” (mp3) spins like a zoetrope, and you look through the peepholes at a chocolate-and-bubble-gum Western landscape, where Rhys canters on a galloping mare and a nameless, black-haired woman howls longingly on an outcropping, mimicking the wind.

2. “LW” is Gruff Rhys and Joanna Newsom in a Baz Luhrman-directed/made-for-television movie about Julian Cayo Evans and his on-again, off-again relationship with Sappho. After this song, and right before the duel, they duet acapella on “Cosmic Dancer.”

3. “LW” is “Beck’s Bolero,” if cut from pastel-colored construction paper by Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny as children.

4. “LW” is “Battle of Evermore,” if cut from pastel-colored construction paper by Robert Plant and Sandy Denny playing Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

5. “LW” is the fourth, and also the best, song on the second proper Gruff Rhys solo record, called Candylion. It’s a genteel, bantered plaint between Rhys and (I think) Lisa Jen, presented in a suite of three increasingly dramatic parts and completed in under three minutes. Jen’s presence is spectral, offering the glow that gently coats Rhys’ lyrics like a powerful Maglite beamed through a frost-covered window. The song is comprised of the merged, capricious takes on certain varietals of American country/western music (the aforementioned canter and plaint) and British folk music (the aforementioned Sandy Denny and “Cosmic Dancer”) that Rhys hinted toward on Phantom Power’s “Sex, War & Robots,” but hadn’t perfected until this song.

6. Rhys is one of the most flamboyant, risky, ambitious and underappreciated pop songwriters and singers of the past decade. With Super Furry Animals, he hasn’t spearheaded anything near a less-than-thrilling record, and he’s been responsible for three absolute marathonpacks-canonized classics with Power, Rings Around the World, and Guerrilla, in reverse-chronological fashion. Now, and only because Yr Atal Genhedlaeth seemed purposefully minimal and stopgap (but still had some magnificent rhythmic moments) he’s released his first wholly successful solo work.

Candylion is due for release on Rough Trade 1/8. Pre-order it here.

ON ANOTHER CHANNEL: J. Edward Keyes explains Fishscale, with a focus on “Shakey Dog.”