Bill Ryder-Jones bares his chest on his 6th album, a work of emotional contrasts and irrepressible intimacy.

Released by Domino Records Co, Bill Ryder-Jones’ newest album, ‘Iechyd Da,’ stretches languidly over marshlands of carefully considered reflections to tend to his emotional turmoil and heartbreak. The aptly named album, meaning good health in Welsh, acts like a mantra for the rollercoaster ride Ryder-Jones takes us on. The listener is delicately introduced to deep-seated confessions and hopeful yearning through a mix of expert lyricism and incredible production.

Much like James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’ which is read quietly on the instrumental track ‘…and the sea…’, this album acts like a modern epic utilising tempo changes, a sample of Gal Costa’s 1969 track ‘Baby’ and a children’s choir to build a reflective and responsive body of work. On ‘This Can’t Go On,’ Ryder-Jones allows the listener to accompany him on a late-night stroll where he wrestles with his innermost demons and his hopes for a future that feel out of reach. His incredibly relatable lyrics suggest he seeks help from his father who, one could assume, advises him: “You’ve got to get outside, go get some sun. You’ve got to get yourself together because this can’t go on”. The instrumentation on the track creates an expansiveness that is deeply felt and acts in contrast to the downcast lyricism, providing a light at the end of this emotional tunnel.

This level of impactful vulnerability exists throughout the album in equal measures. Tracks like ‘We Don’t Need Them’ and ‘It’s Today Again’ hint at the conflicting clash of emotions that underpin the album with lyrics like, “There’s something great about life, but there’s something not quite right,” pulling the listener into a spiral, only to have them pulled out by the lightness produced by the music. Ryder-Jones’ compositions show a skilful mastery of a number of genres with hints of soul, hip-hop and folk littered throughout like Easter eggs. By layering piano, string instruments and, at times, the voices of children, Ryder-Jones produces a sonic landscape replete with hope and an indescribable feeling, injecting the listener with an influx of dopamine.

As expressed on his website Ryder-Jones seeks “to make a record that sounds like where [he is] from” and, having spent time along the coasts of Scotland and Wales in his childhood, one could say he’s succeeded. While Ryder-Jones describes himself as an Englishman, this album shares a familiarity with the Welsh coasts much like Dylan Thomas’ poem ‘Quite Early One Morning,’ a piece describing the tension of possibility in a familiar sleepy town. Ryder-Jones’ raspy, delicate vocals are reminiscent of the land’s own delicate volatility where he acts as a watchful passerby and participant in the soundscape he created. Recorded at Yawn studios in West Kirby, overlooking another body of water, this album is incredibly vulnerable, at times grand and spacious while retaining a quality that can’t be expressed as anything other than achingly human.