Jakokoyak - Dan Glo
Name: Dan Glo
Artist: Jakokoyak
Length: 6:22
Preview:
» Download the full track [7.7mb, MP3]
About Jakokoyak
Jakokoyak is a lo-fi experimental electronic music project, with leanings toward psychedelic folk.
This ‘Folktronica’ is the brainchild of Rhys Edwards, a native of Mold, Flintshire. Having started recording at University, working alone, he began perfecting and exploring old keyboards and effects pedals. The early recordings provided a passport to postgraduate study in Music at Bangor.
Spending a year building on his knowledge of recording, it was during 2003 that Jakokoyak started to get noticed. He won a Pop Factory award for Best New Talent, and his new album was awarded Best Album at BBC Radio Cymru's music awards.
Jakokoyak's critically acclaimed 'Am Cyfan Dy Pethau Prydferth' (the album title was taken from a badly translated poster on the walls of the Cardiff Union) was then re-released in Japan in 2004.
Since then, he has supported the Super Furry Animals in Japan and performed at the Maida Vale studios with Mogwai. The EP 'Flatyre' was released in 2006, and the song 'Eira' was voted record of the week on London's Xfm radio station.
The Respond track, in his own words:
“Being a product of the 80's, the miner's strike was my first knowledge of coal. The injustice of the whole decline, the social deprivation it caused and the way it chipped into the confidence of the people and culture made it a bitter pill to swallow. Nature has helped to bring colour back to the landscape, but the coal decline remains a scar that refuses to heal.
With the track itself, I've chopped up sounds from Big Pit, and also historical quotes by Margaret Thatcher. I really wanted to concentrate on this feeling of injustice, the inability of the people affected to move on from years of pain that was caused, and now, when people are feeling very nostalgic about the whole industry and it's strong focus on community life.”
The Inspiration
Jakokoyak responded to Big Pit: The National Coal Museum, in particular looking back on the history and gradual decline of the coal industry in Wales and the effect on local communities.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Wales was one of the most important coal producing countries in the world.
In 1913 over 60 million tons were being produced from over 600 collieries. One in ten Welsh people were employed in the coal industry, and many more were dependent on it for a living.
By the end of the twentieth century, only one deep mine remained in Wales. The coal industry, the most important industrial, social and political force in modern Wales, had all but vanished.
Over the past two centuries, hundreds of collieries have been closed in Wales. Normally all traces of them are swept away. Big Pit is the exception to this rule: a colliery that once employed 1,300 people and produced over a quarter of a million tons of coal a year is now preserved for posterity as a world class museum.
The fortunes of the north Wales coalfield tended to follow that of the local iron industry. Between 1870 and 1913 the annual output was between two and three million tons. However, industry gradually declined and by 1974 only two deep mines were in operation. Point of Ayr, the last colliery in north Wales, closed in 1996.
The south Wales coalfield extends from Pontypool in the east to St Brides Bay, Pembrokeshire, in the west. The second half of the nineteenth century was a boom period for south Wales and, by 1913, the coalfield had reached its peak output of 57 million tons, with 232,800 men working in 620 mines.
However, after the industrial depression of the early 1920s, 241 collieries had closed by 1936 and the workforce had halved to 130,000.
There were still 135 major collieries when the industry was nationalised in 1947. The slow decline continued however, and by 2004 there was just one deep mine in operation.
Big Pit is a special place, a place that tells the fascinating story of coal mining and the way the industry shaped modern Wales. It’s a tale of victory and defeat, joy and disaster, riches and starvation during one of the most dramatic periods of Welsh and world history.
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