Biography
Cerys Matthews co-established and fronted the 1990s indie band Catatonia, gaining sudden visibility once the “Cool Cymru” movement placed the group alongside Super Furry Animals and Stereophonics. Her deepening engagement with folk and blues traditions, however, eventually steered her toward broadcasting and a sequence of solo projects, among them the 2003 release Cockahoop and the 2010 collection Tir, both of which surveyed country, soul, and indigenous Welsh song.
Cardiff-born yet Swansea-raised, she began learning guitar at nine, devoting herself first to traditional Welsh pieces and folk repertoires gathered from many countries. During adolescence she gravitated toward the local independent circuit, and in 1992 she joined forces with Mark Roberts to launch Catatonia. The ensemble issued four albums across a decade; International Velvet, appearing in 1998, reached number one on the U.K. chart and carried the singles “I Am the Mob,” “Road Rage,” and “Mulder and Scully,” which became emblematic of both the Welsh “Cool Cymru” moment and the wider “Cool Britannia” wave that touched music, art, and politics alike. After Paper Scissors Stone emerged in 2001 the members dispersed, sending Matthews to Nashville to absorb its country-music heritage.
While living there she wrote and tracked her debut solo album, Cockahoop, issued in 2003; its country-and-folk blend departed sharply from Catatonia’s Britpop sound and attracted a different listenership. Three years later Never Said Goodbye arrived, again merging the country-folk base with indie-pop elements. Following a short promotional tour she participated in the 2007 U.K. series I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, placing fourth behind winner Christopher Biggins, and also released the mini-album Awyren = Aeroplane that year.
Moving away from the country emphasis of her first record, she delivered her third album, Don’t Look Down, in 2009—accompanied by the Welsh-language counterpart Paid Edrych I Lawr—in a more soul-oriented pop style. That same year she began presenting shows on BBC 6 Music. In 2010 she issued the spare Tir, a set of traditional Welsh folk songs performed with solo acoustic guitar, then followed it in 2011 with the fuller Explorer. By this point she had become a weekly fixture on 6 Music, hosting Sunday-morning programs that examined world music, folk, and poetry; those broadcasts prompted the 2012 Christmas album Baby, It’s Cold Outside, in which she reinterpreted holiday standards using an array of international and historic instruments.
Matthews returned to Welsh folk material for her seventh album, Hullabaloo, released in 2013; its intimate acoustic approach functioned as a quiet sequel to Tir. Her interest in poetry next produced Dylan Thomas: A Child’s Christmas, Poems and Tiger Eggs, a project that paired Thomas’s texts—recited by Matthews—with an original score she composed in part after the model of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Over the ensuing years she added television presenting duties at the BBC and launched a weekly blues program on BBC Radio 2 while continuing her Sunday slot.
At the start of 2020 she entered Abbey Road with the Hidden Orchestra to record the collaborative album We Come from the Sun. The Decca release, issued early in 2021, set poems by ten U.K. writers—including Liz Berry, MA.MOYO, and Adam Horovitz—to music written by Matthews and played by the ensemble.
Cardiff-born yet Swansea-raised, she began learning guitar at nine, devoting herself first to traditional Welsh pieces and folk repertoires gathered from many countries. During adolescence she gravitated toward the local independent circuit, and in 1992 she joined forces with Mark Roberts to launch Catatonia. The ensemble issued four albums across a decade; International Velvet, appearing in 1998, reached number one on the U.K. chart and carried the singles “I Am the Mob,” “Road Rage,” and “Mulder and Scully,” which became emblematic of both the Welsh “Cool Cymru” moment and the wider “Cool Britannia” wave that touched music, art, and politics alike. After Paper Scissors Stone emerged in 2001 the members dispersed, sending Matthews to Nashville to absorb its country-music heritage.
While living there she wrote and tracked her debut solo album, Cockahoop, issued in 2003; its country-and-folk blend departed sharply from Catatonia’s Britpop sound and attracted a different listenership. Three years later Never Said Goodbye arrived, again merging the country-folk base with indie-pop elements. Following a short promotional tour she participated in the 2007 U.K. series I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, placing fourth behind winner Christopher Biggins, and also released the mini-album Awyren = Aeroplane that year.
Moving away from the country emphasis of her first record, she delivered her third album, Don’t Look Down, in 2009—accompanied by the Welsh-language counterpart Paid Edrych I Lawr—in a more soul-oriented pop style. That same year she began presenting shows on BBC 6 Music. In 2010 she issued the spare Tir, a set of traditional Welsh folk songs performed with solo acoustic guitar, then followed it in 2011 with the fuller Explorer. By this point she had become a weekly fixture on 6 Music, hosting Sunday-morning programs that examined world music, folk, and poetry; those broadcasts prompted the 2012 Christmas album Baby, It’s Cold Outside, in which she reinterpreted holiday standards using an array of international and historic instruments.
Matthews returned to Welsh folk material for her seventh album, Hullabaloo, released in 2013; its intimate acoustic approach functioned as a quiet sequel to Tir. Her interest in poetry next produced Dylan Thomas: A Child’s Christmas, Poems and Tiger Eggs, a project that paired Thomas’s texts—recited by Matthews—with an original score she composed in part after the model of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Over the ensuing years she added television presenting duties at the BBC and launched a weekly blues program on BBC Radio 2 while continuing her Sunday slot.
At the start of 2020 she entered Abbey Road with the Hidden Orchestra to record the collaborative album We Come from the Sun. The Decca release, issued early in 2021, set poems by ten U.K. writers—including Liz Berry, MA.MOYO, and Adam Horovitz—to music written by Matthews and played by the ensemble.
Albums
Singles
