Chosen by Monk

My latest selection is something a little bit extra special as it comes from one of the (less than a) handful of who sing in their beautiful native language of Welsh. ‘Cuddio Tu Ôl Y Llen’ (which translates into heathen English as ‘Hiding Behind The Curtain’) is the lead track to be lifted from the Cardiff-based sextet’s upcoming second album, ‘Y Dwylo Uwchben’.

The band’s first new music in four years, the single captures the inner struggle of vulnerability, strength and the exhaustion that comes with fighting persistent internal and external conflicts. As such, ‘Cuddio Tu Ôl Y Llen’ represents a constant battle—a cycle of strength and weariness, where you might be caught between the desire to fight, or the fear to surrender.

Commenting on the track, frontman Steffan Dafydd says:

I wanted to catch the complexities of resilience, where holding on and letting go both feel equally painful. We went away for a week to write our second album, and everything felt completely new, which brought about a sense of change and a new chapter, and that feeling came out in some of the songs, this being one of them.

When I started to write lyrics for this song, I wanted it to sound hopeful and positive. The music comes first and the lyrics come second, after I’ve let the mood of each song settle. I tend to write in a flow of consciousness to avoid pushing anything too much and making it feel forced, then I go to edit them to make sure it flows. When it came to looking over this one, I felt that it actually had a bit of that ‘light vs dark’ narrative, but felt uncertain about which side it was on.