“You know, none of us really figured out how to live this life,” an exhausted movie hero will drop somewhere on screen one day, and we’ll just quietly nod along in the dark of the theater. Every other podcast teaches you to be productive 24/7, and social media pushes a cult of self-improvement – admitting your own imperfection is already an act of rebellion. I thought about this while listening to “Olew’r Olewydd,” the new single from the Welsh band Los Blancos. Because this song is about an honest, slightly ironic failure to understand oneself.
“Olew’r Olewydd” is the first track from the upcoming third album. For the guys from Carmarthenshire, this is something of a checkpoint: ten years together, a debut album “Sbwriel Gwyn” nominated for the Welsh Music Prize, “Llond Llaw” shortlisted for the Welsh-language album of the year award, the Triskell Award in 2019. A list of achievements that looks impressive on paper, but is in fact the diligent work of friends who have been together too long to pretend in front of one another.
After their previous release, the band, by their own admission, hit a wall. Burnout, a lack of ideas – an ordinary story for musicians. And at some point they needed to stop and remember why any of this started in the first place. “Olew’r Olewydd” became the first demo that sparked the same thought in all five of them: this is it, this is us. And the new single is perhaps the highest point of Los Blancos’ slacker aesthetic. It’s relaxed, instinctive, built on an unhurried groove, wiry guitars, and a light dishevelment in the spirit of early Beck. Influences from Pavement, Pixies, The Velvet Underground, and Neil Young are still readable, but they no longer pull focus. This is the band’s pure, natural organic self. In the lyrics, guitarist Cian first observes other people’s lives from the outside, then turns the lens on himself – with dry Welsh humor and healthy self-irony. The single openly kicks against the culture of the constant race for results and leaves room to breathe.
The album the single belongs to will be produced by the band themselves – under the supervision of drummer Emyr Siôn, who also recorded “Olew’r Olewydd.” The decision was deliberate: no polish, no gloss. The only goal was to preserve the chemistry that only forms when five people have played together for a long time.
“Olew’r Olewydd” captures a state, a moment when everything superfluous falls away and what remains is loyalty to friendship, the songs, and the musical chemistry accumulated over a decade.
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