9Bach
Album: Tincian
Label: Real World
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.9bach.com

The Welsh six-piece 9Bach delivers enchanting, haunting music whose trademark is plaintive, and truly gorgeous, female vocals (Lisa Jên, singing almost exclusively in the Welsh language, Cymraeg) with exquisite, almost symbiotic and mostly quite sparsely-scored backings involving throbbing bass beats and chiming, ringing, often fragmentary grooves from the sounds created by harp, piano, harmonium, guitars and percussion - and despite the strong presence of electric guitars in the equation, there's not a whiff of folk-rock, which in itself is immensely refreshing… And the sheer sense of spaciousness is just stunning.

The album's title is an almost onomatopoeic Welsh word of many meanings - variously: tinkling, resonance, the allusion to a sound in one's mind that awakens to things forgotten. The music is not exactly ambient, but certainly very evocative, as it reflects the band's individual take on Welsh folk tradition and the rugged landscape of its native North Wales (notably the Bethesda/Ogwen Valley region that includes the mighty Tryfan mountain).

9Bach's founder member (and songwriter) Lisa Jên tells her stories in a uniquely mesmeric way, her crystalline timbre expertly mirrored in the carefully judged, ever-intriguing (and brilliantly well defined) instrumental backings. Drawing inspiration so very intently from the aforementioned sources, Lisa and her kindred spirit (and co-founder) Martin Hoyland, with the help of band members Ali Byworth, Dan Swain, Esyllt Glyn Jones and Mirain Haf Roberts, conjure a thoroughly captivating soundscape that's both distinctive and very special, resonating with layers of antiquity yet clothed in imaginative contemporary garb.

Seven of Tincian's songs are originals by Lisa, and they explore contrasting and often comparatively unusual topics. Some have a strong element of specifically autobiographical content: Lliwiau (Colours), whose almost psychedelic imagery presents a positive outlook on the painful and crazy experience of childbirth, the intense, empathic love-song Wedi Torri (It's Broken), and the simple, tenderly wishful Asteri Mou (literally, My Star, in the Greek language in which Lisa wrote, and here sings, the song) which is cradled in a limpid, rippling cyclic pattern plucked from the strings of the harp.

Other tracks are deep, powerful story-songs: Pebyll tells of a child's close relationship with her grandmother and her reaction to the moment of her death, Plentyn tells of an Aboriginal child snatched from her mother's breast, Llwynog sees the wily Carneddau fox outwitting the farmer, and Babi'r Eilys is an ode sung by a mother to her son relating miraculous events that occurred shortly after his birth, this latter song receiving a spine-tingling a cappella multi-part-harmony treatment featuring guest singer Lou Bennett of The Black Arm Band Company.

Two tracks are based directly on poems: the melancholy Ffarwel, taken from a book of local songs collected by bard Ieuan Wyn, conveys the emotions of a quarry man leaving the quarry for the last time, and gains a majestic and suitably nostalgic (though not in the least sentimental) atmosphere from the presence of a male voice choir (Cor Penrhyn), while Llwybrau (Paths) is based on a poem by William Griffiths, and forms a compelling depiction of loneliness and isolation in the midst of a world of people. The whole of Tincian exhibits a persuasive unity in its distinctive identity, its astounding clarity of expression allowing the music and lyrics to breathe and (both almost incidentally and purely naturally) effortlessly overcoming any actual or perceived language barrier. This disc is serious alchemy: both an extraordinary artistic achievement and a genuinely unique and intensely rewarding listening experience. And it's definitely going to be in my list of contenders for album of the year…

David Kidman