Gold Medal Winner, one half of a split 7" with compatriot Cate Le Bon, sees prophetic surrealist
Gruff Rhys team up with Rodrigo Amarante and swivel his every attention to two hugely significant, already-omnipresent events of the British calendar. Released April 21st, it is of course quite inherently involved with this year's
Record Store Day but also its first lyric envelopes the equally innate resentment within the nation toward those dastardly Olympics ("I was a gold medal winner at the Olympics for loneliness"). Perhaps it's purely an extended metaphor for Rhys' impressively endless wistfulness as he continues to self-efface throughout over a quintessentially melancholic chord progression, elegant vibraphone interlude, and Andean pipe solo yet it's immediately beguiling irrespective. It is, as with (literally almost) all this superb bewhiskered being touches, golden.
Gold Medal Winner's first pressing to vinyl seems well worth queueing for come April 21st...
