Welsh Noise Vol. II is a collaboration between Megzbow and Vinegar Tom, constructed primarily from field recordings taken in Pembrokeshire during the summers of 2021 and 2022. Fragments of additional audio are lifted from the film work of Margaret Tait. 

Sounds are processed, stretched and sequenced across nine tracks of droning collage which draw upon the internal rhythms of country life. The yearning growls of Ronnie the cat commingle with the sounds of cowmen at work, crackling log fires, DIY gongs, the churn of mowers, summer showers and the unyielding flow of moving water, as birdsong on a still midsummer’s eve gives way to the stealthy night flight of bats. The abstract poetics of Tait’s film work are spliced and processed throughout Welsh Noise Vol. II, with the hypnotic loops of local folk, their recollections, daily routines and songs wandering amongst the field recordings. 

Opener ‘ronnie's wobble’ takes the listener in with a deep natural rumble, as smeared voices circle; it lulls the listener into a mid-work rest by the pond with a lazily purring cat, eyes fixed on the birds nesting in the hedgerow above. ‘come on!’ continues the semiconscious undertow, as farmers harry silent livestock on a final journey across fields with their bellowing calls, before the bad tracking breath-as-rumble of ‘bowed grandmother’ creeps in, resolving itself with burbling bird oscillation. ‘rained off’ retreats to the warmth of the hearth and ‘many people drift away’ morphs a Severed Heads style vocal loop into a bugle call. Side B starts with a disquieting ‘gong bath’ that wanders back into the field and down the ‘landsker borderlands’ trail. Electrical charge builds around the churning melancholia of ‘remember’ before the listener is taken back into the cat’s domain to watch the birds emerge from the hedgerow, the storm having passed without any serious damage.

Welsh Noise Vol. II summons up the interstitials of Boards Of Canada, the heavy processing of Severed Heads and the memoric of The Caretaker. It is a mesmeric ambient noise poem built from the recordings of everyday life in Thomas Chapel. The release follows Welsh Noise Vol. I, which was produced as an edition of one in Winter 2020 by Megzbow. The work is dedicated to Sib, Gareth and Ronnie, posing the question: if you made a noise record for your mum, what would it sound like?