Music of Cornwall - Modern Scene

Modern Scene

Modern Cornish musicians include the late Brenda Wootton (folksinger in Cornish and English), the Cornish-Breton family band Anao Atao, the late 1960s band The Onyx and the 1980s band Bucca. Recently bands Sacred Turf, Skwardya and Krena, have begun performing electric folk in the Cornish language.

Kyt Le Nen Davey, a leading multi-talented Cornish musician, established a not-for-profit collaborative organisation, Kesson, to distribute Cornish music to a world audience. Today, the site has moved with the times, and now provides individual track downloads, alongside traditional CD format.

Pioneering Techno artist Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin/The Tuss) is a contemporary Cornish musician, frequently naming tracks in the Cornish language. Along with friend and collaborator Luke Vibert and business partner Grant Wilson-Claridge, James has crafted a niche of 'Cornish Acid' affectionately identified with his home region.

Bands such as Dalla and Sowena are associated with the noze looan movement of Cornish dance and music, which focuses on audience participation whilst negating the need for a caller. Troyls (generally with a caller) occur across the county with bands including Asteveryn (formerly Cam Kernewek), the Bolingey Troyl band, Hevva (with Cat in the Bag) and Pyba. Skwardya and Krena play rock, punk and garage music in the Cornish language. The Cornwall Songwriters organisation has since 2001 produced two folk operas 'The Cry of Tin' and 'Unsung Heroes'. Also Cornwall has a selection of up and coming young bands such as "Heart in One Hand" and "The small print".

3 Daft Monkeys (Tim Ashton, Athene Roberts, and Jamie Waters) combine vocals, fiddle, 12-string guitar, bass guitar and foot drum to play a fusion of Celtic, Balkan, Gypsy, Latino, dance, dub, punk, reggae and traditional folk music. The band have played at venues and festivals all over the UK and Europe, including Eden Project, the 2008 BBC Proms, Guilfest, Glastonbury Festival and the Beautiful Days festival, as well as supporting The Levellers.

Crowns are a 'fish-punk' band originating from Launceston, playing a mix of traditional Cornish songs and their own compositions. They have played Reading and Leeds festivals, the Eden Sessions and gained support slots with The Pogues, Blink 182 and Brandon Flowers. Their music has featured on Radio 1 and XFm.

The underground scene includes rappers Hedluv + Passman, multi-instrumentalist Julian Gaskell and alternative folk/skiffle duo Zapoppin’.

Sic, the singer of the Dutch pagan folk band Omnia hails from Cornwall and wrote a song named Cornwall about his homeland. During gigs by Omnia the Cornish flag is displayed on stage when this song is performed.

In 2012 the folksinger and writer Anna Clifford-Tait released 'Sorrow', a song written in Cornish and English.

The Cornwall Folk Festival has been held annually for more than three decades and in 2008 was staged at Wadebridge. Other festivals are the pan-Celtic Lowender Peran and midsummer festival Golowan. Cornwall won the PanCeltic Song Contest three years in a row between 2003 and 2005.

• 2003: Naked Feet
• 2004: Keltyon Byw
• 2005: Krena