|
|
 |
| |
| |
Cerys Matthews plays the Union Chapel |
Cerys is back in frame
PREVIEW: CERYS MATTHEWS
Union Chapel
CERYS Matthews loves fishing.
This was her confession when asked to reveal something no one else knows about her. Of course, a quick Google search uncovered a number of articles on the former Catatonia frontwoman’s love of angling, but who’s quibbling?
Cerys, who plays Islington’s Union Chapel on October 21, has just released an album Don’t Look Down simultaneously in Welsh and English.
The show will feature old and new songs written or collected by Cerys during her travels, backed by Nashville musicians, Kevin Teel and Mason Neely.
She played the Union Chapel in 2003 when seven months pregnant with her first child and promises this show will be a stripped-down performance, adding: “Whether you’re religious or not, when you’re playing in a house of God, the passions of a good show become something so much bigger than yourself. I always find it comforting playing in religious places. They’ve usually got such an element of history you become small in the whole scheme of things and I like that.”
Cerys chose Alessi’s Ark to support her after they played on her BBC 6 Music radio show: “I was quite taken with her, she sounded really interesting lyrically.”
She is pregnant for the third time and relishing her role as a radio presenter, as well as releasing two albums, and embarking on tour.
6 Music, she says, is “brilliant”, adding: “They give me an awful lot of trust and freedom. I get to play some really cool music and some that people might not think is cool but I like. It appeals to my own curiosity. They keep giving me carrier bags full of new music. They’re all over the house.”
She’s torn between the busy London life during term-time and escaping to Pembrokeshire during the holidays. “When the kids break up we head down the M4 and spend time in West Wales,” she says. “We recharge our batteries amongst the wilderness, greenery, countryside and seaside in Pembrokeshire, gathering mussels and periwinkles.”
She hopes people will be curious to hear her album in two languages.
“I think Welsh is more lyrical than English,” says Cerys. “When I think about British bands, quite a lot – apart from the Arctic Monkeys – adopt a transatlantic twang because it sits better on the ear. Some songs lend themselves better to one language over the other. I wanted to do it with this album because the nature of it is more cinematic than what I’ve done before. You can’t translate exactly literally, you have to mould it a little bit so it works.”
She’s still good friends with Tom Jones, who duetted with her on Baby It’s Cold Outside: “We did a Christmas TV show last year. He’s got a few years on me and he’s still dangerous to hang out with. He’s just great company, so gentlemanly.”
And it sounds like Cerys’s rock ’n’ roll years are far behind: “I love lovefilm.com. I don’t have TV channels because there are adverts on there, they seem to be getting louder, quicker, I can’t stand repetition anymore. I love putting the kids to bed, sitting on my sofa, putting The Sopranos on and watching till I fall asleep.”
And back to that great secret no one knows?: “I’m surrounded by the Irish sea, which is what lures me. I had a good friend who was a very keen fisherman. He took me shark fishing. I don’t like big game fishing and killing them, I just like seeing if you can catch them unharmed and putting them back. That would be top of my list of things I want to do rather than go on a night out.”
•
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
