Swansea-born, Cardiff-based Tom Emlyn has wasted little time this year. Releasing Welsh Music Prize-longlisted and GITTV‘s Neutron Prize-shortlisted debut solo album ‘News From Nowhere’ over the summer, he played gig after gig and festivals, bagging airplay from the likes of Huw Stephens and Adam Walton on BBC Radio Wales. With follow-up album ‘I’ve Seen You In Town’, a collection of acoustically performed songs recorded during the pandemic, he shows no sign of slowing down.
The new record, a continuation thematically of ‘News From Nowhere’, explores the myths and ghosts of Swansea. ‘Slightly murky and lo-fi, but that fits the subject matter; like a lost artefact buried beneath a ruined building,’ he says of the songs. Some written in his teenage years (‘hanging around for a while on the forgotten street corners of my mind, misbehaving and making a nuisance of themselves‘) progressing to those looking at the world with adult eyes.
A photo of Emlyn’s great-grandfather William George Thomas a carpenter on the railways, is on the album’s cover (third from left). The image taken at Swansea docks in the second decade of the twentieth century, knowledge a young Dylan Thomas lived and breathed mere miles away from the location at the exact same time, connects the personal and wider histories.
On I’ve Seen You In Town, we taste flavours of Bob Dylan, Elliot Smith, Phil Ochs, Daniel Johnston – all of whom share a penchant of delivering clear message but with dark humours. And so it is in evidence here. On the piano-based ‘Puppets on Strings’, Emlyn laments ‘I‘d like to take you out, but I can’t afford it’, on ‘Under The Weather’ he reflects on finding brief beauties in bleak surroundings and circumstance but adds ‘I would quote Keats…if I could remember any’. I’ve Seen You In Town doesn’t lean on one set of songwriting skills however.‘Leaving Tomorrow’ is curiously celebratory yet absolutely works, ‘Strange Days’ and ‘The Lucky Ones’ positively skip and skiffle but show the underbelly and realities of life, and a sense of restlessness, isolation. ‘Reminder’ is gently comedic and still lyrically intimate; we’ve all lived an awkward scenario made better – or worse – by the allure of beautiful wine.‘The Ballad of Tea Cosy Pete‘, released last week as a charity single for youth homelessness charity Llamau, shares the story of a character of the streets, with additional sharp social commentary intermingled. ‘Waunarlwydd’ continues somewhat of a Tom Emlyn tradition of adding a melancholic instrumental to sweeten the pot.
Stripped right down but delicately laced with sounds and effects when needs be, the DIY sensibility of this album is underpinned via its release on cassette, the most democratic of sound carriers, and CD. The use of a set of keys to add atmosphere to ‘We Know Who You Are’ and ‘Out Of Season’ is both charming and highly effective, but as lo-fi this album may be, there’s nothing humble about ‘I’ve Seen You In Town’.
I’ve Seen You In Town is out now on R.E.P.E.A.T. Records. Also available from Bandcamp and via all your favourite streaming services.
Tom Emlyn photo credit : Samffoto
