Album Review: Race Horses – Goodbye Falkenberg

In these lands we traverse, we find certain regional musical similarities some would consider clichéd: the cheeky English, the dramatic and sometimes miserablist Scottish and the zany, somewhat psychedelic and slightly tongue-in-cheek Welsh. I’ve missed out the Irish because it’s saved me a further generalisation, and the risk of potentially alienating another nation for the sake of some tenuous regional cohesion. Race Horses, formerly Radio Luxembourg, being Welsh, of course fit snugly into their respective camp – and this is no bad thing.

Goodbye Falkenberg starts with a Mahler-influenced detuning of synth , leadingstraight into ‘Man in Mind’, a meandering sonic onslaught justifying their new moniker.  “Oooh”s come from every angle while glockenspiel and piano slide up and down, mimicking the obsessive madness overshadowing singer Meilyr Jones’ desperate pleas of “I’m ok!”. An abrupt outro is followed by debut single ‘Cake’, a heavily Beatles-influenced story of a good guy turned bad by a girl’s literal interest in sins of the bakery over that of the body. Delivered with typical humour and wit, “You’ve gotta talk with your whisk/if you wanna get a kiss” is just a snatch. Luckily it ends before any serious sploshing and then moves into ‘Pony’, drawn from a similar palette but with more lyrically longing. “I want to be your pony,” he yearn, and an all its absurdity it starts to sound more like early Of Montreal. ‘Tim I Wish You Were Born a Girl’ in particular could have had them part of the Elephant 6 collective.

It’s obvious that the Welsh language is as important to them as it is to their forebears, and as such, it’s skilfully introduced with ‘Cecen Magmu’ and ‘Glo Ac Oren’. Melding Welsh and English seamlessly in different sections as though you’d just misheard the preceding line, these songs are full to the brim luscious sweeping melodies and delicate harmonies. It’s an acid tinged piece of chamber-pop Syd Barrett would have been proud of.

The unmistakable triumph on this record is ‘Voyage to St. Louiscious’, a condensed epic with biting string arrangements Owen Pallet could have penned. It’s a picaresque piece with an almost Odysseyan longing for home (“I’m really quite sick of being so far away”) and separation (“Become one of your tears, and drop down every night, to be at your side”). The title of the album, Goodbye Falkenberg, supposedly relates to a sunk German warship and also a German sailor drowned at sea.

There are obvious singles – some of which have preceded the record’s release (‘Cake’, ‘Man in Mind’) – but it’s tracks like ‘Marged Wedi Blino’ that showcase what this band has to offer, all sombre melodies and searing delay distortion. As it is sung in Welsh, to me it could be about anything – and in my ignorance of possible humorous turns of phrase I can only compare it to the effect of Sigur Ros or Elizabeth Fraser’s primal delivery.

Recorded in various locations from recording studios to eco villages and parties, it’s as if the recording process had to fit around the haphazard spirit of their songs on a physical level. It’s not just their record label and the name that have changed. Wrench’s unsubtle production and Race Horses’ musical vision and ambition make a strong debut album for a band who on first inspection, could easily be dismissed as twee and whimsy.  They are both, make no apologies and back it up with charm, wit and a creative edge which ensures they’ll never be also-rans.