Big fan of Chroma. Can’t wait to see them at Urdd with Swnami!
1 Like
i seem to have turned into a Chroma grwpie!
2 Likes
Hooray! I heard this on the radio this afternoon …
… then I listened to the rest of the album on YouTube. 
1 Like
Welsh language Punk band - Y Trwynau coch (they have at least 2 controversial songs to their name!)
Here’s a less controversial one
Campwaith/ Masterpiece
2 Likes
Really good programme on S4C Clic and BBC iPlayer called “New: Gwyl Cwlwm Celtaidd Glasgow 2017” with Kizzy Crawford and Ryland Teifi. Mix of music from Wales, Ireland and Scotland (maybe further, haven’t got to the end yet).
1 Like
There’s a real treat in store at the end.
Love this
2 Likes
Finally watched the end of it, wonderful!!!
I’m sure most of you already know, but there’s an excellent documentary about J.S.Bach on S4C - and the recording of the St John Passion in Welsh, too. Very beautiful.
5 Likes
New albums from Yws Gwynedd and Calan on Apton this week. I am in my element. Really enjoying my sub there - if you haven’t got one yet you’re missing out!
2 Likes
I know there’s probably dozens of you out there desperately searching for a missing link between the psychedelic stuff that traditionally comes out of Dyffryn Conwy (Jen Jeniro, Palenco, Sen Segur) and the more garage-orientated bands of the South West (ARGRPH, Los Blancos, Ysgol Sul), so here’s some garage psychedelia from Penmachno’s Lastic Band:
1 Like
Where do you all buy your Welsh music from?
I get some bits from iTunes but my suspicion is always that the royalties that go to the musicians from there are pitifully small? I’ll try to buy on CD as well but would love to know I was spending my pennies in a way that helps give the most support that I can to the musicians. Any ideas/tips/outlets, diolch!
1 Like
I’d like to do the same, and am not sure what the best way is either. It’s so much more expensive to ship CDs from Wales to the US than to use iTunes, but I’ve done both. The nice thing about actual CDs is that you also get the liner notes, which usually include the lyrics, which I find really useful. I’m really grateful that Spotify in the US has a lot of Welsh music, and I must admit I use that a lot, too. The artists get a royalty for every play, but again, I don’t know how it compares to a CD purchase. But since I use it just about every day, it hopefully adds up! 
2 Likes
You can take a look if any of these musicians are members of Patreon or BandCamp where you support musicians directly. On Patreon they’re usually payed by their activities probably determined by musicians themselves what means: I for example am supporting one musician on there who creates videos for YouTube and whenever he uploads a video to YouTube and he gives it also on Patreon, he gets amount of money from that. It depends how much you pledged to contribute/pay for one such event. I for example am paying $1 for each video he creates what makes approximately $2-3 a month. You have to be a member of Patreon though in order to support certain artist. But, for the change of other two sites I’d mention this doesn’t buy you a music yet, you only give the support to the artists themselves without buying anything yet.
BandCamp is a bit simpler. You find the artist and buy music (usually electronically) from their profile. Usually the price is minimal and then when you buying it always gives you the option to give more then that. Some music is also on “pay what you want” basis which means it can be also for free but of course if you are eager to support the artist, you’ll always pay some (if even small) amount of money for the music. I am member of both in order to support the artists though.
Third option I usually use is eMusic, but it goes a bit differently. You have to be a member of it (the lowest monthly plan is around 12 €) and then you get the music discounted. On iTunes it’s usually 0,89 € for the song but on eMusic it’s as low as 0,49 € for the song. Membership you pay is actually the money you spend for the music each month. This way I’ve got tons and tons of music already and you can find quite some Welsh music there too although usually not the things which were released yesterday but in a week or two after the release you already can expect for it to be there. Even if the artist is quite local, you can very well find them on there. It depends of artists and publishers if they’ll give the work on there and of course I’m not sure what amount of money goes directly to the artists then but I’m surely more happy with this then iTunes. iTunes is the final thing I choose when buying music though.
I hope it helps and that you could find your desired music there, not just Welsh but all kinds of music, even Slovene one.
Links:
Patreon
Bandcamp
eMusic
Enjoy!
3 Likes
Sain, one of the main publishers, has a download shop:
http://sioplawrlwythosain.com/
And the point of Apton https://apton.cymru was at least in part to be able to pay better royalites the e.g Spotify/iTunes etc. They were banding about figures like a third of a penny per play in Spotify versus 10p in ApTon but don’t know if they’re achieving that.
4 Likes
There’s a lot of comparing apples and oranges going on with the comparison of royalty rates. To give a simple example, a band that’s signed to a commercial record label may release a CD album containing 12 tracks that retails at £10. Now, if I buy that, around £2 may go to the artist (assuming they’ve written their own material). That’s 17p royalty per track. But I don’t listen to each track just once - maybe I’ll listen to the CD 30 times. That gives me a royalty-per-play-per-track figure of £0.00556 (around half a penny) which is just as tiny as the streamers are paying. Ironically, of course, the more I play a favourite track the less (relatively) an artist will receive, which is the opposite to the situation with a streaming service(!).
This is all very antiseptic, though. The real world, especially the real world of the Welsh language scene, involves a lot more than just passively consuming ‘product’ and transferring currency units down the chain. Buying a CD at a gig from the actual fair hand of the artist, or on the recommendation of a fellow purchaser in Spillars (Cardiff) or Andy’s (Aber) or Cob (Porthmadog), or one of the country’s Welsh bookshops is a cultural (and some would say even political) as well as a consumer act, and worrying about royalties and suchlike never really comes into it.
5 Likes
Unfortunately many of us are very limited to Internet and buying things more or less electronically so I’d say supporting artists at Patreon is the biggest support you can give (besides buying stuff directly from the musicians themselves of course). It’s just that mostly on Patreon you don’t get anything into your own possession but you stream them online (it depends of what one artist would offer in exchange of your support) and it’s always your choice how big (or small) amount you’d contribute to the artists (creative) wellfare although $1 per “promissed item” is the minimum, I’d say.
I’d gladly use Apton however it didn’t play well for me. I’m not sure what went wrong but searching was very hard and I couldn’t play properly everything I wanted. Don’t worry it’s not gosip as I’ve told everything to their support aswell. It might be they’ve changed things so I might try it one more time one of these days.
I’m not sure how BandCamp actually works regarding paying artists though. I’ve bought some things there but was never aknowledged with how much artists really get. As much as I could figure out from the written, they get it all you pay, but I’m not sure though.
How Deezer and Google play work I don’t know although I’ve used them both at one particular point but cancled both as well in a time.
Spotify is not available in Slovenia and I’m not sure it ever will be as I’m “fighting” with them already for about 8 or so years but nothing happened despite their promisses.
To be honest, I didn’t get even close to one music shop while being in Wales. I simply didn’t find any or I was kind of shy to enter as I didn’t quite know if this is what I’m searching for …
So, e-Welsh music is the most I’ve got except of 1 bright exception. There are not prices and royalty fees what stops me but rather shipping costs which can be as big or bigger then the item itself way too many times …
1 Like
Bandcamp acts more like a retailer. It takes 15% of music sales and 10% of merch, which is a fair enough margin when you consider the store front and the (basic) social networking platform it provides.
2 Likes