More 2025 albums that I enjoyed (selected in random order).
13. Iestyn Tyne - Carneddi
https://iestyntyne.bandcamp.com/album/carneddi
The photograph that adorns the cover of this album was taken by Geoff Charles in 1945. Its subjects are Carneddog and Catrin Griffith, on the verge of leaving the hill farm they've worked their whole lives. Their son has recently died, drowned, and the land beneath their feet has been sold to an English buyer, a Londoner.
Iestyn Tyne's album is written in response to this photograph. Not only the depths of the Griffiths' despair, but what is says about the world they lived in and were leaving, a traditional north Welsh rural existence that was dissolving into history. His music combines instrumental fiddle tracks with poems, in spoken word and song. It's a very powerful record.
(Alt text for the cover of the album, as it's particularly relevant: a black and white photograph of an elderly couple, looking left to right across a rugged landscape. The rough ground near to them gives way in the distance to woods and a jagged rocky ridge. Their faces are etched with determination and a deep, barely survivable pain.)

Carneddi, by Iestyn Tyne
11 track album

