Much to my delight, the new Cerys Matthews mini-album, Awyren = Aeroplane, was available from the Amazon MP3 store. That meant I could get it straight away, and I only had to pay $5 for it. I’ve been playing it a lot since.

If you are looking for “more like Catatonia” then this is the wrong place to look. The opening track, Awyrennau, and the closing reprise, “= Aeroplane”, are classic bossa nova and are occasionally in danger of slipping into “The Girl from Ipanema” (really, they are, the BBC agrees).

In stark contrast, “Y Corryn Ar Pry'” starts with harmonica and drums and sounds like something Cerys might have found propping up a bar in Nashville, but it too grows sweeping strings part way through. “Trwy’r Drych” is spoken rather than sung for most of the lyrics, which shows the Welsh language off to best effect.

Finally there is “Lisa Lân”, a traditional Welsh folk song. Here’s Cerys performing it on an Irish TV program:

But check out the album version, because it has a drum track that is straight out of a military pipe band, which makes the whole thing more threatening and haunting. It makes it sound less like a simple ballad of lost love and more like some Scottish tale of doomed young men off to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie.

In summary, five very beautiful songs, fabulous production too, and all in Welsh. This, my American friends, is real Celtic music.