August 29, 2000

Hen Gelwydd Prydain Newydd (New Britain's Old Lies)

...is a revelation: at turns as polemical and raging as prime [a]Public Enemy[/a]...

8 / 10 If British hip-hop's shortcoming is, for many, its Britishness - that it can't offer municipal playas and junior Ali Gs the escapist thrills of US rap - then Tystion are, unavoidably, more marginal still. Based in Cardiff and rhyming almost exclusively in Welsh, their third album probably won't connect with either the suburban Wu-Wear kids or the Hoxton juice-bar/manageable-coke-habit set. Neither of whom know what they're missing.

/img/Tystion0900.jpg 'New Britain's Old Lies' is a revelation: at turns as polemical and raging as prime Public Enemy (the opening 'New Deal, New Dead'), inventive as latter-day Beasties ('Llosgwch Y Llosgach', a filthy cut-up fest of pummelling breaks and defiled jazz), possessed of Tricky's chilly soul on the toweringly great 'Iron Curtain'. Naturally, a lot of people will still find it hard to bypass the language barrier, but the serrated consonants and choppy elocution of Tystion's mother tongue lends itself well to MC Sleifar and MC Chef's furious delivery.

Interlocking with DJ Jaffa's frenzied, decknological scratching, their ire is self-evident in anyone's language. "Cool Cymru sucks!" spits 'Ishe Gwybod Mwy', and against this awesome barrage, that nebulous movement's collective powers look pretty puny.

Still, anyone who thrilled to SFA's recent, Welsh-language 'Mwng' LP has no excuse not to get this. And if you can't accept Tystion's right to be canonised amongst British hip-hop's finest, well, you're on the wrong side of the fence.

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