GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI Barafundle (Fontana)

Generalising wildly for a moment, if Super Furry Animals could be glibly stereotyped as the Syd Barretts of the current wave of top Welsh bands then Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci must surely rate as a nineties interpolation of the Incredible String Band. This, their major label debut, demonstrates, even more than its frequently interesting if more often frustrating predecessor "Bwyd Time", that the Gorky’s world of random and beautiful melodic chaos, deliciously skewed imagery and roots suss is a rewarding and enlightening place to be. There will be few more beautiful sounds to escape from a slab of plastic this year than those on "Barafundle", and few albums of 1997 will sound so complete, with every note and idea necessary, none of them outstaying their welcome (some bands would do well to observe the way GZM rattle through sixteen tunes in under fifty minutes). And what other band have ever gathered an armoury of gas tanks (?), violins, jews harps, shawms, flutes, trombones, saxophones, marching horns, trumpets, crumhorns and hurdy gurdies in the same place at the same time before? Like the new SFA album, "Barafundle" is something you have to listen to before appreciating its rich tapestry of delights; words could never come close to describing it. But isn’t that the whole point?

GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI Gorky 5 (Fontana)

If, as the NME have been asserting recently, the music industry is in a state of crisis, it seems that in these times talent is no guarantee of security. Two weeks after releasing their second album for Fontana, Welsh indie-prog-folksters Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci have been unceremoniously dumped by The Man amidst much dark muttering about being "unwilling to multi-format". I don’t know what’s the more amazing: that Fontana should sign the Gorky’s in the first place (them being, let’s not forget, a band not unknown to relapse into singing in Welsh - not exactly the first language of MTV - for several tracks per album) or that Fontana should express amazement at GZM declining to release the same single two or three times just to scrabble a few more notches towards the torpid twenty.

Oh well. Somewhere in the aftermath of all this idiocy we have the fifth Gorkys album, which of course is probably their most commercial yet, irony of ironies. After last year’s "Barafundle", which was all kaleidoscopic new psychedelia and strangely strange arrangements (sort of an ISB for the 90s), "Gorky 5" sounds, well, chilly, with an atmosphere more normally the preserve of bands such as Portishead, Joy Division maybe, or the last Björk album. It sounds almost as if it was produced under a regime of extreme religious fundamentalism - if you’ve seen Lars Von Trier’s stunning film "Breaking The Waves" and the remote Presbyterian Scottish village it portrays you’ll know what I mean.

Which isn’t to suggest that "Gorky 5" is hard going, more that it’s a barer record, both melodically and in terms of instrumentation, than you may be expecting. There are many fine moments here, ranging from the gorgeos mellow instrumental "Not Yet" to the clog-hopping "Theme From Gorky 5 (Russian Song)", the pedal steel-led pilgrim’s tales of "Only The Sea Makes Sense", the charming colloquialisms of "Hush The Warmth" and the moments when "Softly" seems to mutate into Pink Floyd circa "A Saucerful Of Secrets". It’s just that, initially at least, it may sound a little cold, remote and forboding to you (as may befit an album recorded in the depths of a Monmouthshire winter). But if you get into it, you’ll delight at the works of one of the few contempory bands whose work could honestly, and without fear of simplification, be described as ‘lovely’.

GORKY'S ZYGOTIC MYNCI Spanish Dance Troupe (Mantra)

The sixth Gorkys album finds the Welsh band positioned musically somewhere between the kaleidoscopic psychedelia of "Barafundle" and the chilly asceticism that characterised "Gorky 5". Sounding ever more like Super Furry Animals' country cousins, Euros Childs croons wistful tales of love and loss over a backdrop sewn with such un-indie rock instruments as violins and steel guitars. The mood is occasionally jarred by moments of whimsy - the strangeness of "Poodle Rockin'" and "Hair Like Monkey Teeth Like Dog", for example - or outbreaks of ridiculous tunefulness - the title track, cruelly ignored when released as a single, which documents a schoolboy's travels with the eponymous dance troupe during the summer holidays in an attempt to escape from the rainy Welsh weather - but overall "Spanish Dance Troupe" is probably the best album to be wrapped up with in front of a roaring hearth on a cold winter night since the studio half of Cream's "Wheels Of Fire". And Robert Wyatt's partner Alfie Benge provided the artwork, which is probably enough to have some people charging out to buy the album immediately, and a very wise decision that would be too.

GORKY'S ZYGOTIC MYNCI How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart (Mantra)