20: Singles & EPs ‘94-‘96 cover

20: Singles & EPs ‘94-‘96

Recorded
1994-1996
Released

Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci had spent much of the early 1990s putting out three remarkable albums – the early tracks collection Patio and the amazing Tatay and Bwyd Time – as well as a slew of incredible singles and EPs. The sweetly winsome singing of Euros Childs provided both an attractive way in for a listener and a deft anchor for innumerable flights of sonic fancy touching on any number of psychedelic and prog antecedents, all while seemingly emerging uniquely fully formed from the start. Various early compilations provided a partial gathering of much of the non-album material but it took until 2003 for 20 (Singles & EP’s ‘94-’96) to finally pull all of those majestic tracks together. A cover of Soft Machine’s “Why Are We Sleeping?” gives a sense of their roots (so much so that elsewhere they had a song flat out called “Kevin Ayers”), but the breezy flow of “If Fingers Were Xylophones” and the cockeyed melodramatics of “The Game Of Eyes” are very much all their own, not to mention Welsh language songs like “Merched Yn Neud Gwallt Eu Gilydd,” which resurfaces at the end of the compilation in an unlisted bonus demo.

Ned Raggett

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