There are so many cool, kinda necessary words that have no equivalent in English. Take German’s kummerspeck (literally, “grief bacon”), for example. It’s a word meant to describe emotional overeating! Or the Turkish language’s gumusserv, a word referring to moonlight shining on water. The poetry! The romance! Or Persian’s zhaghzhagh — FINALLY, an easy to use word to describe the sound made by teeth chattering from rage/cold. Either/or. Well, at least that’s according to some list I found on the internet. Hell, for all I know some guy made all these words up and is just sitting in front of his computer, rubbing his hands together and gleefully laughing, saying “Yes, yesssss, they believe my made up list! Hrigfashn!” (A Norwegian word to describe the glee one feels upon perpetrating an internet hoax.)
But when it comes to words we don’t have in English, the Welsh word Hiraeth is definitely one of the most evocative — it means “homesickness for a home to which you cannot return.” It’s also the title of British experimental composer and instrumentalist Alex Smalley’s forthcoming album under the Olan Mill moniker (with Svitlana Samoylenko [Update: Svitlana is no longer in Olan Mill.]). Slated for a late October release on Australia’s rad Preservation label, Hiraeth is the follow-up to 2012’s critical darling Home, a record that garnered comparisons to Maurice Jarre and Vangelis. Hiraeth will be available on both CD and vinyl, with different artwork for each format. So listen to album track “Cultivator” below, and then Gifvalt! — a Lithuanian word for “buy that shit, yo.”
• Olan Mill: http://www.biglongnow.co.uk
• Preservation: http://www.preservation.com.au
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