In the mid 1980s, Ffa Coffi Pawb (translating from Welsh as either "Everybody's Coffee Beans" or "Fuck Off Everybody", as the reader's taste determines) started life amid a squall of big hair, Jesus And Mary Chain guitars, and lyrics that no-one outside Wales would ever understand. Ten years later, after roughly no success whatsoever, Gruff Rhys and Dafydd Ieuan had become Super Furry Animals, bassist Dewi Emlyn had fallen into a solo career, and guitarist Rhodri Puw had had enough of Ffa Coffi Pawb and... well, fucked off to the pub (although he later re-emerged with Gorky's Zygotic Mynci).

So, here, re-released on Super Furry Animals' Placid Casual label, is a collection of some of the highlights of their three albums along with various other lost tracks. The Super Furries have already paid tribute to one of their heroes, the late and lamented Datblygu, via a cover version of "Y Teimlad", but here it's clear from the opening bars of "Valium" that Ffa Coffi Pawb, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the time of their inception, were also heavily influenced by The Jesus And Mary Chain. The influence ran throughout their career although it quickly became clear that these young Welsh guitar-slingers were casting their nets much wider than that. As the Madchester scene exploded in England, so a looser, more psychedelic feel started to seep into Ffa Coffi Pawb's music. The Byrdsian guitars and Beach Boys atmospherics of 1991's "Gweld Dim Byd" and the spiraling early Blur guitar jangle with Teenage Fanclub harmonies of "Ffarout" show the planting of the psychedelic seeds that would later flower in songs like "Hometown Unicorn" and "Demons".

It's a fascinating album in the way it shows how the inspired uniqueness of the Super Furries has its base so strongly in the direct influences of so many important bands of the time. In a sense it's demystifying and disappointing, but it needn't be. The quality of the songs is high throughout, and it's criminal that this material was left undiscovered by the non-Welsh-speaking world for so long. Turn your stereo up loud and celebrate. Chwisgi, cwrw, llawenydd, difyrrwch! Iechyd da! -Ian Martin, July.05.04

Am Byth