Album Notes

Continuing our mission to bring the quirky and often downright weird side of Cornish music to the world, West Cornwall record label cornishmusic.com are proud to announce the release of the new album “Some say the Devil is dead” by SKWARDYA. The band are led by Matthew Clarke, who is also the main songwriter, and the band have been described as a mixture of the Pogues and the Saw Doctors fronted by a Cornish Damon Albarn. We think this is what Blur would have sounded like if they were raised on pasties, beer and Cornish drizzle.

Many of the songs on the album are sung in Cornish. Skwardya (which translated means “shredding” – as in shredding the eardrums!), are almost unique in that they mix the Cornish language with contemporary songs and attitudes – there are songs about Cornwall’s run down towns, the death of the mining industry, as well as a fine mix of traditional and Mathews very individual and personal look at his life in Cornwall today. There’s even a Cornish dance track – track twelve, “Re a lever” (Some Say) which is a cross between hard house and traditional music – strange stuff indeed.

The band are veterans of the Cornish music scene, having appeared at the Lowender Perran and Dewhellans festivals, and a great many dank and smoky Cornish pubs, and have the dubious honour of being thrown off stage at a traditional Cornish festival by the Mayor of Padstow “for being too loud”.

Mathew was the winner of the Pan – Celtic Song Contest in 2005,(with Krenna) held in Ireland, and is also well known across the County as the newsreader for Pirate FM. He is also a member of the Cornish Language Fellowship, and was responsible for translating the slogan “Rydhsys rag Kernow lemmyn” (Freedom for Cornwall now!) used by Lisa Simpson in the cult American series “The Simpsons”. This led to a national TV appearance for Matthew on The Richard and Judy Show – fame indeed!.



Mathew describes the band as “Modern Cornish music with a devilish tinge of folk – we are singing in Cornish because we love the language and want to bring it out into the open and to prove that it can be used in a more modern setting.