Trwbador – Trwbador

Since forming in 2010, Carmarthenshire’s Trwbador (aka Welsh-Dutch singer Angharad Van Rijswijk and guitarist/producer Owain Gwilym) have forged a distinctive and often impressively inventive style, with whimsical vocals pinned lightly to toybox production built from glitches and loops, glockenspiel chimes and nursery rhyme melodies.

Unfortunately, unless your tolerance for twee and quirk is notably high, the effect is likely to irritate more often that it bedazzles, with the monotonous lyrics of songs like Sun in the Winter and Red Handkerchiefs not helped by cutesy delivery and an over-familiarity with the upper range of audible frequencies at the expense of anything deeper (in both senses of the word).

Despite these doubts, however, it’s easy to keep sight of the duo’s potential, with Rain’s sideswiping welsh-language rap (courtesy of guesting MC Odlgymix) showcasing the more positive results of the duo’s idiosyncrasies, and the crystalline cadence of Safe best indicating their compositional talents. [Chris Buckle]