Rick Astley faces chart challenge from new boy Ren

Ren vs Rick: Newcomer Ren Gill is challenging 80s pop legend Rick Astley for the Number One album slot

A Welsh music artist is in a battle with 80s pop legend Rick Astley to reach Number One in the UK's official album chart.

Ren Gill's release Sick Boi is neck-and-neck with Astley in the midweek charts - with the voice behind the hit Never Gonna Give You Up ahead by just 400 sales.

Ren said winning the coveted spot would be a "triumph" for an independent musician who does not even have a record label.

Perhaps even more remarkably, the 33-year-old from Anglesey has spent the last year living in Canada undergoing medical treatment.

"It's the most surreal thing - I just feel I'm still trying to wrap my head around it," Ren told BBC Wales.

He said having the album released while he was having treatment "tempered my expectations, because I couldn't do tours for it, I couldn't promote it in normal ways".

He said they had to think in an unorthodox way about how to promote it.

"So the fact that even with all these kinds of limitations on how far we could promote the record, the fact that it's still in contention for number one: it's the most surreal thing ever, it really is."

Ren's latest single release Money Game 3 is from his new album Sick Boi

Ren has been undergoing intensive treatment in Calgary after being diagnosed with the tick-borne infection Lyme's Disease, after a long period of living with the autoimmune condition that he said left him virtually bedridden.

It followed a promising career in his 20s after making Brighton his base, where he was signed to a major record label. But he was dropped after becoming ill.

Since then he has rebuilt his career as both a rap artist and powerful songwriter, drawing on both his illness, and also his own battles with mental health issues.

In June he made a rare return to his home on Anglesey to present a cheque for £21,000 to RNLI volunteers, in recognition of their efforts to find his best friend who took his own life in 2010.

The death of Joe Hughes, 19, has played a key role in Ren's career, with his first album Freckled Angel named in his honour, and a track describing Ren's emotional pain at the loss on the new album.

It has also prompted him to call for more open conversations around suicide and mental health.

Ren met vounteer lifeboat crews back in June at Beaumaris on Anglesey to hand over a cheque for £21,000

Without the music industry behind him, he has managed to build a YouTube following of over a million people online, while one song released at the end of last year has well over 15 million individual views.

He said facing off against Astley was a "plot twist".

"Nobody expected Rick Astley.

"I've watched some of his stuff on social media and he just comes across like a genuinely, really good bloke. So I don't think I could be up against anyone nicer. I feel good about it.

After finding fame in the 1980s, Astley later became known for the so-called Rickroll, where unsuspecting individuals are invited to click a link to something online, only to find it takes them to the video for the singer's first hit, Never Gonna Give You Up.

Ren said: "If I come second there is actually quite a lot of humour in it to be honest, for me. It was the most unexpected thing, which is the true meaning of a Rickroll. You never expect it - and then there it is."

The final chart position for Ren and Astley will be known on Friday evening, with official sales until midnight on Thursday evening counted.

While Rick Astley wowed the main stage at Glastonbury Festival this year, Ren had to turn down an invitation to play to concentrate on his health in Canada

Speaking about the themes of dealing with his own illness and mental health issues, he said the album was "really cathartic for me".

"It almost creates a purpose for all the suffering that I've been through, because I have this incredibly rich place where I can draw inspiration.

"It feels really good for me to have a place to put all of that hurt and turn it into something a bit more positive."

Ren said if Astley - who is signed to the international music group BMG - got the top slot, there would be "no hard feelings".

"I actually love Rick Astley. I actually couldn't think of a better person to come second to - because I think it's funny," he said.

On learning Astley was 400 sales ahead of him in the midweek count, Ren added: "I have basically been Rickrolled harder than anybody in the history of people who have ever been Rickrolled."