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Fri 01 Jan 2007CD of the weekGRUFF RHYS Candylion RoughTrade  ****If music is a journey, then we'd like to know where Gruff Rhys has been recently (apart from holed up in a studio finishing the next Super Furry Animals album). Two years on from his first solo outing, it sounds as if the Furries' frontman has either fallen down a rabbit hole or headed for the hinterland - albeit one populated by hallucinogens along the way. While his solo debut Yr Atal Genhedlaeth never quite shook off the SFA sound, Candylion is a magical mystery tour that conjures up the surrealism of The Magic Roundabout and Ennio Morricone's landscapes, while allowing Rhys to explore various musical nooks. Just as Thom Yorke discovered with The Eraser, stepping outside your usual realm can have surprising results.