Sion and Steffan left shortly afterwards (the latter going on to form Welsh language rap group Tystion) and drummer Osian Evans was recruited for second cassette Peiriant Pleser (1992).

The band's first release for the label was Patio (1992), a 10" collection of various live, home and studio recordings (this was later expanded for the 1995 CD version) which John Cale once proclaimed to be his 'favourite album ever'.

Gorky's also released a number of singles and EPs on Ankst, demonstrating a taste for psychedelia and playfulness evidently inspired by the Canterbury scene of the 1960s and 1970s (Kevin Ayers' album Shooting at the Moon is cited in the notes to Tatay as "the best LP of all time", and the record also includes a version of Robert Wyatt's "O, Caroline").

The band began to be championed by BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel (other than that, it was extremely rare to hear Welsh-language music on such a station).

The wide-ranging instrumentation remained ("Diamond Dew" has a prominent part for the jaw harp) and there were still psychedelic touches, but the album as a whole was more laid back than their earlier work, tending more towards folk music.

This gentler direction was largely maintained and refined in their later records, though the occasional poppier and rockier number, such as "Poodle Rockin'" from Spanish Dance Troupe or "Mow the Lawn" from Sleep/Holiday, continued to crop up.

[4] In the same year, the band released an acoustic mini-album called The Blue Trees in 2000, after which drummer Euros Rowlands left Gorky's to take up a career in teaching.

Although Euros Childs and Richard James would spend time working on separate projects for a while, the band did not announce their formal split until May 2006.