This is Video of the Week from Wales Arts Review. We’ll be showcasing some of the best art in Wales with a new video shared every week. From music to drama and everything in between, videos will not be limited by medium. Today’s video is ‘Dance Your Life Away’ from Audiobooks.
It’s the sixth week of our 100 Greatest Welsh Albums of All Time series, and this week we’ve covered a wide range of genres including art-pop, psychedelic folk, alt-rock, hip-hop and soul. There have been honourable mentions for Shirley Bassey, Datblygu, Super Furry Animals and Georgia Ruth. See the full list for 50-41 of our countdown here.
Continuing our look back at some of the best music videos to come from these 100 greatest albums, today we’re revisiting the video for ‘Dance Your Life Away’ from Audiobooks.
As part of this week’s countdown, Gary Raymond wrote on Audiobooks’ 2018 album, Now! (In a Minute):
Shoutout to the Welshest album title in the top one hundred. Audiobooks is the electrifying electro coming together of super producer David Wrench (who has award-winning albums for the likes of Arlo Parks, Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs, and Goldfrapp, among others), and Goldsmith’s arts graduate and fashion model, Evangeline Ling. In one regard, Now! (in a minute) is a fifty minute love letter to the synthesiser, a deep delving into the smooth textures of the radiophonic workshop pushing them up against hard edges and craggy corners. Wrench, it could be argued, is letting loose, free to fulfill his own visions and play around with all the knobs and twizzles, without the restraints of anybody else’s desires or requirements. Ling, as vocalist, is largely under Wrench’s spell, and she’s tied up and spun around to great effect. She is a spectral presence on much of the album, drifting in and out of focus, but when she’s called upon to stomp around front and centre, like with “Holt Salt” she threatens promise of being a bright shining star who could come into your house party and burn the place down. This is a debut album that takes the listener to so many different places it’s difficult to give an impression of it, but the important thing is it always feels unified; there is a vision behind it, a feel to the thing as a whole. But it is also an album that makes you yearn for whatever might come next now this duo have found their feet. By the end of the album you have an idea they now get it. Ling’s storytelling has the literary power to be a thing of real might, and Wrench has an uncanny ability to match groove with melody.
You can watch the video for ‘Dance Your Life Away’ below.
Now! (In a Minute) from Audiobooks is streaming on Spotify.
