“I Forgot Wales. Forgive Me.”

Music Dispatch – Clemency Grave

It started with a stumble: 3 a.m., half a bottle of red, and a YouTube rabbit hole that I sort of fell into. The song was Ms Cornflakes 91 by Ffa Coffi Pawb.

Within thirty seconds I was sweating. Not from the tempo, though the track does shimmer like a half-remembered acid trip, but from guilt. How had I forgotten this? How had I, Clemency Grave, once a self-declared Gruff Rhys completist, let an entire tectonic plate of Welsh psychedelia slip through my fingers?

Let me rewind.

Ffa Coffi Pawb was Gruff Rhys before Super Furry Animals. Bethesda boys armed with fuzz pedals and cheeky puns, shouting into the linguistic void in a language MI5 still pretends doesn’t exist. The name translates, crudely, hilariously, as “Everybody’s Coffee Beans,” or phonetically, fuck off everyone. Punk hearts, dream-pop heads. I should’ve known. I should’ve remembered.

But the moment the bassline hit, it all came rushing back: Datblygu snarling like Welsh Mark E. Smiths. Y Cyrff jangling like valleys-born Smiths. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci with their harpsichord hallucinations. The entire Cool Cymru explosion that snuck into the ‘90s with bilingual brilliance, dragging the Manics, Catatonia, and a UFO-shaped tour bus full of misfits behind them.

So yes, I forgot Wales. But Wales didn’t forget how to make music.

A Brief History of Cymraeg Counterculture (So You Don’t Make My Mistake):

• Datblygu (1982–1995): Existential Welsh post-punk prophets. Listen to Blwch Tymer Tymor. Then lie down.
• Y Cyrff (1983–1991): Jangle pop with bite. Laid the groundwork for Catatonia.
• Ffa Coffi Pawb (1986–1992): Gruff Rhys and Daf Ieuan before they became your favorite band’s favorite band.
• Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci (1991–2006): Baroque, bilingual, beautiful. Soundtrack to the best mushroom trip you didn’t take.
• Super Furry Animals (1993–2016): You know. Or you should.
• Llwybr Llaethog: Welsh electro-dub agitators. Still recording. Still kicking.

And don’t you dare write off the Manic Street Preachers as just eyeliner and slogans. The Holy Bible still holds up like a splintered mirror.

So Where Are We Now?

Wales is buzzing, quietly. Like a power station humming under sheep’s wool.

There’s Adwaith, three Carmarthen women ripping post-punk open with surgical precision. Boy Azooga, doing for Cardiff what Beck did for L.A. but with more sincerity and a better hi-hat. Cate Le Bon, the high priestess of angular art-pop. HMS Morris, Melin Melyn, Los Blancos—bands that sound like cartoon farms or crumbling arcades, but make music so sharp it’ll shave your tongue.

I spent the last 48 hours mainlining playlists, reading obscure interviews, emailing old label reps who probably thought I was dead.

Here’s the thing:

Welsh alt isn’t a scene. It’s a secret handshake passed between the strange and the fluent.

It’s anti-glam, anti-hype, fiercely local and linguistically defiant. It’s not “world music” for export. It’s worlds, plural. Built in garages and quarry towns, powered by keyboards held together with tape and national pride.

Welsh alt-music is a mycelium network. It runs under the language, the valleys, the politics. It blooms when no one’s looking. It mutates with grace.

So if you, like me, forgot Wales, start here: put on Clymhalio. Let it jangle your amnesia. Then follow the wires.

There’s a whole nation under the fuzz.

—Clem