Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

Gorky’s occupied a singular space amongst the great flowering of Welsh rock music in the Nineties. A million miles away from the slash ‘n’ burn, theatre-of-cruelty shock tactics beloved of the Manics, their idiosyncratic, pastoral folk-pop has its closest relation in the equally off-kilter world of the Super Furry Animals.

However, even the Super Furries have managed a number of (admittedly minor) crossover hits, and they’ve never released an album of medieval folk songs. But let’s face it, a band whose name sounds like the title of a Slavic sitcom probably don’t have Madonna-like record sales at the top of their agenda.

Tonight Gorky’s are in terrific form. Although the momentum builds slowly, once the band hit their stride they’re unstoppable. The haunting, organ-led ‘Where Does Yer Go Now?’ is a standout early on, but the first moment of true magnificence is ‘Christina’, the darkly humorous lyric of which is offset by an absolutely gorgeous, dreamy guitar riff reminiscent of The Velvet Undergound on ‘Candy Says’ or ‘Pale Blue Eyes’.

Stirred on by the thunderous response, they tear into a medley of cacophonous, psychedelic rock tunes, which climaxes in an ear-shredding blizzard of white noise even Mogwai might find excessive. Frontman Euros Childs works himself into a frenzy, stabbing away at his keyboards and throwing his head back and forth in a manner which brings to mind some demented nineteenth century composer.

Brilliantly, they then shift the dynamic completely via a segue into the title track of their recent album, ‘How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart’. An indescribably beautiful slice of fragile melancholia, the song features an achingly nostalgic vocal from Childs: “How I long to feel that summer in my heart/The days were so long/And nothing could go wrong.” Needless to say, it’s goosebump-inducing stuff.

For the encore, Gorky’s treat us firstly to a berserk instrumental built around fairground organ and a military drumbeat, before finishing, naturally enough, with an uproarious country hoedown.

They remain steadfastly an acquired taste, but Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci are a gloriously incongruous proposition.