Sometimes an album speaks to you so directly and so intimately that it is hard to believe you could spend your whole life without it. Bill Ryder-Jones' new album is the sort of thing that makes me burst into tears of joy and laugh like a madman. It is the sort of artistic achievement that you have the right to make just once in your life. It is a work of immense beauty and sincerity that soars, grips and never lets go.
January is not even supposed to be a good month. If anything, it is supposed to drag on listlessly and die a quiet, if noble, death. It is not supposed to produce any strong melodies or lyrical nuance. Miraculously, though, Iechyd Da (Welsh for 'good day') is probably my album of the year which was released less than two weeks into 2024.
Back in the day, I reviewed Bill Ryder-Jones' soundtrack If... for Oxford Music Magazine and praised it for the classical minimalism that felt not just self-consciously pretty but also genuinely moving. He then released two very good albums which I admired rather than loved ("You're Getting Like Your Sister" notwithstanding), after which came Yawn. Typically personal and introspective, this was the Ryder-Jones album that really clicked with me. And now, after five long years and a lovely, if inessential, Yawny Yawn LP (a stripped-down version of Yawn), comes Iechyd Da.
It is difficult to imagine that Bill Ryder-Jones did not realise he was on to something special here, because everything, everything about Iechyd Da spells creative peak. These are his most realised melodies, his most accomplished lyrics, his most elaborate arrangements. There is a stunningly beautiful album cover, there is a well-placed sample of Gal Costa's "Baby", there is Michael Head reading from James Joyce's Ulysses and there is even a children's choir that crops up here and there to astounding effect. Speaking of the latter, there is a particularly heartfelt moment at the very end of "It's Today Again" when the kids sing a cappella the lines that serve as a counterpoint to the album's seminal lyrical statement: "There is something great about life / But there's something not quite right".
The songs are as complex as they are disarmingly simple. You get gentle acoustic strumming one second, and soaring, majestic strings the next, and it all works in perfect unison, erupting in multiple moments of musical bliss (the orchestral climax from George Harrison's "Try Some Buy Some" would be a good reference point). While the album is not diverse at all (as a matter of fact, it sounds homogenous to a fault), it never seems monotonous. "Christinha" is almost upbeat, and "How Beautiful I Am" is almost a waltz. Plus, he tends to make songs evolve and develop in the course of their running time. The opening "I Know That It's Like This (Baby)" is especially notable in this respect, to say nothing of the beginning of "If Tomorrow Starts Without Me", a wonderful nod to Lou Reed.
Well, what more can I say, really? A well-honed, intimate, beautifully realised work that moves me to absolute tears (the lyrics of the two closing songs are as vulnerable as they are hard-hitting). If you have a vinyl record player, buy it on vinyl. If you have a tape recorder, buy it on tape. Get it somehow. This album truly is remarkable.
