After last year’s acclaimed Sadness Sets Me Free, the ex-Super Furry Animals frontman’s ninth solo LP (meaning ‘no problem’) is a fully Welsh language release, his first since 2019’s Pang!, filled with charming, soothing, catchy folk-rock tunes, but with some darker subjects for current times, the title is an ironic twist. It includes particular highlights with Cate Le Bon and H. Hawkline on backing vocals on Chwyn Chwyldroadol! (a meditation on existentialism and the beauty of domestic garden weeds—comparing them to some 1970s Welsh language folk and hard rock bands like Ac Eraill and Shwn) and opener Pan Ddaw’r Haul I Fore, describing a sunrise. The feel of the album is light and gentle - Can I’r Cymylau is a folk song that appears to be about cloudspotting; Saf Ar Dy Sedd is a toe-tapping cowboy rhumba, but there’s plenty of darkness a swirl in this playful release, with war (Cyflafan) and pestilence (Acw) prominent. Taro #1 + #2 is a catchy psych groove with horns, but is about death and how we must accept it. Dos Amdani also veers towards the psychedelic, while Adar Gwyn (white birds) is another gorgeous, gentle tune. While freeflowing and experimental, it’s the melodies that always seem so wonderfully natural. As Gruff Rhys modestly puts it: “Dim Probs is a result of spending the last few years preparing a compilation album of ’80s private press Welsh language electronic music cassettes with friends. The compilation itself may never come out, but some of its machine textures are ingrained in this record… counter-balanced by the fact that I wrote it all with my cheap Swedish catalogue acoustic guitar as main instrument.” Bittersweet and beautiful. Out on Rock Action Records.
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